“I might’ve done something ill-advised.”
“Ooh. There’s my drama. As long as you don’t mean you got a parking ticket.”
“I, ah. Look, it’s nothing.” To talk about it made it real. Better it was a fantasy, some adult sex-scene thing he’d had no idea he was going to be into.
“You did it with Flick.”
He looked up to check who was around. Only the sound guy in the booth at the back of the room, and he had a headset on. “Jesus, Wren.”
“I’d do her. Why wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I don’t want to do Kegels.”
Maybe he should talk about this. Without Josh around, Wren was the next best sounding board, and if you could talk about exercises for the vagina with a woman, you could talk about anything. He sat. “Me and Flick—”
“I knew it.” Wren took the next chair. “Spill.”
“She’s—” he sighed “—a mosquito. Buzzing in my face the whole time.”
“And then she stings you and you like it.”
“And then. Well. Yeah.”
“What’s the problem?”
Apart from this conversation about sex with a female colleague being something HR should never know about? He gestured to the stage. “That’s the problem. She’s a distraction and now is not a good time for me to be distracted.”
“But the sex is good.”
“I’m not talking details with you.”
“I’m doing Kegels right now.”
“The sex is—not talking about having sex with Flick.”
“Wow. That good.” Wren sighed. “One day my excellent shoes and my sporty, fit vagina and I will find someone to have sex with that’s so good I won’t want to talk about it. Meanwhile, I need details.”
“What do you mean by details? We do it.”
“Who’s on top? How would you rate her pelvic floor strength?”
“I am not—” He stopped when he realized she was laughing. “If you run into Flick, you can’t mention this.”
“So, Flick was on top.”
“You are never getting another bonus. Never.”
“Typical.” Wren’s smile dropped. “Now tell me what you’re doing about Harry.”
Of the evils, talking office politics or sex, sex was probably the least problematic. “I don’t think the rumor is true. Harry is busy, that’s all. We’ll get to it.”
“The whole office is gossiping, you know. Harry had an affair. Harry needs a divorce. Mrs. Harry Hardiman is going to take every penny she can get. It means Harry needs the money, so he’s not going to retire.”
Tom was aware of it. “We don’t know any of that.” It was hard to imagine Harry having an affair in the first place. He didn’t want to play into it. If he was going to be the boss, he had to act like the boss and the boss didn’t gossip.
Or lose his concentration on a panel because he was thinking about the sex he’d had and how he wanted to have more of it.
And how he couldn’t because he needed to keep his head straight and he’d just proven he was incapable of doing that.
“If you don’t get the job, they’ll bring in an outsider.”
Wren was right. If he was passed over it was a vote of no confidence and his career at Rendel would have a use-by date.
“There’s no reason to worry. Worst case, Harry’s retirement is delayed.” And he’d need a new roommate after Flick moved out, or a new job if the delay was serious.
He went straight to the office from the airport Monday and put in a full day of meetings and client reports. After a weekend of enforced social activity, he was desperate to go home and not have to talk to anyone.
And reluctant.
Because he’d have to talk to Flick, to tell her in as emotionless and practical a way as possible that much as he’d enjoyed their hookups, for the sake of his job, it couldn’t happen again.
She’d understand if he put it like that, because perhaps the one thing they had in common was their ambition.
Chapter Ten
Flick didn’t exactly know when Tom would be home. They didn’t have a “synchronize calendars, message each other” relationship. It was unclear what kind of relationship they had. Tormenter and victim, maybe.
She expected him Sunday night, but he never showed and that left her flat. Monday night, long after he was normally home, she wandered about the place, in the satin slip she’d worn under her white coatdress, bored and tense and wondering if she’d misunderstood his travel plans.
Elsie had left a message and wanted to talk. It would likely end up costing Flick money unless she didn’t act like such a pushover.
She played Tom’s weird old music, ate a box of mac and cheese and ran property searches on apartments for rent in Washington. And still he didn’t come home.
And she called Elsie. “It’s me.”
“’Bout time.”
For someone who wanted something, Elsie was infuriatingly surly. “What do you want?”
“The girls need new bikes.”
“They’ve got bikes.” New last year. Or was she forgetting and it was the year before?
“And they grew. Not that you’d understand that.”
The fact Kendall and Krystal grew was the reason they always needed new shoes. Shoes, clothes, books, dentists kids needed, but new bikes?
“I bought decent bikes. How can they have outgrown them already?”
“You’re trying to tell me I don’t know if my kids have grown?”
“No, I’m querying the need for new bikes.”
“Oh, you’re querying.”
Ah, that you’d-be-dead-to-me-if-I-didn’t-need-you tone. “I’m asking.”
“I understand what querying means. You’re not the only person who reads, you know.”
Moving on. “Can’t Krystal use Kendall’s bike?”
“You want Krys to have the hand-me-down while her sister gets the new bike?”
“We grew up with hand-me-downs.”
“It’s different now.”
“Why is it different?”
“Look, I didn’t call to get judged and queried. The girls need new bikes.”
The rest of the unspoken sentence was and Aunty Flick would buy them. It was only a few years and Aunty Flick would be buying Kendall a car, or a boob job. “Let me think about it.”
“Think about it? What, like you think I’m making this up? You think I want to call you and beg for things my girls, your nieces, need?”
Now they were her nieces, not just kids whose growth she wouldn’t understand. “One bike.”
“You’re moving to Washington, big fancy job, and you can’t spring for two bikes. You know, that milkshake machine was shit. It’s already broken.”
What’s the bet someone dropped it? “I’m not a bank. You can’t press me and money comes out.”
“No? After all this family sacrificed for you. Everything we gave up so you had more opportunity. To think we thought you’d lift us up.”
She would’ve pitched her phone at Tom’s wall if she didn’t know he’d hate the mess that would make. “Go ahead, Elsie. Rewrite history as much as you want. It doesn’t make it true.”
Elsie started in on a new round of guilt-tripping, and Flick disconnected and turned her phone off. Elsie could talk to her voice mail, could text till her fingers bled, Flick didn’t have to know about it.
She checked the time. Tom wasn’t coming home. Then she made a new playlist full of angry, raging songs she played at make-your-ears-bleed while she danced barefoot first on the carpet, and when that failed to ease the tightness in her chest, she stepped up on Tom’s indestructible slab of a coffee table and rocked out.
It was better than fighting old arguments in her head, bett
er than going to bed and dreaming about being homeless like she had for the last few nights, triggered no doubt by the lack of Washington apartments available in a price range she could afford.
She sang along with Three Days Grace’s “I Hate Everything About You” and that’s what she was doing when Tom came in, head banging to the line about roommates being kept awake.
He stood there with the handle of his airline wheelie bag in his hand and his mouth open. He looked big and tired and safe and wonderful. Arms that were shelter and legs that were balance, and a chest that, if snuggled against, might ward off the nightmares.
Thirty Seconds to Mars started singing “The Kill” and she stood there swaying, staring at him, wanting him and certain, twelve thousand percent certain, that if she threw herself at him he’d drop her, because at every turn she was too much for him in the wrong kind of way.
“Hi!” she shouted. She didn’t know how to be any other way, so he’d have to deal. Being this way had served her well and it would again. She wasn’t changing for anyone.
Tom let his bag go. He took his suit coat off. He stood at the end of the room and she couldn’t read his expression and this was not what she’d wished for and everything was broken between them like the cheap milkshake-maker, because she’d been arrogant enough to think she could start a game with him and he’d want to keep playing.
He got rid of his tie and undid a few buttons on his shirt, took his time, checked his phone, and still he didn’t say anything. He was faking her out, but she didn’t get off the table because the damage was done now. She’d wanted to seduce him, not piss him off.
He came close and reached for the music controller as Evanescence sang “Bring Me to Life” with the lyric about being woken up inside. That’s what Tom had done to her, roused the part of her that was tired of being alone, that craved someone who had her back, who understood her and loved her for who she was now, not who she was at fifteen, at twenty, not who she could be, or what she could buy for them.
He looked at her like he was calculating the cost of the damage she was doing, stern-eyed, his whole body clenched. He would walk away and that would be worse than one more fight with Elsie.
She kept dancing, watching, waiting for him to say something insulting, to make her hate him. She put how much she didn’t care about that into every stomp, head toss and hip shake. She put her hands to her thighs and pulled at her slip, showing him more leg. She didn’t need Tom. She didn’t need anyone. Life wasn’t about being liked, it was about getting things done. She knew how to get things done.
“You’re the most irritating person I’ve ever known,” he said, over the lowered volume.
She put her hands in the air and spun around so she couldn’t see the disappointment that was sure to cloud his face. His hands clamping down on her hips made her start. He was on the table behind her, barefoot and moving with her.
“Stubborn.” He breathed the word over her hair. “Careless.” One hand went from her hip to her ass, and he squeezed. “Infuriating.”
She stopped moving and turned to him, wound her arms around his neck. He wasn’t disappointed, he was excited and trying to hide it.
“I missed you.” She hadn’t meant to say that, the words surprised her, and she bit her tongue too late to call them back.
He trailed a palm from her wrist down her bent arm to her elbow and over her shoulder to her waist. “You’re not allowed to miss me.”
She went to her toes and pressed closer to him. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“You’re leaving.” It was an accusation and it came out glittering in emotion she couldn’t read. There was never any question she was leaving or that he wanted her to.
“Not for two months. I’m here now.”
He’d widened his stance. They were moving again against each other’s bodies, their own rhythm, independent of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
“I can’t do this with you.”
She got the words “I think you’re doing it” out before his lips crashed down on hers.
They stayed on top of the table, bodies melding, angry guitar chords and thick beats thrashing past their frantic grasps and tugging kisses.
The table didn’t break. Tom wasn’t walking away. Nothing bad happened because she’d been too much. Good feelings lit Flick up, shimmered through her. She didn’t need Tom, but she wanted him. She pulled his shirt from his suit pants, unbuttoned it and peeled it away from his torso. Her lips on his skin made him twitch. He pulled the fork from her hair and it fell everywhere, made her focus narrow to the rippled edges of him, the secret wood-chip scent of his skin and the rumbling breath-hitching sounds he made.
She’d have stumbled when he stepped off the table, but he steadied her and now they were a more equal height so kisses weren’t snatched and severed and chased, they were deep and whipped-cream smooth, addictively plump and so bad, so good.
“I thought about you, about doing this all weekend,” he said, hands spread over her back, lips at her jaw, her neck.
“I’m glad.” Outside. Inside. From the tips of her chipped toenails to the flutter in the base of her throat.
“It’s a problem.” Nothing that couldn’t be solved by opening his pants and making him grunt like he’d lifted something too heavy. He touched her cheek. “We need a bed.”
“Such limited thinking.” She pushed his pants off his hips and while he was tangled in them, shoved him backward, making him sit hard on the sectional.
“What are you doing?”
Thoroughly enjoying herself. Forgetting Elsie and the tension at work and being homeless. She stepped off the table and went to her knees between Tom’s legs. “Showing you I’m glad to see you.”
“You don’t have to.”
Still, he lifted his hips and let her pull his suit pants off, leaving him in skin-slick briefs that only just contained his erection. Oh my. “I want to.” Making him say mercy would be delicious.
“I might not... Flick.”
“What?” She checked his eyes. Wary. And said it softer because his face was creased with the wrong kind of stress. “What are you worried about?”
“It’s been a long time since anyone did that to me.”
Seriously. No. “You don’t like it?” In the history of men, was there such a thing as one who didn’t like someone on their knees with their mouth on his cock? No way did she want this to be the historic record-breaking moment.
“I like it too much.”
“You’ve stopped letting women give you head.” It was a Tom O’Connell thing to do. “Why?”
“It’s better that way. I can’t control—” He swept a hand down his body to finish the sentence.
“Better that you don’t have something you like?”
“It’s a small thing for me.”
“It’s denial, and if you get off on it it’s a valid choice, but that’s not it with you.” She put her hands on his knees and slid them up his thighs, watched his eyes for revulsion and got his mouth to drop open, his lids to go heavy. “You sacrifice because you don’t trust yourself. You want me on my knees.”
“God help me, yes.”
“You want to wreck my mouth. You want me gagging and teary.”
He covered his face with his arm. “Yes.” His mouth was a tight line of anguish.
“Then you get it.”
“Oh fuck, Flick. No.”
She sat back on her heels. If he really meant no, then it was no. This was different to egging him on. She wasn’t that kind of tormenter and Tom was his own victim.
He still wore his shirt because the cuffs were buttoned; it was pushed open so the tension in his body was easy to read, bunched muscles, a quiver in his stomach. She reached across him and unbuttoned one cuff, the one on the wrist he had jammed into the sectional seat. It was more of a housekeeping
movement to make him comfortable than to strip him. He lowered the other arm and looked at her, his expression crumpled with dismay while she undid that cuff too.
“I like making you feel good. I want to give you what you like. But not if it’s not what you want. There are lots of ways for us to enjoy each other.” No one needed to volunteer for bad sex—it was all too easy to achieve.
She shuffled back on her knees and came to stand, put her hands up her slip and wriggled out of her panties, taking it slowly, drawing his eyes. Her heart was swollen and stuttering in her chest, nerves, anticipation, desire for a man who was tentative to act on his own lust.
“You choose, Tom. What do you want to feel?”
Hailee Steinfeld sang “At My Best” with Machine Gun Kelly. The song had that line in it from Tinder profiles about taking a woman at her worst to deserve her best. She said it to Tom on the first night she’d tried to seduce him. She quirked a shoulder and he smiled for the first time since he’d come in. A smile on Tom—oh, a smile that took away all the hard lines of his face, all the anxious disapproval and the self-contained loss.
He held a hand out. “You. I want to feel you. Take my hand. You let go if it gets too much.”
They touched fingertips, palms, entwined fingers. She went to her knees, rested her head on his thigh, his quad jumping under her cheek.
The fingers of Tom’s other hand played in her hair. “Trust you,” he said.
She said, “Trust you right back,” and then commenced taking him apart, using her hand and teeth on his briefs, until he relented and helped, until she could lick him thick root to blood-flushed tip and back again, getting him slick with his own pre-come and her spit.
When she licked over his cock head, the sight, the salt warmth of him, her own excitement got the better of her and she moaned. He squeezed her hand and she stopped and lifted her face. “Okay?”
“Better than okay. You like this.”
That hitch of surprise in his voice made her sad. “You weren’t listening when I told you I did.”
He shook his head. “Brain freeze.”
She licked again. “Stand by for brain damage.”
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