by Sky Corgan
There was none of that nervous inner dialogue about what he would think of me when this was all over, none of that fear of whether he liked me enough for this to be a good idea. I didn’t care about that. I didn’t care about anything but the way my body responded to him. And dear God, if I responded so readily to just his fingers, what would it be like when he slid inside of me? It was something I didn’t want to wait to find out and something I didn’t need to wait for. All of those dating rules I had always tried so hard to follow, they were obsolete. There was just me and him and his fingers thrusting inside of me until I shrieked, coming hard and fast.
My own clumsy fingers still struggled with the buckle of his belt. It was a task I was so intent upon that it took me a minute to realize that he was drawing back from me. He kissed me lightly on the forehead and then pulled my dress back down, stepping just outside of my grasp. When I opened my eyes, he was smiling at me, but there was something strange about the smile, something that made it seem like he was shaken up.
“What is it, Matt?”
“I want to see you again, Bella.”
“What do you mean, again?” I laughed, hoping the question came off as playful and not annoyed, or even worse, needy. “I’m still here. I’m right here.”
“I know you are, and believe me, Bella, I’m incredibly tempted, but I can’t do this right now. I can’t get caught up tonight. I have a really early morning full of meetings, and if I let myself get caught up now, I won’t be able to stop.”
“Right. Okay, I get it.”
“But I want to see you again, okay? Promise me you’ll let me take you out again.”
I agreed, feeling numb about the whole thing. Matt begged me to let him drive me home, but that was something I wasn’t interested in. I called a taxi, telling him that if he had such an early morning, he didn’t need to be using his time to take me home.
The taxi was there in record time, the only thing about the end of our evening that worked the way I wanted it to. I rode home in silence, my head full of confusion.
CHAPTER FOUR
MATT
Bella had thought I was lying about my meetings. I had seen it on her face. She was a hell of a lot more transparent than she thought, although not nearly as easy to read as I was used to. I had seen the question on the edge of her mouth, wanting to know why I would have work meetings on a Saturday morning. I considered answering the question, too, even though she hadn't outright asked it, but in the end, I hadn't seen the point. She was already sure I was lying to her, and in my experience, a woman who knew you were lying wasn't all that interested in the truth. So I had let her go, knowing I wasn't going to get any sleep.
I was right, too. I'd climbed into bed like a good little boy, but every time I'd closed my eyes, I had seen her. I had seen Bella's face lifted towards the night sky, contorted in a mask of unadulterated pleasure while my fingers moved inside of her. Even when I did manage to nod off for a half an hour or so, she was on my mind, and I would wake back up again well beyond a tolerable level of sexual frustration.
When it finally started to get light outside, I had said fuck it and climbed out of bed, stomping into the master bathroom to take a shower. I had thought about Bella while I was in there, too, something I couldn't have stopped even if I'd wanted to. Which I didn't.
Leaning against the slick tile wall, I had closed my eyes and seen the way Bella's hips had thrust against my hand, the way her hips would have moved if I had slid my throbbing prick inside of her the way we had both wanted me to. My hand moved roughly up and down my cock while I thought about this, while I imagined the way her tits would bounce when she was perched on top of me. I came hard and fast.
It wasn't what I really wanted--wasn't nearly as good as the real thing would be—but it was enough to get me through the day. It made me tired, and I wanted to fall back into bed for an hour or three. Wanted to, but for me, that wasn't an option.
“No rest for the wicked.”
I smiled to myself in the foggy mirror, feeling none of the humor in my expression. That was the thing that had me pissed off about last night. Bella had left angry at being rejected, and I hadn’t actually been lying. I had a bunch of meetings to sit through, the last thing any guy wanted to do on a Saturday morning, and now I had to do it with Bella in my head.
“Excuse me, Mr. Brinks? I have to be honest with you. I’m getting the impression that your heart isn’t really in this thing. I have to say, it doesn’t fill me with the utmost confidence either.”
My eyes, which had been open but not seeing what was in front of me, cleared, and I saw Mr. Lipshtick, the owner of a company whose name I couldn’t even remember at that moment. I was a little surprised to find that I was actually in my office at all, a surprise I did my best to hide from the needy bastard. My whole morning felt like a movie strip with pieces cut out of it, leaving me to jump from one part to another without any of the in-between parts that made everything make sense. I was too tired for this shit. Too tired and too hung up on a woman who I barely knew at all. Unfortunately, for everyone involved, that didn’t mean I wasn’t still expected to do my job.
Being the owner of one of the biggest tech companies in Texas meant I didn’t get to blow off Saturday meetings, sleep or no sleep. It meant I had to placate the complaints of men like Mr. Lipshtick, men I would have rather told to get the hell out and be done with it. Instead, I smiled a smile I hoped was enough to calm him down and get him out of my office sooner rather than later.
“Please, Mr. Lipshtick, never think that. Believe me, we’re definitely interested in your company. I’m interested in it.”
“Are you sure about that? Because it looks like your head’s not in the game. It looks like you would rather be somewhere else.”
“Of course not, Mr. Lipshtick. It’s just the wheels in my head turning. It’s how I am when I get a new project. Like a dog with a bone, you know? It’s all a part of the creative process. I can assure you that we’re going to produce something you’re very happy with. It’s what we do.”
Mr. Lipshtick peered at me through his thick glasses, his eyes narrowed. I had a feeling he was going to make me do some more groveling before he allowed himself to be satisfied, and I ground my teeth, preparing myself. It had been my idea to be the face of the company and not just the owner, but that was something I was starting to rethink. I was getting tired of this shit. I was getting tired, in general.
“Okay, Mr. Brinks,” Mr. Lipshtick broke in, apparently satisfied with what I’d said, “you’ve certainly got the reputation. I’m ready to proceed. I think we’re going to do good business together.”
I stood and shook his hand, instructing the man to see my secretary on his way out for the paperwork necessary to start our partnership rolling and then sat down again heavily as soon as he’d gone. I was glad for the minute alone and rested my head in my hands, rubbing my temples slowly and wishing I could go home. I wished I could get Bella out of my head, too, and wondered what in the hell it was going to take to make that happen. I kept going over the night before, the way her hands had fumbled with my belt. Even thinking about it made my prick start to get hard again, which was just about the last thing I needed at the moment.
“Goddamnit. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
“Woah there, cousin! Catch you at a bad time?”
Not looking up, the headache that had been starting to build during my Lipshtick meeting took a giant step forward. My cousin, Noah, wasn’t supposed to be at work today, but with the way the day had been going, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Noah wasn’t the kind of guy to do what he was supposed to. That was precisely why I had done my aunt and uncle a favor and given him a job when he couldn’t get one elsewhere. He was a lazy fucker, and most of the time, he was kind of a son of a bitch to boot, but he was also like a brother to me, and that meant I was willing to tolerate a lot from him, even him waltzing into my office like he owned the place, although I’d be lying if I sai
d I was happy to see him. On a different day? Maybe. On this day? No fucking way.
“Hey, Noah. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Hell of a way to greet a guy. Seriously, bro, what’s going on with you? You look like shit warmed over.”
“Thanks, buddy. Always good for a compliment, aren’t you?”
“Just calling it like I see it, bro. What gives?”
“Didn’t get any sleep last night. Just struggling a little bit. That, and Lipshtick is sort of a prick.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice. Part of the job, right?”
“It is,” I answered lamely.
Noah and I had both come from money, and not the kind of money easily attainable for the upwardly mobile people of America. We had come from the kind of money people make movies about.
For the Brinks family, the life of the elite was no big thing. It was our day in and day out, and after a while, it got kind of boring. Having too much of some things can be harmful. Having too much of everything? Disaster waiting to happen. I was the guy who belonged in a soap opera, the douchebag rich playboy who was always down to screw other people over. I spent as much as I wanted and screwed five, six, ten chicks a week and then got up and did it all over again the week after that. I lived a life most dudes would kill for, and I loved it. Then, just like that, I didn’t anymore.
Something in my gut told me the life I was living was going to kill me, and not from an overdose or catching a disease either. It was going to kill me because it was sucking everything good right out of me. I didn’t want to be that man anymore, and for the past year, I had been working on changing.
CHAPTER FIVE
BELLA
“Hey. Are you at work right now?” I asked Maggie over the phone.
“Well, hello to you, too.”
“Are you?”
“Before I answer that question, who is it you’re pissed off at?”
It wasn’t the answer I expected to get, and it threw me off, made me angrier than I already was. I opened my mouth, ready to tell Maggie that I could easily be pissed at more than one person at the same time, then shut it again. There was no sense in picking a fight with my bestie just because my evening hadn’t gone the way I’d wanted it to. It might have felt relieving for a little while, just to have a person to aim this fiery feeling at, but it wouldn’t do me any good. I needed somebody to help me understand where the hell I’d gone wrong!
“Don’t worry, Maggie. It definitely isn’t you.”
“Sheesh, that’s good to know. You sound like you’re in a rare form.”
This was more than a little bit true. Estimating, I had been averaging around three to four hours of sleep a night. Coupled with more drinking than I was used to doing, my body was crying out for me to chill for a little while. On top of that was the humiliation, the utter discontent, with the way my evening with Matt Brinks had gone. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or scream, and over the past several hours, I had done a little bit of both.
Maggie, with all her hopeful optimism and belief that life might actually turn out to be a fairytale, wasn’t the perfect person to whine to about this, but I didn’t know who else I could talk to. In all honesty, I didn’t have anyone else to talk to, especially not about something like this.
Some girls would have called their mothers. I wasn’t that kind of girl. I wasn’t lucky enough to be that kind of girl. My mom hadn’t ever understood why I struggled so mightily with the opposite sex. She was beautiful and had been even more so when she was my age. She was the kind of woman who never struggled to get or keep a man in her life, and the fact that I did, drove her absolutely crazy. Even when she didn’t know them at all, my mother was prone to sympathize with the men who had jilted me, leaving me feeling bruised and inadequate on more than one occasion.
“I’m not going to lie, Maggie, I’ve been better.”
“It’s about the resolution, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?”
“Aw, Bella! I told you it would only make you miserable! You just aren’t the kind of girl who can fall into bed with a strange man like that. You’ve got a sensitive heart. I knew you were going to fall for him, and then you would feel terrible. This is exactly what I was worried about!”
“What? No! That’s not what happened at all.”
“Huh? Okay, then I’m confused. What’s wrong? Did he try to take advantage of you?”
“How could he have done that when a one-night stand was what I was looking for?”
“I told you, I’m confused! What’s got you so worked up?”
“Ugh, I’m almost too humiliated to tell you.”
“Come on, Bella, you know you don’t need to be. You know every embarrassing thing I’ve ever done. What’s the matter? You’ve got to tell me. Now I’m starting to get kind of worried.”
“No, please don’t be. It’s not really something bad, or at least not something you’ll think is bad. It’s just...he wouldn’t do it.”
“I don’t get it. Wouldn’t do what?”
“Do I really need to spell it out? We messed around but no sex. Who the hell fails at something like this? What kind of a girl can’t even get a guy to put out? Something must be really, really wrong with me. What in the world am I going to do?” It all came tumbling out, words I’d been needing to say ever since climbing into the cab outside of Matt’s fancy house with my dignity hardly intact. I was crying again, but I barely recognized it. I was just so tired, so completely at my wits end. I was so terribly frustrated, and all the while, Matt’s face was lodged in my mind. His friendly eyes, that million-dollar smile. I could still feel his fingers moving across my body, and the echo of sensation it left imprinted on me made me ache everywhere.
“But Bella, that’s great!”
“Great? I’m sorry, tell me how this is great again? You know this is like, the opposite of what I was going for, right?”
“Sure, I know that, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing.”
“That’s exactly what it means, Maggie! It means I failed! Like monumentally failed.”
“Sure, but think about what this could mean!”
“Aside from the fact that I’m a big fat failure?”
“Stop it,” Maggie barked, sounding on the verge of being annoyed now. She hated it when I talked badly about myself, and I knew it. I just couldn’t help myself for the time being.
“But Maggie, seriously. What else would you call this?”
“Maybe you’re looking at the whole thing from the wrong angle. Have you ever considered that?”
“Um, no. What are you talking about, anyway? I don’t see what other way I could look at a situation like this. He didn’t go for it. I put it out there, put it all out there, and he didn’t want it.”
“Maybe it’s not that he didn’t want you.”
“What else would it be?”
“Have you ever considered that maybe he actually likes you?”
“Sure. Right. That’s likely.”
“You’re being too cynical! Maybe he really likes you, and he wants to get to know you better. Maybe he isn’t just interested in casual sex.”
"Have you done any research about him? Because if that's what you think you should hop on the internet and see what you can find. All it takes is about five seconds to see that he has a reputation for being a total manwhore."
“Ever think that he could have changed?”
“People don’t change that way, Maggie. They just don’t.”
“Are you sure about that? Look at you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“This whole resolution thing. You’ve never been the kind of girl who wanted to sleep around with no feelings attached. And yet here you are, turning yourself into a person who does just that. If you can change, maybe he can, too.”
I flipped my laptop open and starting rifling through it dismally. I didn’t know how to tell her that she couldn’t be further from the truth. My resolution was o
nly days old, and I’d already managed to make a mess of it. I was supposed to take Matt to bed and leave him behind, never thinking about him again. Instead, I was on the phone with Maggie talking about why he had acted the way he did. It felt like I was right back where I had been in the beginning, back when it had seemed like I was always sitting around pining after some guy. Basically, it was the opposite of where I wanted to be.
“Oh! Oh man, are you kidding me?”
“What?” Maggie practically shrieked into my ear. “What’s the matter?”
“You’ll never believe this.”
“Believe what?!”
“I just got an email from him.”
“An email from who?”
“Who do you think? From Matt.”
“Ha! I told you! I freaking told you!”
“Told me what, exactly?”
“That he wasn’t just blowing you off! This proves it.”
“Come on, Maggie. It so doesn’t. This doesn’t prove anything, really.”
“Um, it definitely does. Why else do you think he would email you?”
“I don’t know. People send emails for all kinds of reasons, Maggs. I’d be willing to bet that most of the time it’s not to profess a secret dying love.”
“Nobody is saying dying love. What I’m saying is that he’s interested in you. He’s at least interested enough in you to want to talk to you. I think it’s time to consider the possibility that maybe not all men are crap. This one could actually like you. He could actually have potential.”