by Hazel Kelly
“Oh Ben,” she begged, gasping for breath each time I pulled back.
I was fucking her harder than I ever had before and I knew neither of us could take much more.
The thought crossed my mind that I should pull out and come on her chest. God how I wanted to see her tits covered in my desire for her, but her pussy felt too good.
I slowed my pace so I could get my free hand in to rub her clit, fucking her as I worked my fingers against her swollen bud. Her parted lips were so sexy it was killing me.
“Come for me, Carrie.”
“I’m gonna come,” she said, stretching her arms over her head.
I clenched my jaw as her body curled against the desk like a crashing wave. Then I grabbed her ankles and pounded against her orgasm, watching her tits move as her pussy milked my dick.
A second later, I came with one final thrust and emptied my balls as deep inside her as I could.
When I had nothing left, I let her legs fall on both sides of me and leaned forward to suck one of her nipples in my mouth, dragging my teeth along it as I kneaded her other breast in my hand. “You’re a fucking goddess,” I said, lifting my head to look at her flushed face.
“And you are a very bad man,” she said, her pussy still throbbing around my dick.
I slid my hands under her and lifted her up, taking one step back so I could sit in her chair and enjoy the feeling of being buried inside her, her limp legs hanging off both sides of my lap. “Am I really that bad?” I asked, pushing some stray wisps of blonde away from her big brown eyes. “Or am I the best thing that ever happened to you?”
She laughed, her dimples deepening. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me today, anyway.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, grinding against her.
“Speaking of taking it,” she said. “I’m getting better at tolerating your-” She cast her eyes down to our conjoined lap.
I smiled. “Practice makes perfect.”
She dragged two hands along my collar, forcing her breasts together in front of me. “How come you’re still so clothed and I’m so naked?”
“Cause this is my fantasy.”
“What is? Coming to my office and fucking me on my desk?”
I nodded.
“You’re not very original.”
“I never said it was my only fantasy,” I said. “There are lots of other places I’d like to have you.”
“Like Italy and that steak house you mentioned?”
“No,” I said. “Like in my bed and in the back of my Range Rover.”
She smacked my chest playfully. “How terribly romantic.”
“It could be,” I said. “If that’s how you want it. I’ll make it so fucking romantic it’ll make you sick.”
She rolled her eyes. “You already make me sick.”
“Sick with longing.”
She cast her eyes down and swallowed. “Ben-”
“Don’t.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say-”
“I could tell by your tone I wasn’t going to like it.”
She sighed.
I felt my chest tighten.
“It doesn’t matter if I spell it out or not,” she said, getting up.
I lifted my butt just enough to pull my boxers up. “Spell what out?”
She leaned over and grabbed her tights and panties where they were balled up on the floor. “That this isn’t going to work out.”
“Not if you don’t give it a chance.”
She stepped into her underwear and pulled them up, smoothing her skirt down. Then she sat on her desk and stuck a hand in one of the legs of her tights. “It’s not that I don’t like you. Cause I do.”
“Then I don’t see what the problem is.” I grabbed my pants off the floor and slipped them on.
“The problem is that we can only relax around each other when we pretend to be people we aren’t.”
I fastened my belt and watched her slide her black tights over one leg at a time. I didn’t know what to say.
She stood back up and pulled her tights over her ass. Then she smoothed her skirt back down and stepped into her heels. “You know I’m right.”
“Actually, I think you’ve never been more wrong.”
“Excuse me?” She hooked her bra and started doing up her buttons.
“I think I’m the only person you really feel relaxed enough around to be yourself.”
She furrowed her brow. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I know,” I said. “Just as ridiculous as the fact that I’m more relaxed around you than anyone else I know.”
She shook her head and tucked her shirt back into her skirt. “I don’t believe that.”
“I think you do,” I said. “And you want to know what I believe?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
Chapter 15: Carrie
I felt like a crazy person.
Between how satisfied my body felt and how ashamed I was of myself for not being able to resist Ben, I wasn’t sure what to say, think, or do.
And now I’d made things messier and more difficult for myself than they were even before he walked in.
“Well?” I asked. “Go on. What do you believe?”
“That you haven’t been pretending for one second, that the only reason you can’t bring yourself to admit that you’re fucking crazy about me, too, is because you’re afraid of getting hurt again.”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
He narrowed his piercing eyes on me. “You’re afraid of something. Or you wouldn’t be looking for reasons this can’t work.”
I took a step back, desperate to put some distance between us. “I don’t have to look that hard. There are tons of reasons why we’re wasting our time here.”
He stepped up to me. “What reasons?”
I shrugged. “Your mom for one.”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“Even so,” I said. “We don’t want the same things.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“We’re from different worlds, Ben.”
“I’ll come to yours.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“But my feelings for you are, and that’s all that matters.”
I pursed my lips. I was always so conscious of them when he was around. “I wish I could say the same. But there’s nothing simple about my feelings for you.”
“I won’t hurt you, Carrie.”
I took another step back and found myself against the wall.
“I won’t hurt you.”
He wasn’t touching me, but his presence was overwhelming, and I felt dwarfed by his broad shoulders, his smell, his stillness. I splayed my fingers on the wall behind me.
“Look at me.”
I raised my head and looked in his blue eyes.
“I won’t hurt you.”
“I heard you, okay.”
“Did you?” he asked. “Cause it’s important.”
“Yeah. I heard you. You won’t hurt me. Whatever.”
“I won’t hurt your pride, and I won’t hurt your heart.”
I swallowed.
“Is that clear?”
I nodded.
“And for the record, if I thought I could hurt the people that let you down without getting carried away, I would.”
I cast my eyes down. Why was he saying this stuff?
“Do you believe me?”
“Yeah.”
“So when can I see you again?”
“You can’t,” I said, my eyes full of fake defiance. “Not like this anyway.”
He furrowed his brow. “You still want to pretend what we have isn’t real?”
“I want to pretend this never happened.”
His eyes turned down at the corners.
I could tell I’d finally hurt him.
He took a step back, dropped his head, and took a deep breath. Then he looked at me one more time
before turning around and walking over to grab his coat off the chair.
“Don’t forget the jewelry.”
“That’s your problem,” he said, slipping his coat on. “Do whatever you want with it.”
I took a shallow breath and stepped away from the wall.
“Same goes for my feelings for you.”
“C’mon, Ben,” I said, laying my fingertips on my desk. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“You’re the dramatic one. In fact, turns out you’re a far superior actor to me.”
I furrowed my brow. “What are you talking about?”
“To pretend you can’t see what we have here? That you can’t see what’s right in front of you? That takes real skill.”
I sighed.
“And while there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Carrie, I won’t be made a fool of.”
“I’m not trying to make a foo-”
“You’re not the only one who’s been hurt,” he said. “And you’re not the only one this isn’t convenient for.”
I pursed my lips.
“But that doesn’t mean we should pretend none of this ever happened. Hell, I don’t think I can to be honest.”
“Ben-”
“But if not having me in your life the way I’m prepared to be in it is what you really want, I’ll do my best to respect your wishes,” he said, walking backwards towards the door. “Not because it’s what I want, but because I want you to be happy.”
My chest felt hollow.
“But ten minutes ago when you were laying across your desk, you’re the one who said you wanted to be more than friends, the one who said you didn’t want me to just be your client.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That was different! I was in a compromising position-” I gestured towards the desk but turned away as soon as I looked at it.
“Then maybe you’re right about us.”
My lips fell apart.
“Cause my word means everything to me, and I’m not interested in being with someone who doesn’t mean what they say.”
I shook my head.
He put his hand on the door and looked at me one last time. “See you around, Carrie.”
I swallowed.
“If you’re ever ready to stop lying to both of us about what’s going on here, you know how to reach me.”
And then he slipped out, closing the door behind him.
I reached my hand out for my desk chair and sank into it, keeping my eyes on the door.
Walking out was the last thing I thought he would do. He was normally so stubborn and persistent.
But I’d pushed him to it.
I kept telling him over and over again that we couldn’t work, that what just happened here could never happen again, and that he wasn’t what I wanted. And I must’ve told him enough times that he finally believed it.
Even though I didn’t.
Even though I wanted him to open the door, stick his smiling face back in, and tell me I’d never get rid of him that easily.
But five minutes later I was still staring at the door, and I knew he wasn’t coming back.
I’d driven him away with my cowardly martyrdom.
Cause why should anyone be happy if I was miserable?
Least of all me.
I slid the box with the jewelry towards me and opened the lid, lifting the Ziploc snack bag out that held the diamond necklace. The pendant was as sparkly as ever, bright like the specks in his eyes and as solid and unchanged as my true feelings for him.
And yet I pushed him away so hard he was probably questioning everything he ever thought about me and everything I’d ever said.
I shook my head and rubbed my thumb over the top of the shining charm.
When he arrived here, his mother was a mutual problem- a sore point for each of us- but because of my schizophrenic behavior, now I was at the top of his shit list.
How long would he give me to correct this mistake?
And was it even a mistake?
I mean, part of me still believed that I was just his flavor of the month. Now that I’d proved too difficult to be worth the trouble, surely he would move on.
But part of me also knew that wasn’t what I wanted, that I was throwing away something that was as far from garbage as anything I’d ever known.
And yet, as much as I wanted to enjoy the fairytale of it, I couldn’t really believe that I guy like him and a girl like me really stood a chance.
Besides, he was right. I was absolutely terrified of getting hurt again.
I just wish I hadn’t had to hurt him to figure that out.
Chapter 16: Ben
Talk about things not going according to plan.
Then again, not everything had gone wrong. At least I got to taste her again, feel her squeeze my dick until my heart stopped, and make her melt around me.
But after that things went wrong. Really wrong.
Frankly, I didn’t know who I was more ticked off at- me or Carrie.
Still, I never should’ve lost my cool and walked out like that.
But she got the best of me, and I was angry, angry that she wouldn’t admit that what we had was worth fighting for when it seemed so obvious to me.
Of course, maybe she didn’t want to be happy. Some people were natural born Eeyores, determined to play the martyr and convinced that they don’t deserve any bliss in this fucked up world.
I just hadn’t taken her for one of them.
On the other hand, maybe she wanted to hurt me. Some people were vengeful liked that. She couldn’t hurt my mom or Simon so she hurt the only person that she’d let get anywhere close to her lately.
Me.
I sighed and pulled the collar of my coat up around my neck, wondering why the hell I’d left without my scarf this morning.
And then, as if I didn’t feel shitty enough, I remembered where I was before I went to her office.
Her apartment building, dropping off her fucking custom ornament.
When I dropped it off, I felt pleased with the sweet sentiment. Now I just felt like a fool.
I’d meant it as a peace offering. An olive branch. A gesture of goodwill.
I thought it would be the perfect symbol of how what we had was bigger than the petty drama my mom seemed to invite into our lives, the perfect thing for her to come home to that night after we patched things up.
Maybe my hopes were too high. But I certainly didn’t think I was going to sink balls deep into her and then have her look me in the eye two seconds later and tell me she wanted to pretend it never happened.
Like I was some kind of dirty little secret she could just conveniently spread her legs for and then dismiss once she’d gotten hers.
Fuck that.
Nobody was going to treat me like that.
I deserved better.
I deserved the Carrie I thought she was, the considerate peach of a woman who was supposed to talk to me and work things out. But that wasn’t what I got.
Maybe she was happy to roleplay her relationships to death, but I thought we were on the same page when she said the game was over.
I assumed she meant that, like me, she was tired of pretending her feelings weren’t real, that she might want to go on another date- no games necessary.
But she wasn’t talking about our friendly role playing. She was talking about us. That’s what she wanted to be over.
Or at least, that’s what was coming out of her mouth just now.
And no matter how convinced I was that her body wanted something else, if she wasn’t going to listen to it- or me- there was nothing I could do about it.
I checked my watch, debating whether I had time to run by her building and see if the front desk attendant would give me back the ornament. But I was pretty sure the only thing I’d get back if I asked for something from someone else’s mailbox was a stupid look.
Plus, I was already late for my appointment with the PI Christophe had set up for me.
Not that I was in
the mood for that now.
I flagged down a cab, hopped in, and asked the driver to take me across town.
My phone buzzed in my pocket a second later. “Hey.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be meeting with Rick right now?” Christophe asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m on my way.”
Silence.
“Why are you calling me if you know I shouldn’t be answering my phone?”
“I figured it would be on silent,” he said. “I was going to leave a message and say I’ll get dinner at Mao’s for us so don’t eat.”
“Are your thumbs broken or something? Could you not text me that?”
“Jesus, sorry. What the hell’s gotten into you?”
I glanced in the rearview mirror. The driver seemed completely uninterested in my conversation. “Carrie.”
“What now?”
“She wants to end it.”
“There’s nothing to end.”
“Yeah, I know. So it didn’t go well.”
“What’s her problem?” he asked. “Doesn’t she know you’re the second most eligible bachelor in the whole city?”
I furrowed my brow. “Are you implying you’re number one?”
“Are you implying that’s not obvious?”
I rolled my eyes. “Why am I even going to meet with this guy if I don’t stand a chance with her anyway?”
“Cause your mom still maintains she’s in love with this d-bag.”
“Right.” I looked out the window just in time to see Woody waving his hands on the sidewalk as part of some kind of dramatic one man show. “And why do I give a shit about her again?”
“Cause she’s your mom.”
I sighed.
“And mom’s are like assholes.”
“What?”
“Everybody’s got one and some of ‘em ain’t pretty.”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose between two fingers. “I think you mean opinions are like assholes.”
“I always kind of thought it worked for mom’s, too.”
“I gotta go, man,” I said, leaning back against the seat. “We’ll see what this guy has to say, and I’ll tell you if operation motherfucker is a go.”
The driver glanced at me in the mirror.
“Sounds good,” Christophe said. “And since I caught you, it’s the Mongolian beef you like, right?”