Trouble

by Kira Blakely

  With sudden anger, he released his hand and then yanked his pants together, zipping them with a flourish. “Jesus Christ.” He rose to his feet and stared out the window, wishing he’d just stayed with his daughter that day. Things were simpler, out there. Cartoon-watching. Eating macaroni and cheese. Outside, the traffic had ramped up, becoming bumper to bumper. Taxis blared and squawked. Everything felt sinister.

  Maybe he needed to face the disaster head-on. Yes, he and Charlotte had an immediately, physical and emotional attraction. But also, they could be partners; they could be friends. If only he gave her the opportunity. He was the fucking editor-in-chief of MMM. He could do whatever he wanted.

  “Stop being so fucking weak,” he whispered gruffly to himself, having a sudden, urgent desire for a lick of hard alcohol or even hard drugs. He hardly had those cravings any longer, having been to rehab as a younger man. But occasionally, the urgency struck at inopportune times, proving that he would always, eternally, be an addict.

  Perhaps now he was more or less addicted to Charlotte.

  A knock on the door disturbed his reverie. “Come in!” he yelled and tried to return to some kind of normalcy, at least outwardly.

  Maggie shot into the office, then, with a mighty, tooth-filled grin on her face. She shut the door behind her and then meandered toward his desk, tossing her hips flirtatiously. God, when was this going to end?

  “Hey, there, Q. Sorry about that rogue intern,” she said, her voice casual.

  “Oh, it’s fine,” Quentin said, trying to toss it away. “Really. The girl has spunk. I like that.”

  “Well, she’s going to have to take her spunk somewhere else,” Maggie said, giggling madly.

  “What? What do you mean?” Quentin asked, eyeing her darkly.

  “We can’t have an intern interrupting you in your own meetings, Q,” Maggie said, speaking like an impatient mother. “I mean, she’s rude as can be. Sure, her ideas are—”

  “Really great,” Quentin interrupted. “They’re really great ideas. You haven’t had an idea like that since you started.” He stamped his hands on either side of his waist, simmering.

  Maggie halted. “Fuck. That’s a thing to say,” she murmured finally, stretching the sad tension in the room.

  “You know I didn’t mean it,” Quentin began, bowing his head. He no longer made eye contact with her, angered at himself for hurting her. For years, she’d been one of his confidants. One of his friends.

  Before Charlotte had ignited some kind of bad boy mentality in him once more. Now, he wanted to stomp through his life, blast through people, tower over them, become the very portrait of his past self.

  “So, you fired her?” Quentin asked, his voice quiet.

  “I told her to leave. Yes,” Maggie murmured. She collapsed in the chair across form him, clearly shaken. “Quentin, if you don’t see any validity for my position any longer—”

  “Don’t be foolish,” Quentin said, his heart hammering. “You know I don’t feel that way.”

  “I don’t know what to feel,” she murmured.

  Fuck. Quentin felt yanked between two worlds. Maggie’s shrunken face was bursting slight tears from her eyes, while Charlotte was probably packing a small box of things, fired on her fourth day of work.

  “No one’s fired, Maggie,” he said firmly. “Especially not Charlotte. We need her.”

  He burst from the office and bounded toward the intern offices, his heart continuing its mad ramming against his ribcage. If Charlotte couldn’t work at the magazine, if she left New York, he wouldn’t see her again. And it would be his fault.

  The interns sat demurely, their eyes downcast, with Charlotte’s little blond-haired friend’s shoulders slumped with dismay. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen, her laptop closed, her long, brown locks missing in the sea of blondes and redheads. Quentin stood in the doorway, as one-by-one, the interns turned to face him, their faces like moons.

  “Where is she?” he asked, his voice booming.

  Pamela pointed at the elevator. “She just left. Bawling her eyes out.” She smirked as if she took pleasure in it. Her eyes cut into slits, looking dark.

  “Fuck,” Quentin murmured, turning toward the elevator and rushing, his black shoes blasting across the hardwood. He stabbed the “down” button, sensing all eyes on his back. The office was like an echoing cavern, rich with other people’s assumptions about him, about Charlotte, about Maggie.

  If he fought to bring her back, what would that show them?

  And if he didn’t fight to bring her back, just because of what they thought, what did that mean?

  The elevator swept him to the ground, where he chose a direction—north, toward their apartments—and then all-out sprinted, his breath catching and his lungs tightening. It had been years since he’d exercised, having kept a trim, muscled figure just from hanging out with his daughter. But his muscles grew loose, warm, and his body opened up to the sprint, as if this was life or death.

  The sunlight caught on Charlotte’s brunette hair as she stood at the corner, three blocks up. Her spine was arched; her back muscles quaked with tears. Quentin blasted forward in a final bit of both rage and panic, feeling as if she was falling off a cliff, and he had to catch her. He had to halt the impact.

  “Charlotte!” he cried finally, placing his hand firmly on her shoulder and ripping her back toward him.

  She spun like a ragdoll, with black makeup drawing lines down the tops of her cheeks. Her lips quivered; her eyes met his with confusion.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she whispered, her voice raspy. “Did you want to fire me again? Did you want to make sure I really got the message that you don’t want to sleep with me anymore? That you don’t like my ideas? That you don’t think I’m a good enough writer to be in the club or whatever?” She pointed a finger directly toward his muscled pectoral, showing more passion than he’d ever seen. “Because you’ve made it pretty clear. You tossed me out like a plaything. And that’s fine, Quentin. Now I know just how New York guys work. I know just how my idols—my musician idols—would treat me. If I could take back the first time I ever listened to Orpheus Arise as a teenager, I fucking would.”

  As she spoke, her voice reached a crescendo. Quentin’s eyes grew wider, taking in the gorgeous image of her. When he and his ex-girlfriends had fought, he’d felt almost nothing, instead understanding that what they’d had was never meant to last and usually rushing out the door afterward.

  But now, he felt no urgency to leave. He wanted her. He wanted all of her.

  As Charlotte began to charge into another tirade, he wrapped his arms around her waist and yanked her into him, cupping her bottom lip and then ripping her lips apart, gliding his tongue across hers. She let out a small whimper and then collapsed into him, bringing her arms around his neck and allowing him to lift her into him.

  They kissed as the traffic pulsed past, as the taxis honked brightly, as bicyclists twirled over the pavement and as pedestrians cut behind them. The entire world continued its manic racing, but they paid no mind.

  After what seemed like a tiny infinity, Quentin broke the kiss and stared down at her glittering eyes, which had filled with tears. Neither of them spoke, recognizing the depth of emotion between them. They didn’t want to interrupt the spell. It felt like a million years since they’d last faced off in the conference room. It felt like even longer since they’d made love.

  “I don’t want to fire you,” Quentin whispered. He nudged his nose against hers.

  “You didn’t show that very well,” Charlotte murmured back, her eyes filling with humor.

  “I didn’t know she was going to do that. Maggie sometimes makes decisions out of turn. And I’m sure, on some subconscious level, she’s jealous. I don’t think it takes a smart person to sense what’s between us.”

  “Well,” Charlotte began, visibly shaken. “Shit. I don’t really know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll come back to the office. Say you�
�ll help me with the Thick Soled piece. I love your idea. It’s absolutely impeccable. I want you to come to the next interview. I want you to take your place as a writer for MMM. You fucking deserve it, Charlotte. Your shyness really falls off when you care about something.”

  “Music writing is one of the only things I care about,” Charlotte admitted. “Besides this new obsession I have.” Her eyes glittered toward him. “That’s you.”

  Quentin lifted her into his arms once more, kissing her soundlessly on the nose, then the lips. His heart drummed against his chest; his cock grew insistent, pulsing out against his crotch and rubbing into Charlotte’s stomach as he eased her higher into the air.

  “I have an idea,” he murmured then. “And there’s no arguing.”

  Chapter 21

  As Quentin released her, tapping her back onto the sidewalk, Charlotte felt as if she walked on clouds. The September sun skirted from between the clouds, lighting her cheeks and firming up Quentin’s smile. He took her slim hand in his, guiding her several blocks east, with neither of them speaking, now. The sexual tension between them mounted, with the anger and the sadness and the passion from the day becoming the building blocks.

  When Maggie had fired Charlotte, Charlotte hadn’t fought back. She’d sensed it was coming, like an approaching storm, and had even sensed Maggie’s pleasure while doing it. “I normally don’t need to fire interns,” she’d explained, almost as if they were having “girl talk,” and she was divulging her deepest secrets. “But it seems you just won’t listen to logic about how meetings need to be run.”

  Of course, Charlotte had sobbed. But she’d ripped herself from the office quickly, not wanting to have Quentin catch a glimpse of her on the way out. She plotted to move from her aunt’s apartment immediately, sleeping on Rachel’s couch once more until she could find a silly waitressing or secretary gig.

  But now, Quentin had stormed out after her, finally creating a kind of resolution to this beginning of their story. Despite the non-fraternization policy, and despite her interruption during office meetings, and despite him literally kicking her out of his apartment at four in the morning the previous day, he was choosing her. He was deciding upon her.

  Quentin pushed open the door of the four-star hotel down the road, the Hilton, and walked swiftly, causing Charlotte to clack beside him with quick, heeled steps. He asked for a room from the front desk’s clerk, who slid a card across the countertop. As they were requesting an immediate room, without luggage, at three in the afternoon, there was no question what they were up to.

  The passion was mounting.

  In the elevator, Quentin shoved Charlotte against the glittering mirror, causing her to arch her back with lust. The elevator pushed them up to the twentieth floor as Quentin’s hands dove up Charlotte’s skirt, bringing his finger against the slit beneath her tights. She moaned audibly, her brain unable to calculate just how this was happening. This was a dream. It had to be.

  The elevator doors parted, the movement almost sensual, and Quentin lifted Charlotte into the air, still kissing her. He marched them to room 2044, which revealed two king-sized beds, a large hot tub in the bathroom, and expansive windows, which showed a picturesque view of the river and sun-drenched skyscrapers around them.

  He dropped Charlotte atop the mattress, his lips diving to her chest. He began to unbutton her dress, revealing the tenderness of her skin. The movements were humble, supple, almost as if he recognized how beautiful their affair truly was.

  This was special. It meant something.

  “Quentin,” Charlotte murmured, forcing his lips to rise, his eyes to connect with hers. “I think I might be falling for you too fast.” She eased her fingers through his black hair, her words quiet and simple and filled with truth. “I just thought you should know.”

  He kissed her with more purpose and removed her dress, stripping it down her legs and dropping it to the floor. He ripped her tights off, one leg at a time, and then separated her legs, exhaling gruffly into the wet, silky lips of her pussy.

  “Jesus Christ,” she breathed, hardly able to stand it. Her back arched as she waited, expectant. She felt him grow closer to her, the heat of his tongue rolling from between his lips. Finally, she cried out as his tongue rolled up from the bottom of her slit to the top. His lips caught upon the top knob, sucking gently on her clit, before diving deeper, causing her to cry out with pleasure.

  “I want to see you,” she murmured. “Please. I want you inside me. I just want you close to me.” She reached toward him, drawing him up upon her naked breasts, loving the heat and weight of him upon her. “I just want to be close to you. All the time.”

  Charlotte unbuttoned his shirt swiftly, with expert fingers, and then ripped it from his stiff, muscled shoulders, feeling at his pulsing pectorals.

  “I can’t believe I have your beautiful body at the office with me every single day,” Quentin whispered, tucking his lips down and sucking on the darkness of her nipple. “I would love to have you work there every single day, completely naked. Just typing at your desk with your tits out.”

  Charlotte laughed outrageously, knocking her head back. “I’d like to say the same to you.”

  She reached for the waist of his pants, ripped the black pants down and allowing the thick, firm staff to emerge from between his legs, dropping several drops of cum onto the flat skin of her stomach. She wrapped her fingers around its thickness, unable to reach all the way around, and eased her hand from the hilt, up to the tip of his cock, making the skin taut. As she moved, his eyes closed, showing the intensity of the moment. He bit his lip, knocking his head back.

  “Just get inside me,” Charlotte whispered, her voice harsh. “Come on, baby.”

  Knocking her body back a bit on the comforter, she eased her long legs around his taut, muscled back, and then pulsed her silky pussy upward, pressing his tip against her. Her wetness made him sigh and moan immediately. He pushed into her gradually, becoming a part of her, folding into her limbs and body with familiarity now. His body immediately began to shake with pleasure.

  He fucked her slowly, then, from above, with the maturity of an older man and the passion of a man falling in love. Charlotte nearly cried from the intense joy of it, feeling completely linked with him, the slow motions causing her brain to swirl.

  They continued like this for over a half hour, with Quentin often removing himself almost all the way out, his tip the only part of himself still within her, before gliding back into her and filling her up, pressing hard against the softness of her G-spot.

  Finally, Charlotte’s tight pussy walls began to quake with sudden orgasm, throwing the vibrations into Quentin’s rigid cock. They shared the orgasm, staring into one another’s eyes in their intimate, private hotel room. Collapsing, gasping, they wrapped their arms around one another and devolved into one another’s warmth, feeling strangely outside of time. Outside, the world had no understanding of where they were or what they were doing. Their existence was a beautiful secret.

  The afternoon continued in much this manner, with Quentin calling Maggie to tell her he couldn’t find Charlotte on the street, but to email her telling her that her job was hers, if she returned for it.

  Maggie agreed, almost begrudgingly, asking, “Where on earth did you go, then?”

  “Had a family thing,” he lied.

  Charlotte and Quentin continued to make love, eventually opening the hotel minibar and picking and choosing between the several different hard liquors and mixing various drinks together.

  “It’s a Negroni,” Charlotte said, giggling, as she served him the spicy, Italian cocktail. “I learned to make it in college.”

  “Oh,” Quentin said, sipping it and making a stern face. “So, you were an alcoholic in college? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  She devolved into another fit of giggles, folding into the warmth of his kisses.

  “You aren’t going to kick me out of this bed, are you?” she asked him softly
, swiping her finger across his eyebrow in a tender motion.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you again,” Quentin murmured. “You’ve been driving me wild, Charlotte. I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind.”

  “Where were you yesterday, anyway?” Charlotte asked, her voice sweet, fatigued. “I was so worried you were avoiding the office because of me.”

  “Nothing like that,” Quentin said. “My daughter had an allergic reaction to that Chinese food. I was at the hospital with her.”

  Charlotte knocked up into a seated position, her eyes growing panicked. “Jesus, Quentin. Why didn’t you tell me? That’s terrifying. What was it?”

  “Apparently, she’s allergic to shellfish. And the kitchen has some kind of—”

  “Residue. Shit,” Charlotte murmured, swiping her fingers across her cheeks. “If I hadn’t brought you the Chinese that night, she wouldn’t have—”

  “Hey, now,” Quentin began, slicing his palm through the air. “This is definitely not your fault. And she’s perfectly fine, now. She went home with her mother this morning. She’s a bit frustrated she can’t practice the piano as much as she’d like, but she’s fine.”

  “Fuck, Quentin. You must have been so frightened. So, you got the call—”

  “When you were sleeping beside me. Yes,” Quentin answered, his voice far away. “I’m sorry I kicked you out like that. I was frightened. I was feeling a lot of different things. Lust and emotions for you, and also, a certainty that we shouldn’t be together. Not when I need to be a good father to Morgan. Not when my second job, beyond anything, is this magazine.”

  “That non-fraternization clause…” Charlotte whispered.

  “Let’s not discuss it now,” Quentin answered, kissing her again. “It’s too damn depressing. And I don’t want to feel anything but this today.”

  Charlotte closed her eyes and allowed herself to devolve into intense pleasure once more, making love to him throughout the rest of the evening and early morning, sleeping occasionally and finding solace in his body.

  He was right. At least for now, nothing else mattered.