by Lexie Ray
She loved that she had finally knew what it meant to fuck someone else, and in that moment she felt truly alive. When Joseph finally came, moaning his release as he emptied his load down her throat, she accepted it with surprising vigor. It surprised her. She never had enjoyed the taste as much as she did in that moment. It was as if it was a gift, as odd as it sounded.
She knew Joseph, and she also knew that he didn’t sleep with women often at all. He was conservative to a degree in that sense. It was respectable, but also frightened her. Because he had chosen her. It made her feel special, but was she really the kind of special that Joseph needed?
Chapter 10
Joseph had stayed the night, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. After they succumbed to one another, she invited him back. She wanted to sleep with him, not sexually – well, not only sexually – but intimately. She wanted to feel his embrace as he spooned her, and she wanted to know what it felt like to lay her head next to a man that wasn’t her husband after all these years. Not only any man though, the one man she trusted – Joseph.
They hadn’t touched one another sexually when they got to the bed. She could tell he felt a bit awkward, and so did she if she was being honest. She was only glad she had switched into fresh sheets before inviting him over to sleep. The remnants of her marriage need not be physical when they were so obviously present emotionally.
The morning came, and Joseph still slept. She adored his face in a peaceful stupor. She never saw him quiet, and she never saw him with his hair muddled either – it was a nice change of pace. She felt something light and airy rise up into her diaphragm, and she wondered what it could be – but was afraid of what it was as well.
She knew medically she was healthy, but she worried for her emotional state. She worried about her feelings for Joseph. She worried that she had already fallen deeper than she had ever really needed to. She worried when she couldn’t stop herself from asking him to hold her all night and then proceeded to ask him to stay the night to cuddle and just sleep. She was worried, indeed.
Marissa looked into the vanity mirror, on the opposite side of her bed, and pulled her hair back. She saw his reflection and dismissed it as she fondled her hair, knowing that Preston had usually needed time to wake up before he was spoken to. But then she felt his presence growing closer to her, his body’s warmth warming her own. Joseph wrapped his arms around her, his chest soothing her back. One hand rested on her ribcage, and the other slid slightly under her shirt. The heat of his fingertips seemed to singe her skin. She raised her hands to the back of his head and laced them between threads of his hair. One of his hands clamped down over hers, locking her hands into place and forcing her body into an arc, pressing her breasts outwards towards the mirror.
She felt his body tighten and his member growing harder, pressing into her ass. His hot breath panted in her ear, “Now, I need you.” Those words caused her to explode; she was a bomb, and all of the heat had radiated between them and ignited her fuse. She responded by nodding to his mirror image, and as if the action was a key to everything he sought after, he growled and pressed his lips into her neck. He kissed and bit at her in lustful fervor.
She tried to pull her hands free so that she could touch him too. She loved feeling needed, and it made her need him too. She just wanted to show him how much, but his hand tightened down on hers, not allowing her to escape. She tried to even turn her body to face him, but once again he had tightened his grasp around her. Gripping at her side, he had her securely held in place. There was nothing she could do; she was helpless.
Able to do nothing else, she threw her head back and let him have her. She didn’t mind. After all, it was what she asked for, wasn’t it?
“Yes,” she groaned as he continued lapping at her neck, sending small chills down her spine. She wanted to encourage him, to egg him on. She wanted him to feel in control because, hell, she wanted him to be in control. She must have succeeded because, as if inspired by a muse of sexual hunger, his hands wrapped around her stomach and pulled her even tighter against him.
His cock ground against her ass, and his hips moved seemingly involuntarily against her in response. His hands slid up between her breasts. He wrapped his long, masculine fingers around her neck and turned her face towards his so that their lips were only centimeters apart. Softening his grip on her side, she saw the mirror in her peripheral and caught a glimpse of him reaching upwards until she felt his fingers on her mouth.
She turned completely to face him as he brought one finger to trace the outline of her lips. She kissed that finger eagerly before he slid it in. She gently bit down on him, trying with all her might to gain some sort of control. Despite her biting, he easily pulled his finger from her mouth and brought it down to her breast, her saliva creating a lubricant against her flesh.
He roughly kneaded one breast and then moved on to the other, only this time, more gently – until he suddenly tugged at the nipple. She groaned loudly, and he locked his finger and thumb in place, rolling her nipple with gentle pressure. His hand juggled from nipple to nipple, seeming to know exactly how hard to pinch. He caused her a pleasure that she hadn’t quite experienced. Though Preston had acknowledged this sort of intense pleasure without crossing the line into pain, this was different.
This was clumsy. This was passionate and unrehearsed. Raw and filled with desire. This must have been what Preston and Haley experienced. It was new. It was exciting. But more than anything, Marissa could feel herself falling for Joseph. Call her naïve, but she couldn’t imagine sleeping with someone she didn’t have an intense and deep care for. She didn’t love him – she wasn’t to that point yet. At least, not in a romantic sense, and she couldn’t even pretend that she did.
She did love Joseph. She really did. As a friend. As a companion. Never did it even cross her mind before now to have him as anything more than a friend, though. So how could she be in love with him? Attracted to him? Yes. Definitely. The man was extremely sexy and well put together. He had a level of class and sophistication, but also a fun and youthful side. He was a complete catch. She didn’t have a clue why he wasn’t already with someone. The woman that could snatch Joseph Peterson up was a woman that would have the world at her fingertips. He was the ever-encompassing ideal of a man. But then it hit her – no man was that perfect. She had stupidly fallen for that idea before, and look at her now. She was now a divorcee and single mother of two. She was now sleeping with her coworker – no, her employee. She obviously didn’t know anything about men, let alone their characteristics.
It was then that she wondered what Joseph’s secrets were. He had to have them. He was a man, after all. They were all mysterious to some degree; whether good or bad, there was something that he hadn’t told her – if not several things. And it was then that she vowed, before she got closer, that she was going to find out what those secrets were.
His kisses were getting harder and more heated, and he bit down on her – sharply. She knew that she would have marks later, and oddly, she was OK with that. Even though this wasn’t her husband, she was fine having the marks. Fuck whoever called her an adulterer, a slut, or any other demeaning word for a woman demonstrating her sexual independence. Fuck them all. She would do with her vagina what she damn well pleased, and right now – she wanted him to fill her.
She wouldn’t allow herself to get close though. Not until she got to the bottom of everything that was Joseph. But then again, would he ever let her? Preston hadn’t. It had become painfully obvious that another person will only ever let you as close as they want to. They will never let you know more than they care for you to know. She just hoped that Joseph wasn’t as fucked up as Preston. She hoped for his sake, but also for hers. She really hoped she wasn’t letting someone like that in again – that she wasn’t naïve enough to do it all over. She hoped she wasn’t that fucking dense or that blinded by hope in the male species to actually be fooled again. After all, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice �
�� shame on me.
He grinded his hips into her, and she could feel the heat that radiated off of his groin. His hardness was causing a heat to rise in her as well. Wetness flooded between her legs, and she struggled more, but also prayed that he would know she was teasing. She didn’t want him to release her. The struggling felt good as it rubbed his cock against her sex. She wanted to keep struggling, knowing that the friction caused her pleasure, but also that his strength outweighed hers. Knowing those two things made her flow with intensity. His hand gave her breast one more tough squeeze before gliding down to her stomach. He reached the top of her jeans. Overly excited, he pulled the button roughly, nearly pulling it off. In one swift motion, one hand unzipped her jeans and the other aggressively shoved into her cotton underwear. She hadn’t planned on any sexual encounters, and thus her underwear didn’t exactly mesh well with the moment, but he didn’t seem to mind. She felt his thumb part her lips and press tenderly against her clit.
He rubbed small circles, slow at first but building speed with every second. He began frantically rubbing her clit and caused her to pant with need. She felt herself grind herself harder into his thumb automatically, and as if he knew how badly she needed him, he stopped. He stopped rubbing and released her body, causing her to nearly fall to the floor beneath them.
Nearly. He caught her swiftly, a move that she had only seen perfected on television. She nearly swooned. She looked to him, and just as she was about to ask why, why he stopped, why he wanted this to end when she had been having the time of her life – she noticed his eyes. They were glazed over and the color was black with lust.
Despite it all though, despite the lingering animalistic prowess that she could see within him, he grabbed her hand tenderly and laid a single kiss on it. He allowed his lips to linger over her skin for just a moment. She smiled. He traced small kisses across the top of her hand, trailing up to her forearm before gently letting her go. “I love you,” he said, and she froze.
She didn’t know what to do in that moment. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t how to react. She didn’t know if she believed him; she didn’t know if she could believe any man right now – or anyone, for that matter. She wasn’t sure what to say. She wanted to pass out as she felt the blood flow from her brain and cause her head to go light.
She was dizzy. She was hot. She felt like she was suffering. She didn’t know what to do. Did she love him? She knew a part of her did – but she wasn’t sure what kind of love she felt for him. She loved fucking him, she loved his company; she loved being around him, and she knew she cared for him as a friend. But love? Fucking love? She wasn’t sure.
She wasn’t going to tell him she reciprocated. She knew she loved him in some way, but she wouldn’t dare say she loved him too, knowing that he would think she meant romantically. Because she didn’t know how she meant it. She couldn’t lie to him. She wouldn’t start the relationship off as a lie. Then it hit her: relationship.
She was forming a relationship with another man, and her marriage wasn’t even over. What was she doing? How could this be OK? In what world was it OK? How was this any different than what Preston had done? She knew – in all reality – that it was different.
But she still felt as though it was just as bad. In her mind, married was married. It didn’t matter if there were problems. There was no jumping from one boat with your foot in another. It was jumping from the boat into the deep roaring ocean. It was throwing yourself to the sharks, come what may. It was taking a leap into the unknown, but taking that leap without any sort of security. Because marriages were not light and you couldn’t expect them to be. Perhaps in the scheme of things what she was doing was a little less betraying, but it wasn’t any less wrong.
She was married, and no matter what she felt for Joseph and how much she despised Preston for what he had done, she was still married to Preston. She still loved Preston. She needed to deal with that before planting her foot into the safety of another boat. She had to jump to the sharks if she was to ever climb into another boat. Because she had made a vow of forever, no matter what he had done. “For better or for worse,” and she knew that this was likely the “for worse”.
Chapter 11
Marissa found herself in Preston’s hotel room, and they were talking. Talking, not screaming, not accusing. It surprised her that their words were civil, and she was glad of it. She knew that she had to deal with whatever was happening between the two of them before she drowned in her own mess. She didn’t want to lead Joseph on, and she sure as hell didn’t want to lead Preston on.
They talked, and they talked some more. There were tears, and he admitted that he hadn’t told her everything. When he was going to, she stopped him. She didn’t care to hear any more. She didn’t need to. She knew what she needed to know, and it was that he was not the man she needed as her husband.
She took a sip of the coffee he had graciously had made for her in his room and shifted in the uncomfortable desk chair. He spoke – more than he ever had before – and she listened. She didn’t just hear him, she actually listened. He told her he needed help. He told her he didn’t want to be married to her, because he knew – and had always known – that they weren’t going to work out.
He fed her something along the lines of “you’re too good for me”, and she wanted to punch him in the face. It sounded like bullshit, but then he broke down. See, she had known he needed help, and she had already been researching therapists for him, and Joseph had recommended one. “Joseph suggested this really great therapist if –” she began, but was interrupted. He completely lost it. Their civil conversation was obviously over.
“I do have a problem, and I do need help, but you’re always ‘Joseph this, Joseph that – Joseph, Joseph, Joseph’. Well, how about you ask Joseph what his issues are and what he’s lying about!” he screamed, his jaw shaking with what looked like a mix between anger and a resentful knowingness. She wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, but she sure as shit wanted to know – she didn’t want to repeat her offense of choosing the wrong man.
She was curious as to what Preston had to say about Joseph. She wanted to know – and he had been hiding things, she knew that. He had been strange, but she assumed they would come out in time. Probably her naïve mistake, she thought, but nonetheless she had no claim on Joseph, and some of his business was just that – his business. It had nothing to do with her. But if Preston had something to say, she damn well wanted to know what it was.
“You’re asserting blame where I don’t really see any, unless you have something to share?” she challenged, and he looked at her as if she was an idiot, and maybe she was. But it didn’t mean that he had the right to look at her like that. She fumed, and just as she was about to kill him with angry words, he spoke again. “You saw Joseph’s resume, right? Ask him what he did before he worked for you! Just ask him.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?” she challenged again, getting more frustrated by the second.
“He worked for me, Marissa. He was my fucking assistant. Arrogant tool of a fucking assistant, and I wanted an excuse to do what I pleased, so I hired him to seduce you!” He breathed. “Then, and only then, I was going to send a letter to the higher ups, and he’d have a job almost equal to my own at one of our sister locations,” he confessed, throwing himself off the bed and into her face.
“You hired him to sleep with me? Why?” she shot as she stood, forcing the desk chair to topple behind her.
She was disgusted. With Preston, with Joseph, with herself. She didn’t know what the hell to do anymore; she didn’t know who to trust. Preston had mentioned that he wanted an excuse, an excuse for what, he wasn’t clear. Whether or not it was an excuse out of the marriage or even just an excuse to sleep with other women – it didn’t really matter. He was low. Lower than low.
He sure as hell needed therapy. But shit, so did she after all the shit she had been through in the last few days.
She knew how to pick
them – knew how to pick them, indeed. Joseph had begun working at Made with Love by Marissa just to sleep with her. She didn’t ask what happened with the agreement, because she didn’t need to. She assumed she knew what happened. It was in one of the first weeks he had been working there that he had first made a move on her.
When she turned him down, Preston had probably fired him. And there he was, stuck at the bakery with her. And then he continued to lie. He had lied to her for so long, to her fucking face. She wondered what it felt like to live a lie like Preston and Joseph both had done. She wondered if she could be as heartless as both of the men in her life were. She wondered.
~~~
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Joseph reacted just the way she thought he might. “He said that shit?”
“Tell me it’s not true,” Marissa responded – almost questioningly. She didn’t want to believe Preston, but it was too crazy to be formulated.
“Well – sort of –” he began.
“Sort of what? Sort of true or sort of untrue? What does that even mean?” she asked, her heart breaking all over again.
“No matter. It’s sort of true and sort of untrue. He did pay me to do that, but I got hired and hit on you, and you turned me down, and then we became friends and I gave him his dirty ass money back! I gave up my entire life to work in a bakery for minimum wage! There were no other motives other than to get out of a world like that and to be absorbed in the world of people like you! Genuine people!” he ranted, but she really didn’t want to hear any more. She was just about to head out and away from him forever – until he grabbed her and pulled her into a hug.
She didn’t know why people continued to hug her when she didn’t want to be hugged. She tensed and hoped he would release her. He didn’t.