by Knox, Abby
He pushes me gently off his lap and lays me on the sofa, then leans over and claims my mouth with a deep, sensuous kiss. “And these,” he says, petting and cupping both my breasts. “Must protect these.”
He covers my face with kisses again, and my skin reacts the same as the first time: full-body tingles. His soft, strong lips and his whispers make me feel so special, even though I know I’m going to miss him. When he stands to go, I come up and circle my arms around his neck. Standing on tiptoe I can just reach the stubble on his chin with my lips, which brush against his warm skin. He smooths his hands over my ass. “And that ass. Must protect the ass too. Would be a shame if anything happened to it.”
My panties are in his left hand; he holds them to his nose. My mouth gapes as I watch him—slowly and with his eyes closed—inhale my scent from them. “I think I will take these with me, though,” he says, stuffing my panties into his overcoat pocket which he’s retrieved from the coat hook by the door.
I don’t know whether it was the massage, Miles listening to me dump all my frustrations on him, or the mind-blowing orgasm, but despite all the wine I’m energized for work the next day.
12
Miles
In the weeks that follow, my decision to not bed Martha until after this case has gone away is starting to wear me down.
My breaking point comes on the day my client has insisted on meeting me for lunch for an update on the case.
And he doesn’t like what I have to say one bit.
“We can keep this case going, but you should know that, technically, that statue belongs to the school, and it’s up to the board and the headmistress to decide what to do with it. I’ve looked at every angle, and they are well within their rights to take it down,” I say.
Chamberlain gives a disgruntled huff over his plate of cheese fries, and a tiny speck of potato flies out. I’ve lost my appetite, placing my napkin over my field greens.
“Well then maybe it should be returned to the original donors, which was the diocese, right?” he counters.
“Oh. So now you do want it taken down?” I ask.
Chamberlain blusters, “That’s not what I said.”
I survey this dimwit. There may be nothing I can say that will convince him to let any of this go. “Ed, I’m not feeling great about going into this deposition later this week. You can’t get this emotional when you’re being deposed; it won’t go well.”
He crosses his arms and leans forward. “I can’t help it. My wife is very upset about the drama department.”
I rub my temples. “Again with the play. It seems to me, you and your wife have a personal vendetta against Ms. Moody and if that is the case, you need to tell me immediately.”
Chamberlain shakes his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I just feel as if you’re not telling me everything. Why do you have it in so bad for this woman?”
Chamberlain’s face goes from pink to as red as the ketchup bottle on the table. “Listen to me. You need to find out the nature of this transaction and if that statue actually belongs to the school, the original donor or the diocese, then we need to build our case from there. Beyond that, there is nothing you need to know.”
The next 24 hours are spent looking through archives, but I find nothing about the documentation behind the statue.
I’m so tired of all of it, I could scream.
Giving up all my resolve to wait until this case is actually over to ravish Martha and take her to bed, I stop at the drugstore for some condoms. She can have all of me, and I want to give it to her. Tomorrow, she’s being deposed by our team, and it’s going to be ugly. She needs to know how I feel about her, and I’m going to tell her tonight.
But she doesn’t answer the door when I knock. I text her but she doesn’t answer. Taking the hint, cursing myself on her front step, I go home.
I don’t want to turn into one of those guys who won’t take no for an answer.
I accept my rejection and head home, but on the way I remember what tonight is. It’s opening night for the school play.
13
Martha
The only thing that could make me feel prouder of my kids—my students—is if they were actually my own biological children.
Only five minutes into this production that they’ve written and staged themselves, and I’m completely sucked in. Which is why I don’t notice at first who slides into the auditorium seat behind me.
I smell his cologne before he touches me, which is lucky for him. If I hadn’t, and I’d had no warning before the arm circled around my shoulders from behind, I might have elbowed his nose in fright.
But his spicy, woodsy scent raises the fine hairs on the back of my neck, my neck that’s exposed to him with my no-nonsense bun at the crown of my head.
As Miles slides his arm around me, I feel his breath in my ear. “I came looking for you tonight, Martha, but you weren’t home.”
I shiver. “Miles. What are you doing? We’re at my school, you can’t—”
“Nobody can see us. We’re in the back of the theater, nobody’s near us. We may as well have the entire room to ourselves.”
My eyes blink softly even though he’s being utterly ridiculous. I turn my face. “I don’t know what you have planned but you can’t…we can’t.”
“Shh,” he breathes right in my ear so no one else can here. “I’ll be silent as the dead. Except for my whispers in your ear. And…you might be able to hear this.”
The sound of a belt unbuckling behind me has my body lighting up with anticipation, fear, shock and lust. My lips part and my breath shallows. What the hell is he thinking?
Then come the whispers. The filthiest, darkest whispers I’ve ever heard. So quiet. So wrong.
“I want you, Martha. I want you for myself.”
“Miles,” I start. But he shushes me with a gentle hand over my mouth.
“Don’t let them hear you. Nod if you want me to keep my hand over your mouth. Shake your head if you want me to remove my hand.”
My breath quickens, I can see my chest rising and falling rapidly at this lurid suggestion. But something in me wants this. Unbelievably, even to myself, I nod my head slowly.
“Good girl,” he whispers. The words make my mouth water. The swish of material and the creak of a zipper sends a hot pool of moisture into my panties. This is so wrong. I know if I wanted him to stop, I could stop it all with one word, one gesture. But I don’t. Ah well, I can see the play again tomorrow night, and the next.
More rustling. He has his dick out. He’s holding it, I just know it.
“I couldn’t wait to see you, Martha. I need you to know what you do me.”
More movement. “Do you hear me stroking it? That should be you.”
My eyes roll back in my head as he verbally guides me through his self-pleasuring. His breath grows more and more ragged with every stroke. I’m so turned on, yet also so appalled at his brazen behavior that I want to turn around and climb over the seat, smack him, straddle him, and punish him until we’re both spent.
“That should be your pussy drawing me in, squeezing me, making me come. I’ve spent eight long years wishing my hand was your hand, your lips, your pussy, wishing I was coming inside you, on you, on your tits, into your sweet mouth.”
I feel as though my joints have lost all ability to hold myself upright. His voice is so hot in my ear I nearly lose control of my senses. He’s actually going to do it. He’s going to come right here in my school. And unbelievably, I don’t even care. In fact, I want this.
I briefly open my eyes when I hear murmurs from the audience. The actors on stage have stopped saying their lines. Furiously, I shake my head and Miles instantly removes his hand from my mouth. I bolt up in my chair. What’s happening? Have they seen me? Am I completely busted? Oh God, oh God, oh God.
But no. That’s not it. Recovering my composure, I see what the disruption is. Down at the front of the stage, a woman, not a cast member, is
kneeling. It’s clear from the looks on all the actors’ faces that this is not a part of the show. They look shaken, mortified, unsure of what to do next.
I stand up and move to the center aisle to get a better look. The woman is not just kneeling. Her hands are up by her face, her mouth moves silently and her eyes are closed.
Oh my God. It’s Mrs. Chamberlain. And she’s praying. What in the actual hell do we do now?
14
Miles
If I didn’t want to marry Martha and make a hundred more tiny versions of her already, what she does next seals it for me.
I watch her gather her thoughts for a moment, as shocked as everyone else. Then she pats her perfect bun and rolls her shoulders back. Her chunky, witchy shoes march down to the front of the stage to confront the woman, who by now I’ve determined is Mrs. Chamberlain.
Martha bends over the woman and places one gentle hand on her shoulder and murmurs something about her needing to leave.
The woman stands up and shouts at her. “This is an abomination!”
“Let’s go talk about this outside so the kids can finish the play. They’ve worked so hard. Let’s be reasonable.”
The woman brushes off Martha’s arm and refuses to go with her. Martha turns to the students. She’s been joined by the director, Ms. Fairhope. Martha says something to Ms. Fairhope, and the younger woman sprints to the back of the auditorium and enters the light booth.
Martha instructs the actors to move about ten feet closer to the other side of the stage and carry on.
As soon as she does this, the lighting changes so that the woman at the foot of the stage is plunged into darkness and all of the lighting shifts to the action. Nobody can see this woman causing a scene anymore, and because the actors are amplified and she is not, nobody can hear her either.
Everyone in the audience claps as the action continues.
I don’t stay to see what happens next; now that the whole audience has been distracted, I decide it’s best for me to leave.
That was too close for comfort, and a sign that I may have to wait just a bit longer to have all of my Martha.
15
Miles
The Chamberlains meet with me early the next day to talk about the deposition that will take place tomorrow, and I can hardly believe what I’m hearing.
“My wife wants to add assault charges after what happened at the play last night.”
Giving my best poker face, I ask him to clue me in.
While he rambles on, I think about what I did—or almost did—right there in the auditorium last night. I can’t help but allow a smile to creep over my face. It was so totally inappropriate but so fucking hot the way that Martha reacted to me.
Someday, after we’re married, we might have to try that in a movie theater.
“So she didn’t hit your wife,” I say.
“She touched her without consent.”
I roll my eyes. He does not like this.
“Do I need to hire a new lawyer?”
I shrug. “Maybe? If you want to file criminal charges, you can take that up with the DA. This is civil court.”
Chamberlain taps an index finger on my desk. I’ll have to clean that later. “Okay, then we want to add pain and suffering to the lawsuit.”
For the tenth time since I’ve made his acquaintance, I rub my temples and find any excuse to get him to leave my office. “All right, listen. Go ahead and get your wife a neck brace and we’ll see how that plays with the judge.”
For some reason, he doesn’t even realize this is sarcasm. He draws himself up, looks proud of me for thinking of this idea, and marches out of my office with a spring in his step.
* * *
The conference room is stuffy and it’s making me sleepy after about an hour into the deposition.
The only thing keeping me awake is knowing that Martha sits right across the table from me, and she’s looking me up and down like I’m a piece of meat.
She’s not even trying to hide it. Has she lost her mind?
I go to stretch my leg, and my shoe accidentally bumps into something under the conference table.
About to apologize to someone, I make a move to pull my leg back, but suddenly two small feet are clamping down on either side of my calf. I look up, startled, and Martha is looking at me.
It’s her. She’s got my leg caught under the table like a bear in a trap. She captures my gaze knowingly while still answering questions from myself and the team of lawyers on my side of the conference table.
I instantly feel about twelve different emotions and I don’t know which one to pick first, so I just let them all roll over me. Relief that she hasn’t rejected me. Excited because she drops her shoe and slides her toes up and down the inside of my calf, right in front of my colleagues and my boss. She fucking owns me and she knows it.
I have to concentrate hard on what everyone’s talking about as I write down half-assed notes.
Martha’s foot slides up toward my knee and sweetly massages it. How can this small woman’s legs possibly reach this far? I glance up at her again, and I see her slightly slouching down in her chair and staring at me.
This is ridiculous. Garcia is going to catch us any second now.
I should not encourage this. I should pay attention to the deposition. Instead I slide my chair so close to edge of the desk it might look to the casual observer that I’m trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver on myself.
Martha sits up straight again, looking slightly more comfortable and normal now. I can’t have my girl uncomfortable. If she wants to dick around and play footsie with me, then she certainly can.
Footsie is one thing. Stroking my dick with the blade of her stockinged feet is another.
I shoot her a look that says, “Now?”
She answers with an arched eyebrow and a playful smirk that says, “I do what I want, when I want.”
I glower at her, but my dick is not as good at hiding my emotions.
She cocks her head to the side and slowly slides her foot away, giving me a look that says, “You don’t want to play with me? Fine, I’ll take my foot and go home…or find someone else who wants to play.”
Then she does something truly cruel. Knowing she still has my gaze locked on her, she cuts her eyes to the left, to where an associate of Ms. Degrassi is sitting, taking notes like a good soldier, totally oblivious to our little game. She looks back at me and raises her eyebrows in a question, and then, with the slightest movement, gestures in his direction.
She’s telling me maybe this other fellow is up for a game of footsie.
I lose my fucking mind.
I stand up abruptly, nearly knocking over my chair. Everyone around the table looks at me in shock and surprise, not the least of which Martha. “I’m sorry, everyone,” I say. “I’m suddenly not feeling well.”
The opposing counsel sneers, “Try to keep it together, McRae, we’re almost done here.”
“I think both sides have heard everything they need to hear. If there’s more we need, Ms. Moody, we’ll be in touch.”
I’m out the door before Garcia or anyone else can stop me. I shoot Martha a look that tells her she’s about to pay for what she’s just suggested, and hope she picks up on my message.
16
Martha
I took a risk that, after tying up loose ends with Ms. Degrassi, Miles was wanting me to follow him into the bathroom.
The fear that I might be wrong, the anticipation and the horniness made the double-back trek to the unisex bathroom at the end of the hall seem like it took an hour.
Once inside, Miles pulls me to him in a kiss that rings all my school bells. My knees quiver with the force of his strong lips against mine. He somehow senses this and grabs me around the waist, pressing my body tighter into him as his lips don’t miss a beat.
My eyes open wide and with my head tilted the way it is, his flushed cheeks and closed eyes rock me with the intensity of his concentration on me.
“Miles,” I say into his mouth, for he won’t let me break the kiss.
“Martha,” he rumbles, continuing to ravage my lips.
I struggle to keep my wits about me when his tongue laps against my bottom lip. The sensation trickles across my neck and the skin of my chest, blooming my nipples into hard buds. They press against the inside of my bra, as if they independently remember his caresses from the other night, and they are beyond ready for direct mouth-to-nipple contact.
“You said I don’t get any dick until you lose your case,” I say, ending in a gasp as his tongue and lips blaze down my neck. His hands slide under the hem of my sweater and I feel him curse into my collar as he wrenches my shirttails out where they are tucked into my skirt.
“That was before you tried to give me a public handy with your foot. Don’t you ever wear a different skirt?” he murmurs into the skin of my neck, his hands coming around to the front to work the buttons of my shirt.
He notices I’m trying to help by tugging at my sweater, and he releases his mouth and his body just an inch—with a moan of displeasure—to let me pull the sweater up over my head and toss it to the floor.
I try not to think about the implications of tossing one’s clothes to the tile of a public bathroom, but then again, as public bathrooms go, this one does not look like it’s used that often.
And…if I have to choose one in which to lose my virginity, it might as well be this one.
He backs me up against the bank of sinks while I work the buttons loose on my shirt. Every inch of skin I reveal sends his mouth searing deeper, deeper down my body. When my shirt is completely loose, he doesn’t bother letting me remove it before his expert mouth is working down the fabric of my lacy bra.
