Fare Game

by Cade Haddock Strong

  Riley leaned forward to graze Kay’s breasts with her own, and as they moved together, she delighted at the sensation of her nipples brushing over Kay’s. Her hand made its way inside the waistband of Kay’s jeans. “Off,” she muttered. Kay complied, shifting beneath her to wriggle out of her pants and Riley followed suit, rolling over to kick her pants to the floor.

  Once they were naked, their bodies came together again. Riley arched her back as Kay circled her breasts first with her fingers and then with her tongue. Kay’s lips gradually moved down her body, gliding over her stomach and to the inside of her thighs before finding the warm wet mound between her legs.

  “Yes, Kay, yes,” Riley cried out as Kay’s tongue teased her swollen clit. She closed her eyes and grabbed the sheets, letting the orgasm build slowly. Her chest tightened, and she suddenly felt weightless. When it crashed through her, its intensity caused her to buck up against Kay before she collapsed on the bed. “Jesus, Kay. I don’t think I’ve ever come that hard in my life.”

  Kay crawled back up next to her. “I aim to please.”

  Riley rolled on top of Kay and kissed her playfully. “Now it’s time to see how wet you are.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A few hours later, Riley woke to the pitter-patter of a soft rain hitting the skylight above the bed. She smiled at the feel of Kay’s naked body nestled against her. She reluctantly extricated herself from the long, strong arm curled around her waist, and padded to the bathroom.

  “You okay?” Kay asked when Riley slipped back into bed.

  “Yes. Shh. Go back to sleep.”

  It was light outside the next time Riley opened her eyes. It was still raining, but there was no longer a warm body next to her in bed. She heard water running in the bathroom and called out, “Kay?”

  A fully dressed Kay wandered out of the bathroom, dabbing her face with a towel. “Morning, baby.”

  Riley rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. “Good morning.”

  “I was just about to walk down to the bakery to get us some breakfast.”

  “What time is it?” Riley asked.

  “Almost nine.”

  “Wow, I can’t believe I slept so late. Give me a sec to get dressed and I’ll join you.”

  “Great, I’ll go down and make some coffee while you get ready,” Kay replied and started toward the bedroom door, pausing midway. “Do you want to borrow a T-shirt or anything?”

  “A T-shirt would be great, thanks.”

  “I’d offer you some jeans too, but I think they’d be too long.”

  Riley nodded. Kay had to be a good three or four inches taller than her. “You’re probably right. No problem, I can wear the jeans I had on last night.” She looked around on the floor. “Assuming I can find them,” she said with a wry smile.

  On her way to the dresser, Kay reached down to grab Riley’s jeans off the floor and tossed them in her direction. She pulled out a long sleeve T-shirt and held it up. “Will this work?”

  “Yep,” Riley said as she rolled out of bed.

  Kay ogled Riley’s naked body, running her gaze from Riley’s blue eyes down to her brightly painted toes. She set the shirt on the bed and trailed a finger down Riley’s arm as she strode toward the door.

  “Oh, and Kay?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you have a toothbrush I could borrow?”

  “Oh, of course,” Kay walked back toward the bathroom, rummaged around in the linen closet and set an unopened toothbrush on the edge of the vanity. “There’s toothpaste in the drawer next to the sink. Feel free to help yourself to whatever else you need.”

  “Thanks, see you downstairs in a minute.”

  The coffee was finished brewing by the time Riley made her way downstairs. Kay handed her a steaming mug of coffee and said, “It looks like the rain is finally letting up, but I’ll bring an umbrella just in case.”

  Riley leaned on the kitchen island and blew on her coffee to cool it down. “So, what sort of stuff does this bakery have?”

  “The usual, muffins and bagels, but I go there because they make the best breakfast burritos in Atlanta.”

  “Yum, I’m totally getting one of those.”

  “The only problem is, they’re almost too big. I turn into a sloth after I eat one.”

  “So, not your go-to meal before a run?”

  “Yeah, not so much.”

  “How many days a week do you run?”

  “I try to run four or five days a week if I can,” Kay replied, “although, even if I don’t run, I try to get some sort of exercise every day.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty impressive. No wonder you have a body to die for,” Riley said and gave her a wink. “I try to stay in shape but I’m not as devoted as you are. Maybe hanging out with you will be good for my health.”

  “Might just be. In the meantime, hurry up and finish your coffee. I’m starving.”

  Riley took a few more sips from her mug and set it on the counter. “Ready when you are.”

  The sun made a brief appearance while they walked to the bakery, but it was drizzling again when they stepped outside after breakfast. Kay popped open her umbrella. “Come here,” she said, curling an arm over Riley’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to get wet.”

  About halfway home, the sky opened up. Kay and Riley huddled together under the umbrella and started to run, but it was no use, they were both drenched by the time they got to the front door. “Shower?” Kay asked as they stood dripping in her foyer.

  “Yeah, that would feel good.” Riley shivered. “I’m freezing. I can’t believe how much the temperature dropped overnight.”

  “Here, let me help you out of the wet clothes.”

  “Oh, aren’t you the sly one,” Riley said with a laugh. “I know you’re just trying to get me naked.”

  Kay held up her arms. “Guilty as charged.”

  They both stripped out of their wet clothes and ran upstairs to her oversized shower.

  “Ooh, this feels wonderful,” Riley said as soon as she stepped under the spray of hot water.

  Kay grabbed the bottle of bath gel, squeezed a large blob of the blue liquid into her hands and began to knead Riley’s shoulders. It didn’t take long for her hands to drift downward to caress Riley’s bare chest. “I can think of a great way to spend a cold rainy day,” Kay said.

  Riley leaned back against her, giving Kay full access to her erect nipples. “Oh, really. What did you have in mind? Watching football?”

  “Not exactly,” Kay replied. She rested her chin on Riley’s shoulder and whispered, “I was thinking of something a little more interactive.”

  The familiar ache between Riley’s legs made a return appearance. She turned in Kay’s arms and playfully kissed her lips. “What is it that you had in mind?”

  Kay turned off the water, handed Riley a towel and led her back into the bedroom. They gently made love before falling back to sleep to the sound of the rain on the roof.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was almost noon when Kay woke up again. She looked over at the naked body sprawled across her bed and her stomach stirred with emotion. She was whipped, there was no doubt about it. She wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the afternoon in bed with Riley, but reality reared its ugly head and signaled an end to their idyllic morning. Kay had no choice. She had to go to the office. She stared up at the ceiling and watched the rain splash on the skylights over the bed. With each passing day, she became more deeply involved with Concordia. She had to put a stop to it, and soon, lest it consume her and bring Logan to its knees.

  As if sensing her angst, Riley stirred and snuggled up against her. Kay cursed Concordia. It was like she was being tested. What kind of idiot would leave a beautiful woman in a warm bed to venture out into a cold gray day? Her ethics won out and she gently shook Riley awake. “Hey, baby. I’m sorry, but I have to get up.”

  Riley rubbed her eyes and mumbled, “Um, what?”r />
  “I have to go to the office.”

  Riley slowly sat up and leaned against one of the overstuffed pillows. “But it’s Sunday…and didn’t you work all day yesterday?” She stifled a yawn. “Come on, stay in bed with me.”

  “I wish I could,” Kay replied, “but I can’t. I have something important to take care of and it can’t wait.”

  Riley pouted and began to protest.

  “Riley, please. We need to get up, now.” The words came out more harshly than she intended, and the expression on Riley’s face change from post sex blissful to like whoa, what?

  She patted Riley on the arm. “Listen, I’m sorry. I just…I’m under a lot of pressure to get something done.”

  The smile returned to Riley’s face. “Fine, but if you’re going to the office, I am too. I’ve got a ton of stuff I need to catch up on, and if I can’t spend the afternoon in bed with you, I might as well go to work.”

  A wave of panic swept through Kay, but it abated as she considered the situation. There was no need for Riley’s presence at the office to impact her plans. Their offices were on different floors and at opposite ends of the large glass building that was Logan Headquarters.

  They drove separate cars to the office since Riley was expected at her parents’ house for Sunday dinner at five p.m. sharp. They parked next to each other in the nearly empty employee lot. “Text me if you get hungry or thirsty,” Kay said as they rode up in the elevator. “Maybe we can grab coffee later at the deli across the street.”

  The elevator jerked to a stop at Riley’s floor. She gave Kay a soft kiss on the lips and stepped off. “Will do,” she said as the doors slid shut.

  As she strode across the seventh floor to her office, Kay let out a sigh of relief. There was not a soul in sight and all of the offices that lined the perimeter of the room were dark. She flipped the switch on her small desk lamp. She preferred the soft light it offered to the stark fluorescent lights overhead.

  She checked her watch. It was one o’clock on the dot. As much as she wanted to sneak into Greg’s office right away just to get it over with, she thought it would be wiser to wait a bit. In truth, she didn’t know exactly how sophisticated Logan’s security was, and it was possible cameras captured her every move, at least when she was outside of people’s personal offices. She was banking on the assumption that Logan didn’t monitor inside individual offices. That would be creepy, and she didn’t think the top brass at Logan was that paranoid. She certainly hoped not.

  At any rate, working for a while before she wandered toward Greg’s office seemed like the safer bet. Like the last time, when she’d downloaded the files off his computer, she’d concocted a story about looking for a report she’d left on his desk in case she was caught entering or leaving his office.

  Exactly an hour later, she stood, pulled a small screwdriver from her purse, and stuffed it in her pocket. The office furniture at Logan could very well have come from IKEA, and she was pretty confident she could jimmy open the locks on Greg’s desk without much effort. As she started for the door, her phone pinged to announce an incoming text, but she didn’t stop to check the screen. If she did, she worried she might lose her nerve.

  The door to Greg’s office was unlocked, and this time, she left it open when she stepped inside, hoping it would make her presence in his office look less suspicious if she were caught. She marched toward his desk but froze before she got there. It was like her courage evaporated in thin air. She was about to flee when a photo above Greg’s desk caught her eye. It depicted him accepting some aviation industry award. The snide look on his face was enough to push her forward. She couldn’t give up now.

  Three large file folder-size drawers flanked the right side of his desk. Screwdriver in hand, she tried each drawer. The first one was unlocked, same with the second and the third, and all three drawers were completely empty minus a few stray paperclips. She stared at them in disbelief. She thought back to the last time she’d snuck into his office and she was certain they’d been locked. Hadn’t they? She slowly slid each one shut, returned the screwdriver to her pocket and hurried across the carpet, pausing at the office door to make sure the coast was clear. It wasn’t. Riley had just rounded the corner and was approaching Kay’s office door.

  “Over here,” Kay called out, hoping she came across much more calmly than she felt.

  Riley peered in her direction and held up a paper plate weighed down by two massive slices of pizza. “I brought you something to eat.”

  Kay forced a smile and tried to push aside the panic. How much had Riley seen? “I didn’t find it,” she muttered.

  “Didn’t find what?”

  Kay gestured in the general direction of Greg’s office. “The report I was looking for.” At least that part was true. She hadn’t found what she’d been looking for. She hadn’t found anything at all.

  Riley looked confused. “Um, sorry to hear that,” she said and nodded toward the plate in her hand. “Are you hungry? A few of my coworkers are in the office today and they ordered in pizza. I sent you a text, but you didn’t respond so I figured I’d just bring you up some. I don’t dare have any because my mother would murder me if I spoiled my dinner. She always makes roasted chicken for Sunday…”

  Kay struggled to focus. She took the plate from Riley and simply said, “Thanks.”

  Riley gently touched her arm. “Kay, are you okay? You seem a little bit out of it.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just have a lot on my mind.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The tires of Riley’s car crunched on the gravel as she made her way up her parents’ long, winding driveway. She cursed when she eyed the clock on her dashboard. 5:21. Her mother would not be pleased. She’d left the office at three, thinking she had plenty of time to run home, shower, change into something her mother would deem appropriate, and drive to Buckhead, but traffic on I-75 had been even more horrible than usual.

  As she’d crawled along the highway, she couldn’t shake the feeling something bizarre was going on with Kay. When Riley had brought the pizza up to her, she’d acted so weird. Like she’d gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar, which Riley deduced, meant her visit to Greg’s office hadn’t been wholly justified.

  Even though they’d become intimate, Riley still didn’t know Kay all that well. Most of the time, she was charming and funny and sweet, but once or twice, Riley had seen a flash of something—fear or frustration—cross her face. If there was something upsetting Kay, she was determined to figure out what it was. And she hoped it would explain Kay’s odd behavior at the office that afternoon.

  Riley cursed again when her parents’ house came into view. As expected, her brother Bobby’s black SUV was parked in the apron near the garage. It was the white Mercedes sedan next to it that was the problem. Apparently, Riley’s Auntie Jo and her husband had also been invited to dinner. Fucking fabulous. As if her mother wasn’t bad enough, Auntie Jo was always trying to set her up with so-and-so’s son or neighbor. Too bad Riley was too chickenshit to tell them she wasn’t into men. If only they had gaydar…

  She parked next to Bobby’s car and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. Her mood improved drastically when she climbed out of the car and spotted the car seat in the back of Bobby’s SUV. She couldn’t wait to see his brand new baby girl, Carly. His wife had gone into labor the day before Riley left for Tokyo, and she’d only seen Carly once at the hospital right after she was born. If she played her cards right, hopefully, she could spend most of the evening playing with the baby and ignoring everyone else.

  Bobby greeted her at the door, Carly gurgling in his arms. “Oh, she’s so beautiful,” Riley cooed. She gave her brother a kiss hello, set her purse on the table near the front door and shrugged off her cotton jacket. “Can I hold her?”

  Bobby handed her the baby, and she cuddled Carly into the crook of her arm. She was so small. Her little hands were curled into balls and she had the most amazing long thick eyelashes
that fluttered when she blinked. Riley couldn’t take her eyes off her. “Oh, Bobby, you and Lynn are so fortunate. She’s perfect. You better watch out, I might take her home with me.”

  “You’re welcome to babysit,” Bobby replied.

  “Oh, I’d love to. Anytime,” she said, although she doubted he and Lynn would ever ask. Even though they only lived forty-five minutes apart, they rarely saw one another outside of family events. She looked up at him. “Where’s Mom?”

  Bobby gestured toward the kitchen and wandered into the neighboring room, leaving Riley standing in the foyer with the baby. The telltale sounds of a football game came from the study, and her brother was probably eager to get back to it. She and Bobby were barely two years apart, but they’d never been close. There was no real reason; they were just different and had generally ignored each other since childhood.

  She was much closer to her big brother Beau, but he lived in Singapore and he and his long-term girlfriend, Shelia, only made it home once or twice a year, usually when work brought one of them to the US. Beau was the only person in Riley’s family who knew she was gay. She’d never bothered to tell Bobby. She didn’t think he’d care all that much one way or another, but they didn’t talk about anything personal. When Bobby’s wife Lynn was pregnant with Carly, Riley was pretty sure she was the last member of the Bauer family to learn the first grandchild was on the way. It was like telling her had been an afterthought.

  When she stepped into the kitchen, her mother looked up from whatever she was cooking. “Hi, honey.”

  Riley gingerly shifted the baby from her right arm to her left and reached down to snatch a piece of cheese from a platter on the counter. “Hey, Mom.”

  Her mother smiled. “Look at you, you’re such a natural with Carly.”

  She grimaced slightly. Her mother’s comment was a dig. Riley sure would make a good mother if only… “She’s such a good baby,” Riley replied as she walked around the counter to give her mother a kiss. “How come you didn’t tell me Auntie Jo was coming for dinner?”