Sweet Seduction

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Sweet Seduction Page 78

by Anthology


  "And?" I shoot back at him. Shit, my voice is shaking as much as my hands. "What's your point? You don't want to see me three times a week? Or is it just that you don't want to see me unless you're fucking me? We can fuck on Sunday, if you really want to, I'm sure we can find someplace to go."

  I've never seen Ian angry. Maybe, like me, he never thought I could make him. He's pissed off now, though. His entire expression goes hard-edged and fierce.

  "Stop it, Maura."

  I should stop it. I should not pick a fight now, wasting the precious minutes we have. The only ones, apparently, I'm going to get until who knows when. But I am tired of being put off. Tired of excuses.

  "Spend the day with me on Sunday. The whole day."

  "I can't make it work," Ian says, voice flat and final. "Sorry."

  "Why not?"

  "Because first you want to meet me for lunch, then you want to meet me here, then you want to spend the day with me. It's too much. We need to put the brakes on this."

  Medusa has nothing on the look I give him. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

  Ian hasn't turned to stone. He reaches for me, but I duck away from his grasp. "C'mon. Maura. Don't be like that."

  "Like what?" Eyes narrowed, voice harsh, I'm daring him. To call me a bitch, maybe a crazy bitch. Maybe he'll throw 'needy' in there, too.

  "Just don't."

  "I'm asking you for too much? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" Fighting tears, I search for my purse. Thank God we aren't naked. Thank God I can get out of here before I burst into hysterical, wrenching sobs.

  "It's going too fast!" Ian shouts.

  I stop. Turn. We've known each other for almost two years. We talk several times a week, several times a day-- when Ian wants to. Less often but still frequently when he does not. It's only been a few months since we started fucking, but we do that when he wants, too.

  This is an imperfect thing, what we have, but it's all there is for us right now. And after all that, he's telling me it's too much. We're going too fast.

  "Snails could outrace us at this point, Ian." I shrug my purse over my shoulder and head for the door.

  Ian manages to snag my sleeve enough to turn me. "Don't go."

  "Why? You want to get your dick sucked before I do? Is that it? That's not too fucking fast for you is it? I promise you," I say with a smile that has nothing to do with joy, "I can make it slow."

  I can see the struggle in his eyes and the shape of his mouth as he works to form words he's smart enough not to say. Even so, what he does say is bad enough. "It's just crossing a line."

  "What is?"

  "Spending the day with you. It would be too much." Ian shakes his head and backs up a step. "That's all."

  "But fucking me, that's okay? Texting me pictures of your hard cock, that's not crossing a line?" My voice is getting louder, raking at my throat. I'm sure I am wild-eyed, and I don't care. "Telling me you love me, Ian, that's not crossing a fucking line?"

  I'm screaming by the time I get to the end of my sentence. I don't care who hears me. I don't even care if he thinks I am a raging harridan. I throw my purse on the ground hard enough to spill everything out of it. I hear the crack of something breaking. I don't care about that, either.

  "Maybe you didn't mean it," I shout, "but I sure as fuck believed you. You know how I feel about you, and I ask you for next to fucking nothing, Ian, because I'm so goddamned tired of being told no, and every time you turn me down, I tell myself it is the last fucking time. Because this is not working. Because I have shit I need to deal with in my life, and it's tearing me apart and breaking me down, but I am fucking doing it, Ian, I am ripping my life apart at the seams, and I am not doing it for you. I'm doing it because I can not fucking live another moment the way I have been, and because..." I falter, voice raw, breath harsh in my throat, tears blinding me. "Goddammit, Ian. I love you. And maybe you don't love me back, but you just keep letting me. So tell me again why spending some time with me is crossing a line. Please. Tell me how that works, because I just don't understand."

  "What the hell do you want from me? What do you think this is, exactly? A relationship?"

  I hate him in that moment, for making me into everything I despise. Weak and clinging and needy. Desperate. But I will be damned if I let him see me that way.

  "I hate to break the news to you, sweetheart," I tell him in a cold, faraway voice, "but like it or not, yes. That's exactly what this is."

  Ian says nothing.

  I bend to gather the contents of my purse, shoving everything in haphazardly, not caring that I spill coins and tampons and lipsticks all over. I find my keys, but when I try to stand, I can't. I can not stand. All I can do is crumple to my hands and knees on that shitty motel room carpet and begin to cry.

  I want to fight his hands on me, but I can't do that either. Ian helps me up. Leads me to the bed. I turn my face away from his kiss. Fight him when he tries to hold me. I make my body stiff and unyielding. I make myself refuse him.

  Ian pins my wrists with one hand. Locks his fingers in my hair. He's stronger than I am, holding me when I struggle, but I want to make him hurt me. I want the bruises. They'll be proof of my pain he won't be able to ignore. I fight him, but Ian won't let go.

  "I'm sorry," he says, over and over. "I'm so sorry."

  He kisses me, and I let him.

  "Don't cry, Maura. Please don't cry."

  He touches me, and I let him.

  "I never wanted to hurt you."

  He undresses me, and I let him.

  Ian pushes me back onto the bed. Works at my clothes. His fingers and tongue find my bare skin. His mouth slides along my inner thigh. He finds my clit. Fingers inside me, tongue working, Ian murmurs a long list of everything he plans on doing to me.

  He makes love to me with his mouth, and I let him.

  When it's over, and I am spent, panting on the bed with him kissing my mouth, Ian says to me, "you are my flower, Maura. My flower in the desert. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."

  Ian apologizes to me, but I can't forgive him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "I saw him only once after that. Chad and I had a fight, and I ran out of the house. Literally ran to Ian's house, which was really far away. We fucked that night, and I was going to tell him I was leaving Chad, but I didn't. I guess I wanted to get all my ducks in a row before I told him, so that he'd have no excuses. That he'd know it wasn't...that he didn't have to feel guilty..." Maura swallowed hard. "Guess that didn't turn out the way I'd hoped."

  Shelly poured more wine into Maura's glass and pushed the plate of bruschetta toward her. "This is good. Eat this."

  Maura sipped wine and took one of the squares of toast heaped high with Shelly's homemade bruschetta. So far she'd been able to avoid the platters of cookies and cheeses, but she couldn't hold out for much longer. The food at Shelly's parties was legendary, and she'd gone all out for this one. It was her daughter Melody's eighteenth birthday and she'd just been accepted to Princeton. The celebration was on.

  "It was the only real fight we ever had, at least the kind with shouting. It was the worst one, anyway. I was so angry with him for the things he said. But I let him go down on me." Maura shook her head, blushing at the memory.

  "It's a little thing I like to call ragefucking." Shelly laughed.

  "Well, if Daniel had tried to so much as blow me a kiss, I'm pretty sure I'd have kneed him in the nuts."

  Shelly gave Maura a knowing look. "Were you in love with Daniel?"

  "Nope. But I liked him. I thought maybe we could try to make something. I didn't mean to hurt him." The wine couldn't quite erase the bitterness of the memory. "But if that's the way he was going to react to things, better I found out first, I guess."

  "Ragefucking only works if you're crazy mad in love with someone." Shelly offered this bit of advice as she scooped a carrot through a bowl of hummus. "Something to do with hormones."

  Maura rolled her eyes. "Uh huh."
/>
  "So what did you tell Daniel when he called you?"

  "I said that I understood why he was angry, and I apologized, but I told him I was not going to be his long distance girlfriend and that honestly, I thought he needed to get his shit under control." Maura paused with a grimace, remembering. "He got kind of cold and distant after that, but he didn't yell at me again."

  "He's a shit show," Shelly said flatly.

  Maura laughed. "Well. Yeah. But like I'm not?"

  "You should just tell Ian you miss him. Call him up, tell him you're going crazy without him, and that you need to talk to him," Shelly said.

  Maura shook her head. "Can't. Won't. Can't. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to tell him that."

  "Why the hell not?"

  "Because," Maura said carefully, "then he'll know."

  "And that's a problem because...?"

  She sighed, loving that she had a friend good enough to understand, hating that the friend was good enough to also call her on her bullshit. "It's been over a month. What if he doesn't miss me? What if he's not waiting around for me to call him? What if he's actually happy and relieved and fine with not hearing from me, ever, at all?"

  "Girl, I never knew you to be scared of stupid stuff like that." Shelly gave her head a woeful shake. "Damn. What the hell has this dude done to your self confidence?"

  "He ate it," Maura said. "And now it's all gone."

  "Bullshit."

  It was, maybe, bullshit. Maybe not. Maura sipped her wine, then shrugged.

  "So. Ian sends you a date request through Luvfinder. What, he can't just call you up? Send you a personal email? What's his deal? Is he trying to be cute, or what?"

  "I don't know. I haven't answered it yet."

  Shelly groaned and stabbed the air with her carrot stick. "Maura! What the actual fuck are you doing?"

  "If he thinks he can just send me a date request and that I'll jump on it, well, he's wrong."

  "It's been like, forever since he sent that message. That's not jumping on anything. Besides, he's not wrong. What are you doing? You should at least call him and ask him what he's up to." Shelly paused to point again with the remnants of her carrot before crunching it loudly. "I can't believe you."

  Maura could barely believe it herself. "I don't know. It's like...have you ever been really, really sick?"

  "I had a hundred and four degree fever the last time I got the flu. That was pretty sick."

  "Yeah. Something like that. So you're feverish and sick and kind of out of your mind, but eventually the fever breaks and you start to feel better? And you wake up and realize you're finally going to be okay?"

  Shelly nodded, but looked wary. "...Yeah?"

  "That's kind of how I felt after breaking it off with Ian that last time. This weight lifted off me, I felt this...relief. Like I wouldn't have to try any more, you know? It was all over, and I was the one who'd finally chosen it. I mean, I didn't want it. But I chose it. Which seemed important at the time." She hesitated, putting into words things she'd only thought about before. "Like it was some kind of game, and I won."

  "But you didn't, sweetie. Did you?"

  "No."

  Shelly smiled. "He came back to you. That has to count for something, right?"

  "He always came back to me. Always. I tried to break it off with him a bunch of times, and he was the one who always came back. It's why he made me so mad when he tried to tell me how it was just me pushing us forward. Like it was all my fault. I hated that, him not owning his shit."

  "So he's not perfect."

  Maura laughed ruefully. "Wow. No. Definitely not."

  "Nobody is. Except Keanu Reeves." Shelly gave a happy sigh. "He's perfect."

  They laughed together at that. There wasn't much time to talk about it after that, because Melody came into the kitchen to give her mother a hug and kiss and tell her that people had started to arrive. Shelly went into perfect hostess mode, and Maura found her way from the kitchen into the living room to mingle with the other guests.

  Maura's phone weighed heavy in her pocket. She could remember a time when being constantly connected to the world had seemed like a burden. Repulsive. She'd resisted getting a cell phone for a long time because of that. But once she had a smartphone with all its access to the internet, it had become her Precious. Like Gollum's ring. She was never without it, and even when she wasn't using it, there was a comfort in knowing that it was there to help her answer random trivia, find her way when she was lost, buy stuff, listen to music.

  Keep in touch.

  Luvfinder had a special app. She'd never bothered to use it, but it was easy enough to download. In a minute she had the small red square with its happy heart logo staring at her from her phone's screen. Tapping it, she entered her information into the login screen and pulled up her messages. She had almost a dozen other date requests, with one or two repeats but the rest all new. She hadn't updated her profile or posted anywhere on the site, but that didn't matter. She was female, and for a lot of these guys, that seemed to be enough.

  Cupping the phone in her hands, she scrolled through, deleting the messages one by one until she came to Ian's. Luvfinder had a set of five generic message templates. He'd chosen the plainest one. Black and white, nothing cutesy about it. Simple, elegant, straightforward. All the templates had spots for contact information, along with places for the sender to choose what sort of date they were offering. Movie, coffee, dinner, sporting event. The list was long and comprehensive, and still left a place at the bottom for the sender to fill in anything that hadn't been listed.

  Ian had checked every single option.

  Skydiving. Horseback riding. Scuba diving. Go cart racing. Mini golf. Was he crazy?

  She could ignore the situation totally. Or, she could hit 'accept' on the date request and see what happened from there. Everything with Ian had always been like standing on the edge of a cliff, and Maura had always leaped.

  Before she could stop herself, she hit 'accept.'

  ***

  The phone pinged, predictably, at two in the morning. The light from the screen woke her more than the sound, and Maura reached for it at once. Apparently Ian didn't like the Luvfinder app any more than she did, because the message had come through on text.

  I'm glad you said yes.

  She dialed his number. "I am not skydiving with you."

  "Okay." His low laughter sent a frisson tingling down her spine. His voice, oh, that voice. "We can scratch that. How are you?"

  Maura started to cry.

  She tried to hold it back, not wanting him to hear her. Not wanting to ruin their first conversation in so, so long. Still too proud to let him know how much she hurt.

  Ian was silent for a moment. "How's my girl?"

  More tears boiled out of her, and she turned her face into the pillow to stifle them.

  "I thought you'd say no," Ian said after a few sniffle filled moments passed without her being able to speak. "I wouldn't blame you, if you did. But I had to try."

  Maura got herself under control enough to speak. "I'm not going go kart racing, either."

  "Hot air balloon ride?"

  "Is that really what you planned?" She grabbed for a tissue and wiped her face, settling into the covers.

  Ian laughed again. "If that's what you want. Is it?"

  "I've never been in a hot air balloon."

  "I can make that work, if you want. Really."

  She laughed through the tears still leaking down her cheeks. "Isn't it sort of cold for a balloon ride?"

  "I don't know. I've never been on one either." Ian paused, voice lowering. "You okay?"

  Her voice betrayed her, cracking. "Fine. Great. Perfect. Never better."

  "Switch to video?"

  "Ian...it's two in the morning...I look terrible."

  "You never look terrible," he told her.

  Three minutes later, there he was. She searched his face in the tiny screen for any changes -- it had been months, but it felt like an
eternity since last she'd seen him. She rubbed her thumb over the screen, tracing line of his jaw and his brows, remembering the feeling of his skin.

  "There's my girl," Ian said.

  Maura lost it again.

  "Hey, hey," he said soothingly, and also infuriatingly amused. "Shh. No crying."

  She swiped at her face, then buried it again in the pillow to keep him from looking at her, even though it meant she wouldn't be able to see him, either. Shoulders shaking, she tried to breath through this sudden combination of joy and grief. "Fucking emotions!"

  Ian was silent while she got herself under control. Eyes still streaming, but at least with the ability to speak, she held the phone up in front of her face again. She wiped everything with a soggy tissue and cleared her throat to keep her voice steady, at tactic that didn't really work.

  "This is it, Ian."

  "What's it?"

  "This is the last time." She'd probably said it before, or something like it, but Daniel's parting words rang in her head. "If you fuck me over, so help me, God..."

  "I'm not going to fuck you over."

  "I mean it. The last time. I don't expect you to promise me happy ever after," she said and went on before he could reply, "but goddammit, Ian, I surely expect you to fucking try."

  "Don't you tell me not to go for that happy ever after. I'm aiming right for it."

  She laughed, despite herself, because he could always make her laugh. "Stop. I don't want you to make promises you can't keep. We don't know what could happen. I don't need that from you, I just want to know that you're going to at least see what happens."

  "Hey, I asked you to go skydiving with me. If that's not an indication of how serious I am about this..."

  "Stop," she whispered. "Ian. I meant it."

  "I'm going to try. I promise. Okay?"

  She nodded. "That's all I'm asking for."

  Silently they stared at each other. When he smiled, everything inside her melted. She smiled, too.

  "There's my girl," Ian said again.

 

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