by Jason Letts
I slipped the key card into the door mechanism, and soon we were inside and alone. Right then my phone buzzed to indicate I’d gotten something, but I’d barely been able to pull it out of my pocket before Seth snatched it out of my hands with a laugh and dropped it into the garbage can on some paper towels.
“You’ll be a lot happier if you forget about that thing for a while,” he said, coming after me next.
A second later I was wrapped up in his arms and feeling the full force of his lust pressing against my face and chest. I had to admit I wasn’t exactly ready for it and even had imagined the encounter going a little differently, beginning with a conversation full of long looks for example. But I’d made my move to open the door and now he was making his.
Seth’s hands were practically lifting me off my feet, tilting me back as he leaned in with his handsome lips and hot breath. I didn’t even realize I was near the bed until he dropped me onto it, but instead of diving right in after me he remained standing for a moment, giving me a second to admire the dashing look on his lean face. He appeared both content and ravenous at the same time.
I was already trying to catch my breath and sit up a bit on my elbows.
“People say you look alike, but you really are leagues more beautiful than her,” he said, and although he might’ve been blowing hot air it definitely worked.
“I could get a pin if that would help,” I said jokingly. He shook his head, suddenly reflective.
“It’s not that you don’t have very similar features,” he went on, brows furrowed as if in deep thought. “You just aren’t needy for people the way she is, and so you wear yourselves very differently.”
I tried not to think about how whatever qualities we had translated into my bed being more accessible than hers, but I didn’t have much time to ponder once he slipped off his jacket and undid the buttons on his dress shirt. Soon he was slipping off his white undershirt, revealing a taut, muscular torso that made my heart skip a beat. He had the tiniest bit of hair on his chest and beneath his naval, but it was his abs and arms that made me stare openly. I don’t know how many Bitcoin that view was worth, but it had to be a lot.
It would’ve been easy enough to just lie there and let him come after me, but I was feeling more ready by the moment and wanted to keep my spot in the driver’s seat.
My dress had a zipper in the back, and after sitting up more I reached behind my neck to tug it lower. As usual, getting the zipper down far enough so I could grab it from the middle of my back required a moment of awkwardness, but Seth watched with a bit of intrigue and soon enough I was able to slip the entire thing off.
I trusted the rest of my attire would vanish in due time, not wanting to wait another moment before sliding off the bed and lunging after that sinfully attractive face. This time I was pressing my lips into his as I ran both hands along his cheeks and up into his short, black hair, which almost had the feel of fresh mown grass.
Something about the way he pressed his hand against my lower back turned me on more than anything. I could feel his skin against my bare chest and my body wanted more, more, more.
He unhooked my bra, but I was already fumbling with his belt, a thin brown one that I gave a fierce tug to when I pulled it off, to tell him I had him. His pants dropped to the floor, followed quickly by a pair of plaid boxers. I was caught up in a deep kiss but I wrapped my fingers around his stiff member and began brushing lightly back and forth.
Seth leaned forward to drop me back on the bed, but I slipped out of the way and pushed him down instead. He could barely right himself before I was climbing on top of him, raking my hands over his chest, stomach, and strong thighs. I leaned forward to plant my lips against his soft skin and felt him tug my leggings and panties down to my knees. It took some more maneuvering, but I got them off the rest of the way.
The look in his eyes told me he was running out of patience, which was fine because I didn’t want to wait another second longer. Straddling him felt like the most natural, wonderful thing in the world, and I anxiously brought him inside me as he cupped my breasts. My heart was racing as I felt him penetrate deeper. Slowly I pulled up and slid back down, every feeling bringing a new tingling sensation.
His arms wrapped around me and he thrust upward while on his back, but I could feel his tension. Seconds later he sat up, unable to be contained or led any longer. I ached when he pulled out and shifted behind me. I clutched hard to the pillowcase in front of me when he reentered and filled me up. He was over me, riding me, increasing velocity with each thrust.
“Do you like that?”
“Yeah,” I said, letting the feeling carry me away. His hands grabbed hard on my butt cheeks but I was glad he didn’t smack me or really dig in with his fingers. I imagined he had to be getting close, but he withdrew again, motioned me onto my back, and continued from a standing position on the side of the bed while I was lying flat with my legs spread apart.
He wanted to look at me from every angle, hold me from everywhere, have me all over. He began breathing hard, as I’d been doing for a while, but he showed no signs of slowing down or wanting it to end. Every time I thought I might be falling behind, a look from his beautiful eyes drew me back.
He had lowered himself onto me and I had my legs wrapped around his when he began pumping harder and I knew he was not going to stop until he finished. His jackhammering made my mouth open in a silent scream. His hot breath was blowing against my face and I felt like I was ready to beg for it to be over when he suddenly went still with the shuddering of his come. I came too and it felt like the entirety of my consciousness was focused on the length of him inside me.
Slowly I came back to myself enough to glance at him. He had his eyes closed, savoring the feeling. I didn’t want the moment to end, but soon he pulled out and I felt the weight of his body lift off of me. For some reason I felt a sudden flush of embarrassment, as if the way I’d gone after him had been improper, but he started blowing lightly on my skin and that was more than enough reassurance that he’d been OK with everything that had happened.
I thought back to Keenan and all of his conference hookups, or at least the ones I’d imagined him having. Seth was icing on the cake of what would probably be my best trip ever, even taking into consideration all of the crazy drama of the presentation. If I could just remember this moment, I’d have no regrets when I went home and left it all behind me.
“So you really think my company would be better off in New York?”
The gears in my head creaked as it struggled to process any kind of coherent thought.
“Well, not if you’re looking for cheap electricity,” I said, chuckling.
“Not that part of it, I mean,” he said. I nodded, turning my head. The pillow felt cool against my cheek.
“Right. Apart from whatever mining part of it has to be in West Wanatchee…”
“East.”
“Err…East Wanatchee. Do the mining there, but New York is the place you have to be to integrate your business with the rest of the world. Yeah, I fully believe you when you say people are coming to your small town to dump money into all of these cryptocurrency companies, but at some point you’ve got to come out and meet the rest of the world. There’s never going to be widespread adoption of these currencies until you can use them to pay bills, buy groceries, or actually use them for all of the stuff people do in their day to day life,” I said.
Seth was quiet for a moment.
“Have you ever thought about using it?”
The answer was a flat no, but I felt like that was going to offend him.
“It’s an interesting idea, money that isn’t tethered to one particular government, but for myself and I’d say most women the huge swings involved put me off. If I could wake up and have my money lose twenty percent of its value, that’s just not something we are comfortable dealing with based on the general experience we have with money in our culture. These are the hurdles to getting a larger percentage of people
to adopt this, and the person who figures it out might become one of the richest people alive.”
I felt like I was speaking without thinking. The words were just flowing through me, making sense to me but still probably woefully uninformed. He still looked incredibly relaxed, his eyes half open.
“And how would you fix that?”
I laughed through my nose.
“I don’t know. Can it be fixed? Can somebody do anything to stabilize the currency? I guess if you really were a big enough player and you just said to everybody that you’d buy any amount of currency if it dropped below a certain value, that in itself would create a floor for the value. You’d sort of be acting as the government in such an instance, but maybe you could get away with that. My understanding of it is that most of stocks and other abstract commodities just boils down to creating the belief that they exist.”
I waited for the verdict on my thesis, ready to hear how ridiculous or naive I’d been. At best maybe he’d pick out one detail of what I’d said to complement. Instead all I heard from him was quiet breathing and I refocused my eyes to see that he had fallen asleep. Maybe it was for the best if he missed most of what I’d said anyway. But I kept listening in case he did respond until I also drifted off to sleep.
I woke up early the next morning with a pain in my head that told me it was way too early. Light was barely peeking in around the curtains. I could tell that Seth was still here, though I don’t think I would’ve been bent out of shape if he hadn’t been. We had our panel discussion this afternoon after all.
I still wasn’t wearing anything, but the urge to go through my normal morning routine, starting with checking my phone hit me. As quietly as I could, I got out of bed, pulled some pajama pants and a t-shirt from my bag, threw them on, and began fishing in the garbage. Phone in hand, I went back to the little couch in the corner, which creaked angrily when I sat down on it. I mouthed for it to shut up before seeing if there was anything new popping up.
It turned out that my phone buzzing right as I got in my room had been an email from Keenan that made my jaw drop.
“Sarah, maybe it was a better couple of nights’ sleep, but I feel like I’m finally awake enough to see what an idiot I’ve been. The calls to Japan are finally over and didn’t even result in a deal. I was stupid the way I handled our conversation when you said you wanted to move in. My email after you left on your trip was even worse. I want you to know that you don’t have to worry about talking to Gary Polling or any of that stuff. It can be figured out later. I just want you to have a great experience in Austin and take your rightful place as a leader in our field. I hope there’ll be some room at that place for me next to you. See you soon, Keenan.”
The muscles in my hands and arms tightened as I fought through my reactions to everything. If he’d just said this stuff before I wouldn’t have a guy sleeping in my bed this very minute. There was some sympathy for his disappointing foreign calls, which I knew would be a hard blow to him. It made me want to step up and lock in that deal with Gary Polling, but I wondered if I could really go through with that since he was so sleazy.
I took some deep breaths and tried to sense my way through it all. He hadn’t mentioned Cassie, but were they still talking to each other? Still, I was under no illusions that our relationship hadn’t been working even before the night shifts. I had a knot in my gut that the train I was on had definitely jumped the track.
“I never got to ask you how things are going with Mouse Roar.”
I practically jumped when I heard Seth’s voice, shocked that he wasn’t asleep.
“Pretty good,” I said, struggling to calm down.
“And what about Keenan?”
I looked up at Seth, who was lying back with his hands behind his head. Hearing him say Keenan’s name and the way he said it struck me.
“You say it like you know him,” I said.
“Of course I do. We were college roommates.”
CHAPTER 5
Hearing that Seth actually knew Keenan felt like a hole had opened up in my head and someone was vacuuming out my brains. I tried not to show any kind of a reaction even though I was screaming inside. The one thing I knew I had to do was get out of this room as quickly as possible.
“I’ve got some things to do this morning before the panel and have to get going quickly,” I said, standing up.
“No morning fun?” Seth asked, raising an eyebrow and letting the bed sheet slip lower against his bare torso.
“I’m sorry,” I said, though I was really apologizing to myself for being too weak to keep myself from looking at his abs. Without breaking stride, I grabbed the strap of my bag and pulled it right into the bathroom. Once the door was closed and I had my own space, I felt like I could finally contort my face in a way that fully expressed all of the anguish I’d been bottling up inside.
No matter how hot the water was, it didn’t manage to wash away the sensation that I’d just stepped into a nightmare from which I couldn’t escape. The water ran and ran, beating against my face as I squinted and prayed that it would all go away.
When I got out, it did. Seth was gone and my room looked exactly as it had before he came in. My brain was glad he was gone, but my body was sad about it. To try to get all of me focused on something more productive, I again turned to what Keenan had written about Gary Polling. As despicable as the man was, coming through with another clutch move for Keenan and our company had the potential to far outweigh the negatives.
Moisturized and dressed, I stepped out into the hall with my phone displaying directions to the Hyatt, where he was staying. About halfway to the elevators I noticed a breakfast tray on the floor just in time to avoid stepping on it and breaking a carafe half full of orange juice. The door was open and I cast an embarrassed look inside at my near disaster to a humming woman hidden in the shadows of a dark room with the curtains fully drawn.
Getting to the Hyatt was one thing, but finding Gary Polling inside of it was something else. I knew the Four Seasons had spoiled me because the entire place looked cheap by comparison. There was no sprawling front entryway. The decorations looked like mass-produced junk, and there was no restaurant with a fancy name, just a plain old dining area full of mostly gray-haired brunch-goers. I took a peek inside and then even did a lap just to be sure, but no man with red cheeks and long blond hair.
Other than stalking up and down the halls, my last resort was to go straight to the front desk to beg for help, and fortunately they agreed to tell him someone was waiting downstairs for him. I sat on a stone bench to the side of the front doors, glancing at everyone who went past like a lost puppy.
I’d had to give my name to the receptionist, and so when Mr. Polling did waddle into the area still in his pajamas, he had a defensive, hostile look on his face. All he did when he saw me was cross his arms over his chest and sneer.
“I’ve come to make you another offer, but it’s contingent upon an elaborate apology for how you handled our last meeting,” I said. Other than myself, it was as plain as day what else he wanted, and I’d run the numbers in my head and worked it out, but whether he would take it or even get to hear it was uncertain.
He spent a few moments glancing at me with his lips pushed to the side of his face.
“Alright then, I see I’m wasting my time. You don’t want our business after all,” I said, getting up and breaking for the door.
“Stop, fine,” he said as I had my hand on the push bar. I turned and looked at him expectantly. “I’m sorry about what I said. What’cha got?”
“That wasn’t nearly elaborate enough,” I said, shaking my head. Polling grimaced and his shoulders tensed up.
“It was unprofessional of me, a disgrace. I disgust myself and there’s a good chance I’ll never be rid of the shame of it and end up killing myself, but in case I don’t you might as well say what you’ve got to say.”
There was a healthy note of sarcasm in his voice, but I knew this was the best I was going to g
et.
“Ten cents a click guaranteed, premium placements, and we’ll hit our billion per month. If you’re willing to commit to a yearlong contract, you’ll receive a bonus in the form of one of those new Mercedes you were gawking at near the Media Lounge.”
I’d said my part, and even though I hadn’t run it across Keenan I knew that a car worth sixty thousand would be worth it if we could charge our clients millions for the exposure. Polling didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the offer of the car, but he didn’t walk away either.
“Done,” he said suddenly.
“Really?” I asked, a bit surprised.
“You’d better deliver,” he said, stepping forward and extending a hand. “Or your small business ads will be on every porn site on the Internet.”
“I’m sure you’d catch every impression,” I said. “We’ll be in touch.”
I left without another word, and although I felt gross for not only helping him profit but giving him a lavish gift, I knew Keenan would appreciate the lengths I’d gone to. I found a spot under a tree blocking the mid-morning sun to break out my phone and share the news with him. With any luck Keenan would get quite a boost out of it especially after the calls to Japan didn’t work out.
After I sent my message, I still had a couple of hours to wander around, get something to eat for lunch, enjoy the festival before I had to report for the panel discussion at twelve thirty. I visited a few booths and milled around a theater as a show was getting out, but the vibe I got from people was so much different than that first day. I don’t know if it was because people were getting tired, or if it was because of my not-warm-and-cuddly speech, but the same energy and eagerness weren’t there.
I ended up at the Moonshine Grill for lunch and had a dish called Backyard Chicken and a cocktail called Blind Mule. I didn’t have a clue what was good about a chicken coming from the backyard, but the drink definitely did help quell the nerves I’d been feeling about this final obligation I had to get through while I was here in Austin.