by Moira McTark
“I was out…looking for you.”
The stormy expression darkening his face was replaced by one of curiosity and then interest. He bent, grazing her mouth with his lips, back and forth until she opened to him, inviting him to sink into her, take her with his tongue. When he did, she caressed him with her own, sucking lightly against him. His hands circled her waist and pulled her into the warm, hard planes of his body.
He pulled back and his mouth roamed around the line of her jaw, along the curve of her neck, his hands massaging her breasts as they made their way to her door.
Inside, she dropped the keys on the ground as Brian pulled her into his arms and licked around the edge of her ear, sucking the soft lobe between his teeth. Her head fell back and to the side, offering up more access to the sensitive skin he played with.
“What were you going to do?” he asked.
Her skin was on fire under his touch, a blaze frantic to burn stronger, begging to be fueled. The idea of him not being here brought a tightness to her chest. “I don’t know. But you’re here, so what does it matter?”
His roaming hands and exploring mouth released her. He stepped away. “Pretend I’m not.”
It was a command and the determined expectation behind it excited her. She looked up at him, biting her lip in contemplation of her would-be actions.
“I would have come into the apartment and put my keys on the table.” She walked over and picked them off the floor, depositing them in the small tray she kept for them.
He nodded. “And then? What do you do now? Tell me what you feel.”
“I’m disappointed. Upset. Frustrated. I needed you. I wanted to find you, make you touch me, fill me completely. Now, I’m home. I want to be touched, so I’ll…pretend…that I’m being touched by you.” She slid her hands under the bottom of her shirt and pulled it over her head. Her breasts bounced free of the tight shirt. Her nipples, already erect and stimulated, bunched tighter in the cool air and under Brian’s rapt attention.
“It feels good to be free. I like to be naked.”
She rubbed her breasts and rolled her nipples between her fingers. Looking up from lowered lids at him, a coy smile played at her lips. “Sometimes, I like to be…restrained. But I can only admit that when I’m alone. Right now, I’m wishing you were here using some of my new toys on me. But I can’t wait for you to come…to make me come.”
She watched him watching her. His body was stiff; he looked like he couldn’t breathe. Not a muscle moving. She was his singular focus.
Sliding her hands back down over her ribs, abdomen and thighs, she wriggled out of the tight-fitting jeans and nestled her hands between her legs. Leaning back against the door, completely naked but for the black strappy heels that snaked around her calves, she spread her legs, and stroked herself, offering a clear view to Brian.
“I’m so wet. When I think about you, I can’t help it, I start to ache. So I have to touch myself, like this…” Her fingers caressed the swollen folds of her sex, spreading them open to explore. Sliding one finger around in the dripping juice, she withdrew it and raised it to a nipple, smearing the cream into the rosy bud. The musky scent filled her nostrils, exciting her all the more. She pulled at her tight nipple with the slick fingers of one hand while the other traced the long, wet crease of her sex. “Mmm, I’m so sensitive here…” she circled her erect clit and then slid down to her pussy hole, sinking one finger deep inside herself, “…but I’m throbbing here.” She pressed in and out, in and out, stroking her wet velvet interior. The coil of arousal wound tight within her as she touched herself. The solid door supported her back as she shivered with the pleasure of her own touch.
“So wet. I’m thinking of you teasing me with your fingers, making me tighten around you, throb for you. I’m so hot, so wet, my finger feels so good inside of me. I’m going to slide another one in now.” Already slick with her juices, she slid a second finger inside, doubling the intensity of her self invasion. She thrust into herself again and again, pressing in as far as her fingers would go. Her breath came in rapid puffs as her pleasure mounted, until she moaned, “I’m going to come soon, it feels good, wet, soft, so good.”
Her thrusts intensified and she brought her other hand down from her pointed nipple and worked over the tight bud of nerves, circling it tightly until she gasped, her knees nearly giving out on her. “I’m coming…” She thrust into herself. “I’m coming…”
She looked directly into Brian’s eyes as her inner walls contracted in pulses against her fingers and she let out a small cry.
He stayed where he was, a few feet away, his breathing ragged. He looked down at his white knuckles and slowly released his grip. When he spoke, his voice sounded rough.
“Was that enough? Do you feel like I’ve taken you? Will you be able to sleep now?”
Amber was still trying to slow her racing heart. She stood up from the door and began walking to the bedroom, shaking her head.
“No. I need more.”
Though she didn’t look back, the sound of his footsteps behind her and soft thud of his clothing against the hardwood floors told her she would be getting it, too.
—
She was in the shower, washing him off her. Getting rid of him. Had that become the habit already? He caught himself thinking about Amber in the context of the long-term every now and then, but then shook it off and reminded himself that this was not some love story unraveling between the sheets. It was the smacking together of sweaty flesh with an incomparable excellence. She was an awesome fuck, and he simply hadn’t had his fill of her yet. He almost wished he could beat himself up for thinking that way about any woman, but in this case, it was clearly a mutual truth.
He raked his fingers through his matted, sweaty hair and pulled his jeans on over his boxers. What was he doing here? He hadn’t been able to stay away. Tonight, it had felt imperative that he be with her. To know what she was doing. Make sure she wasn’t with anyone but him. When she hadn’t been there, he’d decided to wait. There was no way he could let her bring another man home to touch her, get inside of her. Not until they were through. Who was he kidding? Not until she told him she was through with him.
What had she done to him?
Yanking the tee-shirt over his head, he looked for his sweater but didn’t see it. Maybe it was still out in the living room. He’d thought he’d gathered up everything, but now he couldn’t see it. And for some reason, his being out of the apartment by the time Amber was through with the shower seemed an unspoken expectation. Before she’d mustered the strength to get off the floor, she’d brushed the hair from his forehead and told him she was glad he’d come. It was a clear message for him to be gone by the time she finished.
Stuffing his feet into his sneakers and jamming his socks into his pockets, he did a quick check around for his lost sweater. The shower turned off and he hopped on one foot toward the door, trying to lace the shoe and still get out. It seemed worse to leave when she was standing there. And part of him wondered if he’d even be able to. No matter what their relationship had turned into, he seemed to find it impossible to want to get away from her.
At the door, he turned back and looked around at the space he was vacating. Suddenly, he noticed things he hadn’t seen before. The novels lying open on the coffee table, tattered cookbooks stuffed with sticky flags on the counter, a corkboard by the closet tacked with photos of Amber and her friends. Some of the snapshots even went back as far as high school. She was beautiful then, as she was now. But shy and quiet. Someone he smiled to in the hall, because he liked to see her smile back. A noise from the back of the apartment reminded him of his effort to be gone by the time she was done showering. Quietly, he left, making sure the door would lock behind him.
Chapter Seven
Brian sat in the back of the cab as it cut in and out of the city’s Saturday afternoon traffic, zipping around busses and dodging pedestrians. Though a beer with Neil and Danny before heading home would be a welcome break follo
wing his the three-day business trip out East, Amber was foremost in his mind.
Three days since he’d last seen her. Since he’d last touched her. Would she welcome him tonight? Should he even go back? The timing of the trip had been right. He’d hoped to gain some perspective about their relationship, but in three days and nights, all he’d done was think of her.
Before the trip, he’d been at her apartment almost every night for two weeks. Showing up unannounced, waiting for her to arrive if she was out. Never any plans. Never any expectations. Never a goodbye. Just the crush of bodies coming together, the fulfillment of needs. But he would swear, in those first seconds when she saw him waiting at her door, her green eyes shone with…happiness, relief? Something. An emotion that he couldn’t describe but pulled at his heart and made him yearn to see it again. That fleeting look haunted his nights. Distracted his mind all day. Made him tap his toes and check his watch as he held out, waiting for the minutes to tick by until he saw her again.
He’d started keeping track of the details she let slip and clues she’d left out in the open of her apartment. He’d started thinking of her as his. Arguing with himself like some sort of lunatic, rationalizing and justifying the lack of relationship and what it was doing to him. He knew she was coming home alone. Knew she wanted him, at least in a physical way. But he also knew what she was capable of. And though he’d catch her watching him sometimes before she tiptoed into the shower, Brian had no idea where he stood with her. Where they were going. What she thought about their time together.
Hell, he had no idea what he thought about it. Hot and erotic, without question. He’d never been with a woman who sent such a current of sexual hunger through him with nothing more than her presence. The connection he felt, the possessive greed—he couldn’t explain it.
But there was something else bothering Brian, too. This wasn’t the way he lived his life. When he was with a woman, it was because he cared for her. The casual one-night variety didn’t often tempt him, but when it did, it wasn’t with a woman he spent half the night fighting with and the other half fucking. That was for sure. He was on unfamiliar ground and didn’t like the way he was feeling about his own actions.
He needed to figure it out. After having debated over mentioning the business trip to Amber, simply so she would know he was out of town and at the risk of sounding committed, he’d opted to leave a note on her pillow when she’d gone to the shower. It had been brief. New York business for a few days—don’t fuck anyone else. Short, not exactly sweet. But being back in town, he knew it was time to make some decisions. Would she be waiting for him?
The cab dropped him in front of Riley’s. With all the pent-up frustration knotted between his shoulder blades, Brian took a deep breath and tried to blow a little of the stress out with the air. Pushing open the door, he saw Neil and Danny hunched over a small table off to the side of the otherwise empty bar. The evening crowd wouldn’t show up for another hour or so, which gave the men time to relax, have a beer and catch up.
Neil looked up and waved. “Welcome back, take a load off.”
“Thanks, man.” Brian slid into an open chair and gave Danny a solid pat on the back then picked up an untouched longneck and took a deep pull from the bottle. Tasted good.
He looked at his two friends who had stopped talking as soon as he’d come in. “What’s up?”
Danny shrugged and took a swig. “Not much. Neil was just telling me about your little problem.”
His knotted muscles cinched tighter. “Must have me confused with some other guy. I don’t have a problem. What gives?”
Neil leaned forward stretching across the table to squeeze the muscle of Brian’s shoulder. Looking at him seriously, he said, “You’re being an asshole, man.”
How did they know? Had Amber talked to Danny and now both of them were confronting him about his shitty behavior toward her? He started to sputter out a response when Neil waved a dismissive hand in front of him.
“Look. I know this has to do with some woman. But there is no reason on God’s green Earth that you should be sulking around like this, being a complete jerk to the menfolk. Bros before hos, man.”
Danny looked kind of disgusted by Neil, but they all went back quite a ways and somehow managed to get along regardless of the dramatic personality differences. “Neil says this has been going on for weeks. You’ve been skulking around, short-tempered. Said you nearly bit his head off on the phone when you talked to him today. Not like you at all.
“I haven’t seen you around in ages. Not since you came with Amber that night. This about her?”
Brian chewed on the side of his cheek, keeping his eyes on his beer. Nodded. “Yep.”
“That sucks. I would have thought you two would be perfect together. What didn’t take?”
Neil took a long swallow and slammed his beer down. “She played him.”
Danny looked at Neil and then back to Brian as though nothing had been said. “Okay, don’t let it get to you. I love her, but Amber is a strange girl, has crazy high standards for men. From what I understand, she’s got some perfect guy in her mind, and no one ever matches up. Half the time, I’d swear she doesn’t even register the guys sniffing around after her.”
Brian rubbed an open palm over the rough wood of the table. “No, she… She blew me away—”
“She does with everyone. Guys, good guys like you. Like me,” Danny admitted, hanging his head a bit, “come around, asking her out all the time. She turns everyone down without a second’s pause. And then all of the sudden, out of nowhere, she finds some sub-par guy and just settles. It’s like she goes out of her way to pick some mediocre hack so she doesn’t risk getting attached. I think she just breaks down and wants some guy to ride her a while, and then she goes back to waiting for Mr. Right. That girl’s awesome, she’s a great friend and I’m happy to have her as mine, but in romance, Amber’s got issues.”
Brian was clenching his jaw so tight his teeth were ready to crack. Was he just some guy to “ride” her? Was this all she ever wanted from a relationship? Here he was, going crazy, and she was kicking back, getting her itch scratched. Commitment free. Worry free.
Neil was dipping an onion ring into a pile of ketchup, shaking his head. “Mr. Right? Shit, I might be Mr. Right. Maybe I should try to get with this chick if she’s so hot.”
Danny snorted. “Too bad for you. Mr. Right is some punk kid she went to high school with. Amber sure as hell played him close to her vest, but my sister says she knew it was some athlete in her class, but no one could ever get her to tell. But that guy, poor schmuck, even he probably couldn’t live up to the ideal she’s created after all of these years.”
The beer in Brian’s mouth tasted stale. Was it possible? Some guy she’d had a crush on all through high school. Some guy she threw all others over for. Was he just the world’s biggest egomaniac even thinking it, or was this what she was talking about when she mentioned a crush to him that first day on the train? Mentioned it like it was nothing. Girlish silliness.
Well, maybe it was nothing. Or maybe she’d finally gotten a chance to see what a complete disappointment her fantasy turned out to be in real life. He raked his hair back, ready to pull it out, he was so frustrated by the idea of being held up to such an unrealistic fantasy—and even more irritated by the fact he was feeling sorry for her. But, no matter what kind of crush she’d had, it didn’t give her the right to play with guys’ hearts the way she did. Didn’t give her the excuse to cheat and trick another person into being a part of the betrayal. Anger was better than the alternative, so he took the coward’s way and went with it.
“Yeah, Danny, that’s a sad story, and it certainly gives me some insight. But here’s the thing—it doesn’t excuse her for lying. You can never trust a person like her.”
“What are you talking about?” Danny sounded irritated. Apparently her promiscuity and lack of commitment weren’t a problem, but he took offense at someone suggesting she wasn’t hone
st. “Amber doesn’t lie.”
“An omission that important is basically a lie. It’s deceit. Plain and simple.”
Neil polished off his beer and set it on the table with a solid thud. Waving his hand apologetically, he cleared his throat. “Didn’t get to those details, Danny. She was cheatin’.”
Danny let out a short laugh, looking amused. “Okay, let me rephrase. Amber doesn’t lie and she doesn’t cheat. Never has. We’ve been friends for a long time, she and I, and those are two things that don’t happen with her. Trust me when I say that I spent a long time paying more attention to the details of her existence than I should have, and she’s not that kind of girl.”
A tightness built in the pit of Brian’s stomach. “What about Eric?”
Danny looked back at him, confused. “What do you mean, ‘What about Eric’? He’s a manipulative little punk sleaze. A prime example of the sub-par dates Amber sometimes puts up with. How do you even know Eric? The guy moved to New York—like four months ago didn’t he? Easiest way to unload that kind of prick—just move him out.”
The tightness was now as solid and uncomfortable as a cannonball and Brian could feel the color draining from his face, his pride plummeting out of him, and his precious sense of righteous indignation being rapidly replaced with overwhelming shame.
“He was back,” Brian said in a low, controlled voice. He wanted to slam his fist on the table and scream it, but he kept control. He needed to understand. “When I met him, he introduced himself as her boyfriend.”
“Typical. Some nerve from that guy. I guess he’s smart enough. I mean Amber had to find something interesting about him, to date him for whatever it was, a month or two. But it was over when he left, the guy didn’t even call. He wishes they were still together. I’m pretty sure he still lives out East, though. Might be back for business, but I don’t think he’s living here. They work at the same company.”
Brian felt like he might be sick. Every word he’d said to her, every insult and offense, popped into his head. Everything had been wrong and uncalled for. Hell, he knew, even if he’d been right about her situation, his behavior was inexcusable. But he wasn’t right. She hadn’t been cheating. She’d been with him and everything that happened had been because things were right between them. And then he’d basically called her a whore and left her with some schmuck she’d thought herself rid of—oh yeah, after he’d fucked her in a crowded club. About the only decent thing he’d done with her was use a condom every time he came. He was the dream come true.
