by L. D. Davis
“Hey!” I scooped up some on my finger and smacked it onto his cheek.
“I really want to get you back for that, but I don’t want to waste good cake.”
“It would be like sacrilege,” I said with a mouth full of cake. I washed it down with some coffee.
We sat and talked for over an hour. It was nice because we didn’t discuss work or anything sensitive, like our feelings or the wild sex we had in the past or about Luke. Luke was a pretty sensitive topic. And Jess. Jess was a really sensitive topic. Instead we chatted about embarrassing moments, our favorite artists, and old cartoons.
Like before, he helped me clean up and wash our few dishes. When I dried the last dish and turned around, Kyle put an arm on either side of me, trapping me between him and the counter. His face was only a few short inches from mine.
My heart began to race. Stupid heart.
“Did I tell you that you look amazing tonight?” he asked just above a whisper.
“You may have mentioned it once or twice.” He had mentioned it several times.
I moved my hand toward one of my stray hairs, suddenly self-conscious, but he stopped me.
“No, I like it. It’s sexy.”
I managed a half of a smile and let my eyes drop. It was so hard to look at him, even though I had been looking directly at him while we ate cake and chatted. For that time, I was able to numb myself to the flood of emotions I had felt earlier in the night, but I could feel them trickling in, one by one.
Kyle’s lips brushed mine. He pulled back some and then did it again, but then restrained himself once more. My eyes finally looked up to his face. He was having some kind of internal struggle as he gripped the counter behind me and looked down at the floor between us.
I couldn’t help myself. I ran my fingers through his dark hair. He looked at me, searching my face for permission. As an answer, I locked my hands around his neck, bringing him closer. He responded quickly and kissed me deep and slow.
His lips drifted from mine to my ear. He nibbled on my earlobe, occasionally flicking his tongue across it, driving me a little crazy. When he started to kiss my neck, I got all jelly-like in the knees.
He had one hand on my back, pressing me to him. His other hand was entwined in my hair. I knew we weren’t high school kids, and hickies were generally unattractive on a thirty something woman, but it felt so damn good as he nibbled and sucked on my neck. I moaned softly, completely lost in the moment.
His lips found mine again, but more aggressively than before. He kissed me hard, bruising my mouth with his. He pulled away again and kneeled before me. While staring up into my eyes, he slowly eased my dress up over my thighs. He tugged on my panties and I stepped out of them. His fingers found me wet, willing, and ready. Without much effort on his part, I had an orgasm that almost made me fall over.
I thought he would stand up then, but when I felt his tongue on me I thought I was going to lose my mind. I put one hand in his hair and braced myself against the counter with the other. Kyle moaned against me as he tasted me, swiping his tongue over my clit. When he finally stood up he gave me another deep kiss. I kissed back greedily, tasting him and tasting me.
Without taking his lips from mine, he carefully pulled my dress up again. While he held it up, I undid his pants and reached inside and wrapped my hand around his erection. He moaned into my mouth as I stroked him from root to tip and swiped my thumb over the engorged head.
He stopped kissing me so suddenly, that I was breathless, as if he was my only source of oxygen. Still holding my dress up for me, he released his cock from his pants. He bunched the dress up between us, and in one fluid movement, he put his hands under my ass and lifted me up and entered me. I gave a short shriek and wrapped my legs and arms around him, holding on for dear life.
Even though my parents were right upstairs, I couldn’t stop myself from moaning and crying out. The faster and harder he went, the louder I got. My butt was up against the counter getting bruised, but I didn’t care.
He roughly grabbed the back of my head and kissed me. When he deserted my mouth, he tilted my head back so he could attack my neck again. Suddenly, he groaned deeply which sent me upward toward another climax.
“I love you, I love you,” Kyle groaned into my neck.
I started to scream as I came and he quickly covered my mouth with his to muffle it. He grunted as his orgasm coincided with my own, his fingers pressing hard into my flesh.
After a quiet minute with no sounds but the two of us trying to catch our breaths, I untangled myself from him and he eased me back onto my feet.
I didn’t know what to say or do. It was an awkward moment for me. I stood where Kyle left me while he fixed his clothes.
He said he loved me. Did he mean it? Or did he only say it in the heat of the moment? We had had a few heated moments together though, and he had never said it before.
I was really too tired to think about it. I was tired before we started but after being pounded into the marble countertop, I was almost completely drained.
I could feel my hair on my neck, knowing that most of it had fallen out of the French roll. Jessyca would probably have a conniption.
I didn’t know if it was because I was exhausted or mentally unbalanced, but imagining Jess’s face if she saw my hair while being ignorant as to how it got that way made me giggle. Once I started, I almost couldn’t stop. Kyle looked at me as if I had completely come unhinged.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked in bewilderment.
“Nothing. I guess I’m just overly tired,” I said after I managed to stop.
He raised his eyebrows, but he looked worn out, too. His eyelids looked heavy and he kept rubbing them.
“If you’re too tired to go home, you can crash in Emmet’s old room,” I suggested. I still didn’t know what else to say, how to address what just happened.
He looked at me blankly, as if he had not understood. Then he blinked hard and seemed to get it.
“Thanks. I appreciate that. I can’t keep my eyes open much longer.”
“I have to take my parents to the airport in a few hours, but you can sleep as long as you like.”
After scooping my discarded panties up off of the floor, Kyle followed me out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I walked him to Emmet’s room and turned on the light for him.
“Goodnight,” I said, but didn’t immediately back out of the door like I should have. Instead, I found myself in a sleepy staring match with Kyle while I nervously bit my lip.
“Come here,” he said, wagging his finger at me.
The strong emotion in his eyes should have sent me running the other way to avoid any further mistakes and trouble, but I found my feet willingly carrying me into his arms. He gave me a kiss that I could only describe as sweet.
“Goodnight,” he said after releasing me.
I went to my bedroom with a crooked smile. I took a quick shower and then crawled into bed, really wanting to think about Kyle and what lay ahead, but a nagging guilt was building. There was another part of the equation that I had temporarily forgotten about.
Luke.
We had never claimed exclusivity, but then why did I feel like a big, fat cheater?
Chapter Eleven
When I woke up in the morning, I still felt like a cheater, because I was.
Luke and I were officially dating. Just because he never called me his girlfriend and I never called him my boyfriend didn’t make it any less true. I was a cheater. I felt like such a bad person. I wanted to stay in my bed, cover myself up and forget all about Kyle and what I did with him.
But, that wasn’t an option. The fastest way for me to get rid of my mother was to drive her to the airport myself, and for all I knew, Kyle was still sleeping in Emmet’s bed.
The first thing I did was go see if he was still around. I stepped into the hallway and listened. I heard my mom moving around in the kitchen humming, and I heard the rustling of the newspaper from the formal livi
ng room from my dad. I tiptoed to Emmet’s door and carefully opened it. The bed was empty and made. There was no sign of Kyle, save for his wallet peeking out from under the bed.
Sonofabitch.
I grabbed the wallet and retreated back to my bedroom. I left it on my bed while I got ready, but I kept looking at it. I wondered what was inside of it. Condoms? Pictures of Jess? A lock of my hair?
“None of my business,” I said out loud to the wallet. “Just because you were abandoned—again—doesn’t mean that I can freely go through you. That would be wrong, you know?”
After I was dressed and groomed, the wallet was still there, enticing me.
“Well, if you’re just going to sit there and stare at me,” I murmured.
I picked up the wallet.
I carefully opened it, expecting what, I didn’t know. I found a few credit cards, business cards for restaurants, car dealers, a few work-related cards, and I even found one for an upscale strip club with the name Tandi printed on it.
Hmm.
I counted a hundred and thirty dollars in cash. I didn’t find any pictures, or condoms, or any of my hair, but I did find a piece of folded paper that looked promising. I carefully unfolded it. Written in Kyle’s handwriting was the address of the bar he found me at, my bar. Literally. I owned the bar. I bought it just after my twenty-fifth birthday. It wasn’t common knowledge that the bar was mine. My family knew, my best friend Donya knew, and Lilly the bartender knew. The rest of my employees didn’t even know the woman who occupied the same stool a couple of nights a week was their boss. So, why did Kyle have it written down and when did he write it down?
I didn’t have time to think about it. I heard my mom coming up the stairs and it was almost time to leave. I slipped the wallet into my tote bag just as she barged into my room. It didn’t matter that I was thirty-one years old. She didn’t care about invading my privacy or the dignity I craved just from a simple knock.
“I was wonderin’ if you were awake or not. What time did that boss of yours leave? He’s a good-looking man. Too bad he’s with that Venner woman,” she said as she started to make my bed.
“What? You don’t like…Luke?” I asked, hoping she didn’t notice the pause. It was hard for me to say his name out loud after my night of slutting around.
“I think he’s great, but I like that Kyle, too.”
“Kyle can be a dick,” I said, edging toward the door.
“Well, honey, you’re no angel.”
“It doesn’t matter. As you just pointed out, Kyle’s with that Venner woman.”
“Yes. Well.” She stood upright, fluffed a pillow and put it back on the bed. “Since he is with that Venner woman and you are with Luke, he should probably be more careful how he looks at you when you’re surrounded by hundreds of other people.”
“What are you talking about?” I froze, half in the room and half out.
“He couldn’t keep his eyes off of you last night, and I saw his face when you didn’t want to dance to that slow song. If I saw all of that, then who else did?” She hummed lightly, as if this conversation wasn’t as important as it really was.
“Maybe you’re the only one who saw what you think you saw,” I said, hoping to dissuade her. “I don’t think it’s as dramatic as you think it is.”
“Yes. Well.” She started opening the blinds with more humming before finishing her thought. “Maybe if it wasn’t for the enormous hickey on your neck that wasn’t there when I left you two alone last night, I would be inclined to believe that I’m imagining things.”
I raced to the mirror to look at my neck, nearly tripping over my own two feet.
“Shit!” I yelled. I didn’t really look in the mirror when I was getting ready. I don’t need a mirror to brush my teeth or my hair. “Fuck!”
“Don’t let your daddy see that,” Mom said before exiting my room.
After putting on a jacket that hid my neck, I got my parents loaded into the car and deposited them at the airport. I went over the bridge and raced up 295 to Cherry Hill. I parked outside of Kyle’s apartment building next to his Lexus. I had to put an end to whatever it was we were doing. No more hickies, because his lips couldn’t touch me again.
The truth was my relationship with Luke was important to me. I had been in denial about it before, but it took something as drastic as being in another man’s arms for me to realize my true feelings for him. Was it love? I wasn’t sure, but it could be, and I couldn’t find out if I was busy getting marked up by Kyle.
After taking the elevator to Kyle’s floor, I half hoped that he wasn’t actually home, that Jess changed her mind about leaving and picked him up, or if I was lucky, he was abducted by aliens. I punched the doorbell and he opened the door seconds later, wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms. So much for aliens.
I held up his wallet.
“Again?” he asked, plucking it from my hand.
“I’m starting to believe you’re doing it on purpose, like you’re leaving your mark.”
His eyebrows went up. “I don’t need to leave a mark. I’m memorable.”
“I beg to differ,” I said and pulled my jacket back at the collar.
He whistled appraisingly as he touched the hickey. “I do good work.”
“Yeah, whatever. Have a good day, boss.” I started to walk away, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. He took my bag from me and dropped it on the floor by the door.
“Why don’t you stay a little while?” He caressed my hand in a way that made me a little melty.
“I really shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Because you can’t resist me?”
“Funny.” I started to pull away again, but he pulled me further inside and then closed the door.
“Why are you in such a hurry to leave?” He wrapped his arms around my waist, drawing me closer.
“Because you have a girlfriend and I have a boyfriend.”
“Yeah…we should get rid of them.”
“You don’t mean that,” I said, trying to break away.
“I don’t want to talk about them. I want to talk about us.”
“Us?” I raised one eyebrow.
“I love you,” he whispered, staring into my eyes.
So, it wasn’t just in the heat of the moment. I stared at him, startled, unsure of what to say. I tried to pull away from him again, but he pulled me even closer and held me tightly.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
“I can’t…” I couldn’t remember what I couldn’t do. His gaze was so intense I lost my train of thought.
“You can’t what? Love me? I think you already do.”
I shook my head.
No, no, no.
He pressed me into a closet door.
“Don’t lie to me.” He kissed me so hard it hurt. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered.
I shook my head. I couldn’t breathe. My heart was in my throat and it was beating faster than I thought possible.
“Stop shaking your head. You love me, I know you do.”
“I have to leave,” I managed to croak out.
“No, you don’t, but if you tell me you love me, I’ll let you go.”
“Sex does not equal love.”
“I know that, but I loved you before I ever touched you,” he said and ran his fingers over my cheek.
I stared at him with my mouth open. It felt like déja vu. Luke and I were wrapped in a similar scene not very long ago. What was it with men secretly carrying a flame for me?
I left my mouth open too long, because Kyle planted his mouth on mine. He kissed me for a long time, more tenderly this time. I…kissed him back.
“I love you,” he said again with his face buried in my hair. Then his mouth was on my neck, gently kissing where he had marked me.
I involuntarily moaned, which actually seemed to snap me out of the haze that was beginning to form around my head. With all of the strength I had
, I shoved him away from me. I felt tears burning in my eyes and did the best I could to blink them back.
I loved Luke. I loved him. I was absolutely sure of it in that moment.
The problem was I was also sure I loved Kyle.
“I love Luke,” I said weakly.
“Yeah. And I love Jessyca,” he took a step closer. “But I can’t help how I feel about you. I love you, Emmy. You love me, too or you wouldn’t be crying.”
“I’m not crying!” I wiped at my eyes.
“Just say it.”
I hastily pushed past him to the front door.
“I have to go,” I rushed out of the apartment and slammed the door behind me.
I marched down the hall and took the elevator all the way down and almost got to my car before I realized I didn’t have my bag, therefore, I didn’t have my keys or wallet.
“Crap!” I stomped my foot and went back inside.
Kyle opened the door before I could knock or hit the bell. He had a stupid grin on his face as he held my pocketbook up in one hand.
“It’s not funny,” I said, snatching the bag from his hand.
“It would have really been a great exit if you didn’t forget your purse,” he said. “I tried to look through it, but you have way too much shit in there.”
“I feel violated.”
“Like you didn’t look through my wallet.”
“Why do you have the name and address of the bar in your wallet?” I blurted out.
“I told you, I loved you for a while.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Why don’t you at least come inside?” He stepped aside so I could get in.
I looked at him with suspicion.
“Chicken.”
“I am not chicken.” I stormed inside.
“Want a drink?” he asked, walking past me towards the kitchen.
“No.”
“How about a bottle of water?”
“Okay.” I accepted the water while he cracked open a beer. “Now, answer my question.”
“What did you want to know?”
“Why do you have that address?”
“Oh, the bar. So I could punch it into my GPS.” He said it flippantly, as if he stalked people all of the time.