by JA Huss
I slap her ass hard as I stand up. She looks over her shoulder again. “What are you doing?”
I say nothing as I undo my tie and pull it through the collar of my shirt. I take my suit coat off next, walking over to a chair and hanging it up so it won’t be wrinkled in the morning. When I come back I’m already unbuttoning my shirt. She watches my fingers very carefully. I slip the shirt off and place it over the jacket.
My pants are unbuttoned when I walk back over to her. She watches me take them off and fold them up. I stand over by the chair as I drop my boxer briefs and fist my cock so she can see I’m hard for her.
I can’t deny my desire. I fell in love with her for a reason. And that reason has a lot to do with what she looks like naked.
“Touch me,” she says.
“Lie down,” I answer. “Flat. With your legs straight.”
“Quin—”
“Do it,” I say.
She huffs out another breath. Like I’m frustrating her. Good. Now she knows how I feel tonight.
She lies down, her face turned to one side so she can see me, and straightens out her legs. They are long and tanned from lots of time in the sun down south. Her whole body is golden, just like her hair. It spills over her shoulders and back like a waterfall.
I walk towards her, place a hand on her outer thigh and put one knee on the couch next to her hip. Then I force my other knee between her body and the cushion, so I’m sitting on the back of her knees.
“Yes,” she moans.
I play with her ass. My hands are all over her ass. Rubbing it. Letting my fingers slip between her legs just a little bit. Just enough to tease her with what’s to come. I bend over her body, letting my chest press against her back, and lower my lips to her neck. I slip a hand underneath her so I can squeeze her breast.
Her whole body trembles from the sensation of my lips.
“Did you miss me?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “Every night, Quin. I missed you.”
“I missed you too. One year is too long.”
“I know. But I promise, I won’t ever leave again. You can trust me, Quin. I promise I won’t do it again.”
I say nothing. Just enjoy the heat our bodies create together.
Her outside leg falls and one foot drops to the floor. It’s kinda cramped on the couch so I don’t make a big deal about it. Instead I dip the hand on her breast and slip it down her belly until I’m playing with the wetness between her legs.
She moans. “I like that,” she whispers, pressing her ass up into my cock.
I bet she does.
My dick presses between her ass cheeks and she opens her legs—just a little since I’ve got her boxed in with my body—and I slip inside easily.
“Yes,” she moans. “Fuck me.”
Oh, I fully plan on it. One more hard thrust and I’m all the way in. She gasps from my forcefulness, her back arching, but I sit up a little and press my palm right between her shoulder blades, pinning her beneath me.
Her pussy clamps down on my dick, her muscles tightening around my shaft.
I slap her ass cheek so hard, she squeals as I watch it turn red.
“You’re a fucking whore, aren’t you Rochelle?”
“Yes,” she says, raising her ass up again, practically begging for more.
I give her what she thinks she wants. I start slow, just like that other time. I start slow and then gradually fuck her a little harder.
She begins to moan, so I grab her by the hair and force her up, holding her against my chest, and just pound her from behind. Pure fucking. My other hand wraps around her throat and I squeeze. Not a lot, but enough.
She goes wild. Gasping for air, trying to fuck me back by pushing her ass towards me, even though I’m the only one in control tonight.
“You like it when Bric and I fuck you together, don’t you, Rochelle?”
“Yes,” she says. “Yes.”
“You like the way he slaps you around, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she moans again. “Fuck me, Quin. Fuck me harder.”
“You want us to fuck you at the same time, don’t you?” I say, my breath coming out long and hard. “You want both our cocks inside you at the same time, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she moans. “Yes.”
I look down and watch myself fuck her. The way my dick slips and out of her pussy. I pull her hair harder. I squeeze her throat tighter.
She starts gasping for air, so I stop that and cup my whole hand around her mouth to keep her screams inside, and force her head back so she has to look me in the eyes.
So she has to see me.
I thrust inside her, hard. Then harder and harder until we come together. Her whole body shaking and trembling as she reaches climax. Her hot breath on the palm of my hand, gasping for more air. And then she goes limp as her come coats my dick.
I let her go and her body falls forward on the couch. I fall on top of her too, and we lie like that. Together. Skin to skin, as we try to catch our breath and calm our racing hearts.
I am so fucking tired.
I get off her and stand up, fisting my cock as I reach for her t-shirt on the floor and clean myself off. She rolls over on her back and watches me, and when I’m done I throw it on top of her belly.
“Did you like it?” I ask.
She nods, looking a tiny bit worried. This is not how things usually go when we have sex.
“Good,” I say. “Because that’s how I fucked Chella that night you told her to sneak into our bed and pretend to be you. Now you know what you missed.”
Chapter Eleven - Rochelle
“So then what happened?” Bric asks.
We’re sitting at our booth in the White Room. Before I left, I’d sit in the middle of the bench, Quin would sit across from me in a chair, and Bric would sit to my left.
Bric is still to my left, Quin isn’t here yet—if he’s coming at all—and Adley is in her baby seat on my right.
Everything is familiar—but off.
“Then he went to bed.”
“What’d you do?”
“I sat there on the couch for a while trying to figure out what happened.”
“What did you come up with?” Bric is looking very intently at me. Like everything I’m saying is critically important.
“He hate-fucked me, that’s what I came up with, Bric!”
“Rochelle,” Bric says, throwing me one of those Don’t overreact looks.
“I’m serious. There’s no other explanation for it. He hate-fucked me. Revenge fuck. Whatever you want to call it. That’s what happened last night.” I sigh and try not to feel depressed and sad. “And then this morning I got out of bed to go check on Adley when she woke up, and when I came back, he was gone.”
“Gone?” Bric asks. “Where’d he go?”
“Just left,” I say. “I texted him. Asked if he’d be here for breakfast. And he never texted back.”
“He’s just mad,” Bric says.
“I know.” I huff. “He told me that last night too. He spelled it out very clearly. He was worried about me. Sad about my leaving. But then when I came back—”
“Now he’s just angry.”
“Right.”
“It’s a pretty typical reaction,” Bric says.
“I realize that. Which is why I’m not going to make a big deal about this. But I don’t know if this is going to work, Bric. He might not want me. He might just want to hurt me. Exactly the way I hurt him.”
“No,” Bric says, like I’m being ridiculous.
“I’m not being ridiculous,” I say. “Maybe he’s not out to hurt me. But he’s doing something, Bric. He’s playing a game, but I’m pretty sure we’re not all playing the same game.”
“He’s mad, Rochelle. You have to expect that. He’s gonna come around.”
“What does that mean? Come around? Do you really think he’s gonna fall back in love with me the way he was? Because I don’t. I think he’s here for us. Me, y
ou, and him together. And that’s all.”
Bric rubs his hand across his scratchy jaw as he thinks this over, so I check on Adley. She fell asleep in the car on the way over here and hasn’t woken up yet. Bric is still thinking.
“I don’t want an us, Bric.”
He looks me in the eye and says. “I do. But I get it. And I’m fine with you and Quin getting your little happy ending. But I’m telling you, Rochelle, he’s just trying to protect himself right now and the best way to let him work that out and ensure you two get back together is to have an us.”
“He said he doesn’t trust me.”
“He has a good reason,” Bric counters.
“I know that,” I say, starting to get angry. “I understand that. But the whole point of us doing this… game… or whatever it is, was so that you can help me figure this out. I want him, Bric. You’re supposed to help me.”
But as soon as the words come out of my mouth I realize how stupid that is. I trust no one and I have very good reasons for that. I’ve learned over the course of my life that people are selfish. People are out for themselves. People are liars. I have a lot of experience in being lied to.
Elias Bricman definitely fits all those assumptions I have about people. And then some.
Adley starts whining. Our conversation probably woke her. So I reach over, unsnap her safety belt, and pull her into my lap.
“Hey, pumpkin,” Bric says.
Adley buries her head into my sweater and rubs her eyes.
“I’m having all the Christmas decorations put up early,” Bric says, reaching over to tickle Adley’s chin. She squirms in my arms and then giggles through a mouthful of bubbly spit.
I can’t help but smile at that.
“Are you hungry, Adley?” Bric asks, picking up a section of mandarin orange from my plate. He offers it to Adley, who makes grabby fists and stuffs it right up to her mouth and begins to suck. I will have to write that down in her baby book. She’s never had oranges before.
“Christmas is coming early, huh?” I ask. “That’s a first.”
“Well,” Bric says, leaning back in the booth. “First year I’m a father.”
I throw him a look of caution. “You don’t know you’re the father. You might not want to think that way.”
Bric shrugs. “We’re never gonna know, so might as well think that way.”
That’s very confusing for me, but I don’t have time to think about it, because Quin walks up to the table and scoots into the booth next to Adley’s seat.
Not across from me.
I asked Quin once why he always sat in the chair and never sat next to me in the booth. He told me, “Because I like to look at you.” So apparently even that has changed.
I frown and concentrate on Adley.
“What’s up?” Quin says, looking over his shoulder for the waitress. She comes up, pen and pad ready, and Quin says, “Coffee and cornflakes.” Which kinda makes me happy again, because Quin and cornflakes go together like bread and butter.
At least that’s still the same.
Quin moves Adley’s seat, placing it on the empty chair, and then scoots in closer to me. Puts his arm around me. Leans in and kisses me.
I kiss him back. But just when I start to get in to it, he pulls away.
I look at Bric. Bric is smiling. Like this is a good sign.
This is not a good sign. He didn’t mean that kiss. He’s not sitting across from me. He walked out on me this morning without saying goodbye.
Everything is wrong.
“Hi, Adley,” Quin says.
Adley has turned her head now to face Quin. She’s got her tangerine slice smeared all over her face.
“Do you like that?” Quin asks in a low voice as he touches her pudgy fist.
Adley turns her head away, smearing my sweater with tangerine juice, and goes back to staring at Bric.
Quin sits back in the booth, and when I look over at him, he’s frowning. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I don’t think she likes me.”
“She doesn’t even know you, Quin,” Bric says. “It’s been two days.”
“She seems to like you well enough,” Quin says, picking up the coffee the waitress just set down and sipping it. “And you hate kids.”
“Other people’s kids,” Bric corrects. “Why would I hate my own kid?”
Quin says nothing. But I can read his mind. She’s not yours. She’s mine.
“So what are you guys gonna do tonight?” Quin asks. “Big plans?”
I stare down at Adley’s head. It’s my night with Bric.
“I was wondering if you’d like to join in,” Bric says.
I look up at him, then over to Quin.
Quin shrugs. “I guess. I have a late meeting today, so I’ll probably just show up after dinner.”
When I glance over at Bric he’s got a smug look on his face that says, Leave everything to me.
But show up after dinner? To me, that means, I’ll show up to fuck.
“We can have dinner together,” I say, testing out my theory. “We’ll wait for you.”
“Nah,” Quin says. “I’ll get dinner at work and then come by around eight.”
Eight. Yup. Just for the fuck.
The waitress brings Quin’s bowl of cornflakes and a small pitcher of milk, so I spend the next several minutes watching him eat as Bric talks to Adley. Quin misses none of that interaction. His eyes are on Bric and Adley the whole time.
He never once glances at me.
At one point, Adley holds her arms out for Bric, like she wants him to pick her up. And to my surprise, he obliges her, taking her from my lap and placing her in his, as he makes faces and talks about all the different kinds of untouched fruit on my plate.
Quin pushes his cereal away and places his hand on my leg. I look over at him, startled that he’s actually touching me. He slides his hand up my thigh and then presses his fingers against my pussy, stroking me through my jeans as he leans in and kisses me on the mouth.
His lips are cool and sweet and taste like milk. “Have a nice day,” he says, still kissing me. And then—again—just when I begin to kiss him back, he pulls away and slips out of the bench, opening his wallet and throwing down a twenty-dollar bill. “See you guys tonight.”
Bric and I both watch him walk away.
“Did you see that?” I ask, after we sit there in silence for a few seconds.
“Yeah. I think it went well.”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask.
“What?”
“That didn’t go well,” I say. “That was a disaster. He didn’t sit across from me, he sat next to me. He kissed me, but pulled away the second I tried to kiss him back. And he’s not coming to dinner tonight, he’s coming at eight. All he wants is the threesome, Bric.”
“You’re reading way too much into this, Rochelle.”
“Am I?” I snort. “I know him, Bric. I know him very well. And that was a very bad start to this new relationship.”
Bric thinks about this for a second as I take the mushed-up tangerine slice from Adley’s hand, grab a wet nap from my diaper bag, and start cleaning her up. She fusses and balks, trying to bury herself into Bric’s suit coat.
“You’re going to regret holding her,” I say, “when you figure out you’ve got sticky juice on your lapels.”
He grins and looks down, where, yes—there is a dark spot on his lapel. “Might just be drool. But hey, there’s worse things than smelling like a tangerine baby all day.”
“Who are you?” I laugh. “And what have you done with Elias Bricman, hater of children and Christmas?”
He shrugs. “Like I said. I only hate other people’s kids. And I’m looking forward to Adley’s first Christmas. I’ve already started thinking about gifts.”
“She doesn’t need gifts,” I say. What she needs is two parents. And by that, I’m not referring to Bric and me.
But that’s definitely how this is starting out. And I’m beginn
ing to think Elias Bricman has no idea who Quin is anymore. He’s changed. Something about him has changed.
I’m the reason he changed.
“This isn’t going to work,” I say.
“Just stop it, Rochelle. Give it more than one day, all right? He just needs a little time. And don’t worry. We both know he’s into the threesome stuff. So we’ll just enjoy that until he comes around.”
“I guess,” I say, to placate him. But I don’t think he’s right. I think we might be starting something very dangerous. Something that could rip Quin and I apart for good.
“Anyway.” Bric sighs. Like he knows what I’m thinking. Probably does. We’ve been friends for a long time. “What are you guys doing today?”
I shrug and take out a bottle of water from my diaper bag. “I dunno. It’s weird being back here after so much time away. Maybe I’ll drop by the gallery and see Chella?” I pick up a slice of tangerine and squeeze it into the water to flavor it.
“She doesn’t work there anymore,” Bric says.
“Oh,” I say. Of course she doesn’t. Why should anything stay the same?
“But I’m sure she’s probably next door.”
“Why would she be next door?” I ask, reaching for Adley, who is busy patting Bric’s cheeks with the flat of her hands. I cannot believe Elias Bricman is into babies. What were the chances of that happening? Adley fusses when I take her back, but she eagerly accepts the bottle of tangerine water and settles into her seat. I buckle her up and tuck a strand of hair away from her closing eyes.
“We’re opening up a tea room. Turns out, Chella’s dream was to be a pastry chef. And she came up with this tea room idea. You know,” he says, waving a hand in the air. “For the Club women. But open to the public.”
“Oh. Well, that’s sorta cool. I never pictured Chella as a baker.”
“It sorta makes sense to me,” Bric says. “In a weird way.”
“All that school. A PhD and everything. Just to make pastries.”
“Sometimes,” Bric says, sliding out of the booth. “Sometimes the road to satisfaction is long and twisted, Rochelle. Who cares what she does with her education? I’m sure whatever she got out of that degree is helping her now. Even if it’s in some small way not easily identified.”