Lust & Leverage

by Kaye Blue

  I finished the coffee, returned the mug to the counter and then quickly washed it out and put it in the dish rack.

  Finally, after I had wiped down the cabinet, something that I knew was completely unnecessary because the housekeepers would be in to tidy up, I looked at him.

  He had discarded his mug of coffee, sat it in front of the windows and now looked at me.

  Seeing him was almost painful.

  The sun lit his hair, giving it more of a blond sheen than it usually had. The rays hit the stubble on his cheek, again made his eyes like they were flaming emeralds.

  Even with all the emotion, I couldn’t help but marvel at this handsome man. I wanted to speak but wasn’t brave enough. But in a moment of kindness, Alex spared me.

  “Mia, I was very angry last night, and I apologize for losing my temper,” he said stiffly.

  I was surprised at the apology, but I sensed an opening. It might have been wishful thinking, but I would take it because this time I would fight for us, for what we could be. I took a step closer to him, then another a little closer and stood up tall and pressed a soft kiss against his lips.

  He looked momentarily stunned, something I understood. My words had been the trigger for his anger last night, but I clung to the hope that maybe this, using my body to convey what my words did not would help.

  So I kissed him again, deeper this time, a little bit harder as I pushed my tongue between his lips.

  He yielded, and then kissed me back, moving his mouth over mine in that expert way that had always made me weak. Still made me weak, but that weakness was undergirded by urgency.

  So I reveled in the flavor of him, coffee, Alex, perfection that I might soon lose forever.

  As I kissed him, I let my hands roam his body, touched every part of him that I could find, wanting to remember all that I could, tell him how sorry I was, how much I loved him.

  He touched me back, his hands moving as expertly as his mouth did, coaxing a moan from my throat when he played with my taut nipples, using just the right amount of force.

  As he reached into my pants I reached into his, desperate to feel his velvety steel shaft against my palm, remember the feel of the wetness leaking from him against my hands.

  I stroked his length up and down, feeling deep satisfaction like I always did when he moaned his pleasure at my touch.

  I tried to hold onto those sounds, those sensations, wanting this moment to last forever.

  I released him and walked backward, hoisting myself up on the counter.

  I had no idea if it could support me, but I planned to find out.

  I wasted no time in relieving myself of my pants, and watched with impatient fascination as Alex did the same.

  He stopped in front of me for a moment, and I looked at him, knowing my eyes were pleading.

  A plea he ignored.

  He waited a moment longer, and then, he anchored a hand on my hip and I arched my back, spread my legs as wide as I could.

  He stepped between them, and then guided himself to my core.

  I broke eye contact and looked down at our bodies, his cock hovering at my entrance, my body poised to take him.

  I arched again, pulled the first inch or so of his length inside.

  I breathed out deep as he did, and then watched as he pushed himself inside me slowly, filling me inch by inch.

  Filling me in a way I knew no one else ever would.

  When he was fully seated, I looked down at the place where we were connected, wanting to remember this too.

  And when he moved, I lost myself on the sensation. I gripped the countertop tight. I wanted to touch Alex, but I didn’t dare risk it, didn’t want my vulnerability in this moment to override my good sense and make me say something I shouldn’t. Not again. So instead of holding him close, telling him how sorry I was, how much I still loved him, I took the pleasure he offered, let myself float away on it, giving my apology in the only way I thought I could.

  Praying he would hear it.

  I just squeezed the counter tighter, squeezed around his cock, rocked my hips, thrashed my body until my orgasm pushed me over the edge.

  And even still, in that moment, when instinct told me to reach for him, I didn’t allow myself.

  Instead I kept my grip on the counter, rode out the pleasure, held the counter tight until I finally came down.

  When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was Alex looking at me, his expression guarded.

  I didn’t let my gaze linger, not wanting him to see the hope in it.

  Instead I pushed against his chest, and he stepped back, the feeling of loss immediate when he exited me. I swallowed that feeling of loss and then looked at him, stared deep into his eyes and let him see all of the emotion I felt, all that I tried to hide and no longer could.

  “Alex, I meant what I said last night. We deserve to give this a chance,” I finally said.

  His expression didn’t change at all. Instead he cleared his throat and said, “Perhaps the words weren’t as kind as they could have been, but I meant what I said. If you’re not out of here within the hour, security will escort you out.”

  His expression was cold now, but I still searched it for something, some shred of hope I could hold on to.

  “So that’s it?” I said, my voice quivering.

  “That’s it. Good-bye, Mia,” Alex said.

  He left without another word.

  I stared at the door after he left, torn between praying he would come back and hating myself for wanting that. He’d made his feelings, his lack of them, clear, and it was up to me to listen.

  Still, I stood, trying to deny reality even as it started to sink in.

  Soon, I could no longer resist what was plain.

  Alex and I had never been and never would be.

  Acknowledging that truth was a stab in the chest, and I stood in his penthouse that I had been stupid enough to hope might one day be my home, my heart shattering into a million pieces.

  Twenty-Seven

  Alex

  Two weeks later

  *

  I woke up the same way I had every day since she had left.

  That day, when I knew Mia was gone, I’d gone back to the penthouse. Partly hoped she might still be there, that she might try again, but even more, I’d wanted to see the place, feel nothing, convince myself that I was finally over her.

  Except, the instant I walked into the penthouse I had felt the coldness, the emptiness, and knew that she was gone. I told myself it would just take some time, that soon enough she would again be a distant memory, eventually not even that.

  So I had stayed, certain that after enough time, that would be true. But as the days had passed, I hadn’t been able to leave.

  It was torture, torture that I was starting to think I deserved.

  Being in the penthouse reminded me of all the times that I had spent with her, making love with her, yes, but the other things too. Silly conversations about her ceramic mugs, mugs that I noticed she had left behind.

  The times when I would rise in the morning before she awoke and watch her, just soak in her beauty, feel the peace that I only felt when she was around.

  Being there without her was the opposite of peace. I’d thought getting back at Mia would free me, but the exact opposite had happened. Once the anger had finally cleared enough for me to think straight, I’d looked around, realized that the satisfaction I’d hoped to get was nothing compared to what I had lost.

  Mia had been right. We did work, or we could have, anyway. The price of finding out would have been forgiveness, a price I didn’t know that I could pay.

  It should have been easy enough to say the words, to tell her how I felt, then and now, except that would have been the most difficult thing of all.

  I had built a fortune, had enacted what I thought would be my ultimate revenge, but what I had never been able to do was get over my past.

  No matter what I did, what I accumulated, I’d never been a
ble to rid myself of the fear that I would never be good enough. And revealing myself again, to risk her turning me away, changing her mind, breaking me once more was something I didn’t know if I’d be able to recover from.

  In the end, I told myself to settle, cut bait and move on.

  I had my revenge, as hollow as it was. My pride too. I’d take them both and move on. I lifted myself from the floor outside the bedroom door.

  When I had been able to sleep, I had slept there, wanting even that surface level of closeness to her even though it only served to remind me of what I had lost.

  But that had to end.

  I kept telling myself that as I moved through the motions of preparing for my day.

  When I arrived at my office, I made a call to my lawyer.

  “Sell the penthouse property. Price is not important, but I want it gone,” I said.

  The woman confirmed my instructions and I hung up the phone, tried to lose myself in work, something that was getting harder and harder.

  But this was a good first step.

  Selling the place would mean I could begin to put Mia out of my mind.

  Once that happened, there’d only be one last thing to take care of.

  I discarded the files that I had been only half paying attention to and flipped through the file containing her father’s note.

  I knew what the papers said by heart, had taken a personal interest in having them drawn up, so flipping through them was more an activity to soothe myself than a real attempt at reading them.

  I still hadn’t decided what to do.

  My first instinct was to foreclose on it. At the very least I should follow through so I could continue to say I was a man of my word. That was all I’d have left anyway, so why not take it?

  But something kept me from pulling the trigger.

  I closed the folder and turned myself back to other activities, though Mia was never far from my mind.

  I moved through the next few weeks… Actually, I didn’t know how I moved through the next few weeks.

  Nothing about that time was clear except how much I was hurting.

  I thought that as the days passed I would feel better, start to get used to her being gone again, make peace with my decision. But that didn’t happen.

  Now that I’d had Mia in my life, in my presence for those precious weeks, I had a clear contrast with the emptiness of my current existence.

  There was no way I could pretend that the half-life I had been living was real, was anything at all, not when I had experienced those moments with her.

  And that realization was doubly painful because I knew I would never have that again.

  At the knock on my office door I looked up, realized that it was well after seven in the evening, something I hadn’t noticed before.

  Before I could respond, the door opened and Marcos walked in.

  “Who let you in here?” I asked, though I didn’t have the energy to put my usual force behind the words.

  “I have my ways,” he responded, his comeback as unenergetic as mine.

  He wasted no time sitting across from me, and I noticed his expression was serious, none of the usual relaxed Marcos present.

  “Don’t you have things you should be doing?” I asked, hoping that I could get him to move on, let this go, knowing that hope was futile.

  “Nope. I’m exactly where I’m needed,” he said.

  “Don’t you think you’re needed with your wife and family?” I asked, my voice sounding bitter, something I was embarrassed about but wasn’t able to control.

  “I am with my family, Alex,” he said quietly.

  I sighed, leaned back against the chair.

  “Let’s get this over with, Marcos,” I said.

  “How long are you gonna let this go on, man?” he asked.

  At the very least, I appreciated him not beating around the bush, but that still didn’t mean I was in any mood to answer his questions.

  So instead of doing that, I feigned ignorance. “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “I’m talking about the fact that you’ve been walking around like a kicked puppy for over a month now.”

  “I’ve just been busy,” I said.

  “Yeah, busy pining after Mia,” he said.

  Hearing him say her name was like a quick little stab to the gut, and I couldn’t stop my visceral reaction. When I was sure Marcos hadn’t missed.

  Still, I tried to play it off.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “Yeah, you do. So cut the shit, Alex,” he said sternly.

  “You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?” I asked.

  “Not until I get an answer that’s satisfactory,” he responded.

  “Fine,” I said, surrendering in defeat. “What do you want to know?”

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “She left,” I replied.

  “And not on the best of terms, I take it,” he said.

  “No,” I said, deciding not to point out the degree to which that was an understatement.

  “So how bad did you fuck things up?” he asked.

  I looked at him, tilted my head. “Why do you think I did the fucking up?” I asked.

  “Call it a hunch. Besides, she loved you, and she wasn’t the one carrying a decades-old grudge, so it seems like at least even money that this is all your fault,” he said.

  “We’re family. Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” I asked, more an attempt to deflect the implication of his words than anything else.

  “I am on your side. Watching you like this, pretending that everything is okay when I know it’s not, is not gonna help you or anybody else.”

  “What do you want me to say, Marcos?” I asked.

  “I don’t want you to say anything to me. I want you to get your head out of your ass and go get your woman so you can be happy,” he said.

  “You really think it’s that simple?” I asked.

  I didn’t believe it was, and I wasn’t asking the question for an answer, but Marcos gave me one anyway.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say I have a little experience in this arena.”

  “But you and Shay…that’s different,” I said.

  “Not as different as you’d like to think. We had to go through our shit, and realize that we were better together than we were apart. We don’t have the history that you and Mia have. So if we can keep it together, you guys can too,” he said.

  “It’s not that simple,” I said, hating that I sounded defeated, but knowing that in reality I was.

  “Doesn’t have to be. And I’m not gonna say that it’s gonna work out. I don’t know what you did, and maybe it’s something she can’t forgive, but I do know this, you will regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t try,” he said.

  “And what? Go run to her, pour my heart out, have her stomp on it. Again. She shit all over me, Marcos!”

  Saying those words reminded me of what had happened before, the hurt that I had experienced at her hands, hardened my wavering resolve that I had been right to let her leave.

  I looked at Marcos, waiting for him to acknowledge that I was correct, but he scoffed, looked at me like he was looking at an impatient child.

  “You gotta let that shit go, Alex,” he said.

  “What?” I asked, not sure that I believed what he was saying.

  “She fucked up. You never fucked up before?” he asked.

  “You know the answer to that question,” I answered.

  “Yeah, but do you? You were what, nineteen years old? Barely graduated high school. No prospects, and you expected the woman to marry you?”

  “You say that like it’s unbelievable.”

  “It is unbelievable, and I don’t think you believe it. I don’t know what your deal is, but have you thought about it from her perspective? It’s not like she was simply rejecting you. She was making
what she thought was the smart choice for you and for her. She handled it the wrong way, and you know how I feel about how those fuckers treated you when you were a kid. But you’re not hurting them, Alex. And I looked into Mia’s eyes. She cares about you. She loves you. Now you can let that shit from the past continue to weigh you down and keep you miserable, or you can let it go and get your woman back. The choice is yours,” he said.

  He didn’t wait for me to respond and instead stood and exited my office without another word.

  Twenty-Eight

  Mia

  *

  “We have to get the rest of those orders processed and sent out tonight,” my father said.

  I didn’t look up as I answered, “I’ll have them before the end of the day.”

  I didn’t bother to tell my father that rushing was probably futile anyway. The call indicating that Alex had made good on his promise could come at any time. Knowing that almost pushed me back into despair.

  I shoved the feeling off. The call could come, but until it did, I would do my job.

  My father lingered a moment, clearly wanting me to look at him, but I didn’t.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when he gave up and exited the trailer that served as the business office.

  I had been home for a while, but had taken a couple of extra weeks to try to recover before I had come back to work.

  When he found out that I was back, he’d expected me in the next day, but I had told him in no uncertain terms that I would still need some more time.

  The time hadn’t helped.

  I was still broken, felt heavy, weak, and most of all in pain.

  I knew I had done the right thing by ending things with Alex, despite the consequences and how it made me feel, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  Every day I missed him, missed him even more, and still had to deal with what that said about me. The man had made his position clear, had told me and shown me exactly what he thought of me. How could I still want him?

  I didn’t know, but it was a moot point anyway.

  It wasn’t like Alex had reached out to me, had done anything at all to make me think anything had changed.

  I wasn’t sure whether I was happy or sad about that.

  Anyway, I told myself that he had been very upfront, had made no qualms about what exactly he wanted and what he expected, and me pining after him was a low I hated myself for not being able to avoid.