by Penny Wylder
Her fingers flick along my length, teasing for a moment before she circles me with them, stroking. Her fingers barely touch my skin, and still a deep satisfaction rolls through me. Then Vera leans down, taking my balls into her mouth like she did on that first day, and I groan. God it feels so fucking good. She sucks them both into her mouth, and I feel how full her mouth is with them. Her tongue sweeps across them, and I shudder. “Vera,” I say, unable to stop myself.
“You like that?” she says, letting go.
“Fuck yes.”
“Good.” She seals her mouth over the head of my cock and sucks. All my muscles twitch and I swear I could come right now. I watch her work her way down my cock, pushing me deeper until her mouth is full of me. The sight of Vera’s mouth stuffed to bursting with my cock is easily one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. She continues to suck, creating a vacuum in her mouth and I close my eyes. Every time she sucks it’s a bolt of pleasure along my nerves. I grab the couch in order to stay still. My body tightens as I fight for control to not fuck her mouth until I explode.
Vera retreats and takes a breath, stroking me with her hand. I keep my eyes closed, and I feel her mouth close over me again, sliding downwards. Down and down, and she doesn’t stop. Suddenly my cock is at the back of her mouth and she still doesn’t stop. My eyes fly open as the head of my cock pops into her throat. And she still doesn’t stop, sliding me further and deeper as her mouth comes to rest at the base of me, lips pressed against my stomach.
“Fuck.” It’s the only word that I can think of.
I feel her tongue reach out, caressing the bottom of my cock as she bobs her head up and down. She’s sliding me up and down, but never releasing me from her throat. I reach out and thread my fingers through her hair, wanting to feel her rhythm in my hands. Vera hums and swallows, and I curse as her throat constricts around me. She releases me entirely, taking a deep breath and giving me a slow smile.
“I don’t want to swallow,” she says.
Her hand is still moving on me. I blink, trying to focus. Fuck. “You don’t have to.” She can do whatever she wants as long as she puts her mouth on me again.
She gives me a long, slow, lick and locks her gaze onto mine. “Let me be clear. The reason I don’t want to swallow is because you’re going to be so far in my throat when you come that I won’t have to.”
My cock jerks against her hand, and I freeze, the visual of her words flooding my mind and sending me straight to the edge. She takes me into her mouth again, moving rhythmically along the shaft until I’m too deep inside to see straight. My hips are moving now, pushing into her even as I try to keep still. Vera works me with her throat, bobbing quickly. She hums and uses her voice to tease me and I am so close to coming.
She pulls me out, back to my head, sucking on the tip before plunging it as far down as it can go, her tongue touching my balls. Again, it’s the sight that drives me crazy, and I cry out as my balls tighten and I release into her. I feel my cock jerking in her throat as I come, sending everything I have deep inside her.
Vera sucks my cock hard, keeping her mouth sealed and not letting a single drop escape. Finally releasing me, she licks her lips. That devilish smirk is back.
“That was fun,” she says lightly.
I can only groan, words still out of the realm of possibility.
She raises an eyebrow at me as she stands. “I hope that didn’t take too much out of you,” she says. “Because I’m going to be naked in your bed very shortly, and I expect you to fuck me. Thoroughly.”
I watch her walk toward my bedroom as she pulls her shirt over her head. I’m already getting hard again as I contemplate all the things we can do together, how I can really make her scream my name. I’m fully naked before I reach the bedroom, and as I walk through the door, I see that she is too.
16
Vera
The weekend passes like a dream. James and I are never separated, and even when we’re not having sex we’re touching. We are constantly entwined with each other, and I still just can’t get enough of being with him. And we talk. We talk about the silly little things you might find out from each other on a first date, and we share things like our firsts. Mine was sloppy and awkward, and so was his. I feel at ease sharing these moments with him, in a way I have with no one else.
Then there’s the sex. He does make me scream. He challenged himself to make me come as many times as he could using only his mouth in only an hour—that left me seeing stars. Then we burned our lunch because we ended up fucking on the kitchen floor. His store of condoms is running dangerously low.
By the time Sunday night arrives, I’m not sure how much more my body can take, even if it feels like I’ll never stop wanting it. And on top of that, my own reality starts to leak through.
I’ve managed to mostly not think about my father this weekend. But tomorrow is the deadline, the day I report to my first day on the new job, and dread steals the heat from me and pools in my stomach like a weight. I put on one of James’s shirts and wander out to the kitchen where he’s cooking. Pasta, I think. I smile at the fact that he’s making me Italian.
I lean against the archway of the kitchen and watch him. His back is to me, and I let my eyes wander, examining the way his shoulders move and the way the muscles of his back disappear into his sweatpants. He turns and sees me staring. He smiles. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, fine.”
He turns away from me briefly to stir the pasta. “That doesn’t sound fine.”
“I’m just—” I sigh, shaking my head. “I’m thinking about tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” he says.
I watch the water bubble for a minute. “What do you think?” I ask.
“About you and your dad?”
I nod.
His face closes off. “That’s not really my call.”
“I know, but I want to hear your opinion.”
He starts to get dishes out from his cupboards even though the food isn’t ready, and I get the impression he’s trying not to look at me. “I think you should walk away,” he says.
I knew that’s what he thought, but it’s still a shock hearing him say it out loud. “You think I should volunteer to be disowned?”
“No,” he says. “I think you should respectfully tell your dad that you need to go your own way for a while. And then go. I’ve seen your designs, Vera. You’re good. I think it’s very possible he’ll come around.”
“He’ll make sure I don’t get hired anywhere else, though.”
The timer beeps and James turns it off. “Your father isn’t all powerful. And Rebecca loved you—you think she really wouldn’t hire you if you explained that it was a misunderstanding?”
“I don’t know. Two million dollars is a lot of money,” I say. “Plus, he’s right. I have nowhere to stay.”
“You’d find a place.” James drains the pasta. “You would get a temporary job, get an apartment. You don’t have to have a place to go—make your own.”
“Yeah.” It’s not a bad idea, but it is terrifying. The prospect of leaving the safety of what I’ve always known is daunting.
“You could start your own company. A non-profit,” James says.
I laugh. “No I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have no money of my own to start a non-profit. All I have is my savings, and since it’s just the money I made while I was doing my work study job at school, it isn’t enough to start with. Big donors don’t write checks to nobodies.”
James carries two full plates into the adjacent dining room. “You’re not nobody. You’re Vera Caldwell. Your name doesn’t have to work against you.”
“You make it sound so easy,” I say, following.
“Not easy, I don’t think.” He pulls out a chair for me and I sit. “But it is simple.”
“Would you contract with my imaginary non-profit?”
He smiles.
“Of course I would. We’d be an unstoppable force.”
We talk about other things for the rest of our meal, but the idea worms its way into my brain. Can I really just walk away? I’m not sure that I’m strong enough to just start my life over. I know James did it, but he was forced into it. Choosing that feels very different. But I do like the idea of running my own non-profit. Being in charge of what I do and imagining all the ways I can help people? It sounds pretty perfect.
It’s getting late, and together James and I retreat to his bedroom like it’s the most natural thing to go to bed together. I take off his shirt, and he takes off his pants and we lie together in the dark. It feels wrong to have any barrier like clothing between us right now.
“I don’t want this to end,” I whisper.
“It doesn’t have to,” he says, but I know it will. This magical weekend is almost over and all of reality is about to come flooding into the little bubble we’ve made with each other. He doesn’t understand that I just want to stop time and stay here. Now. God I want to not deal with any of the shit that’s going on anywhere else.
Or maybe he does understand, because he kisses me. It’s slow and heated. Everything about this is slow and soft and deep. He touches me everywhere, using his hands to massage my entire body until I’m wet and gasping. But still, we don’t speed through it. He rocks into me slowly, moving his hips just a little at a time until he’s fully inside me. He takes my hands, pinning them to the bed under his.
Our mouths are together, and I feel like we’re breathing each other in. Our bodies move together, never separating. His hips roll with mine, slow and steady, and the building of pleasure takes its time. From the pit of my stomach it flickers, spreading until I can feel it in every part of my body. We’re not kissing now, instead I can see him. We’re staring into each other’s eyes, foreheads touching, and breath mingling.
We don’t stop moving, and we don’t speed up. The orgasm builds in me, and when I go over the edge it’s not an explosion. It feels like I’m drowning, surrounded by pleasure as my body shudders under his.
It’s only moments later that I see his pupils dilate, feel him come. I’m still coming, and I can’t look away from him. I’ve never felt this close to any person before, and I know that I’ll always remember this moment. We’re not moving anymore, instead just being. We kiss, and at some point we fall asleep tangled in each other.
The first thing I feel is warmth. I open my eyes to see James’s face close to mine, our bodies still pressed together. My heart lurches at the sight of him and the memory of last night. I think something may have changed for us in that moment, and I don’t want to spoil it.
I don’t want to face this morning. I want to stay in this bed forever. But I can’t. I have to go. I start my new job today. With my father. My stomach roils at the thought, but I can’t do what James said. I can’t just walk away from my life and my family. I’m not strong enough to do that.
Slowly, I move out from underneath James’s arm. I’m careful not to wake him. I brought some work clothes with me and I retrieve them now from my bag, along with my makeup, and then retreat into the bathroom for a shower. While imagining myself showing up at my father’s office in pajamas with no makeup and terrible bed head gives me some pleasure, it will only make things harder for me in the end.
James is awake when I come out of the bathroom. He’s sprawled across the bed, beautifully naked with an impressive hard-on. If I didn’t have to go I would take advantage of it. I take a moment to call a cab from one of my apps.
His eyes travel up and down my body, taking in the suit and the makeup. “I thought you might change your mind,” he says.
I sigh. “It’s not that simple, James. You know that.”
He pulls a pair of sweats on. “No, I don’t know that. What happened to all the things we talked about? You can do this. You don’t have to let your father hold your leash.”
“Excuse me?” I turn on him, my cheeks going hot. “Hold my leash?”
I can see that he’s gritting his teeth. “That’s not what I meant—”
“No, it is. You mean that I’m my father’s little puppet and I’ll do whatever he says.”
“No,” James says, folding his arms across his chest, “that’s not what I meant. I meant that what you do really has nothing to do with him. You don’t have to choose this.”
I shove the rest of my things into my suitcase. “I don’t see any alternative. I have no means of my own. Maybe in a couple years after I have some real savings I can leave. There isn’t a choice.”
His voice is softer. “I thought, after last night…”
I finish zipping up the suitcase. “What? What did you think?”
“I—you felt it last night, didn’t you?”
I can’t pretend I don’t know what he’s talking about, no matter how upset I am right now. “Yeah, I did.”
“And?” he asks.
“And…I don’t have the words to describe it. It was perfect. But it doesn’t change what’s happening in my life.”
The look on his face is suddenly desperate. “You can do this, Vera. I can help you with whatever you need. You can choose me.”
I freeze, a shot of cold going through me. “Are you saying that if I go to work for my father, we’re finished?”
His face hardens. “I don’t know. I do know that working for your father is the last thing you want. Everything I’ve learned about you tells me that you’re passionate—that you are fierce, and brilliant, and independent. But making this choice? Out of fear? It’s going to eat away at you, and all of that passion will be crushed. Along with everything that makes you ‘you.’ I don’t know if I want to see that happen.”
I feel hot tears behind my eyes but I blink them back. “I don’t have a choice, James.”
I take my suitcase to the front of the house, and I see the cab pull up outside. I don’t want to leave. It feels too final, too real. But it will be okay. He’ll be okay. I’ll fix it later. We’ll be okay. We have to be.
“Vera.” I turn, finding James in the middle of the living room. There’s no hint of a smile or softness on his face. I do see sadness though. “I know what it’s like to not have any choices. You’re choosing this.”
Outside, I hear the cab driver honk their horn. I shake my head and leave the house before I can say anything else to make this worse.
17
Vera
My security photo is awful, but I suppose that’s to be expected. I feel like I’ve been through every office in this building filling out paperwork and getting an ID. I have an office already set up for me and it’s big for someone at my level. I suppose it’s meant to be a peace offering of sorts, but I still hate it. I hate everything. I hate the suit that I’m wearing, and I hate the color of these walls. I hate how I left things with James this morning. I hate that my suitcase is sitting in the corner and I hate the note sitting on my desk. I hate that it’s telling me to meet my father in his office at ten a.m.
I hate the fact that I’m here at all, and he’s the cause. He’s not in his office when I go, but he steps in right at ten. I have to control my glare.
“Good morning, Vera,” he says, sounding for all the world as if this were a normal day. It strikes me that he never questioned whether I would be here. He assumed that I would make a fuss, but do what he said—and he was right. I think I might throw up.
“Good morning,” I say, making a point of keeping my voice utterly neutral.
“Everything settled with your office and your pass?”
I clear my throat. “Yes, thank you.”
“Good. We’re going to meet some clients today. They want to show us the property they’ve bought and walk us through their preferences.”
He leads the way out of his office, and I follow. We’re met by my father’s driver in a sleek black sedan. The thought of spending a car ride in awkward silence makes me cringe, but I get in the car. The driver takes us across L.A. toward the c
oast. Traffic is horrible, and about an hour later we pull up to an empty lot at the beach. The couple from dinner the other night is waiting for us. I don’t remember their names.
My father greets them as Sharon and Alan. How did I miss their terrible names? They walk us across the property to where they want the house to sit. It’s on the top of a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and I can’t deny it’s beautiful. Sharon describes in detail what she’d like, and as much as I find her annoying she has good architectural taste. We walk along the grounds to the north and she describes the kinds of grounds she wants.
Her ideas include a significant guesthouse and a tennis court, among other things. Eventually we reach some houses, smaller than the typical mansion. They don’t seem to be abandoned, but Sharon and Alan keep walking. “Down here, there’s a lovely little cove where I think a boat house would be just lovely,” she says.
“How far does your property extend?”
“Oh, another few acres or so.”
Setting aside how rich they must be to afford this much beachfront, the houses bother me. “Who lives here?” I ask as we walk by. My father clears his throat in warning, but I ignore him.
Sharon waves a hand. “Oh, doesn’t matter. They sold the land years ago. Couldn’t afford not to, I think. People who inherited some money and then lost it all, probably. I’m sure they had it coming. We’ll evict them as soon as construction starts.”
My mouth falls open, and in that moment, I know that I can’t do it—I can’t be a part of this—not just this project, but my father’s company. These are the kind of people he deals with every day, and I don’t want to do it. I want to help people who need it. I have no interest in people who think the poor had it coming.
James was right. I can choose.