by Kiki Leach
Maurice slipped his fingers beneath the straps of her dress. He was so nervous that they shook against her skin. She thought it was endearing that even after all these years, and after all the women he had managed to see naked in between them, that she was still the only one who ever made his heart race. She knew he had been waiting for this moment since they were kids, despite his wanting to take things slower, and she was ready to finally give it to him. Unfortunately, it seemed that fate agreed more with Maurice on this one than Vanessa.
As they continued getting hot and heavy, their front doorbell began ringing incessantly.
“Just leave it,” he said, “just leave it and they’ll go away.”
“But--”
He covered her mouth, kissing her deeper and deeper, his hand slipping down to her ass and squeezing hard as his tongue made circles around the inside of her lips.
She let out a soft moan, taking pleasure in the taste as she clamped her lips around it and began sucking his tongue as if it were the sweetest lollipop she had ever tasted. But when the bell wouldn’t stop ringing, she turned away and breathed out. He continued kissing her cheek down to the side of her throat and collarbone. She bit down hard on her lip and lifted her leg up even more and he slipped his hand around, sliding his fingers back until he reached the rim of her panties.
He pressed himself between her legs and she rested a hand on his shoulder to balance herself as he began to gently thrust against her as a form of foreplay. He grunted in her ear and she smiled as the feel of his dick against her pussy mixed with the smell and taste of his sweat made her wetter than she had ever been.
The bell kept ringing, but he forced himself to ignore it, lifting up her from the floor and moving her to the other side of the room. He placed her on top of the counter near the sink and dove back in, kissing until her eyes slammed shut and the doorbell became something like a distant memory.
She wrapped her legs around his waist to feel him against her again and he lowered the straps of her dress. She dropped her hands inside his shirt and clawed at his back before ripping the shirt from his body and tossing it to the floor. He took her by the waist and slid her closer to the edge. She unbuckled his pants and kept her eyes focused on the bulge that protruded from his zipper.
But the noise wouldn’t stop and she was becoming less and less immune to it now that the person had started knocking and ringing simultaneously. She knew she might not get back that lustful feeling for Maurice depending on who was at the door, but insisted on answering it anyway, fearing the consequences of whoever was on the other side if she didn’t.
She released herself from his grip and jumped down from the counter. She fixed her hair and dress and went to the foyer as Maurice stayed behind and tried to adjust his pants to hide his full erection, just in case she decided to invite whoever it was inside their house. He saw his shirt on the floor and snatched it up. He grit his teeth as he tossed it over his shoulder and walked over to the fridge, knocking his head against it in complete frustration and swearing to himself.
When Vanessa almost immediately came back into the kitchen, smiling nervously, he wondered what was up. “It was the wrong house,” she said. “Some kid looking for their friend to go skateboarding with.”
“On a Monday night?”
“It’s summer. What else have they got to do?”
“They could start with not interrupting us when we were about to have sex. Amazing, mind blowing, never wanting it to end kind of sex.” He moved toward her and lifted her hair from her neck, placing it behind her and grinning. He slid his hands around her throat and then up to her face. She closed her eyes and exhaled, running a tongue across her lips as he caressed her.
“Maybe we should wait,” she told him. He thought for a moment of what she said, then released her face and stepped back, staring at her with a perplexing gaze. “Every time we try to do anything, something always happens. Someone comes to the door or there’s a phone call.”
“This time could’ve been prevented if you never went to the door, V.”
“That’s true, but I couldn’t take the risk seeing how it could’ve been anybody on that other side and especially when they wouldn’t stop banging on the door like they were.”
“Then you were expecting it to be Nathan.”
“I wasn’t actually, but now who’s jealous in thinking that I was?” She walked around him and headed for the sink. She reached for a glass from the drain and turned on the faucet, filling it.
“I’m not jealous of Nathan, Vanessa. He’s a punk and he’s got nothing on me when it comes to you. Except the tiny piece of your heart that I might never gain access to, because you have an unhealthy attachment to him.”
“Let’s not go there again,” she said before taking a sip of water.
“We need to. Because suddenly making a change in our relationship doesn’t mean my vision has gone completely blind on that fact. You went to the door because you thought it was him, even if you don’t want to say so, I know it. We were getting too into it and then you just stopped cold. That’s something that we need to work on and why I didn’t want to move too fast before tonight.”
“Before tonight.” She spun around and chortled, setting the glass down on the counter beside her. “Before you squeezed my ass like a ripe melon and were all too willing to take me upstairs and--”
“Rock your world like I’ve always said I could do, and would. That’s because I can’t deny you, Vanessa. I could never deny anything about you because you’re like my kryptonite. I guess the question now is, when am I going to finally be yours? You want to move on with me and that’s great; it’s something I’ve been waiting for my entire life, but it’s not enough given what we could really be together.” He looked down at the food on the counter and pushed his plate back. “I’m going to bed. I might not see you in the morning because I have to go into the office early, so have a better day at work tomorrow.”
He left the kitchen and she sat back thinking. If Nathan was still her kryptonite even as she had vowed to moved past him and what they had, when and where and how in the hell would Maurice ever manage to find a place for himself inside her heart? Now that his friendship was officially being replaced by something more, she didn’t know. And she questioned even with all the feelings that began to develop between them, if she ever would.
Part Twenty-Five
Nathan had spent the rest of the day roaming the streets of New York if only to avoid going back to the hotel and seeing Sheila. But he couldn’t avoid her constant phone calls and voice mail messages that asked him to meet her at The Bean later that night once she had finished taking care of other business, such as trying to get back in touch with Adrian from the moment she left Vanessa’s office earlier that afternoon.
When he walked up and saw her standing outside the shop, she was pacing back and forth with her phone pressed against her ear. He wasn’t really interested in what had her so riled up, but he thought it was best to at least pretend he cared if it meant that she wouldn’t ask him a million questions on why he had avoided her after leaving his meeting that morning.
He tapped her shoulder and she spun around quick. She grinned and pressed the red button on her phone, tossing it back inside her purse.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“No one,” she replied. “Well it was someone kind of important, but not something I want to talk about right now.” He was distrustful of her answer, but dropped it to keep from going further. “How was your meeting this morning? You never came back to the hotel so I wasn’t sure if it went well or not.”
“It was fine. Eddie and Mr. Gallagher only wanted to discuss what the job entailed and when I’d be starting, which is tomorrow morning. I have to be there by 7am.”
“Then that means we’re staying and everything you said this morning was just a lie.”
“It wasn’t a lie. I really thought at the time that it would be best to leave the city and return to Cali, but--”
“Now you don’t.”
“No,” he stated firmly. “I don’t.”
She started to wonder if all her efforts in now trying to keep Adrian away from Vanessa in light of their newfound truce was for the best. “Why don’t we go inside?” she said. He opened the door for her and she stepped in, heading toward the counter and ordering a lemonade while Nathan ordered the same.
He looked around, noticing they were the only customers in the shop. “What did you do all day?” he asked.
She shifted her eyes to avoid his face. “I just ran a few errands around the city. One of which included going to see Vanessa at her office.”
He stepped back. “Did she ask to see you?”
“Yes. She wanted to talk about my quote in Page Six.”
“What did she say about it?”
“She wasn’t as pissed about it as I thought she was going to be. In fact, she wants us to try and get along now. Something I wanted from the very beginning, but it seems Alexis might have put the fear of God in her to make her finally see things my way.” Max handed them their drinks and Nathan pulled money from his pocket, setting it on the counter and telling him to keep the change. They found a place in the corner by the door and sat down.
“How long do you think it’s going to last between the two of you?” asked Nathan.
“I hope the entire time we’re staying here. It might not, but I can hope for the best while expecting nothing but the worst. She did invite me to an opening on Thursday night. She invited us, actually.”
“What opening, where?”
“A restaurant.” She pulled the invitation from her purse and handed it to him. “She said that we could come, but she doesn’t want to be seen with us--”
“Did she tell you that she wanted me there?” he asked, looking it over.
She watched his eyes light up with anticipation in thinking about her rival and turned away, clinching her jaw. “I don’t think she wanted you to come at all as a matter of fact, but I pushed for it because we’re engaged and I didn’t want to be seen there alone.”
He looked up from the invite and saw the harsh yet hurtful look on her face. He placed it down on the table and drank some of his lemonade, making a face as the sour taste spread across his tongue. “Who all is expected to be there?”
“I don’t have any idea. I’m not even sure who the person is opening the place – I barely looked at his name. But I’m willing to show up because all of this is a start in the right direction where V and I are concerned.”
“Not too much of a start if she doesn’t want to be seen with you,” he said.
“Us,” she emphasized. “We’re a packaged deal in this, make no mistake about it.” She lay back in her chair and sipped her drink.
“Is she bringing anyone with her to this thing?”
“I don’t know that either, Nathan, are you angling to be her date for the night if she happens to show up there alone?”
He scoffed and slid his arm off the table, dropping it in his lap. “Come on, Sheil’s.”
“No, you ‘come on’. First you want to leave town to avoid her, now you want to stay just so that you can be seen with her.”
“I think you’re being paranoid.”
“And I think you’ve just confirmed that everything I’ve done today is for the benefit of myself, as it should be.” She stood up and grabbed her purse.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that no one is ever going to look out for my wellbeing and what I feel like I deserve in this life except for me. It’s the way it’s always been and I guess the way it will continue to be, even now. I’m going back to the hotel. If you choose to come later, I guess I’ll see you there.”
She stormed out of the shop as Nathan looked over at Max, who had his back turned to them the entire time, but had managed to hear every word said between them. Nathan sat there alone until he was finally forced out so that Max could lock the doors. He decided it would be best to sleep away from Sheila that night and chose another room on another floor of The Palace instead.
Part Twenty-Six
A little over an hour later, Nikki trotted over to the coffee shop in hopes of seeing Oscar, but was disappointed to find Max cleaning up alone instead. She waited around to see if Oscar would come out of the back office to help, but after a few minutes of feeling more than obsessed with needing to know where he was every minute of every hour of every day that he had spent away from her, she left and decided to go home, thinking about what she would’ve said to him along the way had she actually seen him.
As she rounded the corner to her neighborhood, she noticed someone sitting on the steps in front of her door and was surprised to see that it was him. She saw that his head was down and his hands were clasped together so tightly, they almost turned red. He pulled them apart and began rubbing his palms, so dry in the heat they sounded like sandpaper when they came together.
When she got closer, he stopped and stood up where he sat. His face lit up as bright as the moon filling the dark sky. His eyes shone and his teeth glinted as his lips parted to speak. Nikki, though glad to see that he would rather be with her that night instead of Melanie, also wondered if it was the best thing in the world for him to be there at all.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, taking time as she reached for the railing and moved up the steps.
“I wanted to see you tonight.” He briefly looked behind him as if he heard someone coming to the door, then turned back to her. “How was your audition?”
“I’ve had better ones that I’ve been rejected from. How long have you been sitting out here?”
“A little longer than I thought I was initially going to. I got here a few hours before Vanessa finally came home and just waited.”
“Did she see you?”
He shook his head. “When I saw her coming down the street, I sped around the corner before she noticed I was even here. I thought she might have called the cops if she had. I knew Maurice was home and thought about asking if you were too, but…”
“You could’ve just as easily called me to see if I was inside.”
“I could’ve if I thought you would have answered the phone,” he said. “And if I didn’t want to see you.”
A smile crossed her face but she tried to avoid him noticing. “When did you finally realize I wasn’t here?”
“I decided to pay some kid five dollars to ring the doorbell and pretend to be looking for his friend ‘Nicole’ at the wrong house.”
“How did that work out?”
“He got Vanessa who seemed to be in a pretty talkative mood, and said the only person who lived there named Nicole was you and that you weren’t home yet.”
“She only does that when she’s had more than one glass of alcohol,” said Nikki. “And sometimes when she has something else more important on her mind and starts babbling. What would you have done if she didn’t come to the door or if she never said anything to that kid?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t think too far past that.” He grinned at her and lowered his eyes. “Did you get whatever part you auditioned for?”
“Nope. It was for a ‘Whole Wheats’ commercial for a new cereal that would shoot both here and in the south. The blonds outweighed the brunettes throughout and I was the only minority who showed up, so I’m pretty sure one of them booked it. Como era de esperar. I didn’t think the audition would go on so long though, but a lot more people came than they were expecting.” She looked behind him at the door. “I would invite you inside, but--”
“I know. I just didn’t get to see you today and wanted to make sure you were okay after last night. I don’t know what came over Melanie, why she said all of that to you.”
“I know exactly why she said it. She may not know about us, but she’s obviously intimidated by me and what we have. I’ve spent more time with you in the last year than she has in the last three or four. If I were in her shoes, I would und
erstand it. But I’m not…” She thought about their last encounter, and dropped her head feeling only slightly shameful. “And that is why I should probably go inside.” She moved past him but he grabbed her hand, holding her back.
“Wait,” he said, staring down at their hands. She turned as he slid his fingers between hers and pulled her closer to him. She swallowed hard and tried releasing her hand from his, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Just wait.”
He lifted her hand up to his face and kissed the back of her fingers. She ran her index across his lips and without thinking, dropped her bag and leaned in to kiss him. She draped an arm around his neck, whispering his name in a soft groan against his tongue as he backed her into the door. The heat between them intensified; her cheeks flushed and her lips felt like magnets against his.
He opened his mouth wide and grabbed at the edge of her skirt, moving his hand up until his fingers were inside her panties – his index stroking down hard inside her pussy and against her clit. It wasn’t until the moment she felt him that the truth of their relationship had finally hit her like a mac truck, and what she felt it meant to him aside from all of the pretty declarations he always whispered in her ear as she slept beside him in his wife’s absence.
She opened her eyes, watching as he continued kissing her without reservation, stroking his tongue across hers, never realizing she had stopped kissing him back. She shoved him away from her and moved to the side, grabbing at her lips and tugging at her skirt as she looked up into his eyes. She saw the face a man who wanted to use her for his own pleasure, and to discard her just as quickly before the sun came up. She remembered Eliza’s books and thought about digging them out of the trashcan.
“Things are never going to change if we keep doing this,” she said, picking up her bag. “If you keep using sex to avoid the bigger issues that have risen between us since she’s come back, and I keep letting you.”