by Julia Kent
All traces of red, except for her lips, vanish as she folds herself back from the unfolding, making her outer package professional again.
One important, throbbing thing of mine doesn’t vanish, though. I grab her and pull her to me, the kiss hot and sweet. She tastes like coffee and vanilla, like beeswax and sunshine, the smear of her lipstick making our kiss more urgent. I’m groaning again and I need her.
I can’t wait to put that ring on her finger.
I can’t wait to see her wearing nothing but that ring.
“A quickie?” she whispers, fingers already on my belt buckle, hand feeling exactly how much I’ve missed her. I know damn well I’ve picked the perfect woman to marry, because who else offers you sweet relief in the middle of an international software failure? A woman who gets that is the woman you want bearing your children.
The intercom coughs. Grace’s voice pours out. “Dec? Three calls now from New Zealand, and one from Indonesia. What do I tell them? I’m getting screamed at in two different languages and across three time zones here.”
Shannon’s hands freeze.
This is brutally unfair.
When I was six, and Terry got to go on a school trip to Disneyworld. It wasn’t fair. I cried for three days and begged to be allowed to go, but Dad was too busy with business travel and mergers, while Mom explained ad nauseam that Terry was in the band and was marching in a parade. If that was supposed to make me feel better, it backfired.
I learned that the world just isn’t fair.
Shannon’s unmoving hands on my belt buckle is a nasty reminder of that lesson.
“Damn,” I hiss as she “helps” by re-buckling my belt, tucking my shirt in. Not that there’s much room for it. I have the equivalent of a baseball bat in my pants.
She pats the front of my pants in place and smooths it, which is like pouring salt on a shark bite.
“You need to go fix this,” she says, reaching up to brush my hair out of my eyes. I keep forgetting to get it cut, and she’s asked me to grow it out. Likes the look, she says.
“I need to have you pinned beneath me with those garters giving my kidneys a massage,” I growl.
“Later. My place?” She hasn’t moved in with me. Yet. Says she wants to wait until we’re engaged. Meanwhile, she still shares that tiny little one-bedroom apartment with her sister. Her best friend, Amanda, is like a third roommate, and then there’s the Ghost of Crazyass Mothers-in-Law who haunts the place, barging in at will.
I love Marie. I do. I just love her in the abstract.
“My place,” I grunt. “Not yours. There’s no way we’re going to try to have sex at your place again. Ever.” I frown, and she knows exactly what I mean.
The Incident.
“It won’t happen again, you know,” she says with a pleading look in her eyes.
“Right. Because I am never having sex with you in your apartment. Ever. Therefore, it will never happen again.” The burn of The Incident haunts me. It happened last week.
Just after I decided to propose.
Shannon stops trying to argue. She reaches for a hug and my hand slides up that nice, hot thigh and sinks into—
Oh, sweet Jesus.
“Declan!” she hisses, pulling back, her cheeks as pink as the place I just touched.
“I can’t help it.” Seriously. I can’t. C’mon. I’m a guy. A guy who hasn’t had sex in three days. Would you begrudge a three-days-dehydrated man a sip of a water bottle waved like a semaphore flag in front of him?
“Yes, you can.” She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and scampers out, leaving me with people on the phone from the other side of the world ready to scream at me, a hand that touched the gates to Heaven, and a raging hard on.
This is all someone’s fault.
But none of that matters, because life is unfair, and the only way to deal with it is to keep on living.
And scream back.
CHAPTER THREE
Andrew won’t let me get out of this one. “Hold on. Back up. This ‘incident’ at Shannon’s apartment. Say that again? Her mom walked in on you two having sex and recorded it? Was it under-the-covers sex or let-your-freak-flag-fly sex?”
“What the hell does it matter? My future mother-in-law saw me naked. You don’t recover from that. Ever,” I shoot back. And for the record, it’s always let-your-freak-flag-fly sex. Always.
We’re weightlifting. There are two ways to deal with an unwelcome hard on. Masturbate, or go to the gym. Because I have a strict rule about sex at work—it must involve another human being—I’m left with one option.
The gym.
At Anterdec, that means going into Andrew’s office and entering a swipe card along a reader installed in the wall. You’d never know the hidden gym is in there. While he’s a fitness freak with a spin cycle in his main office, he’s also a free-weights nut with a deep fear of being outside because of his deadly wasp allergy.
All I know is I get to work out and pump as much blood as possible out of my pelvis and into my legs and arms. It’s the blood immigration program, complete with free relocation and a puppy if you move. After two hours of being yelled at by people with accents that make them sound like they really need to put another shrimp on the barbie and poke a skewer through their eye, I need this. Gym time. Pump out the rage.
Blow out my muscles.
The words pump and blow are killing me, though. Shannon got called across town for a client meeting and swears she’ll meet me at eight o’clock tonight in my apartment. If she’s not there at exactly eight, I’m sending out a search party led by a one-eyed trouser snake.
I’m sure Jessica Coffin will have a field day tweeting that.
Andrew’s trying very hard not to snicker. “Marie just barged in to Shannon’s bedroom?”
“Yes.” I’m lifting forties, working my triceps, on my back on a yoga ball. Andrew grabs them out of my hands and gives me fifty-fives. It takes effort, but I can still press them. I imagine the blood fleeing into my arms.
Too bad the desire can’t be relocated.
“With a camera crew?” Andrew’s standing over me, looking down, eyes filled with the kind of laughter no older brother ever wants to see in his little bro.
“Yep.”
“And the camera crew was because...”
“She showed up with the grandsons of one of her yoga clients. That old lady named Agnes.”
Andrew touches his ass tenderly. “The pincher?” Marie had convinced him to attend one of her yoga classes a few months ago, by promising a direct path to the studio in the winter, insect-free.
“Yep.” I drop the fifty-fives and motion for the sixties. Andrew hands them off and chugs from his water bottle. “Marie said they were doing a documentary on her.”
“Marie? Why? Is she some kind of celebrity?”
“The local cable access channel was doing some show on her life as a ‘reinvented woman’ who found a new career in her fifties, and she wanted them to shadow her as she visited her kids.”
We’d been so deeply, intensely involved in being naked and sticky and perfect that we hadn’t heard the front door open. Then bam! A doorway full of Marie and chattering and screams and shoving, and all I really remember from the whole thing was Chuckles, rubbing his front paws together and doing a Dr. Evil imitation. And shouting, from me. Lots of shouting. Then Shannon, sobbing, and...
Andrew winces. “They caught you doing the two-backed nasty on camera?”
“Hey! Don’t talk about red garters—er, Shannon like that. That’s my future wife you’re talking about.”
Andrew’s jaw goes slack. “Red garters?” See that thin line of drool running down his mouth, the vacant look in his eyes? Told you. It’s Man Soma. Mention garters and we check out, controlled by hormones. Pavlov’s bell in lingerie form.
“And a corset.”
He groans, a sexual sound that borders on lewd. Then again, among the testicled, this is the expected response, but still.
; I frown. “Quit thinking about Shannon like that.”
“I’m not thinking about Shannon.”
I sit up. This is new. Andrew doesn’t date. Not the way normal people date, at least. Andrew’s admin picks socially acceptable women and sets them up for business meetings that start with a handshake and end with a Walk of Shame.
“Who are you thinking about?”
“I’m—Amand—no, no one.”
“A man?” Oh, boy. This conversation just veered into new territory.
“Not a man! I don’t date men.”
“It’s cool. Not judging if you do. Look at Tim Cook. The CEO of Apple can be out and proud—”
“But I am not gay! I didn’t say ‘a man’!”
“Yes, you did.”
He’s flustered. This is fun. Andrew takes a deep breath and runs his hand through increasingly-wet hair. Funny. He hasn’t lifted enough to be that sweat-soaked. “I said ‘aman’, not ‘a man.’”
“And the difference is...”
“One is a woman and one isn’t.”
“That makes no sense. What’s ‘Aman’, then?” While I’m waiting for an answer, it hits me. Aman. Amanda. Andrew’s got a thing for Shannon’s best friend.
“It’s Amanda, isn’t it?” Most people would keep their mouth shut but he’s my little brother. It’s in my DNA to torture him. Plus, he’s on the fast track to become CEO and Dad picked him. Not me. I have resentment and have to take it out on Andrew somewhere.
“It’s no one. Shut up. Spot me while I lift.” Andrew is the worst liar. Always has been. He’s fine with a poker face when it comes to business, but on a personal level, he’s the last person you want to tell a secret.
“Amanda Red Corset Chest,” I taunt. Andrew’s face tightens. Zing! Hit the target.
He snorts, trying to play this off like it’s nothing. “I wouldn’t know Amanda if I walked past her on the street. Haven’t seen her in what...fourteen months?”
Right. He wouldn’t know her if he passed her on the street. But who’s counting?
Oh. He is. How many months it’s been since he saw her. I know I, personally, keep track of how many months it’s been since I last saw someone I don’t give two shits about.
Not.
“Let’s talk about your future mother-in-law getting a full-on view of your ass and...hey. Wait a minute.” He folds his legs and sits on the ground next to me. I’m still on the plastic yoga ball, now stretching out my hips.
“Did you say the words ‘future wife’?” he asks. Sweat is pouring off him and he wipes it off his neck with a small hand towel.
“Yes.”
“You’re proposing? To Shannon?”
“No, to Marie. Thought I’d kidnap her and run off into the sunset.”
“You have a thing for fifty-something buxom blondes with sex fetishes?”
“Can we stop talking about ‘sex’ and ‘Marie’ in the same sentence?” I snap. At least this conversation has taken care of my hard on. It’s long gone, like Mitt Romney’s chances of becoming president.
“Marriage, huh? You feel ready for that? One woman for the rest of your life?”
“Why does everyone keep bringing up the one woman thing?”
“Because your reputation precedes you.”
“What reputation?” I know what he means and brace myself.
“Remember what Jessica said once? How you managed through sheer force of will to make ‘Declan’ rhyme with ‘man whore’?” He frowns and stands up, reaching for a hand towel. As he wipes his neck he asks, “Does Shannon know?”
“You mean, have we shared our numbers?”
“Yes.”
I nod.
“And did you have to bring out the quantum computer to calculate yours, while she used one hand for hers?”
“She uses one hand very well.”
Andrew leers and I regret the comment instantly.
“If we’re going to talk about sex and numbers, how was your ‘business meeting’ last night? Let me guess. She agreed to one, two, three! contract negotiations.”
Andrew clears his throat but says nothing.
“What’s her name?”
“Huh?”
“Her name. The woman you conducted...business with last night.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
I stand, tired and ready to go home to my one woman. A quick stop at the jeweler’s is in order, too. As I walk out of the hidden gym and into the expansive, bright room of Andrew’s office, I call back.
“Enjoy your programmed life, little bro. When you’re ready to join the rest of us, we’ll be right here. Keeping it real. And now I’m going home to be real with Shannon.”
“You mean you’re going home to fuck her.”
“Same thing.”
CHAPTER FOUR
8:01 p.m. Shit. I’m the one who’s late, so there’s no need for a search party. My homing beacon is beeping like a fire alarm and as I fidget in the elevator, wondering why the hell I ever thought living on the top floor was a good idea, I hope she’s home.
God damn New Zealand. The deal should be smooth sailing, and implementing this new line a breeze, but somewhere in the code, I know those sneaky developers added a cockblocking spell designed to keep me in a state of perpetual frustration because the name of the product we launched in twenty-three hotels and spas down under?
Blue Bell.
Which is so close to blue balls, which I have a raging case of, that I think all the sperm has backed up through my system and is poisoning my brain, turning me into a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. The developers in New Zealand are trying to drive me insane by preventing me from having sex.
There it is. I’ve completely lost it.
Shannon has a key to my place, and as I walk in the door I see candlelight. Flickering flame is to a man what Ben & Jerry’s is to a woman.
A sign of a sure thing.
“Shannon?” I call out, following the disorganized scatter of lit candles in the living room. Shadows dance on the wall in my hallway, and I round the corner to my bedroom to find her, spread out on my bed, wearing garters, stockings, the red corset, and—
She’s asleep.
That’s okay. I can work with asleep.
I can’t work with absent.
You’d be surprised how fast a man can undress when under the complete control of testicles so full they look like a case of mumps. I’m out of my clothes in seventeen seconds or so (who’s counting?) and on the bed, my hands taking in her prone body. I’m allowed to touch. We have an unwritten rule. It goes something like this:
Touch Shannon.
It’s a simple rule.
Her skin is so soft, my fingers scraping against the rolling contour of her inner thigh, from knee to heaven. The whorls of ridges on my fingertips feel like raw sandpaper against her porcelain flesh. My breathing slows, eyes adjusting to the dim light, taking in her body. How did I ever get so lucky?
From Toilet Girl to Mrs. McCormick in eighteen months.
Huh. I guess I count months sometimes, too.
The candlelight makes Shannon look ethereal, like an erotic painting, the red silk of her lingerie highlighting her pale skin. Her shapely hips, wide with the swell of abundance, are like magnets for my touch. The curve of her breasts beckons, begging for my palm. Climbing onto the bed, I prowl over her, enjoying the peace and beauty of this moment, suspended between the time we’ll connect and these seconds before, when she’s all mine to just watch. Observe.
Treasure.
Her feet slide up as she moves in slumber, her toenails painted the same color as her corset, her garters, her lips. For some reason, that attention to detail makes every shred of self-control wash off me like someone aimed a fire hose at me.
My mouth starts where it needs to be, with a taste between her thighs. My hands slip up between those legs and she sits up, gasping my name.
“Dec! You’re home,” she murmurs, her hand sinking into my hair
, palm moving down to caress my cheek as I move up to kiss her. She awakens a little more and blinks hard. “And you’re naked.”
“You’re observant.”
“It’s hard to miss that, even in the dim light.” Thankfully, she doesn’t just point. She grasps.
And that’s it. She’s under me and my mouth takes her, hard and hot, needing to sink into her and touch her depths so fully that we turn inside out. The taste of her mouth makes parts of me groan without sound, the sweet embrace of her thighs around my hips an invitation to enter at my own risk. And the risk?
Losing myself in her.
I’m an adventurous guy. I’ll take the plunge.
The second I’m in her it’s like coming home. A cliché, but true. Her fingers dance along my back, tight when she’s clenching, loose and skimming my skin with her palms in between. I can read her body with my eyes closed. She’s like sexual Braille. When her thighs start to quiver I know she’s close. When her back arches, she wants my mouth on her nipple. That little hitched sigh? It means she’s coming again. My name moaned when I’m between her legs?
That just urges me on. Makes me want to give her more.
“Declan,” she whispers, the sound like a verbal orgasm. Our rhythm quickens and our kisses dissipate, the connection now focused on a different kind of energy, a sensual build that’s nearing the summit. I love how her face changes when I’m in her, how she relaxes and turns inward, even as she’s connected to me, infused by our mingled slickness. There’s a scent we create when we’re together that is singular, and it drives me crazy to find a hint of it on the sheets, on a pillow, to catch a whiff on a breeze through my bedroom in times when she’s not here.
There won’t be any more times when she’s not here, though.
Not after I propose.
Her eyes are closed and she is the most ravishing, lovely creature I’ve ever touched, ever been with, ever loved. A man gets so few chances in life to find himself. We all live alone in these bodies, comforted by our own soul, driven by the mind to find meaning in the outside world. The heart drives us, too (and, of course, other muscles in the body with a single mission...).
