Arm Candy

by Jessica Lemmon

  I’m his.

  He rocks into me again, one long, hard thrust. Over and over until the air swells with sounds of pleasure—mine and his.

  His guttural growls mingle with my breathy moans. Soon we’re working up a sweat, pillows tumbling to the ground as our flesh slaps. I shove against his chest to push him over, to take over, but he doesn’t allow it. Trapping my hands over my head, he gives me a cocky smile and purposely slows his movements.

  A sluggish reverse out…then a quick plunge in.

  “Ohh.”

  He extracts the sound from me without trying, and then does it again.

  “Come for me, Gracie.” He glides back, then forward, this time adding a trick we’ve tried once before. “I’m going to count down from three, and you’re going to come so hard, you’ll beg me to stop.”

  I think back to the hottest phone sex I’ve ever had—okay the only phone sex I’ve ever had—and a ripple of pleasure blasts through me at the idea of coming so hard I’ll be begging him to stop.

  Worth a try.

  “Three,” he commands. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.”

  “Two.” He releases my wrist and teases my breast. “Feel it building?” He’s as breathless as I am.

  I manage a weak nod.

  “Gracie.” He rewards me with another thrust, and another. “Give it to me.”

  That’s all it takes.

  I coil, clinging to his back as wave after wave of my orgasm washes over me. And when he continues working toward his own release, I coil tighter still, my spent muscles spasming within until I’m sure I can’t take it anymore.

  I come again, begging him to finish because I can’t take another second of pleasure. Finally he gives in.

  Even during Davis’s orgasm, my body greedily takes another. Sweat coats my hairline, my breasts, my stomach. A ragged breath wrings itself from my lungs. My arms and legs go limp from exhaustion.

  Davis gives me his weight, lying against me, embedded deep. His lips find my neck, his warm breath tickling my skin.

  “Fuck, we’re good at that,” he says.

  “Yeah, we are.”

  He pushes to his elbows and studies me for a long moment. I can see what he’s not saying as plain as day. My heart kicks my ribs in terrified anticipation, but instead of saying the three words that could send me into a panic attack, Davis says three very different ones.

  “Zombies and beer?”

  It’s a cowardly move on my part, but I take the reprieve. “Zombies and beer.”

  —

  I have Monday off, which is a dream, considering McGreevy’s will be slow and I wouldn’t make much money anyway.

  I’m at Davis’s house. He sits on the floor between my legs, his eyes on the screen as another hapless zombie meets a swift and merciless end. I’m massaging a particularly troublesome spot on Davis’s right shoulder, which must be tender given the way he grunts.

  I lean to whisper into his ear, lightening my touch, “Office work is killing you.”

  “I don’t work that hard.”

  He does so. I harrumph.

  “Eight to five at a desk isn’t exactly coal mining.”

  “No, but moving that mouse all day and not moving your hot body isn’t doing you any favors.”

  “I work out.” He digs a handful of potato chips out of the bag and munches.

  “I’m jealous of your metabolism,” I grumble. “I too would like to sit on the floor and eat an entire bag of calories.”

  He drops the bag to the coffee table and turns, wrapping his arms around my waist and looking up at me.

  “Then do it,” he says.

  I snort. “In case you haven’t noticed, my hips aren’t as narrow as yours.”

  He grabs a handful of my ass-slash-thigh and squeezes. “And thank God for that. Your body is my dream. Or do you need me to prove it to you?”

  I brought takeout from McGreevy’s for our dinner. We ate sandwiches, then collapsed on the couch. We haven’t taken our clothes off yet, which is a record for us.

  “Why the smile, Gracie Lou?”

  At a loss for a clever response, I decide to be frank. “Just…you.”

  His eyes grow warm, long lashes dipping low as his mouth spreads into a slow smile. “Are you staying?”

  “Why?” My eyes go to the screen. “Going to have nightmares if I don’t?”

  “Possibly. I have a nightlight, though, so don’t feel pressured to stay if you can’t manage.”

  I run my fingers through his respectably messy hair, thinking of reasons to go home. I come up blank.

  “I brought a change of clothes.”

  “Good.” He joins me on the couch and drops the chip bag onto my lap. “Eat all the chips you want.”

  I lean against him and pluck a few crisp, round chips from the bag. His heart thuds against my back. On TV a katana blade slices the air and blood spurts from one of the zombies.

  My shoulders shake with laughter.

  “Like that?” Davis asks.

  “I don’t know about us, Price.” I snuggle deeper against him. His arms lock around my stomach and I pull out another potato chip, reach over my head, and feed it to him. He crunches it happily.

  “I do, Gracie,” he finally says.

  Happy, eating potato chips, and resting on Davis’s solid form, I decide that his knowing might be enough for both of us.

  Davis

  I’m finishing my espresso two minutes before work when Grace comes downstairs wearing my T-shirt and her own floral pajama bottoms. I freeze at the bottom of the stairs, smiling at her messy hair as much as the cute, sleepy expression on her face.

  “I won’t disturb you,” she says as she steps into the kitchen. “I know you have to work, like, now. You should have woken me up and told me to leave.”

  God. She’s my favorite habit.

  I kiss her forehead and cuddle her warm, cotton-clad body closer. “You don’t have to leave, Gracie. You won’t bother me.”

  “How do you know? I can be obnoxious.” Her hands find my suit jacket sleeves, and the contrast between me dressed to the hilt and her barely dressed is nothing short of charming.

  “I like you obnoxious.” I deliver another kiss, this one to her mouth, and walk to my office. “It’s your best quality.” At the doorway I turn. “I’ll break for lunch. If you leave before then, don’t you dare do it without saying goodbye.”

  “Okay.”

  I nod and duck into my office, log on, and crack my knuckles. It’s go time.

  By lunchtime I’m ready to call it a day, which…never happens. I’m aware of Grace in my house. She’s quiet, but every time I hear the ripple of the newspaper or the clink of a spoon on the edge of a coffee mug, I want to go to her.

  I send a quick email and give myself permission to stop for thirty minutes.

  Grace is in the living room, spraying a plant with a mister. She’s standing on her toes to reach it, which has the added effect of raising her red long-sleeved shirt a few inches and showing off her lower back. The jeans cup her round bottom and her hair is down, her waves chaotic.

  “I go away for a few hours and come back to you more beautiful. What gives?”

  Her smile bursts onto her face, the sun streaming through the window catching the diamond stud in her nose.

  “I was going to leave, but I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye, and I didn’t want to interrupt you. Plus, I make amazing grilled cheese sandwiches. Want one?” She relinquishes my mister to the plant stand and walks by me en route to the kitchen.

  “I can’t turn down grilled cheese.”

  She chatters about various cheese types and mayo, then tomato and pickles and the preference of one over the other. Each has its merits, we decide.

  While she talks, I remember the Grilled Cheese of Doom on the anniversary of my equally doomed wedding day. I can’t call up the loneliness, though. Especially with Grace here. It’s great to have her here.

  Here, in my bed, in m
y kitchen—in my life, is…Well. She makes everything full instead of empty.

  I could get used to it.

  I think I’m already used to it.

  When Hanna left me at the altar, Grandma Rose was the first person I saw when I flew home. I had to sober up for a few days first before breaking the news to her. She took the news well. With a head shake and a cluck of the tongue. Then she gave me a piece of advice I didn’t believe at the time.

  There’ll be a woman, Davis, who will come along and make you rethink love and marriage.

  At the time, I swore I’d never succumb to either of those plagues again.

  Now, watching Grace carefully cut my sandwich into triangles, I know I was remiss to disregard the advice of the wisest senior citizen I know.

  “Voilà,” Grace announces with flair. She slices her own sandwich before settling at the kitchen table, her plate next to mine. Our two sandwiches, plates, and glasses of water, side by side.

  I take my seat. I take a bite. I reward her with an ecstasy-infused moan and exaggerated eye roll. “Best sandwich of my life.”

  She playfully shoves my shoulder.

  I polish off the first half and wipe my buttery fingers on a paper napkin. “You’re welcome to leave a few things here, you know.”

  Grace, sandwich in hand, blinks at me.

  “You wouldn’t have to pack a bag every time you wanted to stay if you kept a change of clothes and a toothbrush here.”

  “You have to work.” She puts her sandwich down and brushes her fingers together.

  “So do you. But in between you’re welcome here. Hell, I come to your work all the time and hang around.”

  This earns me a brittle smile.

  “What would that look like?” she asks. “Would I call first? Swing by unannounced? Are you going to give me a key?”

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but…“Sure. You can have a key.”

  “Davis.” Her tone is exasperated. She bites the corner of her lip like she’s deciding whether or not she should say what’s on her mind. Then she does. “Are you saying you want me to move in?”

  “Gracie, no. I’m trying to be pragmatic.” Moving in is an extreme step, even for me. But just as I’m about to tell her I’m not remotely interested in her living here, I realize I kind of am. I sure as hell can’t tell her that. “All I know is that I want more.”

  An expression akin to panic contorts her features.

  “Whatever that looks like to you,” I clarify.

  She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t look at me.

  “Think about it,” I say easily. I hope I’m broadcasting calm I don’t feel. “Thanks for the sammie.”

  She’s still not looking at me.

  “Gracie?”

  “I’ll think about it,” she promises.

  My desk phone purrs one ring, then two. I leave her at my kitchen table and jog to my office to answer. Fifteen minutes later, call complete, I stick my head out of the door to find Grace, but she’s gone.

  Chapter 22

  Davis

  “She’s not ready,” I tell Vince.

  We’re at the bar at McGreevy’s. Grace isn’t working tonight, but her brethren are. Whenever Candace or the other girl wanders by, I change the subject.

  “I can sense it. I rushed it.”

  “You’re going to have to back up.” Vince takes his coat off and sits down. This isn’t the first time I’ve bombarded him the second he enters the room. “What did you rush?”

  I take a drink of my beer and then another as Vince raises his hand to get Candace’s attention.

  “What can I getcha, sugar?” she asks him. He orders a draft and Candace pours his beer. She delivers it and pats my hand before walking away.

  “What was that about?” Vince asks.

  I shrug. “Beats me.”

  “Looked like she was consoling you.”

  I laught, but…was she consoling me?

  “You do look a little George Bailey sitting there.”

  I meet the eyes of my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. My tie is loose and the collar of my jacket is sticking up on one side. I jerk it into place, but Vince has a point. My posture is a cross between It’s a Wonderful Life’s downtrodden protagonist and Lord of the Rings’ lurching Gollum. I straighten my tie, then my back.

  “How long did you wait to tell Jackie you loved her?”

  “Fuck me, that’s what this is about?” Vince’s eyes go wide.

  “Thanks a lot,” I grumble, feeling worse.

  “It was after our ‘dark moment of the soul.’ ”

  He says it so seriously, I scrunch my face.

  “After you tried to pry my head out of my ass and it didn’t work,” he explains. “And after you appealed to Jackie’s sensibility. I owe you for that one. I’ll buy your beer.”

  “You’re going to have to do more than buy me a beer.” I shake my head at my own stupidity. “Grace is freaking out.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Let’s just say I know what it looks like when a woman is about to freak out.” My tone is martini dry.

  “Fair enough.” Vince lifts his glass. “When are you seeing her next?”

  “I haven’t talked to her since she left my place without a goodbye yesterday.”

  My best friend’s expression is foreboding.

  “What?” I bark.

  “Nothing. Jesus! Calm down.” Vince laughs. I might be overreacting. I’d love it if I were overreacting. “Everything is fine, Kemosabe. So you love her? So what? At least you told her that instead of cramming your head in your ass.”

  He gulps his beer.

  “Here’s the deal,” Vince says. “Tonight, meet her. If she starts any sentence with the words ‘I’ve been thinking,’ interrupt and tell her you’ve been thinking too. Tell her you didn’t mean to smother her. That you’re just so into her you got ahead of yourself.”

  His logic is stunning in its simplicity. My rigid shoulders lower a few inches.

  “It’s hard to know what to do,” he continues. “You were almost married. Then you went from forever with Hanna to being content to bang every broad in town and not get tied down.”

  “Broad? What is this? Film noir?”

  Vince laughs.

  “I don’t feel tied down.” It may be the first time I’ve admitted it aloud. “And this will not surprise you at all, but the women I dated before? I was just killing time.”

  “We don’t think deeply about that kind of stuff. We just do it. We’re doers.” Vince stops short of banging his chest like King Kong.

  “How did you get those women to want you, Davis?” Vince asks, his smile smug.

  I narrow my eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “Giving you a dose of your own advice. How did you keep them wanting more?”

  I take a breath and blow it out. I didn’t sit and psychoanalyze every nuance of what we did together, that’s how. A night of sex was followed by a normal morning, not second-guessing.

  “Shut up,” I tell my best buddy.

  “You’re worrying too much.”

  “Fuck off.”

  He spares me his next bout of laughter. We turn our attention to the television.

  But he’s smiling. I can sense it.

  The bastard.

  Grace

  It’s a rare occasion when my mother and I get together, but she’s throwing a ladies’ luncheon for a few of her single clients and asked me to help her plan. If anything can bond the Buchanan women, it’s planning a party.

  “You’re welcome to come, even though you’ve never been divorced. All single woman are welcome.”

  We’re in a spice store, and I stop at a rack of various hot chocolate mixes. I’ve had my eye on the cayenne one since we set foot in here. I pretend to be fascinated with the ingredients on the back of the tin.

  “Grace.” She drags out my name likes she’s scolding me.

  “Yes, Mom?” I place the tin on the shel
f.

  “What’s going on?”

  I could lie. I should lie. But I don’t. I put two tins of the hot chocolate into my basket and tell her the summarized truth.

  “Davis and I are serious. I think. I’ve concluded that I’ve never been serious with anyone. Not like this.”

  I frown in thought before telling her the rest of it.

  “He offered me his house key,” I whisper.

  “Oh.” She purses her lips. “That is serious. We need to sit down and talk.”

  My mother takes the shopping basket from my hands, swipes in two more tins of hot cocoa, and starts for the cash register.

  Back at her house, she pours steamed milk into four mugs and stirs in each powdered concoction. She arranges them on a tray, tops them with marshmallows, and brings them to me.

  I’m curled on her couch like a croissant. Talk about conversations you don’t want to have. And yet I’m here, because I need to talk about it. I can’t talk to Rox and I don’t know Jackie well enough, and Grandma Rose would totally rat me out. Her loyalty lies with Davis.

  I have no choice, really.

  “It’s soon,” I tell my mother. “I’ve only been seeing him a few months.”

  “I only saw your father a few months.” Her face darkens as the room fills with what we aren’t saying.

  “He and I have lunch next week,” I tell her. “He wants to repair our relationship before…before.”

  My mother bats her eyes and offers a watery smile. “Good. That’s good, honey.”

  A beat of uncomfortable silence passes, then another before she takes control of the conversation again. “So. Davis?”

  “Davis. Well, we’ve got a great thing going.” I opt for bluntness. “Great sex. Overnights. We laugh. We have fun. He takes care of me.”

  “I suppose you don’t want to hear ‘So did your father and I.’ ”

  “No thanks,” I give her a soft smile.

  “Grace, Grace, Grace.” She sits with me and hands one of the mugs over. I sip. It’s the peppermint cocoa and pretty damn delicious. “Davis is a stock analyst, right?”

  “Yes. The best in his company.”

  “He’s an overachiever.”