by S. L. Naeole
“You affect me, too,” I admitted with a gasp as his hands lowered to rub my arms. “I should have told you inside. You affect me, too.”
With the backs of his fingers, he brushed against my cheeks in gentle strokes as his eyes glittered in the darkness. “Oh sweetheart, I already knew. I knew the moment you let me taste you.”
“So arrogant,” I chided and he chuckled.
Suddenly his hands moved to grasp my hips and then he lifted me up before twisting my body around, my back pressing up against the door, my legs stretched out into the passenger seat. Sensation rushed through my legs and I yelped; my legs had fallen asleep. Michael reached over me to massage my thighs, and I blushed at the sight of my skirt bunched up at my groin, my hands moving to yank the hem down.
“Baby, don’t be ashamed,” a husky voice whispered into my ear, his hands leaving my thighs to stop my frantic attempt to cover myself. “You made me cum in my pants just by kissing me. You’re a goddamn goddess.”
I blinked and flushed even hotter at the word “cum” because the evidence of it pressed wetly against one of my butt cheeks. My left hand moved to press against it, eliciting another deep-throated rumble from him. “Sweetheart, that wetness you’re feeling isn’t me. That’s all you.”
Yanking my hand away, I lifted it up, seeing the faint light reflected against the glistening palm. “This…this is me?”
Taking my hand in his, he brought it to his mouth and licked, a shudder of desire racking my body. “Mmm. So sweet.”
“My god, Michael. The things you do and say,” I gasped.
Quiet spread through the car, and as the pins and needles attacked my feet and toes, the fog of desire cleared from my mind. I wasn’t the only one who was starting to see things more clearly, I realized, as I felt his entire body tense up.
He only ever sleeps with a woman once, remember?
Without looking at him, I scooted over the center console and into my seat, pulling my skirt down as I did so and tucking my shirt back into the skirt’s waist. I touched my hair and grimaced as I felt a mess where a neat ponytail should have been. I pulled the hair-tie out and combed through the strands with my fingers, wondering if I looked as wild as I felt.
“You’re beautiful,” Michael said, once again proving that he could read my thoughts.
“Thanks,” I said, but all I could hear were his words about Holly. He’d said the same thing about her, and while I didn’t disagree that she was beautiful, how could I compare to someone so vivacious, so carefree and talented?
Turning in his seat, he took my hand and squeezed it. I twisted my hand I his, raising my palm so that he could splice his fingers through mine. How strange that something that would have sent me reeling in fear were it anyone else, felt so natural with him. “I don’t say anything that I don’t mean, Victoria. When I say that you’re beautiful, I mean it.”
“Okay.” But Holly was beautiful, too.
He leaned forward and took my chin in his free hand. “Sweetheart, look at me.” He waited for my eyes to lift to his. “Don’t compare yourself to anyone. I don’t, and do you know why?”
“No,” I answered, shaking my head for emphasis.
Lowering his mouth to mine, he pressed a tender kiss against my lips, gently licking them before pulling back just enough so that I could focus on his face. “Because you’re incomparable.”
For long minutes he kissed me before finally pulling away with a sigh. I rested against the seat after pulling my seatbelt on. Without another word, the car started and then once again the car filled with quiet, only disrupted by the instrumental music filtering in through the speakers and my accompanying hums. They were all I had to distract me from the feeling that, despite his words, something was exceptionally wrong.
The lights in my apartment were on when Michael pulled into an empty stall in the parking lot. I realized with a start that the empty stall was mine; the car he’d had delivered two weeks ago was gone.
“When—how?”
He chuckled softly. “I texted my man, Lyle, after you got in the car, and told him to pick up the key and the car.”
“Your man,” I mimicked before smiling, enjoying the smirk that tilted up one side of his delectable mouth.
Michael turned the car off and opened his door. I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached for my handle when it was pulled open and a hand extended inside. I took it, smiling as he bent down to grab my purse from the car floor. “Lyle,” he said without prompting, “is one of my assistants. He’s also a very good friend. He was there the day of the accident.”
“The original Shadow Man,” I murmured, remembering the first silhouette to appear in my car window.
“Shadow Man. That’s what you called me in the café,” he remembered. “Why?”
“Because the sun was shining behind you and all I could see was your silhouette. I couldn’t see either of your faces so you became shadow men, since neither of you felt like offering up your names.”
An expression that looked a lot like sheepishness moved over his features. “I guess I was a bit more concerned about the beautiful woman that was bleeding in my arms.”
We were walking toward the stairs to my apartment when he slipped his hand into mine and tugged, stilling my feet. My shoes gripped the textured cement but my hips twisted to face him as he pulled me into his arms. “You scared me, you know. I didn’t like that.”
Stunned by his confession, I pressed my palm against his cheek. “You didn’t even know me. You still don’t.”
Covering my hand against his face with his, he smiled, though it didn’t carry up to his eyes. “I told you, sweetheart. Sometimes all it takes is a single touch to know everything about a person. I might not know your secrets or your past, but I know you, and what I know I like. I like a lot.”
I opened my mouth to say something, maybe something contradictory or maybe something else, but he turned and we began to walk once more, our feet taking us up the flight of stairs to my front door. He handed me my purse and my hand dove in to find my keys, but I had no desire to use them. Not when there was so much left unsaid between us.
Looking up at him I saw something I hadn’t expected, something that stole my breath and punched me in the gut: sadness.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked before my brain could douse me in common sense.
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be right.”
Of course it wouldn’t. Holly could be inside.
Holly, who said she’d slept with him.
Holly, whom he denied sleeping with.
Holly, whom he’d accused of sexual harassment.
“You’re right,” I agreed, and then allowed my hand to locate the ring of keys in my purse. Awkwardness blanketed us both. I pulled my keys out, their jangling sounding like the peal of a bell in the quiet of my apartment’s corridor.
I turned to slip my key into the deadbolt when I felt his body move against mine once more and I was forced to turn, to face him as my back pressed up against the hard surface of door. I looked up at him, breathless and brimming with anticipation. Michael’s sad smile returned as he stroked my arms, his eyes clear and golden green.
Those eyes traveled all over my face, flicking between my eyes, my cheeks, my mouth. He didn’t touch me anywhere but my arms, and he didn’t lean in to kiss me. He just watched me, just stared, just inspected. We’d returned to the intimacy of breaths after the fire and friction in the restaurant parking lot.
We’d taken a million steps back and…and…
I hated it.
“Goodbye, sweetheart,” he whispered, before leaving me panting, yearning for more than just the heat of his gaze and the delicious promise of his breath.
My heart was pounding, my skin tingling just by the awareness of his scent lingering all over my body. It was the jangling of the keys in my hand that alerted me to the way my body shook. I wanted him. God help me, I wanted him. I wanted his hand in mine. I wanted his arms around me. I wanted hi
s lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth, his breath on my skin. I wanted and I wanted and I wanted.
The door behind me moved and I gripped the doorframe to keep from falling in as a voice cried out in shock. “Ria, what the hell are you doing? We’ve been calling and calling your phone and it keeps going to voicemail!”
I turned around and saw the concern worrying across the faces of Vonne, Kara, and Lara. Vonne took my purse and my keys and Kara took my hand and pulled me into a fierce hug. Lara stroked my hair from behind her sister, her eyes glistening with tears as she looked at me.
Like a mutant insect—all legs and limbs—we moved through the entryway to the living room where I was seated on the sofa and immediately grilled. My friends, I realized, were amazing and, yes, very protective. And I loved them so much, but I wasn’t in the mood to play twenty-questions with them anymore.
“Ria, is everything okay?” Lara asked, her eyes inspecting me from head to toe. “You look…”
“Like you’ve been fucked,” Kara said bluntly.
I choked.
“Seriously. Did you have sex, Ria?” Lara asked with wide eyes, the idea of me being intimate with anyone obviously a topic worthy of shock, surprise, doubt, and even…elation?
Vonne, who was seated beside me on the couch, pushed my hair behind my ears. “Sweetheart, do you even want to tell us what happened?”
Hearing that word—sweetheart—felt wrong coming out of her mouth. It shouldn’t have, because she’d called me by that name since I was a kid, but it did. Lightning struck then, a bolt of recognition that made me groan at my own foolishness and complacency.
“I’d rather not talk about whether or not I maybe had sex right now,” I said, sitting upright, my back ramrod straight. “But I do want to tell you guys thank you. Thank you for being my friends, for being my support system, for understanding my weaknesses and fears and always protecting me from the things you guys know could hurt me. And now I’m going to tell you guys to stop.”
“Stop?”
Lara frowned and Kara looked…pissed. “Ria, after everything you went through—”
I held up my hands, and then dropped my right one because the cast wouldn’t do anything to help reinforce my point. “After everything I went through, I was a mess and I still am. I’m a broken person and I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of the cracks, but I’m okay with that. I’m okay with it because I’m ready to move forward. I’m ready to stop looking behind me. I’m ready to stop being afraid.”
Vonne smiled at me, her hand dropping from my hair. “I’m proud of you,” she mouthed.
“Holy shit. You did have sex,” Kara uttered as Lara leaped forward to hug me.
“This is, like, the best news in the whole world. Better than world peace. Better than free egg roll day. Better than a negative result on a pregnancy test when your period is late after prom. Seriously. This is better than anything,” she blurted into my ear with a suppressed sob.
“Lara!” her sister scolded. “What the fuck? Pregnancy test after prom?”
Turning to grin sheepishly, Lara shrugged. “Don’t judge. Evan Henklemeyer was hot and that was the second-best bathroom sex I ever had.”
“Ugh. I don’t want to know about Evan Henklemeyer’s prowess in toilet fucking, Lara. What I want to know is why am I hearing about the pregnancy scare now? It’s been, what, eight years?”
Shame covered my face as I spoke out. “That’s because she made me promise not to tell.”
“WHAT?!”
The shout rocked the apartment. “I’m your twin!” Kara threw out accusingly to Lara before her finger found me. “And you’re my best friend! This isn’t shit you’re supposed to keep from me!”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Lara admitted. “We were gonna tell you. Honest. But then…”
She didn’t need to finish. We all knew what happened “then”. Kara nodded in understanding and then coughed awkwardly before fidgeting with the frayed end of an accent pillow on the couch between us. “So, uh…since were not gonna talk about you having sex, maybe, wanna tell us why you didn’t answer your phone and where you were when you weren’t…having maybe sex?”
“Shit,” I grumbled before digging into my purse and grabbing my phone. I stood and headed to my room, three tagalongs following as I sat on my bed and plugged my phone into the charging cable that had been draped over my nightstand. Lara, Kara, and Vonne all sat on my bed and waited patiently for me to respond as I depressed the power button.
“I guess that answers one of the questions,” Vonne muttered. “You need to get one of those portable charger things.”
As my phone powered on, I turned to smile lovingly at my friends. “If you guys really want to know what happened, I worked late and Holly didn’t want to wait. Michael showed up and took me out to dinner before bringing me home.”
Lara’s mouth hung open as Kara shouted, again. “You had sex with Michael Lachlan?”
“Maybe sex,” Lara corrected. “And she doesn’t want to talk about that, remember?”
“Shit. You can’t just tell us you went out to dinner with the Pussy Collector, hint that you had sex, and then leave us hanging, Ria!”
My phone began pinging and beeping up a storm as notifications of missed calls, voicemails, emails, and text messages blasted out, interrupting whatever other declaration Kara wanted to make about my personal life. I stared at the blinking LED light on my phone, wondering how many of those notifications were from Michael.
“Ria!”
Startled, I turned to look at my friends and then sighed. “I need to talk to Holly before anything else.”
“Holly?” Vonne said in surprise. “Why?”
I hated keeping things from them, but if Holly hadn’t said anything to them about her and Michael, or about the harassment claim, then I wasn’t going to do it either. “She’ll tell you if she wants to,” I said before a yawn tore through me and exhaustion settled heavily on my shoulders. Taking that as their cue, they all stood and shuffled out of my room, muttering in disappointment.
Before closing my door, Vonne stopped and gave me a reassuring smile. “I know you don’t want to say anything yet, and that’s fine, but I just want to tell you that if this is what you want, I’m happy for you. You deserve to be happy, Ria.”
“Thanks, Yvonne,” I said, using her full name for the first time in years.
Eyes blinking in surprise, Vonne smiled that motherly smile at me and bobbed her head once. “Anytime, Victoria.”
I hid my flinch as she disappeared behind my door and then turned my attention to my phone. As always, I attended to my emails first, deleting work emails from earlier in the day that I’d already dealt with before answering those that had arrived after I’d already left MOAT. My personal emails were mostly spam, but there was one from Del reminding me that he was flying back next week and he expected to be updated in person in his office upon his arrival.
Checking the time, I replied that I already had a driver scheduled to pick him up at the airport and that I hope he’d bought more t-shirts because nothing says how much someone is appreciated like a Chinese-made shirt about Canada. After clearing out my inbox I moved on to my missed calls. There were over thirty, with the majority from Kara, Lara, and Yvonne. There was one from Michael earlier, and then the rest were from Holly.
My chest tightened at the sight of her number, the first few from when she would’ve been outside waiting for me. There were two more an hour later and then one that had probably been made as Michael had me pressed up against my door. A strange combination of desire and guilt at the memory twisted its way through me.
Hesitating, I dialed my voicemail and pressed the speaker button as the messages played.
“Ria. It’s Holly. I’m outside. Where are you?”
“Ria. Philippa’s already asked me to move once. Where are you? Call me if you’re going to take a little while longer.”
“Hey, I’m gonna go and get a drink at Stu’s down the b
lock. Call me when you get this.”
“Fuck, Ria. Are you avoiding me or something? I drove up and you’re still not here. I’m going back to Stu’s.”
“Ria, it’s Kara. Holly’s not home yet and neither are you but at least she’s picking up her phone. Call me!”
“Ria, hun, it’s Vonne. Where are you? Kara’s going paranoid mom over here. Let us know you’re okay.”
“Biiiiiiiiitch! Kara’s kinda freaking out because she says you’re anal about returning phone calls and you haven’t picked up the phone once yet. I told her it’s probably dead but then she started talking about how that means you’re dead and now she’s totally planning your funeral so call one of us back okay because this funeral’s expensive and I don’t want to build your coffin. Love you!”
“Hey, it’s me again. Just wanted to tell you that this guy came over and picked up the rental that you didn’t want to drive and he’s kinda hot but I didn’t snag his number. If he works for Michael Lachlan’s insurance company could you see if Michael would hook me up with his info? Shit, Kara’s giving me the eye. Don’t tell her anything about this.”
“It’s almost ten-thirty and you’re still not home. Just wanted to make sure that you’re safe. Give me a call. Love you.”
The last message left to play was from Holly, and as a beep filled the air letting me know that it was about to play, I knew it wouldn’t contain anything good.
Her voice was slurred, the sounds of music blaring in an electronic beat thumping in the background. “Okay, so I guess you are avoiding me. I went back to MOAT and Philippa said you left with Michael which means you’ve chosen sides and I guess I get it. I’d probably have chosen him, too, before I knew what he was really like. But you don’t know what he’s like, Ria. He’s going to use you and when he’s done, he’ll deny everything because that’s how little you mean to him. He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about anyone. And when you finally realize that, it’ll destroy you like it destroyed me.”
