by E. J. Noyes
“Well, I haven’t asked because I don’t really care,” I responded airily. The universe kindly sent Steph to Europe in the days following the breakup so I wouldn’t have to see her at these functions week after week. I hoped it was permanent.
Wendy couldn’t hide her sneer. “You know, I’m not surprised. I always wondered what she saw in you.” Though she didn’t say it, the because you’re an uncouth middle class nobody was clear on her face. Wendy always thought I was trash because I hadn’t been born into money.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her how good I was in bed. I tilted my head. “Wendy. Please, don’t bother trying to understand. Stick to what you’re good at. Drugs and oral sex in hotel bathrooms.” Leaning closer, I reminded her, “You do remember how I helped you out with that little misunderstanding you had, don’t you?”
She would have hated to still be in my debt, not that I’d ever collect. At Steph’s request, I’d interceded, calling in a favor from Christopher’s boyfriend who knew the journalist that caught Wendy in the bathroom doing blow and giving a blowie.
For a moment I thought she might strike me. Instead she looked down at my perfectly pedicured feet. “Great shoes. They almost bring you up to a regular woman’s level.”
Bitch. God, I hated her voice. Why hadn’t I ever realized how nasal it was? I smiled sweetly. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Wendy. Do remember your donation.”
Chapter Five
Sunday was spent sulking and working. The working was typical. The sulking was not. I slept fitfully and on Monday woke looking like one hundred and fifteen…okay, fine, one hundred and seventeen pounds of shit. Of course I did, because I was going to Dallas. Being flown there by Audrey. Thank you, Murphy and fuck your stupid law.
I cold-compressed my face while simultaneously having a session with the magic bullet, hoping to relax. Perhaps a bad idea, because all it did was highlight the fact that the battery-operated thing supplying my orgasm was not Audrey Graham.
I arrived at the airport early and tried desperately to calm my nervous flutter before boarding. It was like being fifteen all over again. No, it was worse because now I knew all the implications and possibilities. I thought about passing her a note: Casual Mutual Orgasms? Y/N? If Y, please indicate when you will be available. Like now?
Georgia pounced as I came through the door, taking my jacket and inquiring about my weekend. I responded, added a question of my own to be polite and turned to the open cockpit. “Good morning, Captain Graham.”
She was cool and professional, but it didn’t stop her eyes roaming as she greeted me. “Good morning, Ms. Rhodes.”
I dragged my last ounce of professionalism from the depths of my brain—where it was trying desperately to stay afloat in a sea of dirty thoughts—nodded and walked to my seat. I could do this. I could be near her. I could do my job, let her do hers and we’d all be fine.
My resolve crumbled about thirty minutes after takeoff when Georgia asked if anyone wanted coffee. Audrey responded, a little too loudly, that she’d like some with sugar because she was in the mood for something sweet this morning. She turned around and stared at me, those full lips formed into a seductive smile.
The flight was perhaps one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life, and I wondered idly if every flight from now on was going to be me with my thighs jammed together, trying not to think about what I knew was hidden under her captain’s uniform.
We landed at Dallas Executive Airport just before nine a.m. and I fled from the plane like my ass was on fire, throwing a hurried thank you toward the cockpit then rushing down the stairs. If I’d lingered, if I’d looked at her, if she’d given me one indication, then I would have been lost. I turned to stare out the window as we drove off, craning my neck to catch a glimpse of her. I saw nothing.
My client took me to lunch and I endured hours of mind-numbing conversation, unfunny jokes and mediocre wine that I barely touched. A long time ago, Mama instilled in me the art of feigning interest, and I’d fine-tuned my social skills to a point where I could rise to the top of most situations. In this case, Mama’s insistence on manners meant I ended up walking away with another three mil to play with and an increase in my commission. Not bad, but I was still out of sorts for the rest of the day. I kept my earphones in and the music loud for the midafternoon flight back to New York and threw my thanks at Captain Graham as I half-sprinted from the jet.
Back in the office, I stared aimlessly out the window at the evening sky and tried to figure out what was wrong. Everyone but Mark and me had left for the day and the peaceful atmosphere should have been soothing. But it felt lonely. I came to the conclusion that my problem was that I was unhappy with my decision to stay away from her. All day, every time I thought I’d pushed Audrey aside, she climbed back up into my consciousness. I was electrified by her, electrified by thinking about our night together.
My stomach curled. Dammit. At this rate, I’d be spending my increased commission on batteries for the Rabbit.
Mark poked his head through my doorway. “Come downstairs for a drink?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I didn’t feel like socializing, but something in his expression stopped me. He seemed almost contrite and a little sad. Both things were strange. I nodded. “Sure. Meet you down there in five.” I batted down unruly hair, checked makeup and left the office for the bar on the ground floor of our building.
I spotted Mark at the end of the bar, and after picking my way around staring men in suits, I climbed up onto a stool to the drink he’d ordered for me. “Thanks.”
Mark spun his beer glass on the bar. “So…how’s things?” he asked after a few revolutions.
Arching an eyebrow, I responded, “Fine.” I plucked the cucumber garnish from the rim of my glass and popped it into my mouth. “Why’d you ask?”
“You seem tired and kind of not like yourself.” Mark gulped half his beer.
Gee, thanks. Why not just say you look like shit, Isabelle? “Well, I’m always tired, Mark.” I ignored his allusion to being out of sorts. Discussing why would turn into another back and forth about Audrey, and I wasn’t in the mood. I wished we were still just two friends talking about a hook up.
His thumb traced a zigzag path through the condensation on his glass. “I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. We’ve got some…big things coming up.”
I frowned. “Nothing more than usual.” Dipping my head, I tried to catch his eye. This whole thing was strange. Though we were very good friends, Mark and I didn’t check in with each other’s emotional well-being every few days. Unless it was something big, we tended to just float around each other.
A handful of pieces clicked into place and I had a sudden thought. “Are you all right?” Over the past few months he’d been uncharacteristically moody and erratic. Until this odd not-quite-meeting I’d put the change down to nothing more than stress, knowing full well that I could be the same when I was overwhelmed with work. Now I wondered if he wasn’t trying to tell me something. My heart tripped. “Are you sick?”
His head snapped up, smile already fixed in place. “Of course not, Belle. I’m fine.” Mark glanced at his watch. “Shit. I’m meeting someone in fifteen minutes, I’d better head off.” He stood and poured the rest of his beer down his throat.
“Okay.” I didn’t even bother to hide my surprise. Usually let’s get a drink lasted for more than five minutes and a brief confusing conversation. This whole thing seemed like a complete waste of time. Mark bent to kiss my cheek and then weaved through the bar toward the exit.
I watched him push out the door, then ordered another Hendrick’s with cucumber. Something felt wrong. I sipped and pondered until halfway through my drink a familiar scent came to me, followed by a familiar voice. “I’m starting to think you have a thing for drinking gin in bars, Ms. Rhodes.”
I took a steadying breath before turning toward her. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” Great non sequitur. Enga
ge your brain, Isabelle.
Audrey set her wine on the bar next to my glass. “I’m here with friends who work nearby.” She dragged her stool closer, so close that I could feel her body heat when she sat down. “How was the rest of your day?”
I paused. “Productive. Yours?”
“Uneventful but possibly looking more productive now.” She held my gaze for a moment before her eyes dropped to my lips.
Staring at her, I found things I hadn’t noticed before. Deeply etched lines fanned out from dark eyes, marks of a woman who laughed and smiled a lot. It made me think of my own laugh lines, their progress halted these past few years by stress, Steph and sleep deprivation. Audrey had a small ring piercing the helix of her left ear, something I didn’t recall seeing during work hours. My eyes were drawn to her hands cradling her wine. Clear polish from a recent manicure. Long fingers, made for reaching places regular-sized fingers couldn’t.
“Why would it be more productive now?” I uncrossed and recrossed my legs, trying to ignore the pulsing. This really was ridiculous. I’d never been so affected by a woman, but everything she said and did dripped innuendo. Not to mention the way she looked. Smelled. Tasted. I couldn’t be imagining the way she spoke, or that she seemed to have no shame about openly ogling me.
She flashed me a self-assured smile. “Because you’re here, Ms. Rhodes.”
I winced. “Please, don’t call me that. Not here. It’s not necessary.”
“What should I call you then, away from work when we’re like this, or doing something else?” She tilted her head, studying me.
Heat rushed through my stomach as I thought about exactly what she meant by something else. My breathing hitched when I whispered, “My name.” It was almost laughable to try and hold onto any pretense of professionalism.
“Your name,” she mused. “Isabelle…Isabelle.” The way she said it felt like she was testing the way it rolled from her tongue. “Such a pretty name. I’d like to use it more often, if you’d allow me.”
I shifted my gaze from her lips to her eyes. “How, exactly?”
A slow smile spread across her face. Audrey lowered her voice fractionally. “In conversation, over dinner, screaming it as you lick me.”
If I wasn’t sitting on a stool, I would have melted to the floor. Audrey placed her hand on my wrist. “Why don’t you finish that drink and come back to my place. Or we can go to yours.” The woman oozed confidence and sensuality, every word had me on edge.
Despite all I felt, I couldn’t stop thinking about complications. Consequences. That damned piece of paper we’d have to sign. I spun my glass between my fingers. “I really shouldn’t.”
She grinned. “I do a lot of things I shouldn’t, Isabelle.” Her teeth found her lower lip. “I’m willing to bet you do too.”
“Sometimes,” I admitted, closing my eyes briefly. “But still, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“You and I have different opinions on what constitutes a good idea.”
I shook my head. “I need time to think. I’m…unsure about what I want.” It wasn’t exactly true. I knew what I wanted, but I needed a strategy.
“I’m not. I want you,” she said simply. “And from the way you’re acting, I think you want me too.” She swallowed the last of her wine, stood up then leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Isabelle. I’ll see you soon.”
She left me sitting there with two body parts pounding and only one able to be tamed.
* * *
Seeing her on the flight to Chicago later that week was incredibly awkward. It was all my doing, because I tried not to act like all I could hear in my head when I looked at her was the way she’d told me I want you. During our brief conversations I was flustered, a new experience for me—she was cool and very suggestive.
By the weekend, I’d slid slightly more to the “what’s the harm?” end of the scale. The feeling amplified until I was about ready to crumble and text her for a hook up. Somehow, I managed to hold onto the tiniest sliver of self-control. Only just. My phone was unlocked and my hand in my purse, fumbling for her card, when I realized the implication of what I was about to do. HR nightmare. Gossip. Angry business partner. I set my phone down. My willpower could have been bottled and sold to people all over the world about to make bad decisions.
I slipped Audrey’s card back into my purse and wondered what it was that she really wanted. She was the kind of woman who could find a bedmate anywhere, so why me? Sure, we’d connected on some basic, sexual level but aside from that, what was there? Pessimistic Isabelle crept in and I went from near manic desperation to fuck her, to certainty that she didn’t really want me for me. Of course she couldn’t really want me. She didn’t even know me.
For days, I wavered between wants and needs, and stupid self-defeating notions. By midweek, I was almost certain I could move past my desire and leave her to find her climaxes elsewhere while I did the same. I had plenty of toys and now that I was no longer a one-night stand virgin I could surely have a few more. Fuck her. No, not fuck her, fuck her.
I may have been more convinced by my decision if it weren’t for her smile when I boarded the jet on Wednesday. Or the tiny inflection she put into her greeting, low and sensuous. The small innuendo she injected into seemingly innocuous comments about our flight plan. She made my skin tingle. My stomach tighten. My heart race.
Why couldn’t I let her go? The sex had been great, but was I weighing it more heavily because it had broken a one hundred and twenty-two-day drought? I raced through my memories of that night like a kid sprinting past a house they thought haunted. I was scared that if I lingered on her body on top of me, hard nipples in my mouth and her busy tongue, then I’d break. It was great sex. I wasn’t imagining it and of course I should want more. A lot more. Any sane person would.
It was just me again for a trip to Lexington and I was grateful for the chance to be a basket case without Mark in my face. Especially now that he’d apparently picked up on the fact that something was off. I stuffed my earphones in, turned up Daft Punk and tried to work while Audrey was overseeing refueling.
Georgia hovered, apparently anxious that I didn’t actually need anything from her. “Very sorry, Ms. Rhodes,” she said. “It seems there was an issue with one of the fuel trucks and they’re a little behind.”
“It’s fine, Georgia. Honest.”
During the fifteen-minute delay I’d composed one email, and was taking details from printouts on the table in front of me while drawing lines through obsolete stocks. I clamped the pen between my teeth, ignored Mama’s voice in my head telling me to “get that pen outta your mouth ’fore you chip your teeth!” and started another email.
I startled when Audrey stepped back into the cabin. Our eyes met as she walked toward me instead of to the cockpit. I slowly reached up to pause my music and tug one of the headphones from my ear. She stopped and leaned down to purr into my ear. “Ms. Rhodes, may I caution you against putting writing implements in your mouth once we’re in the air? Just in case we start bouncing around. I wouldn’t want you to damage your mouth.” Her gaze strayed to my lips.
Before I could respond, she straightened and moved toward the front. My eyes followed her ass. Her. Followed her. Georgia stood near the cockpit, hands clasped loosely in front of herself. “Is everything in order, Captain Graham?”
“Everything’s fine, thank you. Can you secure the door please?” Audrey stepped into the cockpit and pulled the curtain closed.
I bent forward, opened my mouth and dropped the pen into my hand. Bouncing around. The same way I’d bounced as I rode her, skin slick with sweat, our breasts pressed together, her mouth on my neck, fingers…
Fuck. I stared at the closed curtain, all too aware of the heat on my neck. She was doing it deliberately, and despite how inappropriate the innuendo was, I couldn’t be annoyed. Because I wanted it.
Chapter Six
As we taxied into the hangar at Teterboro afte
r my day of meetings, my main driver, Penny called. I’d barely managed a greeting before she rushed to explain that the car had mechanical problems and the other company car was currently on its way to Stamford, dropping Mark off for a personal matter. AKA, a booty call. It’d be at least two and a half hours until it could make a turn around to come fetch me.
“Ms. Rhodes, I’m so sorry. The Triple-A truck is just loading it up now, but there are no auto shops open at this time of night. I’m close to the airport, and once it’s on its way, I’ll take a cab and come get you.” Penny and I had a relationship that resembled protective aunt and niece. I liked it. The effort she wanted to go to in order to escort me home was very sweet, and also amusing because I was perfectly capable of catching a taxi without assistance.
My heels tapped a sharp rhythm on the hangar floor. “Don’t even worry about it, Pen. Can’t be helped and I’m fine. I can catch a cab home myself.” Quicker to do that than try to arrange another limo company at this time of night and such short notice.
“Are you sure, Ms. Rhodes?”
“Absolutely. You go home and see if you can catch the end of the game.”
“Well…okay then. If you’re really sure. You take care and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You too, good night.” I continued through into the terminal building where I was assaulted by the smell of coffee. One wouldn’t hurt. After a pit stop for takeaway caffeine, I made my way toward the door leading out to the cab rank.
“I hope that’s decaf, Isabelle.” Audrey Graham had stealthy appearances down to a fine art.
My head snapped up to where she was standing a few feet away, carrying a small backpack and staring expectantly at me. “Decaf? No. That goes against my moral code.”
“Really? I suppose you’re right. I seem to recall you have no trouble falling asleep.”
Actually, I did lately and it had everything to do with the non-stop Audrey Graham sex show in my head. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth so I settled for shaking my head. Audrey hiked the backpack up onto her shoulder. “Is everything all right? I would have expected you to be on your way home by now.”