Casual

by Different Thoughts

  “I said I was completely under your control,” I went on, slipping my hand into his pants and squeezing lightly. “That it was worth it, because no one else had ever made me feel the way you do.”

  “Christ,” he groaned. “Lizzy.”

  “You already knew that, though.” I continued breathlessly in his ear. “How crazy you make me.” I took his hand from where it was gripping my waist and guided it down and past my pants and underwear so he could see just how much of an effect he was having on me. “You’ve barely touched me, Will, and-”

  He let out another groan then, this one full of pent-up frustration. He yanked his hand back, pushing me away enough so that he could pull off my shirt. He pushed me further, so I was standing on unsteady legs rather than on his lap, and he took this opportunity to jerk my pants and underwear down in one go. His own pants made it only far enough to be out of the way, and then he tugged me back onto his lap, kissing me frantically and rubbing against me in a way that was starting to drive me crazy.

  “I need you, Will,” I whimpered. He was still practically fully clothed somehow while I was sitting in his lap in only a bra. “Do you want me to beg again?” I asked. He hissed through clenched teeth; I didn’t know if it was simply an involuntary sound or if he was trying to say something.

  “You remember that, don’t you?” I asked as I tried to lift my hips. He had a firm grasp on them, however, and he wasn’t letting go. “How you finally broke me, how you were the first to make me need you so bad I actually begged-”

  “Lizzy, Christ,” His voice was tortured agony. He was losing control and I felt powerful for bringing him to this point.

  “Please, Will.” I jutted my lip out in a pout and he took it between his teeth, and then sucked on it. “I’m begging you.” I moaned when his mouth moved onto my neck.

  He lifted my hips finally and I guided him into me. We both groaned loudly at the feeling, and soon he was rocking into me with such force I was afraid I would be sore later. At the moment I could only urge him on with simple pleas and moans of encouragement. We finished at almost the same time, another thing that had only happened with me.

  When we were recovering afterwards and I remembered what I’d said, I felt embarrassment creep over me. I had gotten caught up in the moment, however, and the sex that resulted from it was amazing.

  “Jesus, Lizzy,” Darcy echoed my thoughts, “if I’d had known that was what was waiting for me, I would have ignored your instructions a lot sooner.”

  “Not funny,” I told him, though I couldn’t help the flush of pride that rose in me at his admiring look.

  ∞∞∞

  The next week, anytime I met with Mr. Reece, he was politely distant. Even when we ran into each other out of the office, usually prime time for him to continue convincing me to give him a chance, he simply shot me a rather strained smile, nodded, then went on his way.

  “How were things at the office?” Darcy asked once he cornered me out on Charlie’s balcony.

  As of tonight, things at the NFS office were officially over for me. Despite the whole issue with Reece and Darcy, I enjoyed the work I did for the company and was happy I had the experience of implementing a new policy on that scale.

  “Fine,” I said, not turning to look at him.

  I planned on driving home soon, so I was drinking water while I cooled off a bit. Charlie always kept the apartment so warm, which actually worked out well for Jane, as she was constantly putting on sweaters or huddling under blankets when we lived together. I couldn’t help but think how both Darcy and I liked to keep our living quarters relatively cold; we matched that way as well as Jane and Charlie did.

  Darcy came up next to me, mirroring my stance by leaning his arms on the railing and looking out. Like Darcy, Charlie had bought himself a condo; the view showed quite a bit of parking lot, but it also presented an amazing portrait of the city, which looked especially appealing lit up at night.

  He didn’t say anything more for a moment; it wasn’t long before I felt something was wrong between us that I hadn’t felt before last week. Even in the beginning, when for so long we didn’t even acknowledge that we were having sex, let alone enjoying each other’s company, there had never been any kind of strain or tension. And now, it was hard to pinpoint exactly what felt off, but I had finally tracked it back to when I had glossed over Darcy’s usage of the word boyfriend.

  He wasn’t pouty, or moody, or passive-aggressive in anyway. That in itself was almost more terrifying to me; when had I become so attune to a man who was so characteristically silent that I could tell one kind of quiet from another? That I could, in fact, trace this silence to a specific moment he had a problem with?

  To this day we still hadn’t sat down and had the talk. It almost worked for us, but throughout the last week I’d had a twisting feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I needed to fix a mistake a made with him.

  “Mr. Reece hasn’t been bothering me anymore,” I hedged, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye.

  “Good.” He said it like he meant it, but the tension between us tightened slightly; although I couldn’t have given any indication of why I felt the change.

  “I guess having a boyfriend has its perks,” I finally added in a rush.

  He turned his head towards me, so I did the same to him. He looked at me with no expression for a brief second, just long enough for me to wonder if I had made a mistake, and then his features lightened, his dark blue eyes twinkling and the corner of his mouth lifted.

  “I guess it does,” he said, putting an arm around me.

  I leaned into him and sighed, that strange feeling in my stomach dissipating. The alternative to finally acknowledging our relationship aloud, though, would be to keep ignoring this tension between us until it grew into something that could actually cause damage to our relationship and that was much harder to deal with. We definitely had a strange way of doing things, as Charlotte loved to point out, but, so far, it worked for us.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Weekend: Day One

  Darcy was in Dubai on business for a full month. It was tough, to be honest. I found I missed him and thought of him often throughout the day. He called me every night, which, as he was eight hours ahead of me, was lunchtime for me. After the first week I had taken to calling him right before I went to bed as well, which was when he was getting ready for the day.

  The first time I did it, he had sounded so happy that I was properly encouraged to do it more often. We also texted constantly, which had started a bit of a competition with a game he liked to play: breaking cyphers.

  It had started with us going back and forth about recent books we’ve read. I was surprised to realize we had a lot of the same interests in books, and almost all the ones I mentioned liking or reading he had either already read or planned on doing so in the future. He had said he just finished reading The Code Book, which he called an excellent book on cryptology and he highly recommended it. I informed him that even I wasn’t that big of a nerd, and had never attempted any form of cryptology.

  Eventually it got late and we said our good nights, but the next day he sent me a link to a cryptology game, where you had to break a cypher to read the message, and what I guessed was supposed to be a hint: Ralph Waldo Emerson. It didn’t take long to realize it was a challenge.

  It took a handful of all the spare minutes I had, but at around nine o’clock that night I sent him a text back: All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle. It was the quote by Emerson he had sent in his cypher, immediately followed by a taunt: Took me a total of twenty minutes. I thought this was supposed to be difficult.

  Competitive much? He immediately shot back.

  You have no idea. I texted with a grin. And I never lose. A bit of a stretch, but the message was conveyed.

  I had been reading up on cryptology to solve the message and decided to send my own back to the master. There was an infinite amount of ways a message could be coded. Even t
hough he had gone fairly easy on me, I sent back what seemed to be a bit more difficult than he sent me, mostly to assess his talent in it.

  I sent him the link and my own hint: John Wooden.

  When I answered his call that night, he opened with, “It’s not so important who starts the game, but who finishes it,” which was the cyphered code I had sent him.

  “How long did it take you?” I asked with amusement.

  “Ten minutes,” he replied smugly.

  I had hoped it would have taken him a lot longer, but we were literally playing his game and I should have realized he would put up a fight.

  “Psh. Fine. I was going easy on you anyway.” I rolled my eyes.

  We talked about other things, but after he hung up I received another link with a text: Shakespeare.

  I stayed up way too late that night but I couldn’t get it. I was frustrated, but he was the king of cryptology, and I had just gotten into it; it wasn’t as if I was really going to be able to beat him at his own game, at least so easily.

  Still, I wasn’t exaggerating about how competitive I was, and not being able to at least get it done within a timely manner was driving me crazy. I know he must have sent me an incredibly easy game to start with, and then when I had replied so smugly and self-assured, he challenged me for real.

  At around nine the next morning he sent another text: Giving up already? Don’t tell me you’re actually having trouble?

  I could practically feel his arrogance and I wished I had a more satisfactory reply than I never give up.

  It was almost five the next day before I cracked it; Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind. From A Midnights Summer Dream, if I wasn’t mistaken. Of course, I overanalyzed this little message before simply taking it as him telling me that he liked me more for my mind than my looks. Not super flattering, but it wasn’t like I didn’t have almost daily proof he was satisfied enough with my appearance, and I would much rather be admired for my brain anyway.

  It was right before he was supposed to call that night when I finally decided on a message to send back to him. I debated, briefly, if I should send him something back feigning offense about his opinion on my tolerable beauty, but it was too easy to misconstrue things that way. Instead, I decided to keep with the theme he had started and send him back a quote that would convey something I admired about him.

  After thinking about what it actually was that I most admired about him, I decided it was his eyes and his smile. It was so rare that he cracked a smile, I always felt a little flustered when it appeared. I searched and searched before finally settling on a quote from Marilyn Monroe.

  I didn’t have time to send it to him before he called. He didn’t mention our little game until we were about to hang up.

  “Did you crack it yet?” he wondered.

  “Yes,” I said, suddenly shy. “I was about to send you one back.”

  He made a sound of acknowledgement, but I wondered if he was disappointed that I hadn’t commented on his use of a romantic cryptograph.

  “Hey, Will?”

  “Yeah?” he reply with a curious tone in his voice.

  “I’m glad you’re coming home this weekend,” I breathed, my heartbeat increasing. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too,” he immediately replied. I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Okay, hang up so I can text you my cryptograph,” I told him with a smile and a blush. He chucked, and after saying goodnight, complied.

  At about three in the morning, Darcy texted me.

  The real lover is the man who can thrill you just by smiling into your eyes.

  I smiled, wondering if he had stayed up this late just trying to see what I had replied with. An hour later, he sent me another link and the usual hint: Robert Burns.

  Go to sleep! You are going to be impossible to deal with in the morning. I texted back, though I myself stayed up the rest of the night cracking his message, which took me until right before I left for work:

  Her lips are like the cherries ripe, that sunny walls from Boreas screen. They tempt the taste and charm the sight.

  Were we really texting each other love notes from poetry? I would have never thought I would be one of those people, but I have to admit I was enjoying myself immensely.

  ∞∞∞

  It was Saturday when Darcy finally returned home, and since it was going to be a long weekend, he invited a bunch of us to his house in the country. Did I say house? Because, actually, it’s legit classified as an estate. It was the same one we had visited around Christmas, but in this case we would have full use of the place. We were informed it would be a warm weekend and, as there were plans for multiple cookouts and hours by the pool, to pack accordingly.

  Jane, Charlotte and I drove up early Saturday afternoon. Charles was supposed to show up closer to dinnertime, but Richard and Georgiana were apparently already there. We would all be staying through the weekend until Monday night, and I had to say it was a bit of a relief that everyone in the house knew about Darcy and me so we didn’t have to be secretive or feign indifference to each other the whole weekend.

  It would have been especially difficult considering we would be with two other couples, sort of. Like Darcy and I, Charlotte and Richard were very loose when it came to their relationship status, but since Christmas they had often been in each other’s company.

  Gigi would be the only single one there actually, unless of course she finally fessed up to her brother about her musician boyfriend. Although, even if she did, it hardly seemed likely he would have been invited to stay the weekend.

  When we pulled up, Darcy, Gigi, and Richard were standing out to greet us. Darcy was wearing dark jeans and a white t-shirt. He also, I noticed right away, hadn’t shaved in a few days and there was significant stubble on his cheek. I couldn’t help but smile, knowing it must have been done for me.

  “Hey,” I grinned at him as we all got out of the car.

  Richard, Gigi, Jane and Charlotte all exchanged greetings but Darcy took my hand and pulled me towards him, kissing me rather than replying. Richard and Charlotte woof-whistled and teased, but I didn’t care.

  “Hey,” he replied. “I missed you,”

  His voice was an octave lower than his usual deep voice and I suddenly wondered if it would be possible to sneak off away from everyone so soon. I knew, from the look in his dark eyes that he not only knew what was going through my mind but the same thought had been going through his.

  “Come on, Will, God you look like you want to eat her face.” His sister rolled her eyes and tugged my arm until Darcy released me from his embrace. “Good to see you Lizzy.”

  “You too, G,” I said, smiling.

  I didn’t begrudge her a hug even if it was on the tip of my tongue to inform her that her brother could totally eat my face if he was so inclined. This was his baby sister after all, and although I had no brothers and no siblings I looked up to almost as a parent, I could understand how it might be weird to see her usually distant, detached brother sucking face with his girlfriend in front of friends and family.

  Darcy took this opportunity to greet Jane and Charlotte and when I pulled back from Gigi, Richard greeted me by saying that my hair looked unusually tame. Then he rubbed my head like I was his five-year-old sister.

  “Dick,” I grumbled at him, flattening my hair.

  It was so humid that I knew how frizzy it must have looked despite his words, and since no actual hard work had gone into controlling my hair, I didn’t let his juvenile acts affect me.

  Richard and Darcy took all three of our bags and led us into the house. Gigi and Richard pointed out certain things as we were led up to our rooms for the weekend, and we all tried to take in what we could, like that the kitchen was this way, the doors to the backyard that way, the guest quarters on the other side of the main hall, opposite what they called the family rooms. We were all, apparently, staying in the family wing of the house.

  “It’s such a long walk
to the guest wing.” Gigi sighed in exhaustion just thinking about it. “Back and forth, back and forth, just to get anywhere; the family wing is much more centrally located.”

  “Of course,” I couldn’t help replying with a teasing lift to my face. “It is such a hassle to deal with the guest wing of the house, on the other side of the library, and so far from the theater room.”

  “Oh no no, my dear,” Richard immediately replied with a voice that sounded like he was trying to imitate Robin Leach. “The movie theater is just down the hall from the guest quarters next to the popcorn, candy, and ice cream room; you must let them have some entertainment while staying here, you know.”

  “Popcorn and ice cream room?” Charlotte asked laughingly before I had the chance. “It almost sounds plausible.”

  “Uh, actually…” Gigi hedged. Char and I laughed, Jane smiled and Richard looked pleased at our reaction.

  “This is where Charlie has already settled.” Darcy brought our attention back to the rooms.

  He rose his eyes in silent question to my sister, who opened the door and reached for her bag from Richard.

  “Thanks,” she said in her sweet manner. “I’m just going to unpack and change.”

  “Bathing suits.” Richard pointed at her. “We’re going to lay around the pool while we make Will cook us up some burgers.”

  “Oh yeah! I made dessert!” Gigi exclaimed. “I have to check on it.” And she ran down the stairs towards, I assumed, the kitchen.

  “Sounds good.” Jane smiled, then closed the door as we moved on.

  Across the hall and down a few rooms, Richard took Charlotte’s hand and pulled her through a doorway. Before the door closed behind them, I caught a glimpse of a comfortable looking room with a queen-sized bed and a nice view of the woods to the side of the house. Darcy pulled me along, discreetly not mentioning that Richard had also left the tour.