The Pact

by Max Monroe

  She grabs it greedily with two hands and takes a sip. “Oh, that’s good. That’s real good. And made to perfection. Thank you.”

  I know it’s made to perfection. Two sugars with a little creamer, that’s Daisy’s preferred coffee style. After living together for a while now, I know more about Daisy than I’ve ever known about anyone. Her little quirks, her favorite foods, the fact that when she says she’ll be ready in ten minutes, it really means thirty.

  “What are you listening to?”

  “‘Un bel dì, vedremo.’”

  She tilts her head to the side, and a wry grin covers her mouth. “I’m sorry…what?”

  “It’s from the opera Madama Butterfly.”

  “You like opera?”

  “Yes. You don’t?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I’ve never really listened to it.”

  “Have you ever been to an opera?”

  She shakes her head.

  “That’s…sad, Daisy. Everyone should experience going to the opera at least once in their life.”

  “Flynn Winslow likes opera. Wow. That is…quite the revelation.”

  “That surprises you?”

  “Uh…yeah,” she answers through a giggle. “But then again, I’m finding you’re full of surprises. I mean, I never would’ve pegged you as a guy who went to culinary school.”

  Her exaggeration makes me chuckle. “A few cooking classes, babe. Not culinary school.”

  She just grins. “A motorcycle-riding, leather-jacket–wearing chef who loves opera music. You are an enigma.”

  “As are you, Daisy,” I answer and reach out to tuck a few of her curls behind her ears.

  “Oh, I’m not that interesting.”

  I strongly disagree. She’s the most interesting woman I’ve ever met.

  My hand trails down her bare arm, across her bare belly, and I don’t miss the way goose bumps cover her arms when the music playing in the background reaches a climax that almost always gives everyone the same reaction.

  “This song is…powerful,” she says, her voice quiet as she listens intently.

  “That’s opera.”

  She looks at me quizzically, and when my eyes flit down to her bare breasts and belly, I get an idea. A brilliant fucking idea that is one-hundred-percent selfish on my part.

  “Would you like to play a game, Daisy?”

  “What kind of game?”

  “A game that will show you just how powerful opera music can be.”

  She quirks a brow but then shrugs. “Okay, sure.”

  Fuck yes.

  Carefully, I take the cup of coffee out of her hands and set it on the nightstand. She pouts, of course, but I just shake my head and gently ease her back down onto the bed. “This won’t take long. And stay right here. I’ll be back.”

  Out of the bedroom and into the living room, I grab a pair of noise-canceling headphones and the remote for my speakers.

  Once I’m back in the bedroom, I climb onto the bed and position myself right between, thanks to my devious hands, her now-spread thighs.

  Her mouth forms a little “O” of surprise when she realizes the intimacy of our position. “Is this game a sexy kind of game?”

  I nod. Her eyes light up.

  “I’m going to show you that opera music is so powerful, you are going to have the most intense orgasm of your life. And it’s only going to take about three minutes.”

  She laughs. Outright. “Three minutes?”

  I nod again. “Yeah, babe. Three minutes and you’re going to be seeing fucking stars.”

  I don’t wait for her response. Instead, I gently place the headphones over her ears and help her relax back into the mattress.

  She keeps looking at me skeptically, but it only makes me smile. Because I know in just a few minutes, she’s going to feel the kind of pleasure that’ll make her think she’s having an out-of-body experience.

  From my phone, I choose the one song that will seal her pleasurable fate—“Nessun Dorma.”

  Sung by Luciano Pavarotti, the one and only man who could sing it to perfection.

  I know this piece like the back of my hand, and once I hit play and the music is flooding into Daisy’s ears, I engage in my selfish desires of putting my mouth on her.

  Without preamble or hesitation, I bury my face between her thighs and lap and lick my tongue against her. She’s sweet like honey, and every time her hips jolt forward from the sensation of my mouth, it makes my cock grow harder by an inch.

  Fuck, this is heaven.

  I wish I could stay here all fucking day, licking and sucking and feasting on her. But I’m on a time limit, and I know, very soon, the orchestra and Pavarotti are going to start hitting the notes that will spur the most powerful orgasm Daisy has ever experienced and wring her fucking dry.

  My mouth wrapped around her clit, I suck, flick my tongue, and suck and suck and suck until her body starts to vibrate beneath me. Her moans grow louder by the second, and when her hands go to my hair, gripping the strands so tight it makes my damn skull hurt, I know she’s there.

  Fuck yes.

  Incomprehensible shouts escape her parted lips as her climax consumes her.

  Tears stream down her cheeks, and her body shakes and trembles beneath me, and I never stop eating and sucking at her. I ride out her orgasm right along with her, and I don’t stop working my mouth against her until I feel her body go lax.

  My chin resting on her belly now, I stare up at her as her breasts heave up and down with panting breaths.

  “Holy shit,” she mutters. “Holy fucking shit.”

  With shaky hands, she takes off her headphones and looks down at me in shock. “What was that? What just happened to me?”

  “That’s opera, baby.”

  She snorts. Giggles. Shakes her head. “That was insane. I felt…like I was in my body but not in my body. Hell, I don’t think I’ll be able to walk anytime soon.”

  I grin.

  “But you know what I can do?”

  “What?”

  She doesn’t respond, but a mischievous smile kisses her mouth as she sits up and crawls down toward me. Her fingers are on my boxers, pulling them down before I know it, and my cock pops free of the cotton constraints, still hard from watching Daisy come.

  “What are you doing, babe?”

  “I need to make you feel good, Flynn.”

  She needs. She fucking needs.

  Daisy leans forward and puts her mouth on me. Slow and teasing at first, she wraps her lips around my cock and begins to gently suck at my length.

  Well, fuck. It feels good. Too good. And watching the way she greedily takes me into her mouth makes it even better.

  I watch the way her eyes fall closed, as if it’s giving her actual pleasure to do this to me. I feel her warm breath against me as small moans escape her throat. And I don’t miss the covetous way her hands grab at my thighs and abdomen and chest.

  Daisy is a fucking goddess. A woman who surprises me at every turn. A woman who gives me the kind of pleasure I’ve never experienced before.

  You could spend forever having weekends like this with her, and it still wouldn’t feel like enough.

  Friday, May 17th

  Daisy

  “Good morning, Daisy,” a smiling, happy woman in a pair of medical scrubs with cute kittens all over the material greets me as I step into an exam room. “I’m Susan. I’ll be the nurse who’ll be helping Dr. Fields do your physical today.”

  She glances at her clipboard. “I have a note here that this physical is for immigration requirements, correct?”

  I nod. “Yes.”

  “Okay, great. I’ll make sure Dr. Fields has the forms she needs to file with USCIS.” She gestures with one arm toward the lone, white-paper–covered exam table in the room. “You can go ahead and take a seat.”

  I follow her instructions, and the paper beneath my skirt-covered butt rustles and crinkles as I adjust my hips and cross my legs.

&nb
sp; I don’t know what it is about doctors’ offices and hospitals, but they always have the same smell. A weird, everything-is-sterile odor that shouldn’t remind you of being sick, but for some reason, it does. It’s a conundrum, I tell you.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions, get your vital signs, and then Dr. Fields will be in to do her examination.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Stan,” I blurt but then cringe. “I mean, that sounds great.”

  Besides the strange odors, places where medical shit occurs always make me uncomfortable. There’s just something about a random stranger in a white coat asking invasive questions about your life and daily habits that never sits well with me. I mean, can you take me dinner before you start asking me about how many sexual partners I’ve had? Sheesh. I don’t want to start an intimate relationship with you; I just want you to tell me if this mole on my back is normal.

  Truthfully, I have the same issue with the dentist.

  Luckily, Susan doesn’t appear to notice the giant pink weirdo in the room and gets on with the show.

  “Have you experienced any illness in the past two weeks? Cough, runny nose, fever, body aches?”

  “Nope.”

  “Since we don’t have your immunization records, we’ll have to do a full blood work-up to check your titers for all of the diseases USCIS requires. Is that okay?”

  Ugh. Blood work. Another reason why I hate going to the doctor. But it’s not as if I have a choice in the matter. If I want a green card, I best be showing my veins.

  Internally, I cringe and grit my teeth, but externally, I nod. “Okay.”

  “Any pertinent past medical history we should know about?”

  “Not that I can think of. I don’t take any daily medications or anything. And my only surgery was a tonsillectomy when I was eight.”

  “What about a history of drug use, excessive alcohol use, or smoking?”

  I shake my head. “Nope.”

  Although, all this immigration stuff might lead me to drink…

  “Have you ever been pregnant before? Have any children?”

  “No.”

  “Is there any chance you might be pregnant?”

  I start to open my mouth to say no, but then, I’m hit with the truth of Flynn’s and my relationship. We’ve had sex. A lot of sex. And we’ve never once used a condom.

  Way to be responsible, Daisy.

  Susan stares at me, and I laugh nervously.

  “I…uh…don’t think I’m pregnant. I mean, I’ve obviously been having sex with my husband because that’s what married people do, you know.” Good God, Daisy, just get to the point. I clear my throat. “But I’m on the Depo shot. Have been for five or so years now.”

  “Okay.” Susan just nods and jots something down on her clipboard. “Per the guidelines we have to follow for USCIS, we have to do a pregnancy test. But since we’re already drawing your blood, I’ll add an HCG level check to your labs.”

  “What’s an HCG level?”

  “Pregnancy hormone check,” Susan updates and sets her clipboard down to grab a blood pressure cuff. “If you were to be pregnant, your HCG levels would be elevated.”

  If you were to be pregnant.

  If I were to be pregnant?!

  I don’t know why those words hit me straight in the gut, but they do. If I were to be pregnant, that would certainly cause quite the conundrum in an already complicated situation. Frankly, I don’t even know what I would do with that kind of information.

  What you would do? What would Flynn do?

  “We get everything back pretty quickly,” Susan adds. “Usually within twenty-four hours.”

  “And I take it you call me with the results?”

  She grins and wraps the cuff around my arm. “Yes. If anything comes up in your blood work related to your titer levels or HCG levels or any kind of out-of-the-norm results, we’ll call you.”

  “So, like a no news is good news kind of situation?”

  A soft laugh leaves Susan’s throat. “Yes.”

  I blow out a breath as Susan puts her stethoscope to my arm and checks my blood pressure, but my mind is pretty much a million miles away while she finishes whatever else she needs to do.

  Including drawing my freaking blood.

  Normally, I’m a lunatic with needles, but the realization of Flynn’s and my carelessness related to sex has provided quite the mental distraction. It’s like my brain is busy doing fucking parkour up there, trying to figure out what the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy with my contractual husband would be.

  How would Flynn even react to that kind of news?

  I honestly don’t know the answer to that, but it doesn’t matter because I’m on birth control. Obviously. So, all these mental gymnastics are a pointless endeavor.

  But it’s certainly interesting that you weren’t exactly terrified over the idea of being pregnant. If anything, you were busy with what Flynn would do…

  I shake my head to try to dislodge my obviously crazy thoughts. Now is not the time to have a psychotic breakdown. Surely USCIS will frown upon reading that Dr. Fields has deemed me to be medically insane.

  The big immigration interview might be just around the corner, but I’d bet money they’d cancel that shit real quick if a physician sent in paperwork that said I’m a nutcase.

  Which is why you need to chill out, you psycho. Just take a breath. And wait to lose your shit for after you leave this office.

  Sweet mother of mercy.

  As I walk out of Dr. Fields’s office, fresh from an exam and a blood draw and whatever else they had to do to me to make USCIS happy, I head for the subway.

  I don’t know why the whole pregnancy question threw me for a loop, but it did.

  Both Dr. Fields and Susan assured me that if anything came back outside of the norm—titer levels showing I need a vaccine, or you know, the big P-word—they’d call me. Otherwise, they’d just send everything over to USCIS, and I’d get a copy at my interview.

  But there’s no way I’m pregnant…right?

  Even when you’re on birth control, there’s a way. And yours just happened to involve a sexy-as-hell man with a big cock.

  Goodness. My mind has to stop fixating on pointless things.

  I roll my eyes so hard I almost bump into the man in a khaki trench coat walking in front of me on Fifth Avenue. Yes, Flynn and I haven’t exactly been using condoms, but I’m on freaking birth control, have been for years now, and I don’t feel pregnant.

  Not a single symptom, to be honest. No nausea or sore boobs or whatever else women have to deal with when they’re with child.

  As I pass a Walgreens on the corner, I almost consider going inside and grabbing a take-home pregnancy test, but before I can step through the automatic doors, logical thought wins out. Just because a nurse had to ask me if I was pregnant doesn’t mean that I’m pregnant. Geez.

  Maybe you secretly want to be pregnant? Maybe, deep down, you wish you could have Flynn’s baby?

  “Oh, for the love of everything. I have got to stop,” I mutter to myself and hitch my purse up higher on my shoulder. I don’t miss the strange look I get from a woman eating her sandwich on a bench, but I put my head down and focus on getting my ass to the subway so I’m not late for work.

  I have an apartment in Nolita to stage, and I’ll be damned if I give Tara even an extra five minutes of time to start making changes on my design plans. The woman is a little too into farmhouse chic, and the three-bedroom, three-million-dollar loft EllisGrey has under contract is the opposite of shiplap and barn doors.

  Not that there’s anything wrong with a little Chip and JoJo influences. I’ve seen Fixer Upper, and I adore everything the Magnolia brand stands for, but this loft is not the place for it. It needs a minimalist design with sleek, sophisticated touches.

  Once I make it onto the subway, I find an open seat across from a college-aged guy with headphones on and a book in his lap, and I proceed to take my cell phone out of my purse and
see what I’ve missed.

  A few work emails.

  And a boatload of texts inside my group chat with Winnie and Sophie.

  Sophie: I am freaking out. FREAKING OUT. How is my wedding less than two weeks away?! I haven’t even decided how I’m going to wear my hair or what shoes I’m going to wear with my dress or whether or not the caterers should serve shrimp cocktail at cocktail hour or…basically a million other things I’ve yet to figure out.

  Winnie: But you have your dress. Which is downright gorgeous. And you have everything else figured out with the caterer. It’s all good in the wedding hood, my soon-to-be sister-in-law. You have no reason to worry.

  Sophie: You swear it’s going to be fine?

  Winnie: Promise.

  Sophie: Can you also promise that my soon-to-be-husband isn’t going to do anything crazy like plan a flash mob in the middle of our reception or give me a lap dance while he’s taking off my garter?

  Winnie: Uh…

  Sophie: Winnie!

  A laugh jumps from my lungs as I read their exchange. Pretty sure Sophie is asking Winnie for a promise that she cannot guarantee.

  Winnie: What? You know I have no control over what my crazy brother does. Jude is nuts. I’m just thankful it’s him and not Ty that’s getting married. Truthfully, the only wedding I looked forward to was Flynn’s because he’s so damn laid-back, but he just up and married Daisy without inviting any of us.

  Winnie: P.S. I love you, Daisy! And while I was mad at you both when I first found out, I’m only thankful that I have you as my sister-in-law now.

  Instantly, I go from laughing to staring down at the phone with a knot in my chest. I’m starting to feel like such a fraud for lying to Winnie, for lying to everyone about the truth of Flynn’s and my marriage.

  A marriage that will come to an end soon.

  My interview is the morning of Jude and Sophie’s wedding. Which means, if all goes well, not too long before their actual wedding, Flynn and I will no longer need to keep up the fake-marriage pretenses.

  And even though his family has accepted me with open arms and started to feel like my own family—feel like the family I’ve always wished I’d had—I’ll have to move back to LA and go back to my life there, and Flynn will go back to living his life here.