Secret Keeper

by Harlan, Christopher

  “What are you going to do?” I ask. He hovers over me and leans his face into the back of my neck.

  “Just wait and see.”

  Oh. My. God. I hear his pants coming off with the jingle of his belt buckle, followed by the sound of the fabric hitting the floor. Then it’s my turn. He pulls my skirt down and I step out of it when I feel it hit my ankles. I feel one of his legs go between mine and spread my legs even farther apart. Before I know it, his fingers find their way inside of me, deep into the wetness that’s been waiting for him this whole night.

  I gasp as he goes so deep that I can feel his knuckles resting against the outside of my pussy. “Fuck, Dylan!” I yell in ecstasy.

  “Just wait, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  He thrusts his finger in and out of me so fast that I can hear the sounds of friction his hand against me is making. I hold myself up with one arm and reach down with the other one to rub my clit as he fingers me. I’m done with the tease. I’m ready for the real thing.

  There’s a pause. I don’t realize it but I’m holding my breath in anticipation.

  He knows it too.

  And that’s when I feel him. At first, it’s slow, but the feeling of pressure builds as his massive cock fills me up. I feel it slide into me until it’s deeper than I’ve ever felt before. He’s so big that I gasp at first. He takes his time, but before long I’m pressing my ass back into his pelvis as he grabs onto my hips.

  He fucks me hard and fast, slamming me along the shaft of his cock—my hands still pressed against the wall as he keeps total control over me. This doesn’t feel like anything I’ve ever experienced before, and I know that I’m about to come.

  “Don’t stop!” I yell, turning my head to look back at him.

  “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “I don’t plan to.”

  He keeps going as I feel the sensations build. My body is on fire, and the feeling of him inside of me is making my body respond like nothing I’ve ever known. He keeps going, faster and faster, until I can’t take anymore.

  “I’m going to come, Dylan.”

  “Then come for me right now!”

  “Oh, fuck!”

  My body feels like it’s exploding—and I start to shake and convulse as he keeps pushing deep inside of me. When I’m done, he pulls out of me as I turn around. I reach down and grab his thick manhood in my hand and stroke him as hard and fast as I can. We start to kiss again, our bodies pressed against each other and our tongues smashing together.

  “It’s my turn,” he tells me. “Don’t stop.”

  I stroke until I feel his explosion all over my hand and his body relax against mine. We both fall to the floor, our breath rapid from what we just experienced together.

  “You’re amazing,” I tell him.

  “Nothing compared to you.”

  My heart is still racing as I breathe shallow breaths, my only thought being how different this is from any experience I’ve ever had with a man. And not just the sex—I feel different in every way when I’m with him.

  I can’t decide whether that excites or scares me.

  15

  Dylan

  My eyes open slowly as the sunlight beats down on my face. I squint my lids as quickly as I open them, then cover my face with my hands. When I move I feel her move against me, and then I remember last night.

  Penelope’s warm naked body is pressed into me, her breasts soft against my side, her leg draped over mine. The first thing I perceive besides the light shining between the crack in the window shades is the smell of her hair. It smells like strawberries, and it’s the best smell that I could ever wake up to. I take an extra deep breath of it as she starts to stir.

  “Hey sleepy head.”

  She opens her eyes slowly. Once she does I look down and we lock eyes again. I lean down and kiss her awake. Her lips are warm and soft. For a second, I forget all of it—where I am, what happened last night, what’s yet to happen today—and I just experience her—all of her. The way she smells, the way she tastes, the feeling she gives me as her body lays against mine.

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” she says.

  “Yeah, right. I didn’t see you as a snorer but you totally are.”

  “No way. I do not snore.”

  “You’re right, it’s not fair to call it a snore. That was more of a wounded animal sound you make. I’m surprised you didn’t wake the people in the next room.”

  “Okay, now I know you’re making that up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if I was really that loud someone would have told me about it.”

  “I refuse to believe that no one ever has.”

  “You’re the first person to ever say that to me.”

  I laugh out loud. I can’t help it. “Then people have been lying to you for a very long time. I can’t believe that Chandler. . .” I stop myself as soon as I let the name of her fiancé fly out of my mouth, and I regret it immediately. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t,” she tells me. “He exists. He has to be dealt with, right? We can’t just pretend that I wasn’t engaged to the man just a few days ago.”

  Saying his name was a Freudian slip, but once I do it I start feeling and thinking all sorts of things—from possible guilt, to worry, to some new emotion I don’t think has been classified yet—the one where you sleep with your potential boss’ ex fiancé when you were tasked with getting them back together.

  But, of all the complex emotions, the one I’m not feeling is regret. This might change when I have to face Chandler later, but as I lie here I feel no regret whatsoever. Last night was the best sex that I’ve ever had, and I don’t know what came over me, but I never want it to go away.

  “I have to see him later.”

  “Chandler?” she asks. “Why on earth do you have to see him?”

  Then it occurs to me that she doesn’t know any of this—doesn’t know that the reason I broke up her hallway fight the other day was because I was coming to her place to see her soon-to-be-husband about a job interview. She doesn’t know that he had me visit a reporter to run interference on an article they’re trying to run that will potentially ruin him, and she sure as hell doesn’t know that very soon I’m going to speak with Teresa, the woman carrying his unborn child.

  Now I feel something unmistakable—guilt. Guilt that she doesn’t know what’s going on between me and Chandler, but I can’t tell her now. She’d never look at me the same way again. I don’t know how to fix that or what to do, but I know that I never expected to be in this position.

  “Building stuff. Nothing crazy. It’s just going to be weird.”

  “To look into another man’s eyes, knowing that you just banged his fiancé out only a few blocks from where he sleeps? Yeah, that might be a little weird. Good luck that.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Hey don’t feel bad, I’m going to have to see him too, eventually. We need to split things up formally, and then I’m going to have to figure out where the hell I’m staying.”

  “Staying?”

  “Oh, Dylan. Did you really think he was going to let me keep that lavish co-op apartment while he went and found a new place? Wow, you really don’t know Chandler at all, do you?”

  I’m starting to, Penelope, I’m really starting to.

  “I guess I don’t just yet. Not sure I really want to from what I’m hearing.”

  “Let’s stop talking about him, okay? He’s a reality I need to deal with soon, but right now I want to hold on to this.”

  Ditto—on both counts.

  As Penelope showers I check my phone, which is blown up with a million messages as usual. I do my typical sorting of them, making a quick evaluation as to which I need to actually address and which I can ignore for now. And really, I’m only looking for one—Chandler.

  I’m late. I need to jump up, get dressed, shower, shave, and get back to the building. I can do it, but it’s going to be tight. I need to shower right now, but Penelope is already in there. I
wonder if she’d. . . nah, I bet she wouldn’t.

  I’m already naked, so getting undressed isn’t a step I need to take. All I do is get up from bed in my birthday suit and head to the bathroom. When I open the door, a wall of steam and humidity hits me right in the face. It’s almost overwhelming, but what’s more overwhelming is the idea of being in the shower with her. I know I don’t have time to mess around, but a guy’s gotta live.

  I pull back the curtain and she’s standing there with soap dripping down her entire body. The water is hot and smashing against her chest. I just stare at her wet body for a second, thinking all sorts of devious thoughts.

  “Well?” she asks me, turning so that I can see all of her. “What took you so long? Get in.”

  Maybe the day isn’t going to be so bad after all.

  * * *

  I manage to get my shit together in record time, minus the handful of razor cuts on my face from the frantic scraping I did in a bathroom mirror that was way too foggy to shave with. Besides that, I’m good, and most importantly I took the time to think. I’m going to tell Chandler what I want him to know, hide what I don’t, and make up the rest. Hopefully he doesn’t see through me too easily.

  I knock twice and the door opens with some force. It’s Chandler, looking exactly like he did the other night. I’m not sure what I’m expecting, but maybe I hope that in some way he’s upset that his fiancé left him, and that I’d see that his eyes were red from crying, or that he wreaked of booze from an all-night bender meant to drown his sorrows. But that’s just wishful thinking. Chandler looks fine. Better than fine, the man actually looks happy.

  “Dylan, how are you? Rested?”

  “Eh, I’ve always been a bad sleeper.”

  “Me too. I’ve never had much use for sleep. It always struck me as a kind of weakness built into our biology. I barely sleep now, but do you know how much more I’d be able to get done if I had those extra five hours? Jesus, I’d be Jeff Bezos by now.”

  This guy is really a piece of work.

  I don’t say anything, I just walk in and shut the door behind me. His couch looks expensive, and part of me feels like I shouldn’t sit on it. In fact, everything in here looks like I’d need to save a few months of salary and give up food in order to afford. I sit down anyways—the sooner I sit down the sooner I can brief him on what he needs to know, and then I can leave.

  “I understand you met with Tomas yesterday.”

  “I did. Nice guy.”

  I don’t know why I threw that part in. I like to stir the pot, I guess—like to see when I can get reactions out of people. It’s like a feint in fighting or a bluff in cards—I like to act just so that I can see how the other person will react. In this case he gives me a puzzled, borderline angry look.

  “He’s a snake, Dylan, don’t ever think otherwise. All reporters are. Anyone who makes it their life’s work not to create something of their own, but to tear down and expose what others have spent a lifetime building—that person is a snake and needs to be dealt with.”

  Funny, I always just thought reporters were there to keep the public informed. Guess I have it all wrong, huh?

  “Right. I meant he wasn’t obviously a dick, if that makes sense.”

  “They hide it well. It’s how they get you to tell them what they want to know. Reporters exist to use people for their stories, and then they discard them like yesterday’s trash. How did the meeting go?”

  “It went well, I think. He didn’t make me.”

  “Make you?”

  “He didn’t realize that I was there to gather information and not really one of your ex-employees.”

  “Snyder is a shrewd one, you must be a good actor.”

  You have no idea how good, Chandler.

  “I just went over the details you sent me, again and again, until I’d pretty much become Dylan Carlyle.”

  “Good. And what did he ask you?”

  “He wanted me to go on record several times, I shot him down each time.”

  “Good. What did you tell him?”

  “That I was afraid you’d come after me if I went on record, so I preferred to keep everything we discussed in the office.”

  “And what did he tell you? What does he know?”

  Here’s where a game, like the one I’m playing, is more of an art than a science. I want to give Chandler what he wants without showing him my entire hand. I don’t want him to know how much I actually know about his business dealings.

  “Not as much as you think,” I tell him. “Mostly he’s repeating information that’s already out there in other articles.”

  “You’ve read up on me?”

  “I like to be thorough, sir.”

  I call him ‘sir’ intentionally—even though he told me to refer to him by his first name, I pay him a little extra respect that he definitely doesn’t deserve just to see how it makes him react. Big surprise, it gets a grin—albeit a devious and small one.

  “Good,” he says. “Very good. I was told that about you, you know?”

  “What’s that?”

  “That when you’re given a task you leave no stone unturned. Graham was very specific about that point. Now I see he wasn’t just blowing smoke up my ass, as he’s likely to do once he gets going.”

  I force a smile even though I want to punch him right in the face for insulting Graham. Not that he’s wrong, exactly, but only I’m allowed to talk shit about my former employer. “Well that’s very nice to hear. But back to what you were asking me, I looked up some of the accusations against you on my Uber ride to the newspaper, and I was careful to listen for anything Tomas had to say that wasn’t in any of the existing articles dating back almost a year. I may have missed something, but I don’t think so. Everything he said just sounded like a regurgitation of existing stories.”

  “I see,” Chandler says. “This is good. Very good. I was worried for a minute there—do you know about Tomas? His history?’

  “No,” I tell him honestly. “I’d never heard of the man before you sent me to him, and I didn’t have time to look both of you up. It wasn’t that long of a ride.”

  “Ha. Very true. Tomas is a piece of work. A low-level scum of the worst sort, but he is well respected in his field. He was on the short list three years ago to receive a Pulitzer for a piece he wrote on government contracts with private security firms in Afghanistan. He exposed a civilian massacre by several members of a U.S. hired security firm in Kabul. It was everywhere and led to real changes in Washington. He’s a piece of shit, but he’s not to be taken lightly.”

  “I see that.”

  “But it seems in this case he needs a former employee to speak out or he’s got nothing that’s a threat to me. You did excellent work, Dylan. I basically sent you undercover on a day’s notice and you didn’t disappoint.”

  “Thank you, Chandler. I want to do my best for you.”

  I’m going to throw up in my mouth. I feel it coming. Any second now. I’m sure he has a team of dry cleaners on staff for when I blow chunks all over his arrogant suit.

  “That’s good to hear. You’ll hear many things about me, and most of them aren’t the real me. But one thing that holds true is that I’m a demanding man—demanding of myself most of all, and I hold that same standard for my employees, especially one who would be as intimately knowledgeable about my affairs as you would be.”

  “Of course,” I say, returning the intense gaze that he’s giving me. “You should demand nothing less than the best, and that’s always what I want to give an employer, even before I did all of this. If I was going to pour coffee for a living, I’d want to be the best barista in New York City—excellence is just built into my DNA.”

  That last part is the most honest I’ve been with him. Just because he and I were born on opposite sides of the tracks doesn’t mean I can’t outwork men like him in every way imaginable. All I need is an opportunity, and sometimes a deal with the devil is a necessary evil.

  “Tell
me about the other matter. Tell me about Penelope.”

  When he says her name, I get angry. It’s stupid, and it makes no sense. After all, we were only together a single night and he’s been with her for a long time, but something deeply alpha male comes over me—and I want him to take her name out of his mouth immediately. He lost his rights to her when he cheated, and I’d bet my life savings that Teresa wasn’t the first, she’s just the most egregious.

  “I took her out for pizza. I wanted to see how she’d be with me before I started bringing you up. I figured if I went there too soon I’d seem like a spy rather than a friend.”

  “Interesting that you use that word, Dylan. Is that how you approached the situation? As a friend?”

  Now he’s fishing. There’s something predatory about Chandler—it’s not always there, but it comes out in little moments of a conversation like the one we’re having now. He’s not so much talking to me as he is reading me—studying micro expressions and gauging my reactions to his questions. I have to play it cooler than I did with Tomas—I have to believe everything that I’m saying.

  “Of course, Chandler, how else?”

  “Well, you never know. Penelope is a beautiful woman.”

  “Very,” I agree. He hones in on me with an intense focus, trying to evaluate if I’m just being factual in my description, or if there’s something else behind my words.

  “Excuse me?” he asks.

  “It’s like you said, Chandler. You demand excellence, right? Well I assume that would also apply for the woman you choose to marry. It was very clear you did a good job in that regards.”

  “I see. Go on, then. You took her out for a friendly slice of pizza, and then what?”

  “And then nothing. We finished our meal, took a walk, and then. . .”

  “Took a walk where?”