Another fierce hug and I patted her back, said in her ear, ‘You will be OK.’
I echoed to myself. You will be OK.
‘Here’s a few for belts and scarves. Drop down hangers for trousers. Fifteen red hangers for dresses. No more than fifteen. Twenty for tops. A small shelf for sweaters. How many?’
‘A dozen.’
‘Good job,’ I said. Michelle’s main hoard item had been clothing and shoes and accessories. By giving her a definitive number for each item, we were helping her mentally track her items and commit to order.
‘What’s the pretty blue box for?’
About the size of a small footlocker, it was in the back under some hooks I’d put up for chain belts and purses. ‘That is a memory box. For the kids stuff. Love letters. Photos. Those small mementos everyone has. That’s important stuff like your art.’
‘I have very little to put in there now,’ she said. Not because she had no memories or keepsakes but because a great many of them had been ruined in the hoarding. They had inevitably been thrown out due to some mould and infestation issues.
‘Well, now you will.’ I turned to the closet and squeezed her hand again. ‘This is a fresh start. Take it and run.’
‘I will. I’m starting over and I’m doing it right this time.’
Amen.
Chapter Twenty-one
HIS FINGERS WERE IN my hair again, twirling light and dark strands together, slipping his fingers free of the ringlets he created. Matthew would twist them with enough torque to make what resembled a curl wedded with a dreadlock. Then he’d move on to the next. He’d invited me over to his house and cooked me dinner. A nice huge steak, medium rare, potato pancakes and fresh corn, ice cold beer and some fruit and cookies for dessert. The man knew food. Simple but super good food.
‘Wanna take Nibble for a walk?’
I eyed Nibble. Nibble, which was a tiny name bringing to mind mice and fluffy rabbits and adorable little cuddlies, was a 60 pound bull dog who drooled constantly. And had won my heart in seconds. ‘Sure,’ I said, but made no move to rise. I’d worked all day at Michelle’s home with Dr Calibri. I’d come home to a fast shower and then a fast drive over to meet him. I was pleasantly boneless while he played with my hair.
Who needs Prozac? Just get someone to stroke your hair.
‘You’re not getting up, Merritt.’
‘I know. Sorry. I’m just so ...’
‘So?’
‘So ahhh, you know? You are like a human Valium.’
He laughed softly and I put my legs up in the air, flexed and then pointed my toes. He was better than yoga. ‘I like that I have that effect on you.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah, my former girlfriend said I was too low key.’ There was a distinct tone of sadness in his voice.
‘You are low-key, but that’s good. And not all the time. I mean, hell, the foyer the other night was not low-key. It was high-key. It was one of the highest keys I’ve ever been to ... done? Experienced. Whatever. You know what I mean.’
His stomach jumped under my head as he laughed. ‘I see. So when you say, I’m like a human Valium, you mean I put you to sleep?’
‘I mean you make me feel mellow.’ I wriggled and there was that hard-on pressing my ear again.
‘Hmm. Define mellow.’ He reached under my head and I heard his zipper hiss under my head. His fingers moved and jostled me and then he was rubbing his cock in my hair. I laughed because while it was a bit odd, it was also oddly sexy.
‘Like my bones are made of marshmallows and my blood is made of sunshine. You make me feel less panicky. Less jittery. Less obsessive. I came here to be with you instead of asking you over because then, no one could get me. Jeffrey is banging Jack, my mother thinks my brother is having an “affair”, though he’s not in a committed relationship so how he could be having an affair is beyond me. A friend recommended me to a woman who is a shopaholic and hides it from her husband but now her ailing mother has to come live with her and the spare rooms are full of purchases. But here ...’
He wound my hair in ribbons around his erection and then released it. A hard, silken, flesh and blood curling iron. I smiled, turned my head to his lap, kissed the tip of his cock so that he sighed.
‘Here what?’ he asked. His voice a little strangled from arousal.
‘Here I feel like I don’t have to be on alert incessantly.’ I opened my mouth and slipped down on his cock. Licking and sucking, I moved lower and lower until I felt him in the back of my throat and my nose brushed his warm skin.
‘Oh, is this how you do mellow, Merritt?’ he said.
‘I want you to feel what I feel. Do you feel loosey goosey and all untangled?’
He thrust up under me, fucking my mouth gently at first. I moved my mouth over him, pushed a finger through the fly of his jeans and boxers to lightly stroke his balls. ‘I do. I feel both tense and fluid.’ He panted like I was chasing him and when I went to take him all the way, he stopped me. Grabbing hunks of my hair in his hands to tether me.
‘Bend over the sofa back. Come on. Get up on your knees, put your chest on the back of it.’ He helped me up. Peeled me out of my leggings and thong. Pressed my breasts to the back of his sofa and traced the line of my spine with his warm fingers. Each vertebra sang out when he touched me there. His fingers found my wetness, pressed into me, slipped in and out of me until my cunt was as desperate and eager as his cock.
I heard the foil packet and smelled the familiar smell of sex. Arousal, sweat, latex. I pushed my ass out, begging him to touch me, to feel my skin and enter me. ‘Ready, baby?’ he asked.
‘Beyond ready.’
Matthew parted my hair like ponytails; holding one in each hand, he entered me and fucked me in slow even strokes so my body caught up around him in a tight vice of slick flesh. My breasts banged the back of the cushion and his mouth pressed to the back of my neck, my shoulder. He nipped at my skin as his hips thrust up high and hard and I pressed back to him to get him in harder, deeper, faster.
‘I’m not so loose now,’ he said, releasing my hair so that it cascaded in a ticklish soft wave along the length of my back. I shivered at the sensual stroke of hair on skin and then he caught up again in just one hand. His other hand found my nipple. Matthew pinched and pressed so that little fever shivers worked through me. I needed no help, my orgasm kept inching closer, but I ground my clit to the heel of my hand, finding just the right pressure to make me grow tauter still around his driving cock.
‘I’m not so loose either,’ I whispered. ‘In fact, I’m rather tight.’ I clenched my cunt up around him.
He said, ‘Oh, Merritt, hell.’
That was that. He pulled the rope of my hair up and forward so that my head bowed in response. His other hand yanked at the bend of my hips, angling me a little more severely and the head of him slammed the perfect place in me that I clutched at the sofa, sobbing out my pleasure as he came with a harsh cry.
Matthew wrapped his arms around my waist but we stayed in our rear facing tableau on his sofa. ‘We have a knack for that.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Coming together,’ he said, softly.
‘You like that, don’t you?’
‘You betcha,’ Matthew said. He kissed me on the spine, down, down, down until I jumped under him, giggling. ‘Now how do you feel?’
I flopped onto my back and ran my big toe up his belly so that he shook this time. ‘Loose all over again?’
‘I think Nibble wants some attention. You have it in you? The night’s really gorgeous. It’s that twilight colour outside.’
‘In the purple air,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Something Jeffrey and I would say when we were in high school. Where should I meet you? In the purple air. It just meant at twilight.’
‘It’s pretty.’
‘It is. And, yes. Nibble, would you like walkies?’
Nibble, as big and crinkly and gruff looki
ng as he was started to wag his tail so fiercely that he had to flip to his back and bare his belly before he simply toppled over. I reached down and stroked his tight stomach while Matthew found the leash. ‘You are a handsome, handsome boy,’ I told him.
‘Looks like I have some competition for your affections,’ Matthew said.
I laughed. But later it seemed to be a portent, that statement.
‘You sure you won’t stay?’
‘You said you have to get up when?’
‘Four,’ he grinned.
I looked at the clock. Going on midnight. ‘No sir. I want you to rest and I want rest. My first appointment isn’t until ten and I really want to crash hard for the night. I’ll wake up at four and then I’ll feel guilty so I’ll get up ...’
‘But you don’t have to,’ he said, tugging my waistband so that I shuffled closer to him. Matthew kissed me with his soft sweet lips. I had to admit it, I was tempted.
‘Oh, but I would. I know me. I’d go ahead and get up because I felt guilty and then I wouldn’t be able to sleep and then, it would just be horrible. Me trying to make sense at an initial meeting on no sleep.’
‘We could just fuck all night long. Never sleep,’ he said, tempting me. ‘Hard then soft then slow then fast.’
‘That’s a lot of fucking,’ I said. I returned his kisses. Allowed him to pull me flush and press against me. Boy, he was good. ‘But I can’t. Next time. OK?’
‘Fine, fine. Torture me.’ He put my hand on his cock and I squeezed him and he groaned.
‘I’m sorry! You’re making me feel so bad!’
He pulled back my hand and kissed me. ‘Not my intention. I just like being with you. We’ll get together soon. OK? Call me later tomorrow?’
‘Of course.’ One more kiss and I walked out into the now navy blue air. Small specks of golden white stars peppered the crushed velvet sky. I took a deep breath of night air and listened to the crickets and the wind. ‘Sleep tight,’ I called softly.
‘You too, Merritt.’
In the car, I finally turned my cell phone back on. The readout showed one missed call and one new message. I didn’t recognise the number. Either a misdial or brand new client. I’d try it back tomorrow.
The message was not Jeffrey or Jack or even my mother, either crying or buzzed. It was the smooth, rich voice of one Romanian. ‘Merritt? It’s Penn Fratila. I wanted you to know that I am coming home earlier than was planned. I was hoping we could move our meeting up a bit. Not September. I’ll be home in less than two weeks and I ... I am a bit obsessed with ...’ Was it a bad connection or a language barrier? He kept pausing. ‘... those cabinets,’ he said.
Something in me said he was lying. And I was concurrently lying to myself. Because the sound of his voice had my body responding the same way it had just responded to Matthew’s lovemaking and amazing hands. My body was very in tune with the intoxicating cadence of Penn’s voice. My brain called up his image easily. Lean angular face, dark eyes, dark hair and the tiny shots of silver I’d seen in that dark mess of hair.
I was horny. From a voicemail message.
He cleared his throat and I shifted in the car seat. I cranked the engine so that no one would think I was nuts. ‘So anyway, I will try you back tomorrow. I’m very sorry I missed ... you. I mean speaking with you, is what I mean. Of course.’ Then he sighed mightily the way I do when I put my foot in my mouth and the connection was broken.
Why was I so obsessed with an artist who sort of sounded like Dracula? We’d met two times. Two times and there was no rhyme or reason to my fluttering belly or my excitement or the swirls of anxiety mixed with anticipation in my chest.
‘It’s stupid is what it is,’ I sighed.
But when I got home and let myself in, I realised that all the way home I’d thought about one thing and one thing only. Penn Fratila and his intense voice.
I plopped on the sofa and poured a glass of wine. The phone rang in my pocket and I nearly had a heart attack. It was past midnight now and it had to be Matthew calling to check on me. Making sure I got home. I flipped it open without reading the screen.
‘Is it too late? Did I wake you?’
Penn. That voice curled along my skin like warm wood smoke. Tickled my ear, softened my pussy. My body seemed to sigh when he spoke to me. Thousands of miles away and I was putty in his artistic hands.
‘It is – I mean it is late – but not too late. I got your message!’ I blurted. ‘Sorry I missed you I was ...’ Damn, damn, damn. Why had I started that sentence? ‘Busy,’ I finished weakly.
‘With a date?’ he asked.
‘I ...’
‘Merritt, I’d be surprised if you said no.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Just a guy. A guy I just met. A nice guy but not ...’ and here I had been about to say you. Not you, Penn. Not you, Penn, who I have some bizarre schoolgirl obsession with. You and your Dracula voice and dark eyes and big hands and dark stunning art. God!
His laughter was intimate despite the severe distance and it made me feel like if I closed my eyes I would feel his lips come down on mine.
‘I get it. A nice guy who asked you out on a date. Smart man. I was just ... wanting to see if you got my voicemail. If I could have you for July. As my organiser, obviously.’
He was lying.
‘Sure. You can have me as anything,’ I chirped. Eager to please. Ready to roll and apparently, with no gateway between my brain and my mouth. ‘I mean–’
‘I hope you mean just what you said,’ he interrupted.
Then my body truly got the green light to get turned on. Tingly and fidgety, ready to shift in my seat just from the connotation of his words. ‘I ... um, I ...’ And then I yawned. Hugely.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so rude,’ Penn said. The formal almost stiff lilt of his English made me hotter than ever. It was the sound of a foreign gentleman trying to woo in a language that is not his own. Sexy and endearing and hotter than an August afternoon.
‘It’s OK, truly.’ I laughed. But then another yawn hit me.
‘No, It’s twenty of eight here, which means it’s twenty of one there,’ he said.
I tried fast mental math. It took me a minute, but I got it. Seven hours ahead. ‘I am a tiny bit tired but –’
‘But I’ll call you when it’s not so late. I don’t have to work on a clock. I’ll call you later today, yes?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Yes, yes, yes.
‘I’ve been thinking about you,’ he said and my heart stopped. Or it felt like it. Then, ‘And our working together. I think you can help me.’
Again, he was lying. I knew it and he knew it. But I didn’t quite want to examine the fact that I couldn’t quite shake this man from my thoughts. I wasn’t ready to look at that or why it might be that he kept popping up in my mind despite our very brief meetings and all the other interesting, kind and sexually talented men I’d met recently. None of whom had any power to ever hurt me because it was fun and physical.
‘Sure. What time do you want to call?’
‘How’s seven, your time?’
‘That’s midnight for you? I can do six. My last appointment is at four. I’ll be home in plenty of time.’ So I’d have to postpone meeting Matthew. So what? It was just fun. And this was work. This was important work business kind of stuff.
‘Six it is. I’ll be here. With wine. And you?’
His voice made me think of soft velvet, dark as night, foggy evenings in front of a fire, snow, icicles. He made my internal landscape shift to a mix of secluded and cosy. Odd. ‘Wine it will be. I’ll need wine.’ Lots and lots of wine.
‘Good night, Merritt,’ Penn Fratila said in master of the night voice.
‘Goodnight, Mr Fratila,’ I said for no reason other than I was rattled.
‘Penn, please. You know that.’
‘Yes, please.’ Pause. ‘What? Oh, yes! Penn. Goodnight Penn.’
‘Sleep well. Dream well,’ he said and then gave me one of his dark sexy laug
hs and the line went dead.
‘Well, hell. How am I going to sleep now?’ I sighed, finishing my wine and shuffling off to bed.
Chapter Twenty-two
THE ANSWER WAS LIKE A ROCK. I slept like a rock. But in that time, my mind went from tool boxes and vampire voices to hot, steamy rocking sex. Penn Fratila was the best lover ever and that was only in my head. In the dream he’d done everything but hang me upside down to take me and I woke on the verge of orgasm, bathed in a flushed, horny sweat. I turned on my belly, pushed my hand into my panties and ground my palm against my clit. My fingers slipped into my cunt and I worked myself to three orgasms simply reliving the illicit dreams of my future boss.
‘Sweet holy mother of Romania,’ I sighed and staggered to the shower.
The water rolled down my body, kissing all the places that Penn had kissed while I slept. I lathered my body, recalling the dreams and laughing at myself. You’d think with all the sex, I wouldn’t be dreaming about more sex. But I was.
His fabulous cabin out in the woods would be a perfect place to organise. ‘Plus there are lots of rooms that we could do it in,’ I said to myself and then laughed.
The phone was ringing when I got out of the shower and I snagged it. Lisa said, ‘Can you meet me for coffee and tell me about the latest man. The man who knows that a clitoris can be up to six inches long thanks to you?’
I had two hours before I had to meet the shopaholic. ‘Sure, sure. How about ... Seamus’s?’
‘Half hour?’
I’d have to do a French braid and minimal makeup but it was doable. ‘Yep. Order me half and half and a croissant if I’m not there when you get there.’
‘Check!’ Lisa said and I scurried off to get ready.
Seamus’s started as a bar for Scottish locals. Then it turned into an award-winning restaurant. And now they offer about everything you can imagine for breakfast and some of their patrons only come for dinner and they don’t give a hoot about how many whiskies they have in the bar.
I hurried into the dark interior and found Lisa at a table by the front window. The waitress was just setting down a plate that lovingly cradled my luscious buttery croissant and some sliced fresh fruit.
Calendar Girl - An erotic novel (Xcite Erotic Romance Novels) Page 15
