“Hmm?” His voice was a calm, happy sound.
“Remember how you still owe me a question from our first fake-date?”
“Yeah.” His voice became more cognizant.
“Well I’ve thought of a question.”
He looked down at me, smiling. “What is it?”
“How do your algorithms work?”
Annie had gone on and on about how incomprehensible his matchmaking algorithms were. I just had to know. Why were they so damn weird?
Lucas’ smile wavered. “That’s what you want to spend your question on?”
“I’m curious!” It was true, I was curious. I also half-believed that maybe if I understood the algorithms I would be able to find a way to save Notable Match from Azure Group.
Lucas, however, sighed. “The answer will disappoint you.”
“Let me be the judge of that.” Sometimes the smallest, weirdest details could be valuable. I’d learned to overturn every rock in my time working in Private Equity. This time, I hoped to use a detail to kill a deal, not make one.
His voice was soft. “I reverse engineered the algorithms by looking at the similarities between Victoria and I’s record collections. That’s why they’re so weird. I was working from the solution instead of the question. It was bad math, and it shouldn’t have worked. I had to make up a lot of it. But once I had the similarity measures, I found that I could apply them to other people. Again, I wasn’t expecting the algorithm to work. I thought I was just messing around, trying to figure out what compatibility features Victoria and I had shared.” He shook his head. “I’m still amazed that so simple of a premise yielded so complex a solution. I just took the person I was already in love with and replicated the formula for musical preference, making up about a quarter of it as I went along.”
My heart sank in my chest. It was all becoming clear. Victoria was the key to Notable Match’s success. Everything came down to her. Even when I was lying in Lucas’ bed, Victoria had to be here with us.
In fact, the reason that Lucas and I were ever matched must be because Victoria and I had similar taste in music. He’d said the reason that Victoria and I reminded him of one another wasn’t the hair color and was hard to explain. Well it wasn’t the hair color, that was true. But it wasn’t hard to explain, either. The truth was that Victoria and I were just alike, but in a completely innocuous way. He just replicated the formula that had worked with Victoria, but this time when he ran the program, he got me. I was approximately 75% as good as her.
“Were you ever planning on telling me that the reason you and I matched was because I like most of the same music as Victoria?”
Lucas shook his head. “No. It sounds really stupid, doesn’t it?”
“Stupid? No.” That wasn’t want I thought at all. “But it’s not very flattering to me to know the truth. I’m just a poor substitute for her. Like a bad copy.” I stared up at the ceiling unhappily.
Lucas propped himself up on an elbow and nuzzled my ear. “That’s the wrong way to look at it, Rae.”
I looked over at him. “How do you figure?” My voice sounded bitter.
Lucas laughed. “This is an example of something working when it shouldn’t. The idea that musical preference could predict whether or not people like each other is ridiculous. I removed all the other variables. Appearance, income, education, age, all of it. I threw out the reliable measurements and kept something completely pointless. Just music. What does it matter what music people like? It shouldn’t matter. The alchemy of human attraction ought to be complicated, right? And it is. Even my algorithms look complicated. But I’m taking it from a relationship that didn’t even work worth shit. Victoria and I crashed and burned. She cheated on me like it was going out of style. But somehow, that equation I made which never should have work, it brought me you. I think that’s pretty cool.”
When he finally fell silent, all of my anger and bitterness was gone. I looked over at him affectionately.
“What if it doesn’t last?”
“Which part?” he asked me. His voice was soft.
“The algorithms. What if all the relationships your algorithms make are doomed to failure because you and Victoria didn’t work?”
Were Lucas and I already doomed? I feared I knew the answer.
You’re not good enough for him, my conscience whispered. You know he’s being screwed by Azure Group and you don’t know how to save him.
He shrugged. Lucas was oblivious to my doubts. “It’s still better than nothing.” He kissed me on the forehead. “Nobody who makes a dating app gives people a guarantee, do they? Some love is better than no love, isn’t it?”
I sighed, feeling a smile break through even though I wasn’t entirely convinced. “I guess you’re right.” I paused. “I still wish we could make it last forever.”
Lucas smiled sadly. “I’ll just have to work on that for version 2.0.”
31
Lucas
Rae fell asleep on my chest, curled up around me with a smile on her face. I watched her eyelids twitch in her dream and wondered if anyone had ever been as happy as I was at that moment. I’d had plenty of sex in my life, but before that night I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt like this afterwards. Oftentimes I felt vaguely guilty, or dirty. Tonight, I felt nothing but peaceful, happy, and totally content.
Rae’s body was everything a man could ever want. The more I touched her, the more I wanted to go on touching her. And she clearly reveled in being touched too, even with my need to feel in control and push her boundaries to feel her trust in me. Maybe more so because of it. We were compatible on a level I’d never dreamed of or thought to ask for.
Victoria had never understood my desire for even the slightest roughness or teasing. She definitely hadn’t appreciated it, although she’d tolerated my mild kinks as well as I think she was able. But I hated feeling like she was indulging a revolting predilection of mine. It made me feel like I was disgusting or deviant, even when I rationally knew that I was hardly left of vanilla at all.
With Rae it felt completely clean when I held her down and fucked her like a wild animal. I felt no guilt or shame because she wanted it too, maybe even more than I did. I hadn’t ever thought I’d know that feeling. Now that I’d had it, I wasn’t sure I’d be satisfied with anything else.
“I really think I might be in love with you Rae.” I knew she was asleep, but I told her anyway, whispering the words into her cute, little ear. “I sure hope you don’t mind.”
She smiled in her sleep. Maybe she heard me on some level. I liked to think she did.
I gathered her closer to me and snuggled into her naked, soft body. This was good. It felt right. I felt no regret.
“Sweet dreams, Rae. See you in the morning.”
I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself alone in the bed.
“Rae?” I called out in confusion after a disoriented second. It was still dark. “Where are you?” I reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. Rae wasn’t in the bedroom. “Rae?”
Had she slipped out? Run off? Why? Why wouldn’t she at least say goodbye?
My heart squeezed in my chest. Flashbacks to Victoria breaking up with me via text message hit hard and painfully right above my heart. I wondered what I had done wrong with Rae.
“Lucas?” came a voice from the other room. The pitter patter of bare feet on wood floors was easily distinguishable from the sound of cat paws, but I heard those too. Moxie and Bob preceded her into the bedroom like her feline honor guard. “I’m right here,” she said, emerging from the living room with a glass of water in her pale hand. “I was just thirsty, and then the cats were thirsty too, so I gave them some water.” She perched on the edge of the bed and looked at me excitedly. “Moxie even let me pet her!”
I grinned right back at her. That was a first. The cats took one look at me, decided I was boring and went back in the living room. It was the middle of the night, after all. That was prime cat prowling hour.
“Is that my shirt?” I asked haughtily, although I already knew it was my t-shirt. She’d also located a clean pair of my boxers and was wearing them low around her hips. “Have you been snooping in my drawers at…” I squinted at the alarm clock, “four a.m.?” This was not an acceptable hour for being awake at all.
She smiled at me. “No. I was just cold. Finding clothes is not snooping. It’s survivalism. Besides this is when I would usually be waking up in New York.”
“Well you don’t need to wake up so early here,” I told her. I was vaguely put out that my warm, sweet, sleepy, naked Rae was now clothed and wide awake. I opened my arms to her and she slid back into bed and into them with a smile. I felt instantly better. My blood pressure returned to normal. “Ok, this is good,” I grumbled into her sweet-smelling red hair. “No more getting up.” I wrapped my arms around her possessively. It would be better if she was naked again, but I’d survive.
“You’re really not much of a morning person, are you?” Rae whispered against my neck.
“No.” I confessed, running my fingers under her borrowed shirt and up her back until I reached her shoulders. “I’m really not.” I pressed down on top of her trapezius muscles, going alongside of her scapula and working toward the spine. She sighed blissfully and flopped over on her tummy for more back rubs. That one time I’d read a textbook about massage had really paid off. For Rae.
“Oh my god, that feels soooo good,” she mumbled into the pillow. I pushed my fingertips deeper into the knots I felt around her neck and she sort-of melted into my hands. I worked each little bundle of tangled muscle fibers apart with slow, gentle strokes. She made some incomprehensible little pleasure noises.
“This is my plan to keep you in my bed,” I whispered in her ear.
“It’s working really well,” her muffled voice replied. “It’s a super good plan. You’re a genius.”
“So, you’ll stay?” I asked.
She nodded and rolled her head over so I could get the other side of her neck. “Uh-huh. Yes. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Ok. Good.”
I wasn’t capable of rising at four in the morning, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a daily routine. I got up around ten a.m., puttered around for an hour, went to the gym, took a shower, and then worked until around nine p.m. Then I would putter around, eat dinner, and do some more work before bed. Bed usually happened around two a.m. My routine worked very well for me, although it was a bit unconventional.
I rubbed Rae’s neck and shoulders until I couldn’t feel any more knots and then descended down her back to rub her lower back and hips. She liked that too, I could tell by the way she wiggled anytime I wasn’t in the exact right spot, went too slowly, or paused. I was happy to oblige, and happier to tease her.
“You’re awfully demanding for someone getting free back rubs,” I whispered sleepily.
“I’ll pay you back,” she crooned, and then turned to kiss me. “I always pay my debts. That’s why I have such excellent credit.”
I was perfectly happy to take my payback for the backrub in kisses. She teased my mouth with hers, eagerly erasing any sleepiness with her clever, soft tongue. Soon, despite my aforementioned inability to do anything at this time of the morning, I could think of exactly one activity I was interested in. But when I reached for the hem of my t-shirt, I learned it wasn’t the one that she had in mind.
“Sshh,” she told me, stilling my hands and scooting down the bed, and my body. She was taking her soft curves away, but then I realized what she was after. “My turn to make you feel good,” she purred.
Ok. Yes. That was better than kisses. That was not an invitation I could ever turn down.
She laid little kisses down my torso as she descended, and by the time she reached my cock it was rock hard and ready for her. When she took me in her mouth it was all I could do not to grab the back of her head and take control, but I resisted. Not only would that be incredibly bad manners, but this was much more fun. I was more than happy to let her be in control of the process. For now.
She took me eagerly, bobbing up and down deeper each time. The hot, wet, heaven of her mouth was enough to drive me crazy. I threw back the covers to get a better look at her. Her big blue eyes glittered hungrily in the lamp light while she sucked and licked me.
Christ. Look at her go. There’s nothing hotter than this.
“Rae, fuck. Please don’t stop.” My voice was a strangled whisper.
Her little tongue darted out now and then to trace where her lips had been, and she let out a low, moan of satisfaction when she looked up and saw how completely she had control of me. I pushed the hair that had fallen into her face away and she gazed up at me, open-mouthed, to gauge my reactions before getting back to work.
Her cheeks went hollow and I arched my hips into her, unable to keep my hands at my sides any longer. I put a heavy hand atop her head and guided her down, down until I thought she couldn’t go any deeper. When I felt resistance I stopped, but she didn’t. She pushed on until she was almost gagging, and I was almost coming straight down her sweet, little throat.
“Oh god, Rae, do that again,” I heard myself saying, and she did. She took me from tip to hilt, struggling in a way that only drove me higher to see her so determined to please me.
That little mouth on her.
I didn’t stand any risk of impressing her with my phenomenal stamina. This was going to be almost embarrassingly quick. Finally, unable to keep from taking all the control back from her, I pushed her head down and fucked her face relentlessly, bucking my hips into her and seeing her eyes go glassy and gratefully relaxed when I did. She needed me to take control. She really did enjoy it as much as I did. It was with that comforting, unbelievably sexy surety that I came, hard and fast and harder than I ever had in my life. My vision blinked out for a second from the pleasure. When my sight returned I saw her swallowing every last drop.
“You’re perfect,” I told her when she crawled back up my body to lay her head back on my chest. I kissed the top of her head and touched her wet lips with my fingers. She was exhausted. “Perfect,” I repeated.
She smiled dreamily at me, clearly ready to go back to sleep now. If this was what getting up at four a.m. got me, I was willing to consider some serious lifestyle changes. We drifted back to sleep together.
Meeeeeeeow!
Meeeeeeeow!
As was their custom, Moxie and Bob sang the song of their people just before noon. They did not appreciate getting their breakfast late, so their pleas for food was both louder and more desperate than usual. At my side, Rae was still sleeping soundly. She’d curled up into an adorable ball of covers and pillows. All I could see was a foot and a few strands of bright red hair sticking out. How someone so small could take up so much room in the bed was simply incredible. Do beds come in larger sizes than California King? If I was going to share one with Rae for any length of time I was going to need to find out.
I was filled with thoughts of the future as I rose to feed Moxie and Bob. They looked at me like I’d personally deprived them of food for at least a week.
“You two need to go on a diet,” I told them as they buried their faces in their food bowls and greedily started scarfing down their breakfasts. As always, they ignored me when there were kibbles to be had. But I didn’t care. My mind was elsewhere.
Could I convince Rae to move to Austin? I guess it wouldn’t be too terrible to move to New York, either. I could finally see Hamilton. It wasn’t as nice and warm there, but I’d certainly never be bored. Too excited to go back to bed, I made myself a cup of coffee and sat down on the couch. Moxie hopped up on my lap. I scratched her chubby, soft cheeks as she purred like a happy motorboat.
“Do you think you’d like living in New York, Moxie? Do you want to be a big city cat?”
Her amber eyes weren’t giving anything away, but she always made her priorities clear. She headbutted my hand for more pets.
“What about you Bob? Would you
like a change of scenery?”
Bob was still eating. He didn’t even look up. I doubted he was even listening. As long as there was food, I was fairly certain Bob would be fine no matter where he lived.
The trill of my phone sent Moxie flying off my lap and scrambling for the safety of the void below the couch. I picked it up reluctantly and then nearly dropped it. Victoria texted me.
Victoria: Hey Lucas. Do you want to have lunch?
My fragile, healing heart, which had been as content and calm as it had ever been, was thrown instantly into turmoil. My fancy, delicious coffee suddenly tasted rancid. Why was she texting me? What did she want?
It had been eighteen months since she’d texted me. The text directly above her lunch invitation was telling me that she’d left her key with the doorman. I swallowed hard and stared at the text. I wasn’t entirely sure it was real. It could be a hallucination. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Opened them. The text was still there.
Shit. You know it’s bad when you’re hoping you’re just crazy.
The entire premise of my decision to act on my feelings and sleep with Rae was that Victoria didn’t care. But the moment I let myself believe it and admit defeat, she texts me? And not even to tell me to fuck off, but requesting to see me? Christ. It was like Victoria had some kind of sixth sense about exactly how to fuck over my life. It was uncanny.
“Lucas?” Rae’s voice called out to me from the other room. Her tone was sleepy, sweet, and confused. “Where’d you go? Come back to bed. I miss you.”
My gaze pinged between the open bedroom door and my palm. Victoria’s next text appeared before my disbelieving eyes.
Victoria: I miss you.
It was lucky that I didn’t really have a heart defect, because that moment would have killed me if I did.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
32
Rae
Lucas came into the bedroom and slid back under the covers with me. I cuddled up to his chest, wrapping my arms and legs around him and feeling completely content for the first time in weeks. I sighed against his skin and rubbed my cheek against him like a cat. He held me loosely and kissed the top of my forehead.
Lie With Me Page 17
