The Love Coupon

by Ainslie Paton

Good Catholic boy, he called on the help of multiple iconic religious figures when she lowered her mouth over his crown. She pulled off and did it again with a slight graze of her teeth that squeaked on his skin, making his hips shift, his head drop back on the sectional cushion. He didn’t say stop and his grip on her hand was light when everything else about him was drawn tight and vibrating with tension.

  Every subtle movement of her hand, lips, tongue, her hollowed cheeks made him less and less able to be passive, to sit still and stay quiet. And all of this, his helpless acquiescence, his want and faith, was doing wondrously agonizing things to her. Her nipples were so hard the silky fabric of her bra felt like a rough cement surface. She was sticky between her legs and achingly empty.

  “God, Flick. God, that’s good.”

  Ah, his voice was so deep it sounded smoked, like he’d been shouting and drinking and partying till dawn. She wanted more of that sound, of the knowledge she made these alterations to him, took his stoic heroic act and gave him a chance to be human.

  Deep breaths and an excellent gag reflex on her side, she took him to the back of her throat, only just avoiding his knee as it flew up, alerted to the effect on him by a spurt of semen and the loud clack of his teeth. He might’ve broken her shoulder, bitten his own tongue off.

  She pulled back and words jammed in her throat, making her cough. Tom’s chest heaved, a rivulet of sweat tricked down his face and neck. He was slumped into the cushion but coiled forward, so on-edge it came off him in waves of tension she could almost smell like sulfur from a sub-active volcano.

  All that and the hand that held hers was almost slack.

  “Too much?”

  He brought their hands up, kissed the back of hers. “I didn’t think you’d do that. So deep.”

  “I can take everything you can give me.”

  He blinked. “Don’t want to make you sorry you said that.”

  Seeing him slowly coming undone made her feel invincible. “You couldn’t.” She’d show him stars and weightlessness before she finished with him.

  This time when she took him down, she flattened her tongue as she sheathed her teeth. His hand went to the back of her head and held her there. This was the part where panic might come if the man was too greedy, if his taste was too strong or the mood shifted to mindlessly brutal, if she didn’t trust. But this was Tom, and no matter how much he let go, he wouldn’t deliberately hurt her. He didn’t know how.

  Tears did form in her eyes, her hair stuck to her face, her jaw ached, her throat burned and she drooled over her hand and onto her lap as he took control, pulled back and pushed in, did it again. There was almost as much joy in giving over to him as there was in bringing him to the point where he had no choice but to get selfish and take, even as she choked and her ears rang.

  He came with a raw sob, distress melded to pleasure, shocking in its harshness. She swallowed and swallowed and the contact with his hand broke as he pulled out and she was hoisted off her knees and into his lap.

  If giving him head didn’t smother her, breathing through his bear hug, her face smooshed into his neck might. It took long moments before he stopped trembling and his grip on her loosened. He lifted her chin, his eyes wild, scouring over her, and used the front side of his shirt to wipe her face tenderly.

  “Are you okay?” They said it together, but her throat was so beaten her voice came out like a growl.

  “Oh, dear God, Flick.”

  She coughed. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re incredible.” He rested his forehead on hers. “I’m not sure if I’ll walk again. Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me.”

  “I will, with appropriate worship, as soon as I recover.” She coughed, cleared her throat, and he said, “I’ve recovered,” and deposited her on the sectional. In minutes, she had warm water with lemon and honey in her hand and Tom’s arm around her.

  “I was rough with you.”

  “The whole deep-throating thing isn’t necessarily gentle. It comes with gagging, ramming, choking. Totally worth it to see the effect on you.” He closed one eye, screwed up one side of his face and his cheeks colored. “Spectacular. Got me so hot.”

  Got her kissed so passionately her temperature leapfrogged cooldown and went straight to boiling point. It also got her a piggyback ride to Tom’s bedroom, a chance to whisper in his ear as they ducked under the doorway.

  “You have a sensational ass, Tom O’Connell.”

  She didn’t see his blush, but his step faltered. “You’re a rodeo, Flick Dalgetty. Always trying to throw me off.”

  At least he didn’t call her a clown. “Round two. Ding, ding.”

  He sat on the bed to release her. “Any requests?”

  Pulling him back into her lap and looking at his upside-down face, she said, “Make me beg for mercy.”

  “I didn’t see you showing me any mercy.”

  “Exactly.”

  They tried to kiss that way, and when it wasn’t enough Tom flipped over and commenced Operation Beg for Mercy. That had to be it because he was relentless, going after all her most sensitive spots, treating her body like a playground to investigate, to master. He returned favors she’d not thought to ask for, in a way that signaled his own enjoyment and was murmured into her skin in half-intelligible groans and hums.

  He took his time and Flick got lost in his attention to detail. The featherlight kisses on her eyelids, the just-right pressure of his lips sucking on her nipple, combined with the good kind of uneasy stroking of her clit.

  “Love your body, Flick. Love what it does to mine.”

  Love. The twisty nervous fluttering, the sharp quick shafts of pleasure, the taste of languid, lush enticement. His hands and lips, the smell of his skin, the expression of concentration she’d first taken as performance anxiety and now knew was his way of devouring her.

  She let him eat her whole and turn her into mush. And he was in the same state, both of them well flushed with all the good hormones and all the magical sex-soothed feels. They lay entangled, close to sleep but fighting it.

  “What was with the angry music and the dancing on the table?”

  Shit, what was she thinking doing that? “If I damaged it...”

  “You didn’t. It was horrifically expensive and bought to last forever.”

  “I didn’t know when you were coming home.” Oh, she had to stop saying things that made her sound like this thing with Tom was more important than it really was.

  “You were worried?”

  “No.” She passed a hand down his body and flirted with taking hold of his dick, making him flinch. “You’re a big boy. You can take care of yourself. I...” She nearly repeated missed you. “Had an argument with my sister about more stuff I’m supposed to buy. She pisses me off.”

  “Ah.”

  “And I’m having trouble finding a place to rent. It looks like I’ll have to start off in an extended-stay apartment. I was hoping to avoid that expense.”

  “Have you had the nightmare?”

  Embarrassed to admit it, she nodded into his bicep. “It’s just a dream. How was your conference?”

  His groan had a stabbed and dying quality to it. “I wasn’t trying to get you into bed by telling you I thought about you all weekend. I made a mess of a panel because I was thinking about you. Harry Hardiman was in the room. He’s still dodging me and then he witnessed me acting like a space cadet in front of five hundred people.” He groaned again and palmed his face. “It wasn’t good.”

  The grinning was inappropriate given Tom had confessed to a screwup that was inadvertently her fault, but she couldn’t force her face into a more acceptable expression. He’d missed her too. They were something else other than roommates now and it would be smart to enjoy it.

  The grin got her kissed. “Is there any doubt you’re going to get
this promotion?”

  “If you were a Rendel person, I’d say none at all. I’ve been next in line for a while, informally anointed for the position, but I don’t like the way Harry has been acting. He’s definitely avoiding me. We were at the same conference for three days and he never sought me out. That’s not nothing. I just don’t know what it is.”

  “And you want this job. It’s important to you.”

  “It’s my equivalent to your Washington move. I’ve been working for this for years. Josh got his shot. It’s my turn.”

  Flick knew Harry and most of the senior partners of Rendel. Tom was the obvious new Chicago office leader, and after he’d done his time there, he could name his price at a larger global firm. “I’m sure it will work out.”

  “We need to talk about that.” Tom propped himself up on his elbow and his expression made Flick shiver. He played with a curl of her hair. “You are an obvious distraction.”

  “Me?” She wasn’t the only one with kiss-swollen lips.

  “Us.” He gestured to the wrecked bed. “This.”

  Uh-oh.

  “I need to be focused. And you’re passing through.”

  “What are you saying? We’re having fun. At least I thought you were having fun.”

  “I was. I am.” He leaned down and kissed her temple. “I am. But our timing is off.”

  There was that.

  “I didn’t handle this well before. I tried to shut you out and you were right to be angry with me. I’m trying to say I need to cool it. I need all my energy focused on work. I can’t let this job slip through my fingers because I’m thinking with my dick.”

  “I make you think with your dick? I think your dick likes it.” You dick.

  He tugged on the curl. He was desperately earnest, meeting her eyes, laying it out. It was difficult to be annoyed with him.

  “Flick, being with you is the best thing that’s happened to me personally for a while. But you’re leaving and we’re only hooking up because we’re here together. It’s not like we sought each other out.”

  Also true. She’d known Tom from afar for a few years, but never considered him hookup material. They mostly avoided each other in public. Smack upside her own head for being so short-sighted. All that rigid, well-behaved, polite corporate professional roughed up something beautiful.

  “And there’s a consequence for me,” he said.

  The saddest part of this discussion was she understood. “The last thing I want is to get in your way.” That wasn’t something she’d ever intended. It would’ve been fantastic to keep the sex with the roommate, but it wasn’t meant to be. There was a moment where she might’ve argued for that, why shouldn’t they enjoy each other while they had the chance, but the relief that flooded Tom’s face was game over.

  “I hope we can be friends,” he said.

  There was such a cringe in his voice that she laughed, and he did too. She presented her knuckles, and because they were slicked up against each other’s bodies and smelling of sex and this was the oddest breakup, he didn’t immediately react.

  “Friend zone forever.”

  Recognition dawned. He touched his knuckles to hers. “Friend zone forever.”

  Her shin was still tucked into his flank. His hand went back to her hip. This would’ve been easier to do if they didn’t like each other. If they weren’t comfortably naked.

  She went with trying to keep it light. “We could get matching tattoos.”

  He gave her his arch you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. “I’d settle for no trip hazards in the hall or frog-stomping on the table to headbanger music.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, at least let me make you a new playlist that’s not ancient.”

  “If you never bring that tragic boxed mac and cheese home again.”

  “If that means I get to eat your comfort food, I can live with that.”

  “And they say the art of negotiation is dead.”

  Negotiation, compromise, respecting people you cared about. Those were attributes that made the world go around. It was a shame they meant that from here on in she’d be sleeping in her own borrowed bed.

  Chapter Eleven

  It wasn’t weird with Flick and goddamn, Tom expected it to be. Whatever the etiquette for the transition between roommate-only, hookup-while-roommate, and roommate-only again eluded him. Flick took his endgame like a champion. It only made him admire her more.

  He put a plate of blueberry waffles in front of her and she mimed dying of delight. “I will easily give up orgasms for waffles for breakfast.”

  They were I’m-sorry waffles. “You’re not getting these every morning.”

  “Oh come on. I used to get sex when I could tempt you. I should at least be entitled to a cooked breakfast when I can’t.”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  She held her hand out. “Hello, Tom. Have you met me?”

  He took her hand and shook it. “Eat your waffles.”

  Of course she took it well. He turned back to the sink. It wasn’t like the sex meant anything to either of them, other than a good time.

  It was best not to think about how good a time.

  To remember Flick flinging her clothes at him in the hallway, dancing on the table in that satin slip, riding his hips, her skin glossy with sweat, on her knees, eyes open and pinned on his, deep-throating him.

  “Arhhgg. Tom, these are amazing.”

  Probably wouldn’t be right to ask her to stop making noises like that. A flashback to any of those sounds, the memories could make him hard again in seconds. He smiled as he ran the pan he’d used to cook the bacon under water. Yeah, he’d met her. She was made of bees and Gravitron and she was amazing.

  Nothing about their size difference worried her. It was as though she didn’t think of herself as tiny to his tremendous and was ignorant to all the ways he could accidentally hurt her. It wasn’t like he was oversensitive about that either. Other women had balked. He’d accidentally bruised women, made them sore. Flick was small but mighty and her little body seemed made for him.

  Their timing fucking sucked. Two ships passing in the crazy dark night, et cetera. It wasn’t useful to think about what they might’ve been if they’d come together earlier, if he’d thought to ask her out in the years they moved in the same hacks-and-flacks circle, if she was sticking around.

  He’d never have thought to ask her out. She was everything in a friend he’d normally avoid. Except that wasn’t the whole picture. He was attracted to her. Compelled. And for all those reasons, he’d barely tolerated the idea of her moving in.

  “If you’re not eating yours?” she said.

  “Keep your sticky fingers off my plate.”

  Yeah, he’d needed a favor from Jack Haley, but he didn’t need Flick Dalgetty to help him get it. Flick had intrigued him that night at the mixer like few other people did. And since he wanted a temporary roommate and she wasn’t staying long, it’d felt like a useful solution had fallen in his lap. If it was a mistake, it would be a short-term one.

  He couldn’t call what they’d done a mistake. But it was over.

  They fell into the pattern they’d established before their clothes came off. She kept long hours at Cassidy Strauss, leaving before him in the morning and arriving home before him. She still left items of clothing draped over furniture and personal effects on surfaces, but nothing designed for him to trip over.

  She still woke at night and parked herself on the balcony or puttered about in the kitchen. She didn’t do anything specific to wake him, but he was acutely aware of her moving around, especially the nights she gave her vibrator a workout.

  Holy fuck, those nights.

  That low-pitched whirring couldn’t be anything else. It tuned him in, turned him on and left him in a state that was only resolved by doing exactly what Flick
was doing on the other side of the wall.

  It was a hot, quick, desperately needy release. Slightly shameful, at least on his end, because he was the voyeur, and what if she could hear him?

  They got through the week that way. Compatible roommates. Cassidy Strauss was squeezing every last drop of time out of Flick, and when she might’ve been kicking back she was stressed about handovers and unfinished projects. She had another fight with her sister Elsie and stomped around the apartment. He made her apple turnovers that night. He didn’t hug her. He didn’t reach for her hand. He didn’t put his arm around her when they sat together on the sectional. But when she rested her head on his shoulder, it was pathetic how much he enjoyed it.

  If everything went well with his Friday afternoon meeting, finally firm, with Harry, he’d cook up a feast and that would cheer them both up.

  When four o’clock Friday rolled around, Tom knocked on Harry’s office door. Harry was on a call, phone to one wing-nut ear, but motioned him in. Tom entered the office and closed the door, moseyed past the lounge setting and the shelving filled with industry awards and framed photos of Harry with politicians, leading businesspeople, sports heroes and Barney the Dinosaur.

  This oft-renovated and redecorated corner office had been Harry’s for the twenty-five years he’d been Managing Director of Rendel Chicago. If this meeting went well, it would be Tom’s.

  He pulled out a chair on the opposite side of Harry’s desk and sat while Harry finished his call. He’d sat in this chair often, for discussions about clients, key staff and business issues. He got grilled in this chair every quarter about financial projections and profitability. He’d sat here to weigh in when Wren missed out on a promotion, and to congratulate Josh on his. He’d pitched, argued, groused, resented and been impressed by Harry’s strategic brain and intuitive decision-making all from this leather visitor’s chair.

  But enough with sitting on this side of the desk—his ambition to be on the other side sooner rather than later was burning a hole in his heart. They’d had an agreement about his ascension to the boss role. It wasn’t the same as having a signed contract with a new bonus clause and a surefire way never to need a roommate again, but it was close.