by Whitney G.
Then he buried his head between my legs and sucked my clit into his mouth. Without saying another word, he slipped two fingers inside of me and ran his tongue up and down my pussy. Toying with my pleasure, he brought me close to a second orgasm repeatedly—his warm mouth pulling away each time I got close, his fingers pushing deeper each time I cried out.
I writhed beneath his dominant touch, begged for him to slow down, but he only went faster. As he sucked my clit between his lips again, my hips jerked against the floor and I screamed louder than ever, coming even harder the second time.
He caressed my legs as I came down from my high, but he continued to blow torturous, wet kisses between my thighs. Then I lost count. One mind-shattering orgasm blended with the next, and I lost my voice. My muscles wouldn't still, my entire body convulsed again and again.
“Gillian?” he asked when I’d finally stopped shaking.
“Yes?” I didn’t even attempt to stand up. I simply looked up at the clock above the bookcase, gasping when I saw what time it was. Four in the morning.
He fucked me for three hours?
“Are you okay?”
I blinked, unsure of what to say. I was still recovering from bliss. By the time I finally came to, I looked up and found him staring at me.
“Thank you,” he said, a smile in his eyes.
“For fucking you?”
“No.” He slipped his arm behind my back and helped me to my feet. “For the windows and the mail. The latter was actually quite convenient.”
“You’re welcome.”
He led me back into the living room where he’d placed my blue overnight bag and strawberry shampoo onto the coffee table.
“Is there anything else you have hidden here?”
I shook my head.
“Are you sure?” He tilted my chin up with his fingertips. “Because I’ll be making sure you’re never able to get inside of here again.”
“I’m sure.”
His fingers left my skin and I felt disconnected.
“Where do you actually live?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, grabbing my things. “I’ll have my roommate pick me up.”
“That’s not why I was asking.” He prevented me from walking to the front door and led me down a hall and to what appeared to be a closet.
Taking a key out of his pocket, he unlocked the door and I realized it was a small elevator.
“I had this installed years before your housekeeping company was contracted to work here,” he said, pulling me inside.
“So, why don’t you ever leave this open so you won’t have to use the public elevator?”
“It’s only operable from the inside.” He hit the only button on the pad. “And since my unit isn’t rented like the others, I didn’t want strangers being able to access my apartment from below. Although, it seems like I encountered that problem anyway.”
I blushed and the doors glided shut. He stared at me as the car descended down, making me yearn for his touch all over again.
“I have a question,” I said. “How did you know I wasn’t really a pilot?”
“Simple.” He smiled. “Any real pilot would’ve jumped at the chance to talk about flying. I wouldn’t have had to ask you anything beyond commercial or private. You would’ve waxed poetic for at least five minutes.”
Very true… “I take it you’ve met a few pilots in your life?”
“You could say that.”
The elevator stopped at the ground level and he walked me to the curb where a driver and a black SUV were waiting. The lettering underneath the door handle read, New York’s #1 Private Driver Service.
“They’ll take you home and charge the fee to me,” he said.
“Thank you.” I climbed inside and set my things on the seat.
He looked at me as if he wanted to say something more, as if he wanted to taste me one last time. Instead, he pushed the strap of my dress back onto my shoulder and let his fingers linger against my skin for a few seconds before shutting the door.
“Where to, Miss?” The driver looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“Brooklyn,” I said. “16 Hampton Street.”
He gave me a slightly confused look, but he sped off toward the borough.
I turned my head toward the window, noticing Jake was no longer there.
As the car rolled over the city’s potholes, my bare ass slid across the seat—reminding me that he’d never returned my panties. Leaning back against the headrest, I shut my eyes as my nipples hardened, as I thought about the way he’d both harshly and gently bit them in turn. I knew it’d be a very long time before I met another man who could ever have such an effect on me, a long time before someone else could ever live up to that level of sex.
I caught the time on the car’s dashboard and realized I never told Meredith that I was leaving the party. I pulled out my phone and saw she’d called me four times, sent two “Where the hell are you?” texts, and left a voicemail, so I sent her a response.
* * *
Gillian: You owe me a hundred dollars.
Gillian: 7 stars.
Gate A5
Jake
New York (JFK) --> Dubai (DXB)
“You sure you want to completely cancel your housekeeping services, Mr. Weston?” The manager sounded confused. “Even after we’ve both concluded that nothing strange has been happening?”
“Absolutely.” I hung up and poured myself a shot of bourbon, the fourth one I’d had since escorting Gillian out of the building. Tossing it back, I gritted my teeth as the liquor burned its way down my throat.
I was still trying to figure out what the hell had happened tonight—how the hell a simple one-night stand had turned into an encounter with a modern day Goldilocks. The second she left, I’d walked through every room of my apartment again, trying to see how the hell I’d missed all the signs. How the hell I’d blamed everything on a team of people instead of one.
The first time I saw my Coke tins overturned months ago, I assumed it was me who’d done it in a rare bout of fidgeting. But when I returned from an international flight a week later, I noticed that the tins had been arranged into the shapes of small pyramids, something I would never have the patience to do.
I even installed a small-interior system right after that—a series of motion sensors that were supposed to send notices to my phone if someone ever entered when I was away, but all I ever saw was a quiet, still apartment. It wasn’t until hours ago that I realized that the “intruder” had managed to rig my system to run on a loop.
Just this morning, I’d found white cotton slippers tucked under my sink, a black and lace thong entangled on the rung of my dryer, and a pink coffee mug hidden at the rear of my cabinet. The second I’d spotted that terribly hidden bottle of shampoo in my bathroom, I vowed to bring the manager up next week to see this shit for himself.
Until tonight, that is.
After seeing Gillian, fucking her and grabbing fistfuls of her hair while I held her against my bookcase, that strawberry scent that often pervaded my space made perfect sense.
It was the one and only thing that lingered, no matter how well the staff attempted to clean. Airy and intoxicating, it clung to all of my pillows and sheets, so deeply ingrained in the fabric that I smelled hints of it for weeks.
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that the intruder wasn’t an annoying neighbor who preferred my views of the city over her own, or pissed that it was a sexy-ass employee who thought she was doing something worthy of my gratitude.
I couldn’t help but picture her perfect, pink lips pressed into an angry line for a “Thank you,” couldn’t help but see the way her deep, green eyes gazed into mine when we damn near fucked inside the rooftop party’s elevator.
The way she screamed when I had her pinned against the floor…
Before I could call the housekeeping manager and tell him that I wanted to change my mind about canceling, my automated voicemail syst
em made a loud beeping sound.
“Welcome home,” it said. “You have three new messages. Please say the password.”
“No.”
“Please repeat the password.”
“I said no.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not the password. Please repeat the password.”
Jesus… “One. Eight. Seven. Four.”
“Password accepted. Message one.” There was a beep and a long moment of silence.
“Good evening, Mr. Weston.” It was a female voice. “This is Alyssa Hart in Elite’s Human Resources Department. I was calling to discuss the salary form you submitted. I’m not sure if you know the actual salary maximum for a senior captain, but you’re going to have to redraft this and ask for something a lot more reasonable, if you want to continue—”
“Next,” I said, and the automated message came to an abrupt halt.
“Next message. Playing now.”
“Jake…” A deep male voice. “Jake, why do I have to hire a private investigator just to get your home number? And why do you keep changing it every month while continuing to ignore my calls to your cell phone? We’ve been trying to reach out to you for years. Years, Jake. Please let us—”
“Next.” I clenched my jaw.
“Final new message. Playing now.”
“Hello, this is Charlotte.” It was a throaty, female voice. “I’m not sure if I have the right number or not, but I’m simply calling to see if this is Blanket Manufacturing? I’d like someone to call me back so I can place an order, if so.”
I sighed and made a mental note to change my number once again at the end of the month.
“No more new messages,” the system said proudly. “Would you like to hear them again?”
“No.”
“Okay. I will play them again. Message one.”
“Good evening, Mr. Weston. This is Alyssa Hart in Elite’s Human Resources Department.”
I groaned and walked into my library, shutting the door. I picked up the books that fell while Gillian was here and stuffed her tattered lace panties into my pocket.
I pushed the desk away from the wall and unlocked a hidden panel, waiting for the walls to slide open.
As always, they took several minutes to slide apart—a safety precaution to convince a stranger that this was simply a wall and nothing more. When they finally made a beeping sound and gave way, I unlocked another panel that revealed all the things I hardly ever wanted to face.
On the top shelf stood every model plane I’d ever built as a child. From the simple five piece wooden types to the intricate, three-hundred-piece metal constructions. Dated postcards from countless countries sat untouched in a plethora of bound notebooks, and trinkets from nearly every airport gift-shop sat in the order that they’d been received.
I picked up the navy blue photo album from the bottom shelf and flipped through the first few pages. I wanted to believe that enough time had passed that I would feel nothing, but the pain and betrayal still cut deep, no matter how happy the memories. There I was at four years old, playing in an open field with a collection of paper planes. Me and my older brother at fifteen, playfully arguing about whose turn it was to drive our father’s Cadillac. My mother smiling against the sunset for no reason, and my father—
I shut the book.
I didn’t want to consider remembering what he was doing. I was sure it wasn’t what I thought it was anyway. I tossed the album onto the floor of the hidden case and locked it up as a familiar, haunting voice played in my head.
“He lied to you, Jake…He lied to all of us…”
I needed to focus my attention on something else.
I returned to the kitchen and flipped through the mail. All of this weeks’ newspapers were neatly stacked and waiting to be read. There was The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, and the most ruinous one of them all—The New York Times.
All of them were running variations of the same story across their front pages, harping praise and acclaim toward Elite Airways. The accompanying pictures were all white and sky blue, the words all written in a bloated black with phrases like, “Elite Ascends to New Altitudes!” “CEO of Elite Airways Flies High, Soars!” and “Elite Brings Back the Glory Days of Flying!”
There was no criticism, no journalistic analysis, not the slightest hint of critique. It was all an infallible farce, and after reading through all their bullshit, I knew there was no way I was going to get through my first full month of flying for them without fucking losing it.
A week later, I sat across from the Chief Hiring Director at Emirates Air in Dubai, watching him tap his pen in annoying fashion as he looked over my paperwork.
“Very impressive, Mr. Weston…” He flipped a page. “Even more impressive…” He’d repeated those same five words over the past hour and I was considering getting up and leaving the room.
“Well, Mr. Weston—er Jake.” He finally looked up. “Can I call you Jake?”
“Mr. Weston will suffice.”
“Fair enough.” He set the papers down. “I’m honestly in awe of your previous service, sir, but I have a few reservations about hiring you here.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, for one, we’d have to pay you on a senior captain’s salary which is far less than what you were earning at Signature.”
“How much is far less?”
“It would be half,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “And Emirates is the highest luxury line in all of commercial travel right now. Well, we were until Elite, but you honestly don’t strike me as the ‘do anything and everything to make the passengers happy’ type.”
“That’s because I’m a pilot, not a goddamn customer service agent.”
“And lastly.” He slid the papers back to me. “As much as I despise Elite for being what they are, I respect them for what they’re doing.”
“What exactly are they doing?”
“Getting people excited about flying again,” he said, turning on the massive TV screen on the other side of the room. “The aviation industry has never been better.” He pointed to the TV. “Have you seen their newest commercial? It’s very vintage and very original.”
I looked at the TV screen, watching it unfold. In grey scale, several flight attendants dressed in navy blue dresses and blazers walked arm and arm with a captain in the center. They all laughed and smiled as Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly with Me,” played in the background.
Onlookers waved at them as they walked through the terminal hallways, down the jet bridge and onto a plane. The commercial cut to the flight attendants serving a five course meal in first class, then to the pilot flying over a sparkling blue sea.
Seconds later, the CEO of the company—a man with graying hair and a soft smile, stood outside of LaGuardia International with a white Boeing 737 in the background.
“Fly with the best fleet!” He waved his hand across the sky. “Fly with Elite!”
Then the words, “Bring back the good days of flying” appeared.
The screen went black and the hiring director stood up and clapped as if he hadn’t just watched a commercial from his competitor.
“That was actually pretty good, don’t you think?” he asked. “It was a perfect pitch.”
“Look.” I’d had enough of this shit. “You don’t strike me as the stupid and gullible type, and I know damn well you’re aware that everything Elite does is a twisted rip-off of the old Pan Am.”
He was silent, but he smiled.
“That said, I hope I don’t strike you as the stupid and gullible type either, so you need to tell me the real reason you’re not hiring me on the spot since I know you’re lying about the pay grade, and I’m more qualified than most of the people who are currently flying for you.”
“Okay…” He looked slightly uneasy. “It’s because you’re overqualified.”
“Try again.”
“Did I give you the budgeting reason yet?”
I stood up
and took my paperwork. “Thank you for wasting my time.”
“Wait, wait.” He walked over to me. “Look, as much as I want to stick it to Elite and take half of their staff like they did to me ten years ago, the rules are different now.” He opened the door. “Besides, the second I had my assistant call to get your records, they sent over your employment contract.”
“I’m not following.”
“You have a five year non-compete and non-transfer clause. Every new pilot they hire does.” He shrugged. “Not only that, but I received a not-so-nice email from the director herself minutes before you arrived here today. She said that meeting with you would be a waste of my time. Something about an ‘FCE’? Whatever the hell that means. There’s nothing I can do for you, Mr. Weston. I’m sorry.”
“As am I.” I shook his hand. “Thank you.” I walked away before he could say another word, heading out to the parking lot and into my rental car.
Emirates was the final airline on my list of last-resort transfer options, the last place on my upcoming schedule of stopovers I planned to visit. There was now no one else I could call.
Refusing to think about it for the rest of the day, I pulled out my phone and noticed I had four new text messages from women on upcoming layovers. Messages that promised sex that I surprisingly didn’t feel like entertaining.
The only woman I honestly wanted to fuck right now was Gillian and that was a problem.
I’d never thought about a woman for more than a few minutes after sex. Even if I walked them back to their hotel room or saw them the next night due to an extended layover, the thoughts of our sex ended as soon as we were done.
So, I had no idea why my unwanted thief of a roommate was still on my mind days later. Regardless of the fact that she was undeniably stunning with jet black hair, almond shaped eyes, and sultry smile that sealed the deal, my current thoughts of her weren’t adding up.
Then again, maybe it had something to do with her smart ass mouth and backward logic. The way she actually believed she was doing me a favor by sneaking into my apartment.