by S. L. Naeole
The voicemail ended with a sob, my heart breaking at the sound. Holly was one of my closest friends. I loved her. She’d been there for me during the darkest period in my life, and I’d thought I’d been there for the darkest one in hers, only now I wasn’t so sure because even if she hadn’t said the words, she’d laid her heart bare. Every broken shard of it.
She was in love with Michael.
And I hated her for it.
My phone vibrated in my hand as I wiped the tears from my eyes. It was a message from Michael. Despite the turmoil I felt at the revelation that Holly was in love with him, seeing his name on my phone filled my stomach with butterflies and excitement.
Michael: Thank you for this evening.
My stomach fell flat, my excitement fizzled out. “Thank you for this evening”? I’d ground my crotch onto his. I’d kissed him, let him stick his tongue in my mouth. I’d given him my first orgasm. I’d made him…cum in his pants.
And he tells me thanks? Like I’d delivered a pizza he’d ordered?
This is what I get for trusting a man I don’t even know.
Angry, hurt, and confused, I dropped my phone on the side of the bed and moved to my dresser to pull out some clothes. I went into my bathroom and huffed in frustration at my cast. I was too tired to wrap it but I needed to wash my thighs, I recognized with a flush of heat. Settling on a bath instead of a shower, I turned on the faucet and plugged the drain before unbuttoning my shirt and pulling it off. I unbuttoned and pushed my skirt down before I turned to face myself in the mirror and jerked back, startled at my reflection.
My eyes were bright, clear despite the tightness in my chest. My cheeks were a bright pink that had nothing to do with the steam that swirled up from the tub. My hair, normally neat and contained in a tight ponytail because it was just easy, was loose and fell around my shoulders in a tousled mass of dark brown waves. But most noticeable, most obvious were the plump, kiss-swollen lips that parted in surprise.
Well fucked.
Isn’t that what Holly had said? Those very words describing an act that had left her so irrevocably changed? But I hadn’t been…fucked. I’d been kissed. Oh God, I’d been kissed. Not just kissed. Kissed. The kind of kissed that changed lives. The kind of kissed that moved mountains. The kind of kissed that started wars. Those kisses had been beautiful and terrifying, and they had made me both vulnerable and powerful. Michael gave up control to make me feel safe, and then I gave it back. I knew why, I just couldn’t admit it to myself. I still wasn’t sure if I was ready to, because doing so meant something.
I’d given him the control back because I knew that with or without it, how I felt with him wouldn’t change. From the first moment he touched me I’d felt safe because I was safe. And more than that, I’d felt cherished. But one thing I hadn’t been was fucked. Not in the way that Holly had. Not in the way Kara and Lara and even Vonne thought I had.
But I was fucked if the look in my eyes were an indicator.
“What is happening to me,” I said to my reflection as my hands pressed over my mouth, amazed at how sensitive my lips were. Michael had licked these lips. He’d suckled on them, nibbled on them, tattooed them with his taste and his fire.
I stuck my tongue out and giggled as I shook my head. “I put that in his mouth,” I told myself. “And he’d put his…”
The pink in my cheeks deepened and I frowned. I was almost twenty-five-years-old. I wasn’t a girl anymore. I shouldn’t be blushing at things like kissing. Especially not kissing that made my breasts feel like they needed to be cupped in hands that looked and felt like Michaels.
My eyes turned into wide discs as I stared in the mirror and saw my hands...on my breasts, squeezing them through my bra. “What the—” Immediately my hands dropped and I turned around to see the tub almost full. Flying to the faucet to turn it off, I could feel my heart stammering, my breaths pushing in and out almost too quickly.
“Get a grip, Ria,” I scolded myself.
Yeah. Just don’t get one on my tits.
Shit.
Storming into my room in my underwear, I grabbed my clothes and saw the light on my phone blinking. Hoping it was Holly with a sobering message, I took everything into the bathroom with me and finished stripping. Clasping my phone in right hand, I stepped into the tub, hissing at the heat, before sinking down into the steamy water.
Once settled, I checked my phone and then nearly dropped it at the message that opened up.
Michael: I can still taste you. Your tongue tasted better than I could have ever imagined.
Turn off the phone. Turn off the phone. Turn off the phone.
Me: You imagined what my tongue tasted like?
Michael: And then some.
Me: What do you mean by “some”?
Michael: If I tell you, promise me you won’t run away and hide.
Me: I don’t think I can hide from a text message.
Michael: You know what I mean.
Me: Fine. I promise I won’t run away and hide.
Michael: I also imagined what your tits taste like.
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.
Me: Can I be honest with you?
Don’t do it, Ria! For once in your life, listen to your subconscious and don’t do the thing you’re thinking of doing!
Michael: Sweetheart, you can be whatever you want with me, but honest is always a great place to start.
Me: I was getting ready for my bath and thinking about you and without realizing it I was touching my breasts.
Michael: Thinking about me made you touch yourself?
Impossibly, my body flushed hotter than my bathwater.
Me: Yes
Michael: Have you ever touched yourself while thinking about a man before?
Me: No.
Michael: Have you ever touched yourself before, period?
Me: No.
Michael: Victoria, do you know how turned on that makes me?
I didn’t know how turned on that made him, but knowing that he was enjoying the thought made me squirm under the water.
Michael: Are you in the bath now?
Me: Yes
Michael: Are you naked?
Me: Isn’t that how one normally takes a bath?
Michael: There are occasions when one takes a bath fully clothed.
Me: When?
Michael: I’ll show you one day.
Sputtering at the imagery that popped into my mind, I leaned my head back and glanced up at the ceiling. My brain swirled with thoughts of his mouth claiming me, his hands roving my body, his body wet and pressing against mine. Juxtaposed to them was Holly’s voice in my head, warning me that he was using me, that as soon as he got what he wanted from me he’d toss me to the side like he had her. Hot and cold ribbons, need and doubt, want and rejection, wound through me, coiled around me.
My phone vibrated in my hand.
Michael: I wish I was there with you right now.
I stared at those words, drinking them in and feeling the inebriation that came with their meaning. He knew I was in the bath. He knew I was naked. And he wanted to be here with me. He wanted me. Heady awareness of my body and the effect his words had on me drew out a moan that ricocheted against the bathroom walls.
Me: Me, too.
He didn’t text me again that night. I woke up the next morning clutching my phone to my chest, a sign that my subconscious had hoped he would even if my waking-self had been grateful he hadn’t. Embarrassed, I crawled out of bed and fumbled blindly in the dark to get dressed, pulling on a pair of khaki shorts and another burgundy polo. I brushed my teeth, brushed my hair and pulled it into a tight ponytail, washed my face and then smeared on some moisturizer before finishing with some lip balm over my strangely chapped lips.
Nodding in approval, I grabbed my phone, my purse, and slipped on my chunky loafers. As I walked into the living room and into the soft glow pouring in from the kitchen, I could smell coffee and toast. “Vonne, you’re a goddamn saint, d
id you know that?” I murmured as I entered the kitchen.
My loafered feet stilled on the tile floor.
“Michael,” I sputtered.
He smiled at me before lifting a mug of coffee to his lips. “Morning, sweetheart.” A deep blue jacket rested on the counter while matching slacks stretched tightly over his muscular thighs. A crisp white shirt was neatly buttoned up his chest and at his wrists, while a red tie hung like a ribbon of blood from his neck. His hair was neat and freshly clipped, which made no sense since the sun hadn’t even risen yet.
Who the hell gets their hair cut at the ass-crack of dawn?
Vonne was spreading butter on a piece of toast, a knowing smile plastered on her face as her eyes flitted between the two of us. She placed the toast on a plate and then slid it over to Michael, who accepted it with thanks and then proceeded to slather it with a dollop of the homemade apple butter I’d made last summer.
“Wh-why are you here, in my kitchen, at six in the morning?” I asked, still unable to move, my eyes drifting toward his hands. Those hands had touched me last night.
“Well, I didn’t know what time you normally left in the morning for work, and I wanted to drop off your replacement car since you found major fault with the previous one.” His smile was secretive as he took a bite of the toast, licking the corner of his lips when apple butter collected there, his throaty voice and the sight of his tongue a caress of heat on each of my senses.
Every goddamn one.
“I don’t need you to loan me another one of your fancy cars, Michael,” I scolded, my eyes snapping to the slice of toast still in his hand, my mouth aching to fit my mouth in the curve where he’d bitten. “I’ll go and pick up a used car this weekend. I’ve already decided on which one and emailed the dealer yesterday.”
As if he hadn’t even heard me, his hand reached into his pocket and he pulled out a key. Not a fob. An actual key. It was on a keyring with the MOAT logo on it, an ornate frame with the tragedy/comedy masks spinning in its open center. I stared at it, confusion knitting my brows together. “What is that?”
With a huff and a roll of his eyes, he grabbed the key and stood up, the stool skittering behind him. He approached me and held up the piece of toast to my mouth. With silent encouragement, I bit exactly where he had, the sweet apple and salty butter layer beneath filling my clean mouth and I almost groaned. I’d eaten this more times than I could count and yet, with him here, it tasted sweeter, saltier, decadent. With his eyes on mine, he put the remaining piece of toast into his mouth and winked as he chewed.
He knows what I did!
I blushed, but before I could say anything he took my hand and tugged me toward the living room. I heard Vonne gasp, but I was already stumbling alongside Michael as we approached one of the large windows that faced the parking lot below.
He pulled the curtain back, exposing the brightly lit lot and the car that sat in my stall. I bit my lips to keep from crying out in shock and happiness. Parked cozily in my stall, surrounded by much nicer, newer cars in their white lined borders, was the Clam. Or, at least something that looked like the clam. Perhaps the Clam’s slightly younger, prettier sister.
The paint was glistening, the windows clean from dirt and bird crap. The hood didn’t have that one annoying dent that the Clam had from that time Lara had decided to dry hump Patrick Juarez on it, and I could see an actual antenna with a plain foam ball on its end. My feet fidgeted, my legs ready to bolt out of the apartment to check it out more closely.
“Where did you find it?” I breathed, not turning to look at him.
“I asked around,” he said simply; as if the answer was obvious.
Something pressed into my hand, my fingers closing around it and telling me through touch alone that it was the key. “I can’t believe you found a rental just like the Clam,” I said, awed.
His hand clasped around the curve of my neck, turning me, before moving up to gently cup my cheek. “Victoria, this isn’t a rental. It’s yours.”
I gaped. My eyes dropped to the key in my hand before lifting to assess his gaze. There was sincerity in his eyes, no expectant stress forming around his mouth or between his brows. “But why?”
“I told you that my insurance company would pay to replace your car if yours didn’t. Once I understood what exactly it was that you wanted, I did my best to find a suitable replacement. Can I just say, though, that it’s a lot more difficult to find a pristine 1984 Toyota Corolla than it is a platinum late model Audi S5.”
He lowered his head and pressed a gentle kiss against my mouth before pulling back and whispering against my lips, “I don’t mind a high maintenance girlfriend, though. Especially one as sweet as you.” He bussed my lips once more before straightening and winking at me.
“G-girlfriend?” The word sounded so strange coming from my mouth, with my voice saying it. And to him? “When did that happen?”
A long finger stroked beneath my bottom lip, evoking a memory of him doing the exact same thing just…last night. “I think the real question is, why didn’t it happen sooner?”
Oh, Michael. The things you do to me.
Before I could respond, his face hardened, the glittering amusement in his eyes disappearing and replaced with cool authority once more as he said, “I wanted to drop this off before I left. I’ve got to fly out to California for an acquisitions meeting with my west coast division this afternoon.”
I sobered up immediately at the mention of California. “You’re leaving?”
He nodded and took hold of my hand again. “I’m on my way to the airport now.”
“And you came by to drop off the car.” It was a matter-of-fact statement and yet there was a disappointment in my voice that made me cringe.
Michael lifted my hand to his mouth, blowing hot, damp air against my knuckles just before pressing soft lips against my veins pulsing just beneath my skin. “I came here to see my girlfriend and say goodbye before I left.”
He’d called me his girlfriend. Twice.
“I didn’t think a guy like you had girlfriends,” I muttered, hating myself the second the words came out. I didn’t want to play head games with him.
He should have been offended, should have taken the word back and walked away, disgusted, but instead, he chuckled and leaned forward, kissing my forehead so tenderly my knees began to wobble. “You’re right. A guy like me doesn’t have girlfriends.” He pulled back just far enough so that all I could see were the deep golden green of his eyes. “A guy like me has a girlfriend—singular—and she likes sweet tea and spinach quiches, late night text messages, and making out in cars in dark parking lots.”
In the kitchen, someone started coughing loudly, and as I peeked over Michael’s shoulder I felt my face flame up as Kara, Lara, and Vonne quickly looked away guiltily. The warmth his words had filled me with cooled as I realized that one face was missing, one face that had never been missing before.
Clearing his throat, Michael pulled away and checked his watch. “I’ve gotta go, sweetheart, but I’ll call you when I land. Drive safe. Paperwork is in the glove box.” He left me standing there, gaping, the key to my new-to-me car in my hand, and the title of “girlfriend” still fizzing in my blood. I didn’t even register that the door had closed until I remembered that I hadn’t thanked him, or said goodbye.
Or kissed him goodbye. Because I really, really wanted to kiss him goodbye.
I was running out of the apartment and down the stairs before I knew it, calling out his name as he lowered himself into the back seat of a large, black Town Car double parked to the left of the stairs. At the sound of my voice, he climbed out of the car and looked at me with concern.
“Victoria, what’s wrong?”
My body crashed into his, my arms looping around his neck as I leaped to kiss him, my mouth landing haphazardly on the side of his jaw because he was too damn tall and I had never done this before. This shit is so much easier to do in the movies! His arms seemed frozen at his side
in shock before I sought out his mouth with mine, mumbled against his that it was okay, that he could hold me, and then—then—he wrapped them around me and spun, swinging me around as I giggled happily into his mouth before a moan was torn from my throat, this ever-present need bubbling up and over inside me.
He kissed me. It wasn’t a soft, tongueless connection that heralded the reunion of two long lost lovers and signaled the end of a movie or book. It wasn’t the gentle brush of lips that spoke of yearning and hope. It wasn’t even the heated kiss of lovers that were about to get down and dirty and didn’t care about the consequences.
When Michael kissed me, one large hand splayed on my lower back, his fingers pressing against the top curve of my behind, the other hand firmly cradling my neck so that my pulse beat wildly against his thumb, it was a kiss that dripped with promise and even unspoken confessions. It was a kiss that turned me numb, dulling my senses only to reawaken them with such fiery awareness I could do nothing but clutch at him, desperate to keep his mouth on mine, his hands on my body.
We kissed for minutes, or hours. Maybe even days. And then he was easing away from me, his breathing coming in long, layered puffs. I nearly lost myself in the darkness of his gaze as he said with kiss-swollen lips, “If this is your way of saying you’ll miss me, sweetheart, then let me say that I’m going to miss you, too.”