Flash Drive

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  “Why don’t you try mounting me tonight?” he asked as he moved the small strip of cloth down off her hips.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I’ll show you,” he said as he unzipped his pants and shimmied them down past his thighs. “Here,” he said as he handed her a condom. “Remember what you’re supposed to do with that?”

  “Umm hmm,” she said taking the condom out of the wrapper and placing it on the tip of his swollen member. Slowly she slid the soft membrane on, letting her hand follow it down until she was caressing the base of his penis. His sharp gasp caused her to look into his face in alarm, “Did I hurt you?”

  “Ahh . . . no. But you’d better hurry and get on this thing. I’m not sure how long I’m going to last. You rob me of control. You manage to diminish my capabilities with your sweet, yet unbelievably erotic innocence.” He lifted her by her hips and slowly impaled her, amazed at how wet she was and more than a little pleased by how very tight she was.

  “Straddle my thighs. Now take me all the way inside you, lean forward a little if you can. Ahhh. Yes. Just like that. God, I don’t know if I can stand this. You feel too . . . unnhh . . . too wonderful for words.” He ran his hands around her bottom and caressed her smooth cheeks, but soon he put them firmly back on her hips so he could guide her. He lifted her and then eased her down. “Ride me, sweetheart. Lift yourself up using your knees and then slide down, but be careful not to come all the way up or you’ll dislodge me.”

  She did exactly as he said and soon the slapping of flesh echoed throughout the room. She enjoyed being in control and soon increased the tempo and intensity and was rewarded with a soul-rending moan of delight. His hand reached out, cupped her neck, and brought her face down to meet his. His lips sought hers and he frenziedly plunged his tongue in and out of her as she straddled him and rode him hard. His other hand reached out and fondled her breast and then it delved to the juncture where their bodies were joined and he sought her pleasure spot with his fingers. He massaged her as she continued to rock up and down on him and then suddenly she arched her back, threw back her head and with a most rewarding guttural sound escaping her lips, she came against his stiff member and his circling fingers. He arched his body off the bed and gripped her hips as he repeatedly rammed up into her. An anguished cry joined hers as he shuddered and careened off into a dark, sweet haven while each pulse pumped essence from his body.

  Sensations of an eerie weightlessness accompanied his body as it drifted back to hers and to the reality of the soft bed covers under him and the warm, soft body on top of him.

  The word “spent” came to mind, and it held a totally new meaning; he couldn’t even hold his hands up to stroke her. Sweat-covered and sated, they folded into each other, holding hands as if they were lifelines on the edge of the world.

  After a few minutes, where all you could hear was their breathing settling back into even patterns, he reached over and moved a strand of hair that was covering her eyes.

  “Are you sure you should be doing this with me on the night you became engaged to somebody else?” he teased as he stroked the length of her backside.

  She didn’t answer; she just lay curled into his body, her fingers exploring the rigid muscles of his chest as she tried to catch her breath.

  She was the first to fall asleep, and as he lay there watching her, he couldn’t remember a time when he had ever been so content. The only thing that spoiled it was the knowledge that she belonged to someone else.

  He snuggled up to her spoon fashion and wrapped his hand around one full breast, the other reclined on her hip as he breathed in her gentle fragrance of gardenias. He fell asleep wondering when he had ever been happier.

  When she awoke the next morning, he was already out of bed, making coffee for them in her kitchen. “I got up early so I could shower and get out of your hair so you could get ready for work,” he said as he came into the room carrying a tray with coffee and chocolate croissants.

  “Where’d you get them?” she asked, pointing to the French pastries.

  “I sent Tony.”

  “That poor man had to sleep in the limo all night?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, and the limo’s back seat is really pretty comfortable, I’ve spent quite a few nights there myself.”

  “Forget to pay your rent?” she teased as she took a big bite out of the croissant.

  “No,” he said as he swatted her backside when she walked across the room to the bathroom, “sometimes I have to travel from one place to another at night, it’s not as comfortable as a hotel room, but I get where I have to be on time. And speaking of travel,” he said as he watched her brush her hair, “I’m leaving this morning for two weeks.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Boston, and then back to Connecticut and New York.”

  “Phew, do you always travel so much?”

  “Not usually for so long. I wrote down some numbers for you, the hotels that I plan to be staying in and my personal assistant’s number. She always knows exactly where I am—she can find me anywhere.”

  “Does she know where you are right now?” she asked with a grin.

  “Well, not exactly. But she could have me on the phone in less than five minutes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, there’s a phone in the limo and Tony knows where I am.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Hey, you won’t be married by the time I get back will you?” he asked suddenly very worried.

  “Not hardly. Jonathan and I have yet to set a date, and I doubt that it will be before the end of the year. It takes almost a year these days to plan a big wedding, but he wants to do it in six months or less.”

  “Finally getting impatient?” he teased as he lifted a strand of her hair away from the chocolate on her lips.

  “No, he’s just a task master.”

  “Do you want a big wedding?”

  “No, not really. But his mother does and I don’t object. My parents won’t be thrilled about the money it’ll cost since they’re still helping me pay off my student loans, but I’m going to do everything I can to keep it simple and inexpensive for them.”

  “What a good daughter.”

  “I don’t feel so good, in fact I feel like I’ve been pretty naughty lately.”

  He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle. “You have indeed and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”

  Their eyes met in the mirror and they wordlessly communicated something to their souls that even their conscious minds couldn’t quite grasp. He started kissing the back of her neck as he told her that he was going to call her every night and that he expected her to clear her schedule and make herself available the day he came back into town.

  Rather than argue a point that would undoubtedly come up later, she simply nodded her head as he enfolded her in his arms. “I have to go now, I have a plane to catch, but I’ll call you tonight. Is ten o’clock all right?”

  “Yes,” she said as she lifted her face for his kiss. She knew that it would be their last, and she tried to melt his soul into hers with it.

  “Wow, I can’t wait to get back. I can feel my toes tingling,” he said with a smile and a sexy wink, and then he was gone.

  An incredible sadness washed over her as she showered and dressed for work, a bereft feeling as if she was suddenly all alone in the world.

  At ten o’clock that night, she was sitting on the sofa waiting for the phone to ring. At ten fifteen it finally did. Breathlessly, she answered the phone, “Hello?

  “Hi Mal. I was just thinking; remember that church we went to last year for Justin and Carol’s wedding?
What do you think about that for ours?” It was Jonathan, not Stewart and she was so crushed that she almost sobbed into the phone.

  Her voice was suddenly wobbly as she answered him, “I think it’s a bit ostentatious, all those forty-foot, stained-glass windows and rows upon rows of pews, we’d never come near to filling them. Besides, we’re not Baptists.”

  “I just thought the altar looked regal, but if it’s not what you want, we’ll keep looking. You feeling all right, you sound tired?”

  “I have a slight headache, would you mind if I went to sleep now?” She had to get off the phone; Stewart could be trying to call her right this very minute.

  “No, I don’t mind. Get some rest, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  As soon as she hung up the phone, it rang.

  “Who were you talking to?” Stewart asked gruffly.

  Mallory smiled at the sound of his voice. “Jonathan. He called to tell me he found a church

  for us.”

  “Wonderful,” he said with absolutely no enthusiasm.

  “How was your flight?”

  “Long, bumpy, crowded. I always book two seats in first class so I can spread out and get some work done, but this time a stewardess felt it was her obligation to keep me company with her mindless drivel. I am seriously thinking that it’s time I got my own plane.”

  She felt a sudden pang of jealousy that was as foreign to her as low-fat cottage cheese would be to a gourmand. “She was probably just lonely.”

  “Lonely, my ass. She was husband shopping.”

  “Are you on the market?” she chided.

  There was silence on the other end of the line for half a minute before he answered, “I hadn’t really thought about it all that much. What exactly are your reasons for wanting to get married?”

  “I want to have children. Two, one boy, one girl, or two boys or two girls.”

  “I think those are all the possible combinations you can have for two children,” he teased.

  She laughed and he relaxed against the pillows propped up on the headboard almost three thousand miles away, God, he loved that sound.

  “What color underwear did you wear today?” he asked in a low, sexy voice.

  “That really vivid lime green set. Neon chartreuse I think it’s called.”

  “I can’t picture it. Wear the red tomorrow, that I can picture.”

  “These bras make me look busty.”

  “Sweetheart, you are busty,” he replied and she could hear the pride in his voice.

  She yawned and stretched. “I have to turn in now, for some reason, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I have a 6:30 surgery tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you go. I’ll call you again tomorrow night. Good night.”

  “Good night,” she whispered.

  Regardless of what she said about needing to get some sleep, she wasn’t able to fall asleep for several hours. Her mind was all knotted up and her body was actively searching out the warmth of another’s as she tossed and turned until finally falling asleep.

  She knew the reason they lost the patient the next morning was not because she was tired. It had been a high-risk operation from the very beginning. But the guilt she felt still weighed her down as she went from patient to patient, and then finally drove home. Jonathan had heard about the patient who had died and came over to console her. This was the thing they had in common, they understood these things. It was a forged bond. He brought pamphlets from a travel agency and together they sat on the sofa trying to decide their honeymoon destination.

  When the phone rang at ten, she jumped. The phone was on the opposite end of the sofa and since she had become used to Jonathan answering it when he was there, she quickly flopped over him to get to it first. Then she moved all the way back to her side of the sofa before she answered it. “Hello?”

  “Hi, sweetheart.”

  “Mom, I can’t talk now, Jonathan’s here and we’re planning our honeymoon. Can we talk tomorrow?”

  He didn’t even answer her. He slammed the phone down and cursed a blue streak as he paced back and forth in his hotel suite. The feelings he had were so intense that at first he had a hard time defining them. Anger, incredible anger, caused by jealousy—bitter, raw, jealousy.

  The next night when he called, she made sure she was alone.

  “I’m really sorry. He came over to console me because I lost a patient, and he knew I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. He’s really wonderful that way.”

  Again, that fierce jealousy, he should have been the one she turned to. He should have been the one to console her. But he could be there for her now, “Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Tell me about it.”

  He listened as she poured out her heart over the sixty-eight-year-old man whose heart had worn out, and the tender feelings he had for her overwhelmed him. “Honey, I wish I was there to hold you, to tell you it wasn’t your fault. I know you did the best you could. These things just happen, even to the best surgeons. I’m sure you’re one of the best there is, no one else could have helped him either. A man who neglects his health like that until his golden years can’t expect miracles at the eleventh hour.”

  Somehow, even though he wasn’t a doctor, he knew exactly the right things to say and she wiped her tears and smiled into the phone. “Guess where we decided to go on our honeymoon?” she asked cheerfully.

  This was not a topic he wished to discuss. But it was slightly better than listening to her cry. “I give, where?”

  “Disney World!”

  “This was your choice?”

  “No, not really. I favored one of the Virgin Islands, but he was so keen on it, that I gave in.”

  “It’s your honeymoon, you should go where

  you want.”

  “Well, it’s his too.”

  “Yeah, but he’s the man, he should acquiesce

  to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, that’s what men who love their

  wives, do.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “I just do. Tell him you want to go to St. John or the wedding’s off. Then I’ll take you there myself.”

  “You’d do that too, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course I would. I’d sacrifice myself to watch you tan topless on a secluded tropical beach. It would be hard, but I’d force myself to endure it.”

  “You are so considerate,” she teased and they both laughed together.

  “I reached for you this morning while I was still asleep. I was very disappointed when I discovered that you weren’t in my bed,” he whispered into the phone.

  She felt an irrepressible surge of sexual energy flow through her at the sound of his words.

  “Come visit me,” he said. “Get on a plane and come visit me.”

  “I can’t. How would I explain that to Jonathan?”

  “Don’t. Give him back his ring and just come.”

  “Stewart, I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? I know you don’t love him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because you’re falling in love with me.”

  He was speaking the truth and she knew it, but still she said, “Well, that’s the height of conceit.”

  “It’s the truth and you know it.”

  “It is no such thing.”

  “Okay, seriously now. Picture this. And I want you to concentrate and think hard. You’re in bed. The lights are low. You wake up really aroused and you duck your head under the sheets to gently wake the man sleeping at your side. Your lips search out his manhood and you kiss him. Then as you feel him respond under your lips, you lick him. You lick the entire lengt
h of him as he hardens for you. You wrap your mouth around his penis and you kiss it. Then you suck on it and suck on it as you caress his balls. Suddenly he spasms and he comes in your mouth and you take it all in greedily. Then you wipe your mouth on the bed sheet and climb up his body to kiss him. Quick, who is he? Is it me or is it Jonathan?”

  “It’s you,” she whispered, surprise apparent in her voice. “It’s definitely you.”

  “I know. And I can’t wait for you to do that for real. You can’t marry him Mallory, you know you can’t marry him. Tell him, and give him back his ring.”

  There was a long silence between them. Then Stewart chuckled, “I think I may have to call housekeeping, I think I need a new set of bed linens.”

  She laughed and said, “I don’t believe for a minute that you’re serious, but thanks for making me laugh.”

  “You need to laugh more. I will never get enough of hearing your delightful little laugh. Good night, sweetheart. If you change your mind about coming to see me, call my assistant, she’ll arrange it.”

  “I can’t. You know that I can’t.”

  “No, I don’t know that. And neither do you.”

  She hung up the phone with a soft click and stared at the darkened ceiling. Her mind flitted from thought to thought, and when she realized that she was thinking how she’d like to try that sucking on his penis thing, she moaned and curled into her pillow. Why, oh why, had she been the one selected from a handful of physicians on call to do Stewart Ravencross’ physical?

  Over the next several days, Mallory pined for him. At times, it was even hard to keep her mind on her work. Twice, she even thought about calling his assistant and going to him, but her loyalty to her patients as well as her uncertainty about her feelings stopped her. But by the end of the second week, she knew it was useless. She was in love with him and there was no helping it.