by Amy Faye
I close my eyes and keep moving. It's only a few short steps before I can open it and walk away.
At least she can remember some things. Ten years isn't that long, but I guess when you're constantly making a mess of things, it's not that short, either.
So what if she only remembers half of it. I shouldn't remember it either. It's better that way.
Chapter Thirty-One
I can feel everything in my gut twisting up. So… what? What was I supposed to get out of all this? He hadn't taken my calls all day. Nor the day after that. And he's avoiding me at work.
So what the heck am I supposed to think? Well, that much is obvious. I'm supposed to think the truth—he's avoiding me, and it's because of something to do with that mess with Mom.
I wish I understood it, but she clammed right up. Right the hell up. She's never been too careful with what she does, but she's very careful with what she says. What she lets slip to people. If she wasn't, then she'd have to face the consequences of her actions sometimes.
I let out a deep breath. So much for the hopes I'd had of some kind of… relationship… thing. I shake my head. Whatever it is, I'll get over it. If he wanted me to know about it, he'd tell me about it.
Since Eric hadn't talked to me about any of this, I can only assume that it's some kind of secret, and he's not interested in talking about any of it. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it, nor how I'm supposed to feel, so I'm going to do what I always do.
I'm going to do nothing, and I'm going to pretend I'm not hurt and pretend that I haven't even God damned noticed that he's not paying attention, because if I do anything else I think I might lose my mind.
Which is why, even though it's a Wednesday night, I'm sitting here in a bar and I think I should probably have packed up three glasses ago. Some part of me wonders how often my mother's done this.
She never drank at home, but she somehow managed to always be drunk. And I never had much doubt that when she was out… well, I don't know. Maybe there was a time before that. Maybe there was a time that she was faithful to one of her many husbands for more than a year or so.
How hellish must those years have been for her? She's so committed to the first spark of a relationship, it must be absolute hell for her to have to actually settle into something that feels like it might last longer.
I can feel eyes on me. I know what I must look like, sitting at the bar—alone—and pouring my way through a bottle of something amber-colored. For the sort of people who would be on the look-out for a woman like me, I must seem like an easy mark.
Lonely. Upset about something, and yet I'm not hiding myself in the back. Which means, fundamentally, that I'm making myself available on some level. They're not entirely wrong, to be fair. I guess maybe I am. At least then I wouldn't be completely ignored.
They wouldn't want a relationship, of course. Why would they? But they would at least be upfront about what they wanted. What a relief that would be. What a change from what I've had to deal with the past months.
A man with a tattoo on his neck, who looks like a singer-songwriter in a Portland bar, steps up.
"What's your name?"
For an instant I consider ignoring him. He'll go away eventually on his own. But then again, maybe ignoring things is what got me here in the first place. If I change my tactics, maybe I'll be able to start digging myself out of the pile of shit that my life has devolved into.
"Autumn. Yours?"
"Lou," he answers. It's like his parents decided, when he was born, that all they wanted from their boy was to grow up to be exactly who he was. "What are you drinking?"
"I don't know," I tell him. "I forgot. But they keep putting it in my glass and I keep drinking it."
He laughs, and I can't help but smile at my own joke.
"I could buy you the next one."
"That would be awful kind of you."
He puts an arm on the small of my back. It feels sexual, and I don't doubt for a moment that he means it to.
I don't stop him.
Chapter Thirty-Two
At some point, I'm going to have to talk to her or let her go. Neither one seems like a good solution. If I had gotten over myself, stifled my anger like I'd been doing for months before, it wouldn't be a problem.
But instead, I'd made it a big deal by reacting to it at all. She must have known that I left because of her mother. So that much wasn't a surprise.
That I'd not want to talk to Deborah was no doubt obvious even before it had happened. But the way that I'd reacted? Only an idiot wouldn't be able to realize that it was because there was something there. I'd been able to deal with so many other scumbag in my life. One more shouldn't be any kind of big deal.
And no doubt, she's realized that. There must be questions. Must be. And if I'm going to make this relationship work, even just as far as keeping her in the office, then I'm going to have to answer those questions.
Which has been where I'm stumbling.
I take a deep breath. Shannon's holding my calls. Thank God, too, because I don't know if I could actually take one right now. It's been three days and I still don't actually know if I could focus on the law if I tried. So far, I haven't had much luck.
I managed it once. I could manage it again. But something in my gut tells me that I can't just leave things the way they are.
Stand up, I tell myself. Get out the door.
The only way out of this mess is getting myself to it. Sure, there's a risk. She could hate me when I go through the whole thing. She might not want to even hear it. But that's not really a choice that she gets to make.
She needs to know, and after we've slept together, it's something she deserves to know. She's sitting in a room full of people, pouring through a dusty old book. The smell of the library reminds me of college, reminds me of my early days of doing this exact work while I was still working on my degree.
I touch her back, and she reacts immediately, even if she tries to hide it. Her back straightens and she arches a little, her body unable to decide whether to escape the touch or to press deeper into it.
"I need to talk to you," I say softly. "Outside."
She follows me through the door. I don't look her in the eye, because if I did, then I'd have to deal with the confusion and uncertainty and perhaps even fear in them.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I managed to keep my frustration under wraps just long enough to make the hallway. Then he turns and stops and I shut the door behind myself.
"What?" My voice might convey some of that frustration.
"We need to talk."
"We're talking."
"I just wanted to tell you that—"
"Tell me what? Tell me that you fucked my mother?"
She'd thought it would work best to confess it to me. She always confessed once she was caught. It was easier that way. For her, at least. That way, she could always have the sympathy.
First, because she had no way of knowing that everything was going to go to hell, in spite of her pushing it all off the cliff. Second, then, because she felt really sorry about how everything went to hell.
"So you knew?" His voice is low and soft.
"I don't know why I was surprised. You're probably a real lady-killer, huh? So why should Mom be any different?"
He looks away from me, and his teeth press together hard. "Yeah, you think what you want, I guess."
"Well? What am I supposed to think?"
"Look, don't you worry about it. Think whatever you want to think. I'm not going to sit here and insult your mother to make you think one ounce better about me."
"Lay it on me. You'd be surprised what I'll believe about her."
I'm not sure who the hell I'm supposed to blame here. Because everything I've seen from both sides tells me, they'd both be guilty. Hell, I suspect she'd do it just for the fun of it, and he's got his thing for redheads, of course.
On the other hand, my mother's never made a decision I didn't have
to pay for in my entire life. And this seems like her style. But I'm not ready to make a decision, either way. She's an idiot, but I'm not going to lay down for this womanizing little—
Not without being told what happened, and believing it.
"I don't want to upset you," he says finally.
"Too late. You can correct the record, or you can let me keep thinking whatever Deborah told me about it. Your choice."
"She was having an affair. My father's best friend. I don't really know how long it was going on for, but… well, I wasn't going to let it continue. But God damn it all if I wasn't too stupid to go to my dad about it."
He steps back away from me and drops his head, his eyes pointed right at the floor. A moment later, someone steps around the corner, sees the two of us, and walks through and into the records room.
"You were saying?"
"So I went to her to tell her to cut it off, and…"
"She denied it, I'm guessing."
"I didn't have any proof. You might remember in law school they taught about that. Proof's pretty important. But I'm twenty years old, and this is my mom, right?"
"No, I'm with you. But uh. I'm with you. Mom needs to be trapped in a corner before she'll cop to it. So you didn't get her to. Right. Tell me when it leads to the horizontal bop."
He winces and waits a moment to answer.
"Yeah. So I'm in my—our—parents' room, right? Trying to talk some sense into her. Trying to get her to just. Not even confess, just agree to break it off. For my Dad's sake."
"I'm with you so far. That seems like a far cry from 'and then I slept with her' though, so you'll forgive me if I don't see it yet."
"And then—Jesus. I don't know how else to put it. Um." He closes his eyes again, and I can see how frustrating it must be, given his reaction.
"Take your time."
"She gets up off the bed, she comes up to me, starts talking about how I've been working out, shit like that, I don't know."
I don't know how to feel at this point. I've never been on the receiving end of it, but I can imagine that my mother knows what to say to get what she wants. She's always managed it in the past. He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a huff.
"So then I'm standing there, with my goddamned mother putting her hand on my hip. And I don't want to sound weird but she was, you know, she was good looking, and I'm twenty years old. Idiot kid. But even I'm standing there thinking that this is a big god damn mistake, and then her hand moves, you know, from my hip to my… hip."
"Oh." I don't know what else to say.
"I could have stopped her, but I didn't."
"Oh."
"So I went to my dad, finally. And now she's playing him against me. Says it's all my idea. I seduced her. Well, who's he going to believe? His wife, or his son? Given that one of them has never shown any signs of infidelity—you know, other than all of the ones that he's ignored—and the other is just a horny teenager."
"Yeah." My gut sinks.
"So I left."
"I remember that part."
"I figured you might," he says softly.
"I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything. But I had to clear the air."
"Well, thank you."
"Yeah. You got it."
"I'm sorry."
"We're all sorry."
My gut is doing flips. "Okay can I confess something too?"
"Okay."
"Stay with me till the end on this, okay?"
"Yeah." His fingers tap out a dissonant rhythm on the wall behind him.
"I went out last night. Kinda, uh. Freaking out. About everything."
"Yeah."
"And I was thinking about you, and how I kinda, well, I've always had like. A thing for you."
He raises an eyebrow, amused.
"Yeah. Well. Moving on. So then my mother tells me, what she told me, and you're not exactly moving to tell me your side of things. You're also not exactly moving to pick up where we left off. So I figure, I've got to get on with my life, I guess. Stop thinking so much about… well, you get the idea."
"Tell me."
"I wanted to stop pretending that what happened the other day was suddenly going to turn into some kind of relationship."
"Good girl," he says, and I'm annoyed at the little shiver that rakes its way down my spine.
"So some guy. I don't know his name to be honest, he comes along."
"I'm not going to like this next part, am I?"
"I told you to wait," I say, and then I stare at him long enough to drive the point home. "So he's coming on pretty strong. And I'm not telling him no. Not telling him yes, either, but he looks like he'd about hump a bear if it let him."
His eyes close and a pained smile stretches across his face. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I didn't. I told him to buzz off and I went home a little lonely and a little horny and probably a little too drunk. And all I could think about last night was, I went out to forget about a relationship I wasn't even in, and I couldn't even do that right."
He takes a look at me. I wonder what he sees. Does he think I'm weak? Pathetic? What?
And then he starts moving, his arms wrapping around my waist, and he pulls me into a kiss. I can feel his stubble rubbing against my skin and I don't mind it one bit, in spite of myself.
My arms pull around him as well, and pull him in tight. I don't care about ten years ago. I just want what I want, and I want it now.
And for once in my life, I'm going to let myself have it.
Catch Me
Bad Boy Romantic Suspense
Amy Faye
Published by Heartthrob Publishing
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Here’s a preview of the sexy love story you’re about to read…
Josh Meadows looks down at the girl beneath him, her shirt pushed up over her plump breasts and her eyes out-of-focus with pleasure. She smiles up at him.
He could fill a book with the number of rules he's breaking right now, but it doesn't matter one God damned bit. She turns her head to the side to take his cock between her pretty lips.
The searing heat that envelopes him threatens to send him over the edge right then and there, a pleasure that he can't possibly resist.
"Fuck," he growls, his hips moving on their own to try to get as much of that pleasure as he can take. Anna's mouth moves with him, taking that in stride.
Her breasts pool deliciously on her chest, her nipples swollen and dark and perfect. His thumb dances across one again and she pushes up into the contact without stopping her ministrations.
He moves his hands lower again, dancing past her waist and down to the place where her legs meet, his rough fingers teasing the tip of her clit. Her hips roll up to meet his movements, her mouth moving with renewed vigor.
"Jesus Christ, Anna—your mouth. Fuck."
She moans with him in her mouth. His cock stiffens more than he thought possible. The beautiful woman pulls off of his cock to take a breath for an instant. She leans back forward an instant later, but Josh has another plan in mind.
He moves between her hips, her legs propped up around his waist. She feels him lining his hardness up with her, feels him threatening to push inside.
"Are you sure about this?" He repeats it again, even though his entire body screams to just do what comes naturally. His mind is telling him that everything he's doing is wrong—that he shouldn't even be thinking about doing any of the things that he's doing.
He can stop, but he won't. Not unless he hears the words from her mouth. Not unless she tells him that she doesn't want it. She doesn't. She traces a hand down the lines of his chest and purrs to fuck her.
He pushes inside. The walls of her pussy already grip him tightly, as if they're trying to milk him for all he's worth. The heat sears into him. His cock twitches painfully, but he keeps himself buried hilt-deep inside h
er for a moment, to let her adjust.
The way that she rolls her hips tells him that he's waited long enough. He pulls out a little way and plows forward again, pushing deep inside. Her body reacts, a soft moan ripping from her lips even as she tries to stay quiet.
"Jesus, fuck, you're tight," Josh growls. It's hard to believe, the way that her body grips him and tries desperately not to let go.
He moves hard inside her, his entire body tense and taut like a spring that's been pressed as tight as it will go. Her heels press him into her, driving his cock deeper inside with each thrust.
Every time he pulls back out her body only knows enough to try to stop him, to grip him tight and pull him back inside. To take as much pleasure as she can possibly get.
Chapter One
It still feels strange to walk around alone, after all those years with Mitch around. He'd been a rock in her life. A constant. And now, without him, it all seemed strange.
It was worse where she was going now, though. Everything seemed to be coming down around her, and there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it by herself.
So she did what she was always supposed to do. Even Mitch, who never had a problem he didn't think he could solve for himself, wouldn't disagree with going to the cops.
Not when Ava went missing.
He'd say, go on, get out there, girl. You better not let anything happen to her. And Anna wasn't going to let anything happen to her, not if there was anything she could do about it.
So even though he didn't want to hear from her, in a weird kind of way, it was Mitchell's idea to go. And even though she didn't want to go by herself, didn't want to go out without him there to make sure it's all gonna end up alright, she went.
It took a long time to get the attention of the guy behind the desk. Maybe if she'd said something, but she didn't. He was cross-referencing some paperwork and typing it all into a computer. Finally the guy, dark blue uniform that borders on black, looks up.