by R. J. Lewis
I stare at his wistful face, demanding, “Until what?”
He looks at me, his eyes hardening. “Until you have something to lose.”
Ah, there it is.
I don’t respond to that.
I turn my back to him and pretend to look at my watch.
“Aidan…” he says, calmly, “you need to find something you’re passionate about in this life that isn’t work.”
I’m done listening to this.
“Don’t be impulsive.”
“I don’t need your fucking advice,” I retort. “Enough of it.”
“Fine.” He sounds frustrated. I’m back to being…me. A cunt. Closed up, walls up, buried in myself. I know what the world sees. Steven sees it, too. I won’t even fight it today.
Steeling myself, my authoritative voice returns when I say, “Let’s move this day along then, shall we?”
*
I’m spending too much of my days staring at her picture. It’s mortifying that I prop my phone up with her picture staring at me. I stare at it while I work in my office, while I eat, while I loosen my tie and start preparing for bed in my quiet apartment. She’s perfect. Everything about her is…perfection.
I pace, thinking about her.
I shower, hand wrapped around my cock, thinking of her as I come, wishing I was coming inside her. What would her pussy feel like around my cock? What sounds would I be able to draw out of that sinful mouth?
Mostly, I’m alone. The only company I have are thoughts of her.
I imagine her writhing beneath me, begging me with her vulgar little mouth to, “fuck me, sir. Please.”
I wonder what she tastes like.
I wonder what her lips feel like.
I wonder if she’d let me hold her all night.
If I’m being brutally honest, I pace because I don’t know what she’s doing right now. I don’t know if she is being fucked, kissed, held. It’s infuriating. It maddens me. It makes me want to rip this heart out of my chest – it’s the culprit to these feelings, is it not? – and obliterate it.
I’ve already crumbled to temptation. Such a strange emotion. It feels like such a bizarre pressure that builds within me. I sought out information about her. I just needed to know…to know more about her. There’s a file on my desk with her name on it. I haven’t read it. I only know where she works and how long she’s been in that apartment. Everything else – all the intimate details – are locked away. It’s there for the future. For a time I’ll be desperate for a fix. It’s so fucking incredible I already know that time will come.
Have I been so awful in my life that I’m being punished pining for a woman I can’t have? Even if she wasn’t with that fucking idiot, would she want more than just my cock? And am I seriously asking that question?
“If I have you, Ivy Montcalm, I won’t be the same,” I whisper to her picture. “You have the power to destroy me…”
Ivy
It’s been a few weeks, and I haven’t seen him. He makes no mention of it, either.
We’re biding our time. He doesn’t want to rush this and I…I don’t trust myself.
I study for my entrance exam in the evenings in the coffee shop around the corner. Last week I had a consultation with a divorce lawyer and learned what the process will be like. The wheels have been set in motion. Hopefully, Derek will sign the papers when the time comes.
Ana: I’m so proud of you, Ivy. You’ve got this. <3 Derek will finally accept the separation. He has no other choice. He’s rejected it for too long now. I think the papers have gotten through to him.
I go through the days with my face plastered to the phone, waiting for Aidan’s messages. When I get home from a long shift at work and settle in on the sofa, Aidan’s messages are the best part of my day.
We talk. God, we just talk. About anything and everything, and sometimes it’s the most filler conversation you’ve ever seen, but I know he’s just as ravenous for anything like I am.
Most of the time, the conversations are innocent. Sometimes…Sometimes he throws things in that make my heart speed and my body jittery. These usually happen in the middle of the night when I’m clutching the phone to my chest tight as I lay on the sofa. He sends them when he knows I’m alone. When he knows Derek is out drinking and I’m hanging onto his every word.
Aidan changes the tone of his messages, and he talks without a filter.
A.W.: I’m in bed, and I’m thinking about you. I’m thinking about what I promised you. About what I’d do to you. I think about your red striped hair running through my fingers. Your beautiful plump lips. The way you licked that ice cream off your bottom lip. I wanted to bite that lip. I wanted to press you against the wall of your apartment building, slip my hand down your tiny little shorts. I wanted to make you moan. Fuck you with my fingers slowly. I wanted to own your cries and then bury myself inside you. Imagine that with me right now while you’re lying in bed.
It’s too soon. I need to slow down. I know I should shut him out and stop. But I’m already addicted.
I can’t stop.
I feel like if I don’t contribute to the conversations, I’m somehow slowing down the process of whatever the hell is happening between us. I’m convinced that’s what I need to do. I can’t dive in when I have all this mess to sort out around me. But I can’t cease communication, either. I don’t want to. I can’t bear it. I don’t know when it happened, but Aidan is a huge part of my life now. I don’t know what I would do without his voice.
I never respond to the seductive messages, but I read every single word with a thumping heart and thighs squeezed shut.
Thirteen
Ivy
This morning sucks.
Still hungover, Derek had smashed his alarm clock in a pissy mood. I was standing by the dresser, pulling out my clothes, hardly a foot away from the alarm clock. The flying debris cut into my ankle and wouldn’t stop bleeding.
“I’m not cleaning this up,” I told him, bitterly.
I sat at the edge of the bed, inspecting the damage on my ankle, waiting for an apology, but he wound up storming out for work, barely blinking in my direction.
Things are so broken here.
Ever since I told him we needed to end – that we’re over – things have been tense. We don’t talk. He’s delaying the inevitable by not addressing it, and every time I begin to approach him, he’s cutting the conversation short and running the other way. As a result, he’s getting angry at the smallest things. He’s out more, drinking, and he’s coming home in the early hours. I’m scared he’s going to lose his job. He’s been late many times because of these binges. If things continue on this downward trend, I may have to find a place to go. I’d still pay my share of the rent and utilities here until Derek finds a roommate or decides to rent a smaller place.
After he left, I re-read Ana’s recent message.
Ana: Allison used her sister card on me and crashed my guest bedroom. I don’t know how long she’s going to be here for, but my offer still stands, Ivy. If you don’t mind crashing on the couch, that is. I love you.
Ana’s apartment is tiny, like mine, with just that extra bedroom. Three women in that space might be too much. I try to convince myself I’m not that desperate just yet. That co-existing with Derek may still work, tension and all. I can't afford to go elsewhere.
I had to hobble around the kitchen with a rag tied around my ankle, quickly putting together a lunch because we have once again mismanaged our money and I can’t afford a sushi tray. All I could find was baloney that I can’t be sure has expired and stale multigrain bread.
The walk to work was shit. I didn’t have time to make a quick stop for coffee. I arrived a few minutes late and got a mouthful from Connie.
I’m tired because I spent hours last night waiting for Aidan to message me, but he has disappeared (and that hurts for some reason). My head is pounding from caffeine withdrawal, and my regular’s hairline touch up has turned into a full-blown nightmare wit
h her bawling in her chair about her cheating boyfriend.
When I’m finally done blow drying her hair and consoling her – because God, my heart hurts for her – Alicia brings her to the front to pay, and I’m dashing to the staff room for coffee. I’m gulping a cup down, staring pleadingly at my phone, trying to figure out where the fuck I went wrong in the conversation for Aidan to have disappeared.
I find it, and I’m cringing at my desperation.
Ivy: Did you want to go for ice cream again sometime?
A.W.: Are you trying to tempt me, Ivy?
Ivy: No.
Ivy: I’m just really in the mood for a chocolate cone :P
Ivy: Hello?
A.W.: I’m here.
Ivy: Busy today?
A.W.: Yeah.
Ivy: You’re so quiet. Is everything okay?
A.W.: Just having one of those days.
Ivy: I understand.
A.W.: Do you?
Ivy: Why do you think I’m pushing for ice cream so much? :P
No response.
I slip the phone back into the pocket, feeling my stomach dip from embarrassment. His responses had been short like that the day prior too.
I think he’s already getting bored of me. I wallow for a moment in sadness, trying to process the rising likelihood that I’m no longer on his mind.
The door to the room opens and Alicia sticks her head in, staring at me with bug eyes.
“Um, Ivy, you lucky bitch, Aidan West just breezed through the door asking for you to cut his hair.”
My heart catches in my throat. “What?”
“Yep. Do you want me to repeat myself?”
When I don’t answer, she repeats, “You lucky bitch, the hottest man I have ever seen, Aidan fucking West, just breezed through the door, demanding your expertise. Melanie was all up in his business, saying in that annoying giddy voice that she can do it, but he flat out ignored her. It was so satisfying, Ivy, and I don’t even know how to feel right now.”
I have to shake off my shock as I absorb her words. Aidan is here? For me?
What!
The!
Fuck!
Am I dreaming? Is this a nightmare? Because if it were a good dream, we’d be on a beach and he’d be fucking me senseless. Aidan West showing up at my place of work while I look like a tired Hunchback of Notre Dame is the stuff of nightmares.
I crush the Styrofoam cup and toss it in the bin, and then I’m racing to the mirror on the wall and cringing at my reflection. I look seriously fucking ugly today. Like today is not my fucking day.
“Alicia,” I whimper, “help.”
Alicia doesn’t even need me to explain. She’s by my side in record time, opening her purse and pulling out a comb, brush and blush. As I make quick work of the blush, she’s combing through my tangles.
“Mascara,” she hisses. “Quick.”
“That’s unsanitary,” I reply.
She gives me a flat expression. “Unless you want to look like a washed-out horse, put some on.”
I do not want to look like a washed-out horse. I grab a tube of mascara from her purse and immediately apply it to my tired eyes.
“Do I look better?” I ask.
She nods. “You look great, but you have some serious explaining to do after you cut this godlike man’s hair.”
I let out a short laugh, but even that dies midway because…just when I’ve begun to think I’m no longer on his mind, Aidan shows up to prove me wrong. I’m so nervous, I think I’m going to vomit.
Just before I step out, Alicia’s voice rings through the air.
“Ivy,” she says softly, “relax, okay?”
I smile brightly. “I am relaxed! Totally relaxed.”
She winces. “Tone it down, okay?”
I nod at her and take a deep breath, bracing myself.
I don’t stop to overthink this. I just steel myself, open the door in one quick swing, and step out.
*
They haven’t seated him at my station. I have a feeling it’s because he’s waiting for me to.
He’s standing in the waiting area, back to me, his front facing the window. Hands in each pocket, he’s looking out at the busy streets. The whole place is quiet. Everyone is watching him and me as I silently creep up to him.
He’s tall. And broad. I lap the back of him up, feeling delicious sparks shoot through me. My face has heated up and he hasn’t even looked at me yet.
“Hey,” I say softly, smiling already.
He turns around at the sound of my voice, his dark eyes settling on me. His flat expression immediately lifts and his lips spread into the sexiest smile.
“Ivy.” He says my name like a prayer.
I can hear a collective sigh behind me. The girls feel it too. The want in his voice.
I swallow hard at his focused gaze. “I have an appointment in twenty,” I tell him. “I can squeeze you in for a quick cut.”
He chuckles, a look of surprise on his face.
“What?” I ask, curiously.
“I can’t think of the last time someone tried to squeeze me into their busy schedule.”
I laugh lightly in response. “There’s a first time for everything, Mr West.”
He goes still, his face warming. “You know my name.”
And you know where I work, I want to say. But I bite my lip instead.
Trying to play it cool, I dodge his statement and gesture for him to follow. “Come this way, Mr West.”
I lead him to my station, right in the middle of the crowded salon. I can’t even look Aidan in the eye as I motion for him to sit down in the seat. Everyone’s still watching. The focus is on us, and right now I’m feeling like Aidan West is too big for this hair salon. His attendance can’t be missed. I can feel his power, his confidence, his…dominating presence as he sits down, his eyes on the mirror directly in front of us. On me. He’s watching me intently. I’m trying not to fumble around as I adjust the chair height.
There is no fucking way I’m going to be able to get this all done and dusted in time for my next appointment. I glance nervously at Connie as she strides by, her face glowing. She gives me an excited nod as she finds a spot between stations to watch.
Okay, so she doesn’t care.
Good sign.
On reflex, I look at the mirror and into Aidan’s gorgeous eyes and then I look away like I’ve been burned. I’m heating up with nerves. Not only do I have the attention of everyone around me, it’s Aidan’s attention that leaves me fumbling.
Calm the hell down, I tell myself. It’s okay.
But it’s not okay, because I’m looking at the back of Aidan’s head, knowing I have to touch him. I have to run my fingers through his hair as I cut it.
“What would you like done?” I muster out.
“Do what you like, Ivy,” he answers. “I believe in your vision.”
I want to roll my eyes.
His hair needs a cut for sure, but I can tell he has had it professionally done from the best of the best. He doesn’t need the vision of a hairdresser in a mediocre salon (sorry Connie) in the middle of the city.
“Liar,” I whisper. “You’re just here to throw me off balance, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, a smile in his voice. “I was on an innocent walk and happened by this random salon.”
“Right, and you happened to know I work here.”
“It was a lucky guess.”
I relax at his playfulness. “If I fuck up because of nerves, it’s your fault.”
“Noted.”
“You’ll be showing up at the office looking like Buzz Lightyear.”
“I’ll even play the part,” he says, cheekily adding, “To Infinity and Beyond.”
“Very smooth, Mr West.”
His smile fades when I call him by his name. His eyes heat as they focus on me. There is a solemness in his expression that sends goosebumps over my skin.
“So,” I let o
ut, clearing my throat. “Do you need a wash? Delilah is really good with her hands. She’ll give you the scalp massage of your life.”
He’s still looking serious when he replies quietly, “If they’re not your hands, then no.”
I swallow, knowing I shouldn’t do what I’m about to. I mean, I don’t even have the bloody time to do this, but…
“I can give you a wash, Mr West.”
Fuck me, why did I have to sound so breathless? Acting thirsty is unbecoming of me, but this is Aidan West we’re talking about here. He’s so fucking hot, I’d lick every inch of him if I could.
I lead him to the shampoo station on the other side of the salon. He is moving so close behind me, I can feel his heat. I seat him and fumble with the salon gown like I have two left hands. I gently wrap it around his neck, breaking out in shivers when my fingers brush his smooth skin. Even though eyes are still swinging wildly in our direction, it’s quieter here.
“Lay back,” I direct him, my hands moving to either side of his head.
He reclines back so his head is hanging over the sink. I stand over him, extremely aware that he is staring at me intently. I dread the kind of point of view he is getting right now. It can’t be too flattering.
I test the water, finding the perfect temperature. The second I bring the water to his hair, his eyes shut and I’m back in safe territory. I run my fingers through his hair, lightly dragging my nails over his scalp. His shoulders relax as I find the perfect pressure. I’m careful not to spray his face, but I come close when I find myself looking over his face. His sharp jawline, his straight nose, his lips…Jesus, his pink lips are plump and beautiful, and they almost kissed me not too long ago.
