by Nan Comargue
That was somehow fitting. What he felt for her had first been born when he was a teenager.
She looked up at him. “Do you want a hand job like a teenager?”
“God, yes!”
Leda glanced around the kitchen. A matching scented soap and lotion sat near the sink, organic and brazenly expensive, both bottles untouched. She pumped out a few squirts of the lotion into her right hand and reached for his zip with the other.
It took Zach a few moments to react and, by then, it was too late. Her warm, lubricated hand curved around his already fully erect cock.
He groaned as he lowered his head to hers. “This is a two-thousand-dollar suit.”
Leda giggled, belatedly realizing the reason for his last groan. She rubbed her hand experimentally over his thick-ridged dick and he groaned again, this time for the right reason.
“I didn’t say it was a cheap hand job.”
The next time she slid her hand over him, he moved with it, meeting her with sudden aggression.
“Better?” she murmured.
He nodded his head against hers. “Yes.”
She used her thumb to stroke around his velvety cockhead. “Worth the two thousand dollars?”
“Every penny.” His voice sounded strained now as she grasped his penis more tightly and renewed the long, stroking movements. He closed his arms around her waist. “Worth a closet full of suits.”
Leda laughed. Having him in her hand was heady.
“Poor boy. How long has it been since you had a hand job?”
“Years. Oh, fuck!” He started moving his hips more quickly against her hand, frigging her warm wet fingers. “Makes me wonder why I stopped.”
“You probably graduated onto blow jobs and forgot how good the simpler pleasures could be.”
“Yes, probably.” He spoke fast, as if he were willing to agree to just about anything she said right then, as long as she didn’t stop.
With one hand busy, it took her a while to undo his belt and push his pants down past his hips. “Do you want a blow job next?”
It took him perhaps ten seconds to answer. He was breathing very hard and his grip on her waist was almost painful.
“Yes—no.”
Leda was intrigued. “Which one is it? Yes or no?”
In her experience, no man turned down a blow job, though few ever seemed to deserve one.
“Yes, I want one,” Zach said, his voice a thin shadow of itself, “from you. But I want to taste you first. Eat…you…out.”
The ragged words emerged a few at a time but they were very convincing. Leda shuddered at the dark promise in his voice.
“Leda— I’m close, baby.”
For an instant, she hesitated. The lotion label had said organic…
She knelt in front of him, grabbed his bare hip with one hand then took the head of his cock into her mouth. As if from far away, she heard him try to say something and fail. Then the noises he made became loud and incredibly incoherent.
His jism spurted past her lips in thick jets, coating her tongue with the salty-sweet tang of him. She swallowed and swallowed again and still there was more healthy, young cum to fill her up. Yummy.
Reaching below, she squeezed his swaying balls gently, coaxing out every last drop.
Finally, when there were no more dribbles to suck from him, she kissed the tip of his spent dick and stood back up.
He was staring down at her with eyes that were no longer sharp and assessing, but warmly green and lazy. He looked as though he’d just woken up from a satisfying dream—a very satisfying dream.
Leda met his gaze shyly. “You weren’t sure,” she said, “so that was a partial—”
Zach pulled up his pants before reaching out to draw her close to his chest. “If that was a partial, the full one will probably kill me.”
“I’ll be more careful next time,” she said, laughing.
“Good girl,” he said at full volume before his voice dropped to a complacent murmur. “Next time…”
Chapter Five
Zach insisted they go somewhere. Sex was only one part of the exorcism. He needed Leda out of his head as well as his pants. That meant spending time with her, getting to know her.
She’d laughed and called it the ‘girlfriend experience,’ a phrase he wasn’t familiar with, but she’d said yes. Of course, she had.
He’d let her pick the destination. She’d chosen the modern art museum. He’d expected to groan loudly through hushed rooms but, instead, Leda proved to be a knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour guide and, despite himself, he became interested in the background stories she told about the pieces. Who knew that artists suffering from scorned jealousy recreated their former lovers in twisted metal limbs, then torch the entire figure to make the sculpture smoky black like an abyss?
“Have you ever felt like that?” Zach asked, standing next to her as they both stared at the creation so filled with burning anger and jealousy that he almost expected it to visibly fume.
He was oddly relieved when Leda shook her head. He wanted to be the only one of them who related to the crisped, tortured piece.
“I’m not a real artist,” she said with regret in her voice. “I design pretty rooms for rich people. I don’t have the passion for this.”
She didn’t sound upset, but there was a tinge in her words that troubled him.
“Would you try for this if you had endless time?”
“I have endless time,” she said. “Remember? I haven’t once tried to make real art. I just sketch designs for rooms I’ll never see, much less touch.”
An idea occurred to him. “You could design my house.”
“No,” she said quickly and firmly. “I can’t. The whole point of this is to have no reminders and, if I did that, then your entire house would become one giant memento. Besides, we don’t have that kind of time. You have one night.”
Why did she think he’d insisted on coming out rather than going back to the office where he knew a pile of emails and messages awaited him? Because he wanted to fill up on her, to finally satiate the relentless hunger that had plagued him for a decade and to overdose badly enough to never feel the craving again.
But all of that could take time. “I may need more than one night.”
She flung him a glance. “I know. I didn’t think you realized that. You always expect the world to tick to your schedule.”
“I don’t expect you to,” Zach said wryly. “You may not be an artist like the one who created this nightmare, but you have an artist’s view of time. A lifetime in a second and a moment that lasts a millennium.”
Leda laughed. “You’re the poet,” she accused. “Let’s go see the modern design section. It’s my favorite.”
It was only natural to take her hand, since the museum was far more crowded in the middle of the afternoon than Zach could have predicted. As they made their way through the vast rooms, her hand lay small and trusting in his much larger one and, for some reason, the feel of it made him ache.
This was one of those poetic hours, the kind that stretched out for an eternity.
As they neared the exit, a man accosted them—a long-haired man with a thin, mobile face that Zach instinctively disliked, dressed with what looked like less care than the average homeless fellow.
Leda greeted the stranger warmly, introducing him as Jacob Greenglass, a local artist—as if Zach hadn’t already guessed his occupation.
Jacob Greenglass gave Zach’s impeccable business suit the same contemptuous glance that Zach had given his hobo attire.
“Zach is my cousin by marriage,” Leda explained. “My Aunt Beth’s husband’s son.”
“Really?” Jacob stared pointedly at their linked hands. “You must find that convenient.”
Watching Leda’s face color up made Zach suddenly feel murderous.
“Look, asshole—”
“Whoa!” The artist skipped nimbly backward, holding up both palms facing forward in an ‘I surrender’ gestu
re. From a safer distance, he launched into a speech. “I didn’t mean any offense. Trust me. I know how you feel, buddy. I really hope you have better luck than any of us has so far. She smiles and nods and says yes to everything you say, but Leeds here is never going to fall in love with you.”
Leda tried to cut in. “Jacob—”
“I mean it,” the man said, walking backward away from them. “Good luck, bud. You’re going to need it.”
Zach stared after him, still digesting the bitter words. If Jacob Greenglass had sculpted Leda, it wouldn’t have been twisted and smoky black. It would have been made out of something slippery and shiny, like plastic—like a doll.
“Jacob has the real artistic temperament,” Leda said from his side. “I thought he was over our dating. We only went out a couple of times.”
Zach looked down into her anxious eyes. Both green and gold in the harsh overhead lighting, they usually radiated warmth and kindness, not this terrible confusion. Those beautiful orbs weren’t lying. He knew it. But neither had Jacob been fabricating his speech. He’d been speaking his truth. That much had been obvious.
So where, between the two versions, was reality?
“Have you ever gone out with anyone more than a few times?”
Zach couldn’t remember meeting a single boyfriend in the decade they’d known each other. Until recently, Leda had lived on her own, so there was no need to bring a boyfriend over to meet her aunt unless it was serious. Ergo, she hadn’t gotten serious with anyone in that decade. Score one for Jacob Greenglass.
“Yes, of course.”
She’d spoken curtly. He got the message. It wasn’t his place to pry. Their temporary arrangement didn’t admit intimacy beyond the physical kind.
Yet, here he was at the museum—at his own damned request.
Sure, he’d justified the decision in his head, and Leda hadn’t asked questions, but why was he here facing down jealous exes like…well, like a protective husband?
He didn’t know the answer to that. Didn’t even want to think hard about it. But he wanted to keep asking questions.
“How many men have you dated more than a few times?”
A short pause.
“One.”
“How many times have you fallen in love?”
She averted her face from his. Its soft, rounded contours had never appeared more lovely or more remote. “One.”
He waited until they were outside of the museum, forgetting about the gift shop she’d mentioned wanting to peruse or the café where he’d intended to buy them a drink like an ordinary couple.
The ‘girlfriend experience’ was what Leda had jokingly called it when he’d said he wanted to spend time with her, one-on-one, outside of bed. He hadn’t known what it had meant then, but she’d since enlightened him.
Zach hadn’t liked the implication then that he’d purchased her like a prostitute, and he liked it less now. But he had purchased her. He’d played on her sympathy and the shock she’d obviously felt at the revelation of his crush. He’d used her willingness to say yes to people she cared about to convince her to say yes to him. He’d bought her with guilt and manipulation.
But he hadn’t given any thought to her—Leda—as a person, rather than the object of his obsession. “What was the guy you fell in love with like?” Zach asked, fighting down a wave of ridiculous jealousy.
Now that he’d put himself fully in the power of his crush, the feelings that had been inconvenient distractions at arm’s length had, at close range, become raging blockades to normal thought and action. In a very short time, Leda had become the most important thing in his life. Even his hard-won career and success became unexciting background wallpaper when he was around her.
By now, they’d reached the car and Zach had to wait until Leda had climbed in before he could walk around to his own side and get in to hear her answer.
“He was everything you hear about,” she said. “Honest, good and true. He had a very nice body, too. He worked out a lot.”
God, I shouldn’t have asked. Already he hated everything about the man, even the decent stuff. Then Zach wondered for the first time if his own strenuous hour every morning at the gym was really cutting it.
For the life of him, he couldn’t think up of a casual response to add to the pause Leda’s silence created.
“He was a cop,” she said, very quietly.
He turned to face her. “Like your father?”
“Yes.” Her voice was still extremely low. He had to strain to make out the words. “Just like my father.”
Zach knew little about her father, other than he’d been an African-Canadian police officer who had been killed in a car crash during a suspect pursuit. He assumed that it was from him Leda got her warm, brown skin, her riotous curls and her keen need to help people.
She drummed her fingers in an urgent beat against the arm of her seat.
“I’m surprised you managed to say no to so many men,” he said in a much lighter tone. “It would make more sense if you were married to the first man you dated, if only to make him happy.”
Leda didn’t return his smile. “Sometimes it’s better to make someone a little unhappy for a short time than for them to make you very unhappy much later on.”
A light went on over his head. Zach moved his hand from where he’d accidentally brushed against the center console and it went off again.
So that’s it. She didn’t want to commit to any one man because she didn’t want to lose a man she loved…again.
She was a coward.
That fact should have made it easier for him to carry on as he’d originally planned and date, dine and fuck her out of his head, once and for all, but it didn’t. It made him understand her infuriatingly cheerful attitude better. And it caused him to see—for the first time—that her attitude was a barrier she’d put up between herself and the world—between dating and caring enough to make a life with someone, between like, lust and love.
What he’d done out of ambition and the need to exercise control, she’d done out of hurt and past tragedy. Yet, the result was the same—walls—walls they’d built to keep everyone, including each other, out.
The difference was he’d made no secret out of his armor. He’d worn it like he’d been going into battle, carried it like a banner before him. He had been up front with the women he’d dated. Things would be temporary and shallow and they were going to stay that way, try though they might for something more, so they might as well not try.
Leda’s way had been to hide in plain sight. She’d worn, not a suit of armor, but a thick glass shield, invisible to the naked eye. She’d smiled and kept everything hidden behind that smile.
She was like him.
The new knowledge made him sympathize with her. That was the most dangerous part of all.
* * * *
Zach suddenly became aware of an invisible grip in his stomach. He hadn’t noticed it until he’d seen his stepcousin walk into his bedroom wearing only the top half of a pair of his pajamas. The top was still ridiculously long, managing to reach her mid-thigh. Then he was suddenly aware of that hand, clenching into a hard fist in the center of his gut.
He knew then that the exorcism might turn out to be more of an amputation, that Leda wasn’t a small appendage like a finger or toe. She was a limb.
This is going to hurt.
Leda held up her phone. “I feel like a teenager again. I just lied to my aunt about where I’m spending the night.”
Zach was sitting on the bed, on top of the sheets. He was wearing the bottom half of the pajama set.
“Who did you tell her I was?” He was satisfied to hear his voice sounded as steady as usual.
“Rae.” Leda climbed onto the bed. “I thought it was fitting.”
“Sure.” He was distracted by the three top buttons she’d left undone. “What are you wearing under that?”
She smiled, a luscious curving taunt of a smile. “Nothing.”
The fist
was in his chest now, beating out a crazy rhythm. “Jesus! Come here.”
He pulled her against him, tumbling her onto his lap. She was so warm and soft and cuddly that he could have held her there forever. But that taunting mouth needed dealing with. He was going to kiss that mouth into a shape he liked better—a willing, loving shape.
Zach pushed his fingers into her hair, holding her still for a punishing kiss, but she was so sweet and yielding in his arms that he couldn’t maintain the right aggression. He didn’t want to punish her for making him fall for her. He wanted to thank her.
He’d never experienced this turmoil with a woman before—this madness, this ache.
He should have hated it because it took him so dangerously close to losing control. Instead, he loved it.
He was safe with Leda.
She only said yes.
Chapter Six
Leda had slept with nine men. She’d cared about a couple of them. She had only loved one—Andrew, the cop. But even with Andrew, she’d known far less about him than she did about Zachary.
She knew the everyday mundane things, like how Zach took his coffee black and his Scotch neat. She knew the big things, like how he’d refused to take money from his father after he’d turned eighteen, instead choosing to work his way through school doing everything from telemarketing to the graveyard cleaning shift at the local hospital. He’d plowed whatever extra cash he’d earned into funding small business ventures with his classmates at the university.
She’d seen him study hard and work hard, but she’d never seen him play hard. She’d started to think he didn’t care about play at all, that he was a dull boy on the road to a long dull life, surrounded by piles of amassed riches he never took the time off to enjoy.
All that time, she’d been wrong. She’d thought Zach’s own innate character traits had kept him from forming romantic ties. Instead, that had been her fault.
The crush she hadn’t known about sat on her shoulders like a weight.
