by Anne Marsh
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dev
“WE NEED TO get back to work.” Lola eases herself as efficiently off my dick as she put herself there in the first place. The woman is a wonder. I’m still debating what to do—compliment her? Go for an awkward, naked snuggle?—but she’s already grabbing her clothes and pulling them on. Even I don’t usually bolt this fast.
A noise penetrates from the outside world—yet another fire truck tearing past Calla’s building. From the frequency with which they go by, sirens blaring, all of San Francisco should have burned down by now. But the sound panics Lola. She scoops my abandoned clothes up and tosses them at me.
“Jesus, Dev. Get dressed.”
I straighten and pull on my boxer briefs. The hardware closet smells like sex, like Lola and me. Anyone walking in here today will know exactly what’s happened. I file it under Shit That Can’t Be Fixed and focus on what can be changed.
“I want to do this again.” I step into my jeans. How do people have these conversations anyhow? I’ve never worried before about whether or not my hookup wants to see me again—I’ve always been too busy running out the door.
“This?” Lola’s voice is muffled by the hoodie she’s pulling on. It’s navy blue with little bows at the wrists and gold beads that click furiously as she tugs everything into place. I add it to my new list: Things I’ve Taken Off Lola.
“This. Us. Whatever this is.”
Her head pops out and she stares at me. Thank God she seems riveted by my abs and the dark slice of cotton where I haven’t buttoned my jeans because I’m not sure what my face says. I never go back for seconds.
“It’s just sex,” she says. “Just one day at a time. Nothing more. You’re a hot boy.”
“You have a beef with hot boys? Is there anyone who wants to date an ugly boy?”
“Do you want a list?” She flings her arms wide. “Of course I have a beef with hot boys. I’m a nerd. It’s practically obligatory.”
I’m pretty sure that someone hurt her once. Or maybe more than once. I wait, but she doesn’t expand on her statement, and now isn’t the time to ask. Not that I’d know how to ask. I mean, do I even really want to know those sorts of details about Lola? You might, the little voice in my head whisper-roars. She’s pretty amazing. Sex with her in an actual bed might be amazing, too.
“You know,” she says, “this was great. Thanks. But now I’m going to head back downstairs. If you could wait a few minutes before you follow, that would be great, too, because I’d really rather no one knew about us. It would be—”
I can fill in that blank.
It would be awkward.
Messy.
People wouldn’t look at Lola the same way and that’s not fair, but it’s also the way our world works right now. If I were a better person, I’d try to change that, too.
“Gotcha.” A pause. I should say something else.
“See you later,” she says and runs out the door.
* * *
The day after we have hot server closet sex (which was a first for me), it’s business as usual. Lola demands to code review my latest project, and before I know it, we’re in a heated debate about thread-locking and whether or not I’ve violated every tenet of good software development (I haven’t—she’s just crazy). Ten minutes into our “discussion,” I’m not even sure what we’re arguing about anymore, if I’m being honest.
We retreat to our corners. For a few minutes, silence reigns. Then I catch her staring at me through that stupid glass wall. She smirks, and then she mouths I win.
Not a chance, I mouth back. I finish making my changes (she has no idea what a deal she’s getting on my services), commit without checking with her first and then text her my next move:
Are you free for lunch?
I hear her phone ding. She slaps a hand around her, looking for it, but no go. Aargh. She tossed it in her bag earlier but seems to have zero recollection of where she put it now. Eventually I text again: Cold. We play that game for an unbelievable fifty-seven seconds while she looks for her phone. Colder, warmer, warmer, colder, LOOK IN YOUR PURSE, hot, hotter, THANK FUCK YOU FOUND IT.
She looks down at the screen. She looks over at me. I wave. She yanks her gaze away from me and glares at her phone. She puffs out her cheeks and exhales. Then she taps out a message: Are you crazy? Lunch? One of us would poison the other.
As if. I snort and text back: I’ll play nice if you play nice. Or we can take turns taste-testing. Just tell me what you want me to eat.
Lola’s lips move as she reads and then she stands up and heads my way.
“What game are you playing?” She frowns down at me, foot tapping anxiously.
“I’d like to take you to lunch. Here.” I show her my phone. I’ve made a reservation at a cute little boutique hotel that’s five blocks away. Jack took his wife there for a staycation for their third anniversary, so it’s both classy and girl-approved.
She thumps down on my “visitor” yoga ball. “You want to have room service so badly that you booked a room?”
“Jesus, Lola.” For a beat, I believe her, and then I spot the twinkle in her eye. She’s playing me.
“We don’t know each other,” she says.
“Is this the don’t get in a car with a stranger thing?”
She shrugs. “Sort of?”
“So it’s okay to see me naked but not to go somewhere with me?”
She hums for a second. “I didn’t actually get to see you naked. It was dark and we were rushed. We don’t know each other.”
“But we could,” I argue.
Her mouth curves in a smile. “You want to fight about this, too?”
“You send me a list. I’ll send you one. Okay?”
She fumbles slightly with her phone. I wait until my phone dings and look down: Name the last three Yahoo! news articles you read.
Easy. I text back: Weather report sidebar, drone shots that revealed hidden secrets, movie spoilers. Now you.
Lola: Now tell me why.
Me: I surf, I always wanted to fly and I hate secrets. I like knowing how things end.
Lola: Wow. Royal baby (love me some Prince Harry), top ten tropical vacations and a woman who poisoned her nurse husband so she could hook up with a convict.
I slide my phone back into my pocket. “Are you trying to tell me something? Like I only have a chance if I’m royalty or you only do it on islands? Because I can buy an island but it’ll take a couple of days.”
She stands up. “You’re weird.”
“Hello? Pot, kettle.” I fall into step beside her.
She stops long enough to grab her bag and then we head out. Then she stops and looks at me. This is my game, my show. I’m in the driver’s seat.
We agree to take my bike to the hotel. It’s only about ten blocks, but we don’t have much time since we’re officially on a lunch break. I insist she wears the helmet—she’s the boss and her brain is more important. Her eyes laugh at me as she gets on my bike. Then we’re whipping through the San Francisco streets.
The lobby’s ceiling arches above us like a Victorian greenhouse, the gold and stained glass drawing attention as the afternoon sunlight pours through it, bouncing off rows of crystal chandeliers.
“Wow.” She stops and turns in a full circle in the lobby. “Can’t you just imagine who’s been here? Movie stars or royal princesses or some aging, still glamorous former model with millions of dollars?”
Hotels are places to sleep and sometimes hook up, more of a way station in my life while I hurry and get to the good stuff. I’ve never thought about who might have been here before me. If I had, I’d have wondered how well the hotel cleaned the room or something equally not fabulous. I pull Lola to my side and for a moment we stand there together, heads back, gawking at the ceiling like a couple of tourists or people havin
g fun.
“I love hotels,” she admits after I’ve checked us in a few minutes later. “They’re full of possibilities.”
I guide her over to the elevator bank and into the first free car. “How do you feel about elevators? And kissing in said elevators?”
Naturally, she thinks about it. It takes her three floors to come up with an answer, which is time I could have spent kissing her. I’m not sure I mind, though. Watching her is even more fun than checking out the lobby like tourists. She chews on her bottom lip, looking up and to the left as she turns elevator over in her head, and I wonder what’s going through her head and if she’ll tell me.
“Kissing’s good.” Her voice is husky, as if her elevator thoughts were a slideshow of people doing it rather than words. “But I have issues with the walls. If this hotel has two hundred rooms and an average occupancy rate of 80 percent, that’s at least a hundred and sixty people a day. Maybe sixty thousand people touch some part of the elevator getting on and off, right? So then if you’re kissing and you have your back to the wall, it’s kind of gross. And there must be cameras. In books, they just pop a Post-it note over the camera lens, but that seems like a big security hole to me, so I’ll bet there are hidden cameras, too.”
“You’re thinking too hard,” I tease. Not that I mind. It’s kind of nice hanging out with someone who insists on thinking for herself. She’s not worried about my money or my firing her. She’s just Lola doing Lola. “What kind of books are you reading? I might need some tips.”
She leans against me, resting her hands on my shoulders, to press a quick kiss on my mouth. “Romance novels, Mr. King. The mother lode of all things fun.”
The door slides open and I reach for her, grinning.
She must interpret my expression correctly because she dances away, laughing. I’m fast, though, and much, much bigger, so I catch her before she’s more than a few steps down the hallway and swing her over my shoulder in a fireman’s hold.
She smacks my ass. “Not romantic.”
“Send me your favorite book,” I suggest, tickling her side gently. “Or better yet, text me a list of your favorite scenes. Stop wriggling. You’re going to make me drop the card key.”
A minute later, we’re inside our suite. Three minutes after that, I’m inside her. It feels like we’ve been waiting for days for this, cataloging each fight, each brush of our bodies against each other, each casual touch. Neither of us holds back when the door clicks shut behind us.
I shove my hand into her hair, pulling her face to mine for a kiss, angling her head so I can kiss her harder. Her tongue drives into my mouth when I fist her hair. “Yes?”
“Now.” She’s already shrugging out of her shirt. As soon as her hands are free, she grabs my head again, holding me still for her kiss.
Not to be outdone, I run my hands down her sides, grasp the bottom of her tank top and yank it over her head, barely pausing our kiss. Her hands work the front of my shirt, unbuttoning and pulling until we’re both bare from the waist up.
I draw my fingers over the satiny skin of her ribs and trace the curve of her stomach. She giggles, then moans. When my hands reach the waistband of her yoga pants, I shove them down and she kicks them off.
Her hands find the buckle on my belt. There’s nothing sweet and gentle about how we touch each other, and I love it.
“Look.” I fist her ponytail and turn her head. We’re reflected in the enormous vintage wall mirror. “Look how fucking gorgeous you are.”
This is the first time I’ve seen her naked in the daylight. Her body is long and toned, but still curvy. The dark ribbon of her ponytail spills halfway down her back above the generous, peach-shaped ass. I turn us around so we’re kneeling on the bed, Lola in front of me facing the mirror.
“Take a picture,” she demands.
I reach for my pants and pull out my phone and a condom, holding the phone up to capture the two of us. My hand is on the soft curve of her belly beneath her breasts. Her head rests against my shoulder. I text it to Lola and then toss the phone onto the pile of our discarded clothing. I roll the condom into place.
She rolls her ass against me, shifting on the bed so her knees are farther apart. “I want to do it like this. Do you want that?”
I move my hand down, cupping her. Yes, I want that. I sort of hate that I want it that badly because this is casual hookup sex and yet it’s not. What I thought was a sprint and quick race to the finish line might be a long-distance race. I bite her ear as I part her with my fingers, and she moans. She likes it rough and fast, I remind myself. This is okay.
I grab my dick with my other hand and line it up, pulling her back into me. I push into her until I’m fully seated. My eyes meet hers in the mirror.
I move, hands on her hips, working her against me as I pound into her from behind. I pull back and then slam forward, riding her harder and faster with each thrust as we find a rhythm together. I’m not going to last long. Fortunately, she breaks first, her eyes drifting shut, her hands closing around mine as she comes. I let myself go, driving into her once, twice more, before I bury my face in her throat and come apart inside her.
After I take care of the condom, we sprawl on the bed, holding each other. Lola’s breathing evens out and she rolls so she can rest her cheek against my chest as her fingers toy with my nipple.
“Wow,” she says eventually. Her voice sounds a little dazed and I want to preen. “Now I see why older women go for younger men.”
“I’m not that young.” I gently pinch her ass.
“How old are you?” she challenges. “I bet you’re just a baby.”
I roll, lowering myself on top of her. My arms cage her head. “Naughty girls have to stand in the corner naked. They may get their asses spanked.”
She grins up at me. “You’re not motivating me to behave, Mr. King.”
Her smile’s amazing. It’s so fucking happy and in the moment. Part glee, part devil, all Lola. She’ll have laugh lines and happy crinkles at the edges of her eyes when she smiles in another twenty years and she’ll be even more beautiful. I drop a quick, hard kiss on her laughing mouth.
“But you are paying attention,” I say.
“Mmm.” She slides her hands around my neck and wriggles with downright predictable effect. “Ooh. Are you going to smack me with your big ruler if I don’t?” Then she frowns, clearly off on a tangent again. “How old are you, really?”
I know it bothers her that I’m younger than she is, so I’ve avoided the question so far. “Promise you won’t get all funny if I tell you?”
She shrugs. “No idea. I can’t promise until I hear the number.”
Lola, it seems, is always honest, sometimes painfully so. Not the kind of blunt truth-telling shit that people like to pull under the guise of being holier-than-thou honest when what they really like is making others feel bad, but the kind of conscious decision that she won’t lie. I’m not like that.
“Twenty-six.”
She makes a face. “And I’m thirty-one.”
“You could have been my high school crush, the hot older woman.”
She sneaks a quick glance at the bedside clock, checking. We still have time. “Did you have many crushes?”
“Thankfully, just one. I was a skinny, nerdy teenage boy. I didn’t shoot up until my senior year.” I begin moving while I talk, stroking up and down. I’ve been inside her once today and it isn’t nearly enough. “Tell me about yours?”
“Trombonist in our state’s competitive band,” she says promptly. “He was first chair, I was third, so I sat right in front of him. He was a manspreader and every time I turned around, I got an eyeful of this enormous bulge in his jeans. Competitive band lasted a week and I turned around so much that my neck was sore. It was so much fun.”
“Did you ask him out?”
She shakes her head. “Of cour
se not.”
As if it was that simple. As if she’d been happy to look and to daydream but anything else was a no. Or a pass. I banged my high school fantasy chick, but Lola fantasized. Her eyes, looking through me, are warm and unfocused—she’s doing it right now, when I want her here, with me.
“Why not? He would have been yours in a heartbeat.” I don’t know the trombonist, but I know high school boys.
Her mouth reaches for mine. “Because the fantasy was more fun. I didn’t really want to have sex with him, Dev. I just loved the idea of him. Of imagining the possibilities. If I’d asked him out, things would have changed, probably not for the better. I mean, how many people find their one and only in high school?”
I don’t want to think about that, about whether Lola might want to find a guy she can settle down with in happy, boring monogamy.
“Did you touch yourself thinking about him?”
“Oh yes.”
“Give me the list.”
And then she does, and one thing leads to another, and it turns out that our second time isn’t that much slower or gentler than the first. After she comes, she flies off the bed and starts grabbing clothes. Normally I’d find this convenient, but today I sort of like the idea of holding on to her a little longer. Probably because she’s naked.
“Dibs on the shower,” she bellows, already through the door.
“Someone needs to work on her sharing skills.”
I prowl after her. That someone is going to be late back to work today.
* * *
Friday I’m in Nordstrom’s, buying more ties. I eye the selection on the counter, debating which to choose. Shopping isn’t something I generally do voluntarily, but Lola’s hard on my wardrobe and she seems to love stealing my ties, and yes, I’m hoping she pillages me again. I know I’m overthinking this, but I can’t help wondering which one she would like best. Would she be a fan of the elegant, understated Hermès tie? The green-and-blue-striped one? Navy blue with bright orange cameras?
I’ll just text her and ask. Most likely, she won’t even answer—or she’ll demand a project status update.