by B. B. Hamel
Lionel narrows his eyes. “Prove it.”
“I can’t,” I say. “If you let my engineer talk, she could.”
He hesitates and I can see him struggling. Finally, he grunts his assent. “All right, fine. Let’s hear the girl speak.”
I look back at Riley and nod at her. She stands, steps up in front of the brothers, and doesn’t bother launching into her usual speech. Instead, she starts by asking for questions, and spends the next half hour defending her tech from everything Lionel can think of.
I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder. She’s so fucking beautiful, standing there and speaking her mind, telling them exactly what they need to hear. It’s almost fucking sexy, watching her like this. I keep imagining bending her over this table and fucking her right here, making her moan, making her beg. I want to break her, she’s such a fucking firestorm. As the meeting wears on, Lionel gets more and more frustrated, until finally he throws up his hands. Riley gives him a conceited little smile, almost borderline rude, and I absolutely fucking love it. I’m so fucking hard for her that I can’t stand up when she’s finished and it’s time for me to take over again.
At the end of the day, we get another sale. Peter apologizes profusely, but it’s Lionel that actually signs everything. He nods to Riley as we leave, and I feel elated as we head out toward the car.
“Holy shit,” she says. “I thought we were about to get murdered back there.”
I laugh and nudge up against her. “I did get a distinct Deliverance vibe from those two.”
“God, and the way he kept calling me a girl?” She rolls her eyes and laughs. “What a dick.”
“The world progresses, but some people can’t seem to move on.” I shrug a little bit as we get to the car. I check my watch and glance up at Riley. “I think we have some extra time if you want to take a little walk?”
She hesitates. “I guess we have a long drive ahead. Can’t hurt to look around a bit.”
I nod and stretch my back. “Come on, girl. Let’s go.”
“Asshole,” she says, but laughing this time. We set off into the woods, following a little trail we find about twenty feet from the shop. It snakes through the trees, heading deeper into the wilderness.
Riley strikes out ahead, walking comfortably down the path despite her flats, skirt, and white blouse. I try to keep up in my usual suit, but I’m having trouble matching her pace while trying not to step in any mud puddles.
“Why build a solar panel company out in the middle of nowhere?” she asks me over her shoulder.
“No clue,” I say. “Frankly, nature is disgusting.”
She laughs. “I’m not surprised. You don’t strike me as the camping sort of guy.”
“I like camping, just not in an expensive suit.”
She pauses and looks back at me. “Aw, I’m sorry. Are you going to ruin your pretty suit?”
I glare at her. “Come on, let’s go.” I walk past her and take the lead, and I hear her laughing as she hurries to catch up.
The path cuts a winding trail through the woods. I have no clue where we are or where we’re going, or if this is even public property at all, but I find that I don’t really care. It’s pretty out today, the sun shining high in the sky, low humidity, nice comfortable breeze cutting through the trees. Birds are singing and I just made a sale, which means Riley is that much closer to her goal.
We come up a short slope and the path dies off into a little meadow. It’s open all the way beyond it, past a short hedgerow. I’m pretty sure it’s a corn farm, or at least a farm of some sort. Riley slips up next to me and leans against a tree.
“End of the line,” she reflects.
“You know, there should be more solar panels on farms.”
She laughs. “Of course you’d say that.”
“I’m just thinking out loud. I mean, imagine how much better it would be, especially when there are basically no trees or other buildings to cast shadows? Sun all day long from all directions.”
She rolls her eyes. “Do you ever stop selling?”
“Nope.” I walk over and lean up against the same tree she’s standing on, just slightly off to the side. “Can’t help myself. But you should be thankful for that.”
She goes quiet as I take a deep breath and let it out.
“What are you getting out of all this, Aaron?”
I don’t look at her. I stare down at the roots snaking into the soil. I dig the toe of my expensive shoes into the dirt and wonder why I give a shit if things get filthy. You can always clean it.
“I get a lot out of it,” I say. “I get to sell your product. I get to make you lots of money.”
“Yeah, I might make money. What about you?”
“It’s my job.”
“This isn’t about work and you know it.”
“What do you want me to say?”
She sighs and I look up at her. She’s staring out across the meadow at the farm in the distance.
“I want you to admit it,” she says softly.
I frown a little bit, a million thoughts running through my mind. “Admit what?”
“You know what.”
“I’m not good at guessing games.”
“That’s not true.” She finally looks at me, a sad smile on her lips. “I just want to hear the real reason you’re on this trip with me.”
I meet her gaze and hold it there for a second, trying to gauge the moment. Just a little bit ago, we were both so elated with the sale, but something’s shifted in her and I’m not sure what.
“Okay, you want to hear it?” I say softly.
“Yeah. Tell me.”
I push off the tree and step away from it. I turn back to face her, closing the distance between us quickly. I put my hands on either side of her above her shoulders, leaning against the tree, my face close to hers. She doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, just watches me.
“I’m doing this because I want to fuck you, Riley. That’s all there is to it.”
She shakes her head. “No, you’re not.”
I stare at her. “You think I don’t want to fuck you?”
“I know you do. But that’s not why you dragged me out into the middle of nowhere on this crazy sales mission.”
I stare back at her and for a second, I feel my anger peak again. I pull away, turning back toward the farm and crossing my arms over my chest.
“Come on, Aaron,” she says softly. “What’s the deal?”
The truth is, I don’t know what to tell her. There are a million reasons I set this up. I know she hates me, I know she wants me, and frankly, I feel the same. I want my baby, and I want her to want her baby, and I want her to want me, and I want her to stop hating me and looking down on what I do. It’s all so confusing and fucked up and maybe I thought I could solve all of that if she just spent time with me.
“I don’t know,” I finally admit. “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”
She’s quiet for a minute. “Yeah. I think I believe that.”
I turn back toward her and she’s smiling. I smile back, a little uncertain. “What?”
“That might’ve been the first honest thing you’ve said to me.”
“I’ve been honest before.”
“Yeah? When?”
“When I said I wanted to fuck you.” I grin at her. “That was true.”
“Okay, that was true.” She laughs a little bit, shaking her head. “Pretty messed up, isn’t it? We’re out in the middle of nowhere for no real reason.”
“We’re here to make you some money,” I say. “My motives to set it all up don’t really matter in the end.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She shrugs a little. “Guess it doesn’t.”
I step closer to her, eyes roaming her body. She’s so fucking beautiful, especially in the sunlight. She’s smiling now, and for the first time since we started this, I don’t get the sense that I’m some kind of horrendous burden to her. She’s interested, and open, at least for the moment.
/> And I can’t help myself. I walk right up to her, tilt her chin toward me, and I kiss her.
I expect her to shove me away, but she doesn’t. I kiss her harder, deeper, hands on her hips.
And slowly, she wraps her arms around my neck, and I know I’m not pulling away.
13
Riley
I kiss him back, despite my better judgement. I don’t know what it is about him in this moment, maybe it’s the uncertainty piercing his usual cocky self, or maybe it’s the moment of honest humanity he just showed me. Either way, I find myself blindly attracted to him, and that’s a bad thing.
The kiss feels good, and I lean into it, wrapping my arms around his neck. His hands slide down my hips, down toward the hem of my skirt, and I wiggle my hips as he slowly pulls it up, his hands tracing a line along my thighs.
I groan a little bit as he teases my pussy over my panties. I’m stupid and an idiot and I’m going to ruin everything but I’m not pulling away from this, not when it feels so good. We’re in the middle of nowhere, two people on the edge of a farm in rural Illinois, or maybe Indiana, I can’t even remember, and it doesn’t matter. Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s just me and Aaron.
He flips the top of my panties down as my legs spread and his fingers find my clit. I groan into his kiss, pulling myself closer to him, pushing my face against his. I want to grind and roll my hips but he pins me against the tree. I can feel the bark, rough and warm against my back. I gasp as I feel his fingers press deep inside of me, sliding around in amazing circles as he plunges them in and out, pulling them back to work my clit.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline from the sale, but this feels so right it must be a mistake. The only things in my life that have ever felt this good have been mistakes. I don’t want this mistake to end, though.
He tastes good as his tongue slides against mine. His free hand grabs my hair, pulling my chin up, exposing my neck. He kisses me there, letting my moans escape into the air next to his ears.
“You think about this every day, don’t you?” he whispers. “You think about having my baby and getting fucked by me.”
I pause, blinking. Having his baby. I shudder as he pushes his fingers deep inside of me, but something’s shifted. I put my hands on his chest and push him back.
“Stop,” I say. “Can you stop?”
He listens instantly, hand coming out of my panties. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
I move away, stepping back toward the path, my body ringing with unfulfilled desire. “Let’s go back.”
I start down the path, not bothering to wait and see if he’s following. I’m so frustrated and angry and fucked up. I don’t even know why I stopped him, but as soon as he mentioned the baby, I knew I had to end it.
I hear his footsteps catching up behind me and soon we’re walking side by side down the path. My panties are soaked and ruined and I wish I could just get down on my knees, suck his cock, give myself to him, but I’m just getting in my own damn way. None of this is his fault, I can’t blame him for how I feel about him from our past, but here we are anyway, things so complicated that I’m not even sure I understand how I feel.
We reach the trailhead and walk over to the car. I let him drive us back to the hotel in silence, trying to read my own mood and failing miserably. I know I’m throwing a pity party and I’m the only person invited, I just can’t help myself.
I glance at Aaron as he drives with his eyes glued on the road ahead of him. It’s strange to think that I used to look up to him in a weird way. I had a crush on him, of course, but I also wanted to be him. I wanted his carefree confidence, his charm and his wit. Everyone liked Aaron and I wanted to be like that. Instead, I was a gangly and awkward little girl that he rarely ever paid any attention to, even though he was constantly hanging out in my basement.
I know that’s all in the past. I know I need to let it go, I just can’t. It’s like when you go home after being away for a long time, and you suddenly revert back to being a kid again, even if you’re an adult. You fall back into those old patterns. When I’m around Aaron, I fall back into my old patterns, and I don’t love the girl I was.
Aaron parks outside of the hotel and I follow him into the lobby. We check in at the front desk before he leads me to the elevator. We ride it up in silence, and I keep stealing glances at him, wondering what’s up.
We head down the hallway, down toward our neighboring rooms. He stops outside of his and half turns back to me, a little smile on his face as he swipes his key into the magnetic lock.
“I’ve never met someone so skilled at cockblocking herself in my life,” he says to me, stepping into his room, “but don’t worry. I’m far from giving up.”
I want to follow him, yell at him, but instead I just turn stiffly back to my own room, wondering if maybe he’s right.
14
Aaron
Another rental, another highway. Mile markers tick past as I drive, sunglasses on, music turned low. Riley has her window down, her hand out in the wind, and her hair’s blowing around but she doesn’t seem to mind.
We speed past field after endless field. We spot cows, tractors, rows of crops, big weird machines riding around spraying water all over, big weird machines riding around cutting down plants, and haybales. It’s about eight in the morning, and we have another hour of driving ahead of us. Riley hasn’t said a word since we got into the car.
Which is fine by me, I don’t feel like talking for once in my life. I keep coming back to that moment by the tree, my fingers on her pussy, my entire body thrumming with her energy. I whispered in her ear, tried to talk dirty, but as soon as I mentioned the baby it freaked her out and she ran away.
I should’ve seen that coming. It’s probably stupid that I didn’t. I guess in the throes of passion, or whatever, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wanted to get her off, make her feel good, and I wasn’t considering what my dirty talk might make her feel. I know that the baby isn’t a good thing in her mind, and she’s probably fucking terrified of it. I can’t really blame her, it’s a terrifying prospect.
I just wish she could see it the way I see it. This baby is a good thing, an amazing thing, the best thing to ever happen to me. The more I think about being a father, the more I want it. I have a hole in my life, a hole that I’ve been trying to fill with work and money and meaningless sex, but I can already feel that hole starting to heal. It isn’t fucking or money that I need, it’s family.
“You ever wonder why I kept sneaking into your basement?” I ask her suddenly.
She looks over at me, surprised. “I haven’t thought about that in… I don’t know, a long time.”
I don’t look over at her, but I smile at the memory. “I used to pull those big heavy doors up and sneak in through the back. Your parents never locked that door, I think because they didn’t mind me coming over.”
“I never looked at it that way,” she says thoughtfully. “I guess I figured they didn’t know.”
“They knew,” I say, laughing. “Your mom caught me one time smoking a joint alone down there. She just shook her head and told me to put some pants on before going back upstairs.”
Riley laughs at that image. “Are you serious?”
“I’m serious. I thought she was going to murder me, but she didn’t seem to care.”
“I can’t imagine my mom letting either of us get away with smoking weed.”
“I wasn’t her son, so I guess… I guess it didn’t matter. I don’t know.”
“God, that’s funny. Did you ever tell Davis that?”
“No, actually,” I say, grinning. “I was embarrassed at the time and kind of forgot about it after that.”
“He’d love it. You should tell him.”
“Yeah. I really should.”
We fall into silence for a second again. I can feel Riley studying me, her hand still in the cool midwestern air.
&
nbsp; “So why were you always coming over?” she prompts me.
I glance at her. “It’s going to sound stupid.”
“Maybe, but say it anyway.”
“My parents were good people,” I say slowly. “I mean, they loved me and supported me and stuff, they just… didn’t care about me.”
She frowns a little bit. “What does that mean?”
“I was always a burden at home, always in the way. My mom’s like this crazy neat freak, and my dad is obsessed with World War II and guns and shit, so my mom was busy cleaning all the time and he was busy collecting antique guns or whatever.”
“You were hiding from chores?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “My mom would never let me help her, I would’ve just done it wrong. No, I was hiding from their disinterest. I wasn’t comfortable at home… so I came to your house.”
She’s quiet for a little while. I feel like a needy, spoiled bitch, but there’s the truth. My parents were good people, supported me, helped me, but they just weren’t interested in me all that much. They had their own lives, their own problems. I was just another mouth to feed and ass to wipe.
“What made you feel better at our place?” she asks finally.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I still don’t really know what it was. I guess it was just having other people around, you know?”
“You don’t have siblings,” she says.
“Right. Only child. Can you tell?”
“Totally.” She hesitates. “You wanted siblings. And my brother was like a brother to you.”
I grin at her. “And you were like a little sister.”
She makes a face. “Gross.”
“Well, not anymore, obviously.”
She laughs and looks away, head tipped back. “You just wanted a family,” she says softly. “Guess that’s sad, when you already had—”
Suddenly there’s a loud bang outside. Riley sits bolt upright and the car swerves a little bit. I get it under control pretty fast, but I can feel the car vibrating, and a loud banging slap comes from outside the window.