“Oh, Jesus, Oz, please,” she begs some time later. “I can’t—I need—just do something.”
“I’m doing something,” I tell her.
She whimpers and writhes, her body laid out like an offering, and I ease off and position myself on top of her, elbows on either side of her head. For the first time since I penetrated her I drag out my cock so just the tip is left inside, and dip my head so my lips brush against her ear. “Squeeze,” I order.
She squeezes the head of my cock with her pussy and I shudder violently, unprepared for how amazing it feels. She relaxes and I shove back inside, then do it again, and again, and again, any game plan I might have had flying straight out the window.
“Susan,” I mutter, eyes clenched tight, the words spoken into her hair as I power into her, lower body calling the shots. She’s wrapped herself around me, meeting each thrust with one of her own, more than willing. We turn our heads at the same moment and our lips meet, my tongue ensnared with hers when I start to come. My moan spills into her open mouth and her fingers dig into my skull, trapping me.
I feel my orgasm from head to toe, cock jerking even as every other muscle feels like it’s locked up so tight I’ll never be able to move. Then Susan cries out as she starts to come and the orgasm I thought was finished feels like it starts all over, my dick so sensitive it hurts as her pussy clamps down on it again and again.
I’m barely conscious enough not to slump onto her, falling slightly to the left and dislodging my cock, grabbing the base of the condom at the last second. I flop onto the mattress, spent and sweaty despite the air conditioning, just this side of a dead man. Fucked to death.
I can hear Susan’s raspy breathing, feel the faint exhalations as the edge of her shoulder touches mine, and finally I push myself up, feet finding the floor, back to her. “You okay?” I ask, looking over and waiting for her exhausted nod before I stand to take care of the condom.
I return to the bedroom with two bottles of water. Susan’s knocked the duvet to the floor and tucked herself under the thin black sheet, unexpectedly modest in spite of everything we’ve done. I pass her a bottle before rounding to climb in the other side. For a minute it’s just the sound of us drinking, then quiet.
“Well,” she says.
“Well,” I say, just to say something back.
“That was...good.”
My shoulders shake when I laugh. If that was just “good” for Susan, she’s going to have to find someone else to screw. Any better would kill me. “Just good?”
“Oh.” She turns onto her side and touches my arm. “Better than good,” she corrects. “Great.”
“Stop,” I tell her. “You’re making it worse.”
“Really?” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I loved it. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I thought it was fucking awesome,” I tell her.
“I’ve never sat on someone like that before.”
My cheeks heat even though I’m proud as fuck of that move. “So you said. But you came all over my face.”
“Oh God.” A blush steals over her pretty features. “I’m a doctor. I’m not supposed to get embarrassed.”
“You should have been a masseuse,” I tell her. “You have devil hands.”
“I’m vaguely familiar with anatomy,” she replies.
My grin spreads, and I don’t know what else to say. How I went from being so furious with her on Wednesday to eating her pussy and laughing with her afterward on Monday. “What now?” I ask, looking past her to see the alarm clock on the nightstand. It’s a little after nine. “You’re welcome to stay over, but if you have to go, I’ll get up to see you out.”
“I have to go,” she says, “but not just yet, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
“I have surgery tomorrow afternoon,” she explains. “I have to prepare for it.”
“I understand.”
She’s quiet for a second, watching her finger trace circles on the sheet, contemplating. I wait, wondering what she’s working up to asking for. I’d do pretty much anything at this point. I’m the definition of pussy whipped, and I don’t even care.
“I want to help you,” she blurts out.
I think of the bruises. “What?”
“With the garden,” she clarifies. “And the new building. The playground, whatever. I want to help. I want to do something.”
“You’re a doctor. You are doing something.”
“And you’re an accountant. That’s not the point.”
I try to look thoughtful and not just confused. “Why?” I finally manage. “I don’t know what I’m doing, or if it’ll even work. The inspections aren’t over and I have no idea—”
She presses her fingers to my lips, silencing me. “Stop talking yourself out of it,” she says.
I freeze.
“What if I’d talked myself out of sending the bees?” she continues reasonably. “We wouldn’t be here.”
“The bees aren’t the best example, Susan.”
“You know what I’m saying.”
“You’re telling me to shut up.”
“I’m suggesting you tell your inner critic to shut up.”
I inhale, trying to process this. Is she right? Or is she just bossy? Why the hell would a busy doctor want to work on a high-risk project like this?
And then I hear myself. The discouragement. With help from my mother and sisters, I’d ignored all that negativity when I was in New York. I’d been focused and determined and I’d succeeded. Then I came back to Camden and all its dirt and sorrow moved in, the very shit I’d tried to leave behind. The biggest obstacle to this whole project is...me.
“Is it working?” Susan whispers, shifting closer. “Is he quiet?”
“I’m trying,” I say.
She lifts one lean leg to slide over my hip. My semi-hard cock bumps against her damp curls and my eyes sink shut. “Want to think about it in the shower?” she murmurs.
Chapter Seven
Three weeks after the best make-up sex of my life, I’m back on Susan’s balcony, feet propped on the rail as I sit and watch dusk begin to edge its way across the sky. This is a pretty standard evening for me, driving up from Camden when Susan has the night off, grabbing dinner, watching a movie or just hanging out at her place. And the sex. Still incredible. Still that same combination of bossy, dirty and unexpected. Even now I can feel the sting on the back of my shoulders where her short nails dug in, scratching the hell out of me as we fucked half an hour ago.
Because that’s still what this is. Though Susan hasn’t blown me off again since the night at Mache 42, there’s something about her that feels just a little bit guarded. It’s hard to describe someone as distant when they just let you bang them up against the wall the second you got through the front door, but that’s how it is with Susan. A little bit mechanical. Like she’s going through the motions, and I don’t know why.
Just shy of a month in, I still wouldn’t go so far as to call her my girlfriend, but she’s the only woman I’m seeing, and the only one I want to see. And I’m reminded why when she joins me on the patio in shorts and a tank top, no bra, hard nipples clearly visible. She passes me a can of coconut water, slippery with condensation, and I try not to smile. This is the brand I keep at my place. I never asked her to buy it, but a week ago it turned up in her fridge, even though I know she thinks it tastes like saliva.
“Are you nervous?” she asks, sitting in the free chair. Her legs don’t reach the rail so she arranges them in my lap instead, and I stroke her calf as I sip my drink and admire the way the sinking sun makes her skin glow.
“Yep.” She’s talking about tomorrow, the first day of “work” on the Green Space. A week after passing inspections and filling out the paperwork, I was the proud owner
of an abandoned building. Because the tannery went bankrupt and disappeared over night, they’d left behind their now-antiquated office equipment and warehouse materials. In the years it’s sat vacant, it’s been used as a place to squat, screw and shoot up, and evidence of that is in no short supply. I hired a salvage crew to clear it out, and they’d filled up eight giant bins and charged me a small fortune.
When there was nothing left but walls and stains, I hired another group to knock out any non-load-bearing walls on the first floor to create a large open space, and finally I hired an industrial cleaning service to scour the place with bleach and hot water, removing the final traces of filth and scum, dust and cobwebs. Seeing the space open up got the wheels in my head turning, picturing an indoor basketball court on one end, maybe some tables and chairs on the other for kids who want to study or catch up on homework.
Tomorrow, the real work starts. A local guy, Marco, owns a construction company and gave me a discount, not that I don’t suspect he’s still gouging me. To offset the cost I’d wrangled up a few guys from the gym to pitch in at an hourly rate, and all week we’ll have a small crew pouring new concrete floors and repairing walls, and a hundred other things I can’t predict and will inevitably pay through the nose for. It’s a lot of work and a lot of money to make a building safe, but I’m committed to this project and I’m going to see it through.
“Did you pick a date for the grand opening?” Susan asks.
I sigh. “July first. And you know I didn’t pick it.” This is Jade’s doing. She went online and started googling things, and suddenly we had to have a grand opening and formal invitations and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Next thing I know I’m sending a letter to the mayor, telling him about our big opening day at the beginning of the summer so the kids can get some use out of the place and hopefully stay out of trouble over the holiday.
“It’s good to have a plan.”
My mouth quirks. “I know you like your plans, Susan.” But this conversation is making me antsy, reminding me of all the crap I’ve signed up for. Crap I’m not sure I can handle. “How’s Dorrie?” I ask to change the subject. I’m referring to the call Susan had just gone inside to make. I couldn’t discern words, but I heard the timbre of her voice change, the usual practical cadence replaced with a sharper, irritated edge. Even now she’s lost some of her relaxed after-sex ease, her shoulders tense, the disappointed set of her mouth deepening the grooves on either side.
“Oh, she’s fine,” she says, clearly lying. “She’s at that age where I can’t say anything right. And I don’t imagine spending the summer with the man I’m divorcing is doing much to change that opinion.”
“Do you talk often?” She’s mentioned Dorrie several times, but this is the first I’d ever semi-witnessed a call.
“A couple times a week. More when she’s here, obviously.” She scratches her neck and I wonder how much I can pry. How much I should. With some women I’d know they want me to ask questions, show interest in their private dramas, but I don’t think Susan does. This is confirmed when she visibly shakes off the effects of the conversation and asks, “What time is the crew showing up tomorrow?”
I drop the subject, and cover my mouth as I yawn. “Seven. They’ll work on the main level, then Marco’s going to take a look at the roof. Structurally it’s sound, but I want to make sure it’ll hold the weight of whatever garden we get going up there, and I need to get it started sooner rather than later.”
“It’s exciting.”
“It’s nerve-racking. And don’t even get me started on this article they’re writing. I think Jade must have told somebody to do it.”
A few days ago I’d gotten a call at the office from a small Chicago paper wanting details on the Green Space. The idea is still so new and unformed I’d been unwilling to say much, but they’d weaseled out permission to attend tomorrow’s first day of construction to possibly do a profile on the project. Trying to convince myself that the press could only be a positive thing, I reluctantly agreed.
“I think it’ll be good exposure,” Susan says. “People should hear about what you’re doing. You’re trying, and it should be acknowledged.”
She’s the world’s most formal cheerleader. “Thanks, Suze.”
“Any time.” She yawns into the crook of her elbow. “Speaking of time...”
I push to my feet, recognizing my cue. I polish off the coconut water and try not to let her sleepiness infect me. I’ve got a forty-minute drive home, then I’ll be up again at six tomorrow, assuming my brain shuts off long enough for me to fall asleep. “Let me know what your week looks like,” I say over my shoulder, hearing her bare feet pad across the hardwood as she follows me inside.
“It’s not too crazy,” she replies. She props her hip against the kitchen island as she watches me lace up my sneakers. “From the sound of things, you’ll be the busy one.”
I glance up. “You think I’m taking on too much?”
She purses her lips as she considers her answer, and everything about her is like a magnet, my hands, my mouth, my cock, all drawn to this woman. “I think it’s a lot,” she says finally, “but not too much. If things were always easy, we’d all have everything and there’d be nothing left to want.”
My brow furrows as I straighten, resisting the urge to cross to her, kiss her one last time. I want her to come to me. “What does that even mean?”
“It means...” She passes me as she opens the door and I catch a whiff of her skin, the smell of her lemon-scented body lotion overriding the salt and sweat generated by our post-walk activities. I step into the hall and she catches my arm, pressing into me hard enough that I back into the opposite wall, effectively pinned there as she rises onto her tiptoes to kiss me. “It means don’t be afraid of things that are difficult.”
* * *
Help, I’m thinking twelve hours later. Somebody please help me before I kill these guys.
It’s exactly ten o’clock in the morning, and three hours into the project I’m ready to quit. My options at this point are, a) turn into a raging psychopath and murder everyone in the building, or b) lock myself on the roof until they all go home.
Because they are driving me fucking crazy. Turns out this guy, Romar, on Marco’s crew knows one of the guys I picked up from the gym, and that guy, Jax, stole his girlfriend. Of course, Romar didn’t know Jax was working here until he was up on a platform smoothing some sort of hole-filling gunk into wall and the platform started to sag and he needed help, and the guy that ran over to save him was Jax. They chose that moment to get into an expletive-filled argument that had Marco’s guys banding together against the gym guys, and a full-fledged war almost broke out.
I’d stepped in to calm things, dodged a few punches, threw one of my own and sent one of my guys to the hospital with a broken nose, a handful of tissues and a bunch of apologies. Now Marco’s men are refusing to work until Jax is fired, but Jax is a licensed electrician and I’m not about to send him home because Romar got his feelings hurt. I’ve had Marco in my ear for the past two hours trying to convince me that his electrician is just as good, but if this behavior is any indication of the quality of the guys on his payroll, I’m not sure I trust his judgment. I’ve got my cell phone stuck to my other ear checking in with the guy I sent to the hospital and promising to foot the bill, and my conscience perched on my shoulder, pointing out that I’m a massive fucking idiot.
Eventually I tell Marco to take his guys out for breakfast—on my tab—to calm them down, with the stern warning that if this shit doesn’t blow over, they’re all out of a job. I’m really hoping he doesn’t call my bluff, because I don’t want this project to fall apart on day one, though it’s starting to feel inevitable.
The last car pulls out of the gravel lot, and it’s just me and the five remaining guys from the gym crew. I’ve got a pounding headache from the relentless bick
ering, and I wash down a couple of ibuprofen while wishing the lukewarm water was something much, much stronger.
The second an iota of tension eases from my shoulders, I hear the screech of the rusty hinges on the front door, and know it’s bad. I turn and immediately pray for death.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demand when Jade and Sheree make their way inside, pushing oversized sunglasses onto their foreheads, lifting their knees like baby deer just finding their legs as they pick their way over scattered construction materials.
“Hi, Oz,” Jade says, stopping in front of me.
I take a calming breath. “Jade. Sheree.”
“Hey,” Sheree says. She’s very pretty, with a trim, athletic figure on display in tight yoga pants and a long-sleeve top. Her hair is dyed blond on the bottom, dark on top, and despite the workout gear, the perfectly styled curls falling over her shoulders suggest she didn’t come here to exercise. Or rather, Jade didn’t drag her here to exercise.
Jade, on the other hand, doesn’t bother with any pretense. I know she’s still seeing that douchebag Ricky, but the tight T-shirt, miniature denim shorts, and knee-high boots she’s wearing tell everybody she’d be willing to trade in if the right upgrade came along. I glower over my shoulder at the men who have stopped working in order to gawk, and order them back to work.
“Anybody who’s not doing something useful in the next five seconds can forget about lunch,” I snap, sending them scurrying. No way would they accept Marco’s men getting breakfast if they didn’t get a free meal in return, so when Marco’s crew comes back, I now have to take these guys out to keep their sense of justice intact.
Fuck.
Me.
“How’s everything going?” Jade asks. She’s chewing a piece of gum and blows a big pink bubble. She smirks at something over my shoulder and I don’t bother turning to see which guy it is. I know they’re all looking.
The Good Fight (Time Served Book 3) Page 11