by Claire Adams
I made a soft, punched-out noise as his fingers found their way inside of me, plying my walls and testing the wetness there. They weren't inside me for long, though. He pulled them out and returned to playing with my folds, skimming his fingers along in an aimless fashion, designed purely to torture me. I whimpered helplessly, looping my legs around his back and pulling him forwards with my heels, desperate in a way that I had never been before.
Andrew laughed. He braced himself with one strong arm and used his other hand to give his cock a few firm strokes. He pressed his tip lightly against my slit and paused. It was tantalizing, having him so close to me, but no matter how I wriggled, no matter how I urged him on with my ankles, he refused to give me what I wanted. What I needed.
I sobbed, aching and desperate, unable to think of anything except how badly I needed to be filled.
Andrew grimaced. “Should I use a condom?” he asked.
I tried to process his words through the haze of my need. “What?” I asked, unable to make sense of them.
“Should I use a condom?” he repeated. “I have some, somewhere, but I hate using them. Hate the feel of them.”
“That's okay,” I groaned, trying to get him inside me. “I'm on the pill. It's fine.”
Andrew looked relieved, and the next thing I knew, he thrust into me, a throbbing poker that burned me from the inside out. He paused for a moment when he was fully seated, giving me time to adjust, and I focused on just breathing, something which I seemed to have forgotten how to do in the face of my lust.
Then, he began to move, drawing all the way out of me, until I was barely clenching around his tip. Then he sank back into me, as though he belonged there. With each thrust, he rocked his hips upwards, dragging the head of his cock against my inner folds, nudging at the pleasure spots deep inside of me.
I slid my hands down his back, digging in my fingernails and catching at his hips. I pulled at them, urging him to move faster, to thrust harder. He complied, giving me exactly what I needed until I was a shaking mess beneath him in bed. I might have guessed, but he was good at this, bringing me to the brink but not letting me fall over into ecstasy just yet. He forced my pleasure to spike higher and higher until I was almost overcome by it.
I needed to come, more than I'd ever needed anything in my life, but Andrew wasn't letting me off that easily.
He had his mouth on me again, kissing a line of fire from my jaw to my breasts. He lingered there, kissing and sucking at my nipples, swirling his tongue around the left nub and then repeating the motion on its pair. His teeth brushed over the sensitive skin, and then he pulled back with a smirk on his face as he continued to pound into me. His fingers pressed into my hips with a bruising grip.
“Come for me,” he whispered a command that I couldn't resist.
I cried out his name as I arched towards him, my toes curling. All the tension that he'd pounded into my body flooded out of it, leaving me limp and wrung out against the sheets. He came nearly at the same time as me, pulsing hotly inside of me, spilling his come deep in my folds.
It felt like an eternity before either of us could move again. Andrew propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at me. His fingers traced sweetly along the same skin that he'd held so possessively minutes before.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
I stared at him for a moment, unable to comprehend the question at first. Then, I burst out laughing, shaking my head. “Yeah, I'm 'okay,'” I told him. I stretched widely. “I am so beyond 'okay,'” I mumbled, the words interrupted by a yawn.
Andrew smiled as though that genuinely made him happy. Then, he pulled the covers up over us and tugged me into his arms, kissing my temple lightly. “Good,” he said. It wasn't long before we both fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter Six
Andrew
I fumbled at the bedside table for my phone, only half awake but knowing that I needed to answer it in case it was something to do with work.
I frowned, unable to find the phone where I normally put it. As the thing continued to ring, I pried open my eyes and stared down at Lexi for a moment. She was still curled into my chest, and even though I normally didn't let women stay the night, I was irrationally glad to have her there still. She looked cute like that.
My phone.
I rolled out of bed and managed to locate the thing in the pocket of the slacks that I'd been wearing the night before, which I'd left in a pile on the floor. They were going to need a serious ironing before I could wear them again, I thought distractedly.
I picked up the call right before it rang over to voicemail. “Hello?”
“Still in bed, I guess,” the woman on the other end of the call sniffed. “Should have expected that.”
I glanced at my watch and groaned when I saw it was Saturday morning. “Katie, I can explain,” I said.
“You can explain what?” my younger sister asked, her tone clipped. “There's nothing to explain. I know better than to agree to have breakfast with you. This isn't the first time I've ended up sitting by myself in a café, and I doubt it's going to be the last.”
“Something came up,” I told her, glancing back towards the bed where Lexi watched me uncertainly. She'd made no move to get up yet, though, and I moved back to the bed, sitting down next to her. I splayed a hand across her back and rubbed absently at her skin as I continued to talk to Katherine.
“What's her name, then?” my sister asked mockingly. “You probably don't even know.”
“It's not like that,” I protested.
Katherine sighed. “Sure, it isn't,” she said, and I could practically hear her shaking her head. “When are you going to settle down, Andy? Sleeping around like this isn't healthy for you, or for the women that you're with. You should know that by now. Anyway, you deserve better than that. I know you've been busy with work, but I'm sure there's some beautiful woman out there who's willing to put up with all the late nights and weekends away.”
I sighed. “I'm not looking for that,” I told her, momentarily ignoring the fact that Lexi, my latest conquest, was right there in the bed next to me. Based on my side of the conversation alone, she was probably smart enough to figure out what I was talking about, even if she didn't know who I was talking to. But that didn't really matter. I was never going to see her again. We both knew that.
“But the women that you're sleeping with are looking for that,” Katherine insisted. “I don't care if they've told you otherwise. Women are always looking to settle down into a relationship with the right man. And despite all your flaws, you are a kind man, deep down.”
I snorted. “They all know exactly what they're getting into,” I said, hating the defensive note that crept into my voice.
“I don't think they always do,” Katherine sighed. Her tone was somewhere between exasperated and annoyed. “And even if they do, I'm getting sick and tired of always being stood up when we're meant to meet up. You may not give a shit about any of them, but it hurts to know that you don't care about me, either.”
“Katie, you know that's not true.” I sighed, running a hand back through my hair. “Look, I'm sorry about this morning. We can reschedule. Let's meet up for lunch instead.”
“The whole reason we agreed to meet up for breakfast, even though I knew you weren't going to be there, was because my flight leaves at three, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, falling silent for a beat. “Well, I'll see you when you get back. You're only going to be gone for, like, a week.”
“Try three weeks,” Katherine said, sounding pained. “It's not just San Francisco, remember? That's just the first stop. Then I'm going to London for that work thing, and then I'm going to Barcelona to visit some friends.”
“Right,” I said. “But it's not that long. I'll see you soon, okay?”
“Sure, whatever,” she said, abruptly hanging up.
I winced, but there wasn't much that I could do now.
“Who was that?” Lexi asked, soun
ding mildly jealous.
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. “My sister,” I told her, feeling irrationally annoyed at her for still being there, despite the fact that I'd been glad for it when I'd woken up. But now, it was all too easy to transfer the blame for that missed brunch meeting onto her.
I rolled out of bed and dug through my dresser for something to wear, beginning to throw clothing on. “Come on,” I said, glancing back towards the bed. “Hurry up and get your clothes on so that I can take you home.”
For a moment, her feelings were naked on her face. She was taken aback by my words, and she was hurt by them. I felt my lip curl at that. Like I'd said to Katherine, they knew that this was a one-night stand. Lexi, especially, must have known, because, beyond the vibes that I'd been giving out the night before, beyond everything that I'd said to her, there was also that small matter of the fact that she had done a presentation for me at work. I was under no illusions that she must have researched me prior to giving her presentation. She must have read all the newspaper articles.
She had known exactly what she was getting into. I felt no remorse.
She rolled out of bed without a word, though I could see the tightness around her lips. She yanked on her bra and panties and then pulled her dress on over her head, covering those curves. For a moment, I almost wanted to take her back to bed, to strip her down again and kiss apologies into her skin.
I wasn't sure where that notion had come from. I shook my head, shook away the thought, and grabbed my keys, waiting impatiently for her to follow me out of the house.
As we drove, I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel, feeling a surge of pent-up energy course through me. “Look, I don't care if you want to tell your friends about this,” I finally told her.
“What?” she asked, looking aghast.
“I know there are certain bragging rights that come along with sleeping with me,” I told her, speaking slowly, as though she were dumb. “I don't care if you want to tell them all about how good I was in bed or about what my place looks like. I don't care if you want to share those photos that you took last night. I do ask that you don't talk to the press about it. I'm not going to make you sign an NDA because you can't tell them anything that they don't already know. But you also can't talk about this to anyone at your office, for obvious reasons.”
She scoffed, and out the corner of my eye, I could see the way her hands clenched into fists against her thighs. “Sure,” she said, sounding bitter. “To be honest, there wasn't much to brag about.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I'm not going to insult your prowess in bed, and you don't need to insult mine. It's nothing personal. Hell, you're beautiful, and you're great in bed. I haven't come that hard in forever. You interest me in ways that most women never manage to.”
“But,” Lexi spat, looking angrily out the window.
“But,” I sighed. “Lexi, I just can't commit to anyone at the moment. I made that very clear before we slept together. I can't be your boyfriend. I'm sorry. We had a great night, but it can't happen again.”
“I'm not asking you to be my boyfriend,” Lexi said, sounding irritated. “A couple dates, or a few fucks, doesn't make you my boyfriend. I'm not asking you to commit to me or anything even remotely like that.”
“In my books, that's exactly what a couple dates mean,” I told her peevishly. “A couple dates is a commitment that I can't give. A couple dates, and you'd probably be expecting me to text you every morning when you woke up and every evening when you got done with work. A couple dates and you'd probably be expecting me to whisk you away to some romantic weekend retreat. A couple dates and you'd be telling your parents all about me. I know what a couple of dates means to a woman.”
Lexi snorted derisively, but she didn't respond.
We continued the drive back to her place in silence. I switched on the radio and then punched it off again when I could only find mid-morning talk shows on the air. I continued to drum my fingers against the edge of the steering wheel, not sure why I felt so upset. It didn't really matter what she thought. I was never going to see her again, unless our paths happened to cross again at Orinoco or Albright.
I pulled up to her apartment building and idled on the curb, waiting for her to get out. She took her sweet time doing so. Before she closed the door, she leaned down and stared at me. “You're kind of an asshole,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Sure, whatever,” I snapped in response. “Think whatever you want about me. Tell all your little friends whatever you want about me. I'm still not going to see you again.”
“A couple dates isn't commitment. A couple dates can just be two people enjoying one another's company and having good sex.”
“Okay,” I said heatedly, tempted to reach over and pull the door shut since she clearly wasn't about to close it. But part of me wanted to hear what she was going to say next.
She snorted. “You're probably just a coward. You're so afraid of having a woman find out that dating you isn't all that it's cracked up to be, that you don't even give her the chance. Because as soon as she found out how uninteresting you really are, she'd dump your ass. You're just trying to protect yourself against being dumped, aren't you?”
Her voice was taunting, and I felt anger surge through me. “You done, Dr. Phil?” I asked, trying to keep my own tone level so that she couldn't tell that she had hit a nerve with that one.
Finally, she slammed the door shut, harder than was strictly necessary, and stomped off. I watched her head up the steps and into her building, thinking over what she had said. It might be true, or it might not be. Either way, I wasn't really concerned.
It was the same as her comment about art and wine or about the house. Did it really matter if I showed interest in the arts just because I wanted to show off my wealth? Did it really matter if I was hardly ever at home in my beautiful house? I was supporting the local economy either way, and wasn't that more important than whatever my personal motives were?
So, too, with this. I showed women a good time for a night. When it was a woman like Lexi, I gave them a little taste of what the other side, the high-class culture, was like. Did it matter if I was dumping them after one night because I wasn't interested in anything more, or because I was scared they wouldn't be interested in anything more? I didn't think so.
Anyway, I wasn't about to change the way I lived just for some random woman who I'd met at work.
I put the car in drive and headed to the office to continue looking over the details of the Albright acquisition.
Chapter Seven
Lexi
I chewed on my fingernail as I slowly typed in my bank account password. I knew I didn't really want to see how much money, or how little money, remained in my account, but I also knew that I couldn't avoid looking any longer.
I glanced back towards the envelope at the side of my desk and swallowed hard.
Sure enough, my bank account was just as grim as I'd expected. I only had a hundred dollars remaining.
For a moment, I wondered how it had gotten to this. I had graduated from college with honors, and I'd netted a job shortly thereafter as an insurance analyst for Orinoco. But that had all been a few years ago now, and in the past few years, everything had changed and gone to shit.
Well, not everything, I thought, glancing towards the living room with a small smile.
The smile vanished as I began to check my email, hoping to have heard back on one of the jobs that I'd applied to. It seemed like I'd applied to hundreds of jobs in the past week alone, but I kept receiving responses that said nothing more than, “Thank you for taking the time to apply for our position. There were many talented applicants, and unfortunately, we don't have the time to contact each one of you personally. At this time, we don't feel that you are the right fit for this position, but we'll keep your application materials on file for future.”
I swallowed hard as I scanned through the third email like that. I didn't know
how many more of those rejection emails I could take, to be honest.
I stood up and went into the next room and looked down at Emma, who was peacefully asleep in her crib, sucking away at her thumb. She was the one bright spot in my life lately, the only thing that kept me going no matter how difficult things seemed.
And things had been difficult lately. I'd realized that I was pregnant not long after sleeping with Andrew. I'd gone through all the stages of denial. How could this happen, and was it possible that the baby was someone's other than his? I'd never even considered options other than raising the child, though. Regardless of how she came to be on this planet, I wanted to make sure that she would have a good life.
The problem was the job situation.
Orinoco had passed on buying out Albright. They claimed it was because of further insurance concerns, but Albright passed the blame to me, accusing me of having deliberately sabotaged the deal. They'd subsequently fired me and bad-mouthed me to every reputable company within ear's reach.
When I'd finally gotten a half-decent job offer, I'd been so far along in my pregnancy that I'd had no choice but to ask for maternity leave. My sexist boss had fired me, and although I would have liked to take them to court, they had threatened to make the process drawn out and complicated, and I didn't have the funds to handle that with Emma on the way.
And by the time Emma was old enough that I could put her in daycare and go back to work, I'd been out of work for long enough that no one wanted to hire me.
“If only your daddy wasn't the kind of man that he is,” I muttered to Emma, who slept on, oblivious to her mother's plight.
I'd thought of asking Andrew for help, but I hadn't been able to stomach the thought of it. My own father had been distant growing up, and I knew a lot of the relationship hang-ups that I still had were due to his leaving my mom and me when I was young. I sometimes thought that I would have been better off if he'd never been in my life at all. And I didn't want to have my child grow up thinking the same of her own father.