After Hours

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  “I’m going to tell you again, Carl, to let me out,” I said, sounding a lot stronger than I thought I could manage.

  “And if I don’t?”

  Oh, God. “I’ll call the police.”

  “You could do that,” he replied. “But then you’d have to explain your relationship with me. And your relationship with him. And I know you, even if you want to pretend like this that I don’t. You’d rather sacrifice…well…almost anything to save a little face and keep on your career path.”

  I hated that he was right. I hated that he knew enough about me to know what mattered most. Which is probably why I lost my patience.

  “Fuck you,” I snapped.

  “Nice language.”

  “Fuck you again.”

  “We’ve been through that, haven’t we? You wanting to fuck me. Again and again.”

  His abruptly lascivious tone—and the matching look in his eyes—made me swallow nervously. Not that I’d liked anything about the situation to start out with. But the new expression was darker. His eyes moved over my body, touching each point with far too much interest.

  Don’t let him win.

  I took a breath, then grabbed the railing, and pulled myself to my feet, hoping the new position would remind him that I wasn’t some weak girl he could just push around. Not literally. Not figuratively. And sure as hell not sexually.

  “I know you, too, Carl,” I said coolly. “And if one of us is going to get blackmailed here, it isn’t going to be me. I remember everything, not just the bits and pieces that are convenient.”

  His smug smile dropped, and I felt more relief than I wanted to admit.

  That’s right you bastard, I thought triumphantly. Suck on that.

  I reached around him to press the button that would force the elevator back to life. I even managed not to cringe as my arm brushed his. And as we dropped through the two floors, Carl was silent until we hit the lobby.

  “This isn’t the end of this, Aysia,” he announced, sounding more like a surly stereotype rather than a real person.

  I fixed a sweet smile on my face and shot back an equally trite comeback. “It was over before it even started, Carl.”

  Then I grabbed my suitcase and marched out of the elevator with my head up. I managed to get all the way out the front door without turning back. I made it to the bushes at the side of my building. And there, one of my heels gave out on me. And so did the ability to handle my emotions. I couldn’t even look up to see if Carl had followed, or if he was watching. I slumped down onto my suitcase, tears spilling so hard that I didn’t notice the legs in front of me until he was already crouched down and lifting my face. Warm brown eyes met mine. Puzzled. Concerned. Everything I needed right that second.

  “Marc.” His name came out ragged with relief.

  “Honey. What the hell happened?”

  Unable to answer, I threw my arms over his shoulders and tucked my head into his chest. And for a long moment, he just held me like that, one hand rubbing up and down my spine while the other held the suitcase steady. With each of his gentle strokes, the heartache eased away. The memory of Carl and his words and threats and slimy face faded.

  Thank God.

  At last I composed myself enough to pull away. Marc’s hand immediately moved from my back to my face, his expression growing even more worried as he eyed my forehead. His thumb stroked a tender spot just above my eyebrow.

  “You’ve got a bruise,” he said.

  I reach up to put my fingers over his. “I bumped it in the elevator.”

  He frowned. “How’d you manage that?”

  “It’s…” I trailed off, then tried again. “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing?” he repeated, sounding disbelieving.

  “Nothing,” I said firmly. “But could you help me with this bag?”

  “Aysia…”

  “Seriously. We have a reservation that I haven’t even told you about yet.” I made myself smile. “But before we go, I want to take advantage of that big, giant mistake in your bathroom.”

  He studied me without smiling back. I braced myself for another question. I didn’t want to lie. But I would.

  Or…you could just tell him what happened, urged a small voice in my head.

  But I couldn’t make myself do it. Talking about Carl was the last thing I wanted to do. So I pushed up to my tip toes and kissed him instead.

  “You.” Kiss. “Me.” Kiss. “A lot of bubbles…” Longer kiss.

  “All right.” His acquiescence was anything but convincing.

  But I decided to take it anyway and pretend I didn’t notice. This weekend was supposed to be Marc and me. It was supposed to be simple. Then it was supposed to be done. I was sure that if I explained the altercation in the elevator, things would grow immediately more complicated. And I was strongly suspicious that walking away on Sunday night was already going to be hard enough.

  Chapter 10

  Marc

  I didn’t buy her nothing’s-wrong act for a second. I could sense something underneath it. But whatever that something was…I was damned sure if I pushed, it would make her turn and run. Like whatever the hell messed up her hair and makeup had somehow made her a little more fragile. Which was definitely not a word I would’ve used to describe Aysia Banks up until that moment. So I kept my mouth shut. I tucked her under my arm, pretended the bruise on her forehead didn’t make my gut clench, and I brought her back to my condo in a taxi. I ran a bath in the ridiculously oversized tub they’d added to the bathroom by mistake, poured her a midday glass of wine, and sat on the toilet lid while she soaked. I waited until she was ready to say something on her own. Even though it was fucking killing me.

  “How did you know?” she finally asked softly without opening her eyes.

  “Know what?”

  “To come to my place?”

  “To be honest, I thought you were trying to renege on our agreement.”

  “So you thought I was being a jerk-faced bitch and you were still coming after me?”

  “We had a deal. A really sexy deal. I thought maybe I could talk you out of running off.”

  She sighed. “Sorry, Marc.”

  Hating the soft, sad tone of her apology, I reached across to squeeze her wrist. “Don’t be sorry, honey.”

  “I can’t help it. I’m sure you didn’t expect to sign on for any baggage when you came home with me last weekend.”

  “My parents have been married for thirty-five years. Pretty sure they’ve got a full set of damned pricey baggage. Matching carry-on luggage, too.”

  At the statement, her eyes opened wide.

  Shit.

  I hadn’t meant to bring up my parents’ three-and-a-half-decade long marriage. Why the hell had it even crossed my mind?

  I cleared my throat. “What I mean is…whatever’s going on with you…I’ve seen worse.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized two things. First. They were a lie. It wasn’t what I’d meant at all. Second. My parents were both alive. Her father wasn’t, and she’d already told me that she hadn’t spoken to him for more than ten years before that.

  “I’m such a self-centered, entitled bastard,” I muttered.

  Aysia was still staring at me, and now her eyebrows were pressed together in a deep frown. “Um. I don’t know whether to shower you with compliments, or ask you if you inhaled too many of these bubble fumes.”

  I didn’t laugh. “I wasn’t trying to compare my upbringing to yours. I have no idea what it was like for you. My parents had the usual stuff going on, but they were always there for me.”

  Her face cleared. “Are you asking about my daddy issues?”

  “No. Yes. Fuck. I don’t know. I’m not very good at offering comfort.”

  “Marc.”

  “Yeah?”
<
br />   “Come here.”

  Obediently, I inched off the lid of the toilet, then moved to the edge of the tub.

  “Closer,” she said.

  I dropped to my knees and put my elbows on the wide lip, just out of reach of the bubbles. Aysia leaned forward, the suds that had been covering her sliding away so that her breasts floated temptingly along the top of the water, and she lifted her hands to my face. With rivulets of liquid pouring down her arms and dripping onto my dress shirt, she pulled me in for a kiss. Long and slow. Steamy and sweet. Her fingers never left my face as she explored my mouth. When she was finally done, I was soaked. My shirt clung to my chest, my silk tie was a total write-off, and I was damned sure my pants had absorbed half the bath water. Somehow, even my hair managed to be dripping.

  I was also turned on as all hell, my worries about being a good listener pushed to the side.

  “Are you trying to distract me with sex?” I asked against her mouth.

  “Sex? That was just a kiss.” Her voice was laced with false innocence.

  “Just a kiss? No such thing with you.” I pulled away so I could look at her.

  “I was merely trying to demonstrate that I’m not using you for comfort.”

  “That sounds like a compliment. But I’m pretty sure it’s an insult.”

  “How so?”

  “It makes me seem like a plaything.”

  “Oh. You don’t like being a plaything?” she teased.

  “I don’t mind it. So long as I can be something more, too.” The words came out with more meaning than I intended, and for a second, her playful smile dropped.

  She recovered it quickly, and tapped my chest with one of her slim fingers. “So demanding.”

  I grabbed her hand and pressed it down to my chest. “It’s give and take, honey.”

  “So…take.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  She pulled away, a surprised look on her face. “You don’t want to?”

  I chuckled at her expression. “Try not to sound so stunned at the fact that I’m capable of thinking with something other than my dick.”

  She colored. “I know that.”

  I ran my thumb over the pink blush along her cheekbone, then twisted a lock of her hair around my finger. “I can listen, if you want me to. I might suck at the comforting words, Aysia, but I can provide a pretty good ear, if you wanna unload some of your so-called baggage.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she admitted softly.

  There was too much hurt in her voice. Too much fucking wistfulness. I hated that I was right about the hint of fragility. I hated the desperate need I felt to know where it came from. What the hell had happened in between the time I left for work and the moment I found her crying on her own doorstep?

  “Make some room,” I ordered roughly, loosening my tie.

  “What?”

  “I’m evening the playing field.” I tossed the tie to the floor and started to unbutton my shirt.

  “I thought you didn’t want to have sex.”

  “I don’t.”

  My shirt joined my tie, and I moved on to my pants, which slid down, quickly revealing my undeniably swollen cock. I heard Aysia’s breath catch, and it made me twitch.

  “You don’t?” she asked.

  “Well. Obviously, I want to. Every time I get near you—or think of you, for that matter—I want to. But that’s not why I’m getting in.”

  “Um. Okay.”

  She tucked her legs up and slid to the halfway mark in the tub. I loved how she looked right that second. Her back curved as she hugged her knees, her face turned over her shoulder to study me. Blue eyes wide, and her bottom lip sucked under her teeth.

  I slid my boxer briefs off and stood still. Just long enough to see that as she got an eyeful, her gaze turned heated.

  Don’t want to…fuck. No. Not even a possibility.

  As I climbed in behind her, though, I slid almost all the way to the back of the tub—arms reach, but far enough away that I’d be less likely to just give in to the temptation. I grabbed the wash cloth and soap from the built-in holder, lathered up, then set to scrubbing Aysia’s back in a slow circle.

  “This is your idea of a level playing field?” she asked, leaning into my touch.

  “Both naked. Both vulnerable.”

  “You naked is the least vulnerable thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I laughed and dipped the cloth into the water, then squeezed it over her shoulders, rinsing away the suds. “What if I told you that this is the first time I’ve ever been naked in a tub with a woman?”

  “Hmm. I’d say it’s a real shame, then, that you’re pretending you don’t want to have sex.” She wriggled back a bit so that her ass was between my knees instead of my calves.

  “Aysia…”

  “Just getting comfortable.”

  “You’re so full of shit.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Sorry. Did you want me to pretend that I’m not as affected by you as you are by me? Because I just kind of assumed we were past that.”

  “Clearly, I’m more affected.”

  “Why? Because your arousal is visible? Give me your hand for a second and I’ll show you that I’m just as turned on as you are.”

  “If there was a contest…” I said, widening my legs to pull her back so she could feel the full length of my erection pressed between the top of her ass and the bottom of her back, “You’d lose. But that isn’t what I meant.”

  She let out a breathy squeak. “What did you mean?”

  “I meant that only one of us is willing to talk. The other just wants to fuck.”

  “Hey!”

  She tried to pull away, and I held her fast. She wiggled and jiggled against me so hard that I could swear I was two seconds away from coming right then and there.

  Like she could sense it, she slowed her movements and added a little grind of her hips to her movements. “Which one of is which, again?”

  “I can control myself,” I said through gritted teeth, fighting the animalistic need for release and waiting for her to go still again.

  “Fine.” With that grumpy-sounding acquiescence, she collapsed against me, her back to my chest. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Anything.”

  “Anything other than how good it would feel to turn around and—”

  I cut her off. “Anything but that.”

  She was quiet for a second before sighing and saying, “Favorite movies?”

  I grinned at the barest tolerance of her tone. “Of all time, or in general?”

  “In general.”

  “Anything action-packed.”

  “Typical.”

  “What do you like?”

  “Porn.”

  I couldn’t fight a laugh. “You’re a demon.”

  “Goddess,” she corrected. “Favorite music?”

  “Classic rock. And Spice Girls.”

  She snorted. “Shut up.”

  “No judging. This bathtub is a safe space.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I brought my thumbs to her shoulders and massaged them gently along the ridges of muscles. “Favorite childhood memory?”

  “Disneyland when I was six. Hands down.”

  “Same here,” I said. “Something about those mouse ears is so damned sexy.”

  “Shut up. Again.”

  I kissed the back of her neck. “Least favorite childhood memory?”

  She tensed. “The day my mom told me my dad wasn’t coming back. But I’m pretty sure you knew I was going to say that.”

  “Might’ve guessed a little.”

  “And now you want me to disclose my deepest, darkest fears? The ones that turned me into the woman I am today?”

  I didn’t let the
bite of her words get to me. “I just want you to know that you can.”

  She went silent again. For so long that I thought maybe she really wasn’t going to say anything more about it. When I opened my mouth to change the subject, though, she spoke again.

  “It was another woman,” she said softly. “A client he met at the ad firm where he worked. My mom was devastated. It blindsided her. She’d put aside her own career for his—they were competitors in the business and one of them had to leave it. She once told me she didn’t even blink when he asked that it be her. She loved him and would’ve done anything for him. And that was how he repaid her.”

  “Sounds rough.”

  “It was pretty awful,” she admitted. “I was almost fourteen when it happened. I never spoke to him again. Twelve years. I didn’t go to his funeral. I didn’t send a card to the other woman when he died. I think Carl was probably my punishment for that.”

  My throat tightened with a weird combo of sympathy and irritation. “Your dad left you. Not the other way around. I don’t think some cosmic karma came your way in the shape of that asshole.”

  “Logically, I know that. But sometimes things happen, and I question it. I even question the course of my life. Like, would I be so driven if my dad had stuck around? Or am I just trying to prove something?”

  “Even if you are trying to prove something… Why does it matter? You’re not destructive in your ambition. As far as I can tell, you just push yourself. You’re not stomping on people and sacrificing goats to get where you’re going.”

  She laughed, and her hand came up to close over top of mine. She dragged her palms down to her stomach, then tilted her head to the side and kissed my throat. “Just so you know. You don’t suck at comfort.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “No.”

  “You feel a bit less melancholy?”

  “A gazillion times less melancholy. Weirdo.”

  “Hmm. Maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe it was just the talking.”

  “Could be. But I doubt it. I don’t feel this good when I talk to Liv.”

  “You sure?”

  In response, she guided my hand even lower. In spite of all the water around us, I could still feel her own unique wetness under the tips of my fingers. I couldn’t have not stroked her if I wanted to. She arched up into the attention, and I forgot about my resolve to keep from making this particular moment about sex. She was just too damned hot. Too fucking eager. No way could I deny her the pleasure she wanted.