by Selena Kitt
“What do you want?” he demanded. His voice was like the powerful bike, low, not loud, but hinting at untamed power.
It took Melissa a moment to recover. “I don’t want anything. What do you want? You almost ran me down.”
He ignored her question, his eyes darkening. “What are you doing way over here? Looking for where I live?”
“I’m just jogging. Does that tight leather cut off the circulation to your brain? What does it look like I’m doing?”
He smirked, then reached down to turn off the bike. In the stillness Melissa wondered if Vern could hear her heart beating. He lazily got off the bike, snapping down the kickstand, and turned to face her. His thick leather riding jacket hung open, giving her a glimpse of a form fitting tee underneath. Part of a tattoo poked up from behind the shirt, on the side of his neck, Melissa couldn’t tell what it was, the head of some bird or animal. A wolf? Or a hawk? He wore a well broken in pair of riding chaps, the leather flexed firmly against his legs, the black calfskin ending near the top of his thighs, highlighting his crotch, drawing her eyes against her will to the gap in the leather, revealing his tight jeans.
“So you came to check out my leather instead of where I lived? Is that your story?” His voice was so flat she couldn’t tell if he was angry or actually interested. Or just smug.
“I didn’t come to check out where you lived,” she repeated.
“My leather it is then,” he said, spreading his legs a little, opening up his jacket. Then, with a sly smile, gesturing to his chaps.
So smug it was.
Melissa had involuntarily followed the movement of his hands, looking at his jacket as he held it open, she was close enough to smell the leather, and then her eyes were pulled down with his gesture, toward his waist, his crotch. . .
She snapped her head up. Vern held her eye for a moment, freezing her, and then he ran his eyes up and down her body, shamelessly, taking her all in, doing more than visually undressing her. He was appraising her.
Melissa couldn’t move; it was as if she was held in a spider web, and she had no energy to flee, and yet her heart still pounded with energy, giving her hope that she could get free.
And in the back of her mind, her primal devil, hissing at her, chastising her for not looking her best, tempting her to do something appealing, so she would not be ignored and left behind by the alpha male.
Before she had a chance to do anything, Vern shrugged and said dismissively, “I like bigger tits.”
Melissa was stunned. No one had ever spoken to her that way, so rudely, so flippantly. “I thought you might,” she spat.
“So you’ve been thinking of me, haven’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
Melissa’s first reaction was to deny it, realizing immediately that he wouldn’t believe her, he was that sure of himself. Instead she found herself saying, “My tits are fine.” Her voice was hot with anger, an intensity she didn’t know she had, especially about her breasts.
Vern had turned the bike around, he had come for her, and now he was threatening the fantasy that she had allowed herself to glimpse, the fantasy of a mysterious, dangerous man. A dangerous man who wanted her.
He shrugged again. “Maybe. You do have nice nipples.”
Melissa didn’t have to glance down to know that they were showing, her thin bra doing nothing to hide her arousal, the soaking tee shirt tight against her breasts.
“You’re an asshole,” she said harshly, the words a challenge.
Vern’s head snapped up, a little surprised maybe. His lip curled. “You’ve got a mouth on you.” He gave her that confident smirk again. “I like that. A good mouth. That could make up for the tits, if you could do something else with your lips than talk.”
“Are you drunk? Or do you always talk to strange women this way?” Melissa turned to go, surprisingly dismayed. Was this the man she had been fantasizing about? The reality was a letdown, a disastrous crash.
“I know all about you.”
That spun her around. “Have you been stalking me?”
“I know your type,” he said.
“My type?” Pissed as she was, Melissa couldn’t help but be a bit intrigued. What type was she?
“You’re all the same. You want the tough guy, but hate it when he doesn’t fit your perfect definition of tough. Someone who’ll play by your rules. Be rough but not really too rough. Be a real man but have some place inside that you can tame.” Vern’s voice was filled with disdain. “I don’t need you.”
“I don’t need you either,” said Melissa, her mind speaking now, but her body, so help her, still craving him.
“Don’t you? You need something. This isn’t the first time some bored housewife came on to me. Wanting something on the side, something she can’t get at home.” Vern gave her another head to toe examination, his eyes lingering on her legs and her chest. “Although most of them try to look a little better when they do.”
There were so many things Melissa could have said to all of that, but she wasn’t thinking straight, and no matter how much of a jerk he was she couldn’t deny his animalistic attraction. He didn’t seem to care whether she liked him or not, and for some reason this made her want to earn his interest, his desire.
“Housewife? Is that what you see?”
“Whatever. Someone bored. Needing some excitement.”
“Is that what you think you do? Make housewives happy?”
“If I want them,” he said. “I don’t care if they want what I want.” He looked like he was going to turn away, dismiss her.
Melissa wasn’t ready to let this go. “And you can draw all those conclusions just by looking at someone? I’m not so simple.”
“Neither am I,” he said. “Are you telling me you didn’t draw some conclusions about me? Because of the way I’m dressed? Because I’m on a bike? The way you acted when I called you a housewife. You too good for housewives? Are they beneath you too?” He sounded like he didn’t want to have this conversation, or had maybe had it too many times.
Melissa almost apologized. She had done that. Categorized him. Generalized about housewives, and about him. Not thinking he was some kind of simpleton, as he might be expecting, but that he might be someone dangerous. And to her, that meant someone sexy.
But he had certainly been offensive. She wouldn’t repeat her mistake, but she wouldn’t apologize. He didn’t deserve it. “I have all the excitement I need,” she said.
Vern snickered. “Really? I saw you checking me out. At the pool last week.”
So he had noticed her. And had seen her looking at him. She parried. “You’re pretty full of yourself.”
“The women love it,” he said. “That’s what does it for you too, doesn’t it? A man who doesn’t care what you want? Who takes whatever he wants?”
Vern took a step toward her, in her space now. Melissa wanted to back away, she should have backed away, even involuntarily, but she couldn’t. He was like a magnet, drawing her to him, the same way she had unconsciously been pulled to him at the pool.
But he was so damn cocky. Melissa was as close to slapping someone than she had ever been in her life.
Her hand shook, and he watched her inner battle, and suddenly Melissa realized that Vern was fully aware of what she was feeling, what he was doing to her.
He leaned toward her, his eyes shining. “I’ll tell you a secret.” He was close enough now for Melissa to see the line where his beard ended, the small peek of his face just below his eyes, the skin a little smoother than she would have thought, a tiny gap in his roughness, hinting at something she could grab on to, something she could use as a way of fixing whatever was wrong with him.
“A secret?” Her voice was hoarse, tentative.
“Yes. About being full of myself. Confident. You see, I don’t even have to fake it. I wouldn’t pretend if I was caught looking for someone.”
“I didn’t pretend anything. I wasn’t looking for you.”
“So you didn’t
know I lived here?”
Melissa felt her eyes dart away, outside of her control. “I—I had heard something about it.”
“How would you even know who I was?”
“You’re Vern.” Then, remembering what the college boy had warned her about, she said, “Vern. Not Vernon. That supposedly makes you mad.”
She froze, waiting for his reaction, wondering what had made her risk this, right here. Dangling the red cape in front of the bull. Making her own danger. Would being in public stop him from reacting the way he normally did?
His eyes blazed for just a moment, but then his face shifted, as if he were reappraising her, as if he was suddenly slightly intrigued. Or at least willing to give her the time of day. Melissa felt her heart jump, it was as if she had won a small victory.
He surprised her with what he said next. “So you were checking up on me.”
With that one statement he put Melissa back on the defensive. “You have a reputation. And I know about guys like you.”
Vern snickered. “If you keep following guys like me around,” he said, his voice sarcastic, “you’ll have a reputation too.”
Her eyes were back on him, her anger breeding some defiance. “I told you, I wasn’t following you. And it’s a free country, I can do what I want.”
“That’s not the same as doing what you want. I do what I want.” And suddenly Vern’s hand was on the back of her head, strong, pulling her in, his mouth on hers, overwhelming her, claiming her.
Melissa tried to pull away, but he was too strong, his hand, even his lips, powerful, devouring. She gasped, her mouth opening, letting him in, his tongue inside her, and her resolve slipped, her body betraying her, and she was kissing him back, no longer fighting, caught up in it. Her hands came up to his chest, in a position to ward him off, her fingers in the rough leather. She knew she should push him away, but instead she grasped the leather like a lifeline, pulling it, and he moved even closer, the coarse leather dragging across her hard nipples, sending a wave through her.
Vern let go of her head, somehow realizing that she wasn’t going to pull away, or just so sure of her desire. His hand came around to the front of her neck, past her breastbone, and then purposefully slid down, the back of his rough hand drawing across her nipple, lingering there as he pulled his mouth away from hers, forcing Melissa to focus on his hands instead of his mouth. Her legs grew weak, he was toying with her and they both knew it.
He let her suffer and then he closed on her, his tongue once again pushing into her mouth, his hand turning, catching her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, the fabric no hindrance to him. Melissa was losing control, she had never been so turned on so quickly in all her life. She didn’t know this was possible, not with her, a lust so immediate and overwhelming, her body taking over, controlling not just her body, but her mind, her desire.
The blood pounded in her ears, she was oblivious to everything else, her whole world just his mouth and his hands and his body. She was both helpless and a participant at the same time, in the back of her mind wondering if her touch on him was having the same effect, whether it could possibly have the same effect, whether she could ever command this kind of reaction in another person.
Her senses were tuned and acute to every touch, every connection, every claim he made on her. Her eyes were closed, and yet she could see him in her mind, she could smell his body now, over the leather, the scent of his skin mixing with, and then separating from, the animal musk of his jacket. She heard everything, her fingernails grasping at the leather around his shoulders, his hair against her ear, his mouth on her.
Then another noise, strange at first, not fitting into what was happening, and all at once she awoke from the bubble she was in, the sound recognizable, a car, a car was coming down the street, someone would see them.
Melissa panicked, trying to squirm away, ashamed that she was stopping Vern not because he had seized her, or because she was married, but because they were in public, in the middle of a suburban street, where anyone could see her.
She pushed harder, and after a moment of tension, Vern making it clear that she couldn’t get away if he didn’t want it, he let her go, and she staggered back, her breathing shallow, barely able to stand, at a loss for words, wanting to lash out at him, but knowing that anything she said would be harmless in light of her obvious desire, her nipples swollen with need, her face flushed.
The sound of the car faded; Melissa was so overwhelmed she didn’t know if it had passed them or gone the other way up the street.
Vern laughed and turned away from her, slipping onto his bike as if nothing had happened. He gave her a last glance, back in his appraisal mode, then reached back into his saddle bag and took out a bottle of water. He unscrewed the cap, tossing it on the ground, and took a deep drink.
He held out the bottle to her. “You look like you need a drink. To cool down.”
Melissa was so mad she was shaking. Mad at him, but mad at herself. What had she let him do? What had she let herself do?
“What’s the matter?” Vern said, still holding out the bottle. “Afraid of catching something? After sticking your tongue in my mouth? For a minute there I thought there was more to you than a skirt looking for a little thrill.”
The bottle held between them, a promise, a challenge. For the first time his eyes were different, as if he actually cared what she decided.
Slowly Melissa took the bottle from his hand. Defiantly, she raised it to her lips and drank the rest of it down, her eyes never leaving his.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, dragging her sleeve across her lips. “Fuck you,” she said, the words spaced and hard, like two gunshots.
There was the slightest of pauses, everything frozen, the two of them an incongruous tableau in the middle of a suburban street.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
He kicked the engine over and, without taking his eye off her, circled her on the bike again, marking his territory, claiming her before the neighborhood, before the world, in her mind.
He sped off, leaving her breathless in the middle of the street. Not feeling ashamed, as she knew she should, but feeling like she had just escaped something. Something dangerous.
Something electrifying.
Chapter 14
That night, Melissa was glad Richard came to bed late. For the first time in their marriage she prayed he didn’t want to have sex; she didn’t know how she would react after what had happened with Vern.
She’d had no control over her thoughts all day. Her mind was filled only with Vern. How he had virtually claimed her. How she had at first been appalled at his insolence, at his presumption. What he had done to her.
And how she had responded. How she had succumbed.
Melissa couldn’t deny it. She wasn’t sure if she had given in to Vern because he stood for all that was missing in her life right now, and he was just there in the right time and place. Or whether there was something else at work, not with him, but within her.
Over the next few days it was Melissa’s turn to try to avoid Richard. She left for work when he was in the shower, she stayed late at the office so there would be no chance they would have dinner together. One night she even went out with a few of the women from the office, just to have an excuse to be away from the house, but she texted Richard that it was because she had to have a ‘work dinner.’
He didn’t seem to notice, he was back into his focused mode.
But the more Melissa avoided him, the more it built up inside her. It might have been easier if she actually had to deal with it, if she was in the same room as Richard for a few hours; then she’d find out if she could avoid bringing it up, if it was something she could keep hidden. But it grew in her belly like a balloon, and now she thought the minute Richard was alone with her he’d know right away there was something wrong, as if she had been away and showed up pregnant, a visible betrayal. Melissa didn’t think she’d be able to handle it when the tim
e came, she’d burst out with a confession as soon as she saw him.
Slowly, though, an idea formed in her mind. A wild idea, to be sure, but maybe, just maybe, an idea that could solve her problem, her real fear. A fear that bothered her as much as her near dalliance with Vern.
The fear that Richard would only want to have sex with her if he was thinking of her with another man. That everything she had been worried about might suddenly turn around on her, and she would be the one not wanting to have sex, if that was the only way she was going to be able to have it with Richard. Where on earth would that leave her? She had to find out, once and for all, where she stood.