Hook, Line, and Garter (Bitches and Queens)

by James, Rachael

  Kate scooted off the bed and slowly peeled away the dress. She crawled back into the bed naked. Reaching for his hand, she brought it to her breast. “Like this?” she questioned.

  “Definitely like that,” Sam agreed as he leaned down to take her erect nipple into his mouth. “And this too,” he licked against her flesh as his hand cupped her other breast. His other hand reached down and cupped her sex. Slipping his finger inside her, Sam felt her clench against him. “Selfish bitch,” he teased into her ear.

  “A very wet bitch too,” Kate teased back.

  “We should do something about that,” Sam concurred. “Lay back,” he commanded and then raised himself up on his knees between her spread thighs. He placed her legs on his shoulders and raised her hips to meet his gorging erection.

  He sliced into her with a slow, steady stroke. Moving slowing, he rolled his pelvis deep inside her. As he picked up the tempo, Sam leaned over and placed his hands on either side of her head.

  Kate never knew she could still be so limber, but she felt him moving so deep inside her she didn’t dream of muttering a single complaint. When he leaned over and took her nipple back between his lips, Kate shattered around him. Sam lasted for two more thrusts, before he let out a soft growl. Kate felt the force of his orgasm through the condom.

  Chapter 9

  When Kate woke up the next morning, she saw Sam sleeping beside her. He rested on his side, facing her. His hand was stretched up, holding the edge of her pillow. In sleep, he appeared so beautiful she felt a reverent awe just looking at him. It seemed impossible that she would ever wake up lying next to someone who looked him. Almost as impossible to believe that someone, who appeared as he did, could actually be crippled with shyness. The notion was so absurd, yet she accepted it because she had seen the truth shining in his eyes while he spoke. They were a reflection of her own while she was telling him about her attack. They had both put up a front with casual recounts, almost dismissive of the pain, but their scars ran deep, proving that it didn’t matter how beautiful the surface might appear. Sam had been isolated and shunned as a child. A single incident had nearly taken everything away that had ever given her pleasure. Yet, by accident or cosmic intervention, they had found each other.

  Feeling quite profound and reflective, especially since she had yet to have her morning coffee, Kate began to wonder how different their lives might have turned out if his mother had never died and she wouldn’t have been raped. Would they have found each other? Would they have been so drawn to each other? With a protective instinct, Kate started to reach out and touch his hair but held back because she didn’t want to wake him. She also didn’t want to think of any path that wouldn’t have brought them together.

  She quietly crawled out of bed and took a shower. A few minutes later she went to the kitchen to hunt and gather caffeine, but first she had to find the coffee pot. Surely, he had to own one, didn’t he? In the bottom cabinet, Kate found one of those one-cup machines they use at hospitals and car dealerships. After she placed the heavy contraption on the counter, she searched for the coffee and found it tucked away in a recessed-lazy Susan. While she was spinning it around, trying to pick the perfect morning brew, she felt two hands reach around her waist from behind. Startled, she gasped and turned around.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean frighten you,” he said quietly.

  “I just wasn’t expecting you,” Kate reassured him, letting him know that it wasn’t a repeat of yesterday morning.

  Kate pulled back to look at him and decided that sometimes life didn’t play fair. She rolled out of bed with what he once so lovingly referred to as bed head, and he comes strolling out straight from the pages of a fashion catalog, with the exception of his morning ardor as evidenced by the loose-fitting silk pajama bottoms, which no doubt would have been photoshopped out of the picture.

  “Good morning,” she said with a smile and turned back around to look for the coffee.

  “Could be,” Sam answered as he pulled her bottom against his erection. “Why are you dressed already?”

  “Well, I do have to go home.”

  “Now?”

  “Not now, but eventually,” Kate laughed as she retrieved a capsule named Kona Breeze. Reading from the print on the metallic label, she asked, “Do you want to start your morning with a call from the islands?”

  “I can think of a better way to start my morning,” Sam retorted drily. “Why do you have to leave?”

  “Because it’s my home. It’s where I live, where all my belongings are kept.”

  Sam leaned against the counter insolently. “I want you to stay.”

  “I can stay for breakfast,” Kate conceded and then added, “but I really do need to get back soon.”

  “No, not just for breakfast. I mean forever. I want you to live here with me,” Sam corrected.

  Flabbergasted, Kate turned back around, thinking this must be his idea of a joke, but he appeared very sincere. “Sam…” Kate started warily. “…I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” he demanded.

  Why not? Was he serious with this stuff? Did he truly believe she would pack up everything she owned and move in with him when they hadn’t even gone out on a proper date? They barely knew each other. All right, so maybe that wasn’t exactly true. She did know Sam better than she had ever known another human being, but not in living-with sense. It wasn’t like she could just walk out whenever she had enough of him like she did occasionally with Jenner. And what would happen, if in a few months, he suddenly realized he no longer felt the same for her? Where would she go? What he suggested wasn’t just a proposition, it was huge leap of faith and required a level of commitment that Kate wasn’t sure could be achieved in only two nights. Sam, on the other hand, didn’t seem to share her reservations. Not wanting to cause irrevocable damage to their relationship that had barely bloomed, she answered, “For starters, my family is very traditional.”

  “So I won’t show up to Thanksgiving in drag,” Sam retorted.

  “It’s not just that,” Kate said. “They would disapprove of me living with a man I wasn’t married to,” she admitted, thinking it would end the discussion, but Sam shocked her. Or more accurately, shocked her yet again.

  “We’ll get married then,” Sam announced as casually as he would suggest a shopping trip. “We can fly out to Vegas tonight.”

  Kate could only stare silently in disbelief for several seconds. Had he seriously just proposed with a quickie trip to Vegas? Did he wake up this with morning with a selective case of amnesia? Had he somehow forgot the woman he had known for past six months? No one in their right mind would ever describe Kate as impulsive. She was rigid, resistant to change. Even at her favorite restaurants she always ordered the same meal because she didn’t want to try anything new. And talk about trying something new. Let’s go get married tonight. Sure, Sam, there isn’t anything to watch on television anyways. What universe was he living in? “Have you lost your mind?” Kate finally hissed. “We can’t just fly off and get married.”

  “People do it all the time.”

  “Those same people end up divorced three months later,” Kate retorted. “Besides, I am otherwise committed. We just signed a new lease last month.”

  “I’ll pay your part of the rent. Hell, I’ll pay out the lease,” Sam answered.

  He had an answer for everything. Damn, where was his shyness when she needed it? He certainly wasn’t hiding in any corners this morning. No, he was resolved, determined, and at the moment, backing her into a corner, but she didn’t want to come out scratching and biting because she knew they would both get hurt. Taking a ragged breath, Kate pleaded, “Sam, I can’t. This just feels too rushed.”

  “Too rushed?” he scoffed. “I’ve been waiting for you my entire life. How is that rushed? Kate, let me ask you something. Do you love me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “And I love you too, so I don’t understand the problem,” he said quietly and then walked ov
er and pulled her against his chest. He held on loosely, not wanting to cause any adverse reactions. Coaxingly, he spoke against her hair, “I don’t want to wait any longer. I need you to be here with me.”

  “Just give me a few months, please,” Kate begged.

  “What difference will a few months make? It won’t change how we feel about each other. I honestly can’t believe there will ever come a day when I love you any more than I do right now.”

  “But what happens if the day comes and you love me less?”

  “That’s impossible,” he denied firmly.

  “It happens all the time,” Kate said softly and pulled back slightly to look up into his eyes. “These last two nights have been the best of my life. And I know that I will never feel for anyone the way I feel for you, but I need some time to get adjusted to it.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. What you just said is completely contradictory,” Sam muttered.

  “It’s who I am,” Kate cried. “And you know that—otherwise you wouldn’t have come in here with guns blazing.”

  “You want to do something about my blazing gun?” Sam teased and pulled her back against his bare chest. “Fine…” he conceded with a grimace, “we’ll date first. But I reserve the right to attempt on a daily basis to change your mind.”

  Over the next few weeks, there was so much newness in Kate’s life it felt like her mind was caught in a tailspin. New job, new boyfriend, new birth control. Of the three, the birth control had been the easiest adjustment to make. After a visit with her OB/GYN that was only minimally uncomfortable, Kate was fitted with a handy IUD that would keep her baby free for the next five years.

  At work, she had been assigned to a UAT project to modernize the state of Texas’s computer systems. Most of the work was done in the office or via conference calls, but she often felt like all her years of schooling had barely prepared her for life in the real world. Not only did she have to learn MMI’s computer systems, she also had to learn how to integrate it with the existing system. By five o’clock, all the synapses in her brain had already fired, and she still had hours of reading hot, steamy IT manuals to look forward to.

  Sam was remarkably patient with her. More times than naught, she was too exhausted to go out in the evenings, but he never seemed to mind. He said it didn’t matter where they were as long as they were together. Kate preferred it to be just the two of them as it gave them time to catch up. Sam, as a man, no longer felt like a stranger, but more like an old friend she hadn’t seen in years. At first, the mosaic pieces of his personality seemed as compatible as oil and water, as if he was one person in drag and a completely different person without the makeup. Over the weeks, Kate discovered it wasn’t true. All the elements of Sam coalesced, and he became the man that Kate loved more than she thought possible.

  And if she were completely honest, Kate almost preferred the dressed-down version. His shy vulnerability was not only endearing but also comforting as well. Either version of Sam was the center of attention, regardless of the size of the crowd. In costume, Sam basked in the adoration, but outside of it, he physically withdrew from the lingering stares and curious whispers. That wasn’t the only difference. There seemed to be a direct inverse relationship with the makeup and filter inside his head. While he had been sweet and kind to her in drag, she had witnessed his mercurial switch on a few occasions, and it wasn’t pretty. If someone or something displeased him, he would deliver an Olympic gold medal verbal lashing. Without the makeup, he claimed to be tongue tied; Kate decided maybe he just put a little more thought in it before he left people cowering like hurt puppies with their tails between their legs. Before their relationship changed, she had often thought she never wanted to get on his bad side because she knew she would never win. Heck, she wouldn’t make it out of the first round. As much as Kate hated to admit it, the only person who could hold their own with Sam at his worst was Hannah, probably because she taught him everything he knew.

  As they had been spending a lot more time together, in fact Kate stayed at his place at least four times a week, she suspected his ugly side would eventually pop-up without the lipstick and mascara. After all, she was hardly a perfect person and like any couple they didn’t always agree, but he held his tongue. He was even remarkably patient with Mr. Jangles. Her poor kitty didn’t travel well but fell in love with the closet. She would occasionally hear Sam grumbling about ‘all the damn cat fur in his shoes’.

  Regardless of how perfect and wonderful he seemed to be, he still did have his faults. He did have the annoying habit of forgetting to mention certain important details—like the time she was at work and the project director, Max Ketches, called her in the middle of the afternoon.

  “Sorry Kate, but I need you to put together a presentation for the board of directors. They are meeting tomorrow, and at every meeting one project has to be presented before the board. We weren’t due for a few months, and I don’t know what the rush is all about, but there you have it.”

  “No problem,” Kate smiled into the line, thinking she was going to wring Sam’s neck the next time she saw him.

  “You’re a doll. Don’t be too nervous. I know going before the board can be a little intimidating the first time, but just remember, they are only people too,” Max assured her.

  “Thanks, I’ll do my best,” Kate answered.

  There went that afternoon. Although she would have liked a little more warning, she didn’t mind that much as she wasn’t looking forward to her other plans for the afternoon. She stayed at work until after seven o’clock and then went to Sam’s condo. He wasn’t home yet so she let herself in and went straight to the closet.

  A few minutes later she heard Sam come through the door and call out, “Kate, are you here?”

  “I’m in the closet,” she yelled back.

  “I’ve heard people say that nothing compares to the moment you come out of it,” Sam said from the door.

  “Ha ha,” Kate shot back. “Apparently, there is board meeting tomorrow and my project has been chosen to be presented.”

  “Right,” Sam murmured. “That is tomorrow. I forgot about that.”

  “You forgot?” Kate questioned in disbelief.

  “All right, in my defense, do you have idea how many of those god awful presentations I have been forced to sit through?” Sam said.

  “Sam,” Kate gasped in outrage. “People work very hard to impress you during those god awful presentations.”

  “And they might, if they actually spoke English or any other language I might understand,” Sam said, unashamed.

  “Thanks, at least I know there will one person not listening to me,” Kate scoffed.

  Sam strolled over and reached for her hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know everything you have to say thrills me even when you are talking over my head. Besides, I’ll just be sitting back, thinking about you naked.”

  “I think you have that backwards. The presenter is supposed to picture the audience naked, not the other way around.”

  “Sympathetic nudity,” Sam offered. “I’ll be doing it for you. How was your appointment with Dr. Markson?”

  “Yeah, about that…I had to reschedule,” Kate said nervously and then reached for a gray, Calvin Klein shift dress. “I was thinking about wearing this with my black heels. What do you think?”

  “Wear the crimson scarf and it will look fantastic. What do you mean you had to reschedule?”

  “Something came up.”

  “Some more important than your health?” Sam countered and then reached for scarf and tied it loosely in front of her chest. His hand lingered above her breast. “This is important to me. I want to come to your appointment. When is it?”

  “They said they would call back in a few weeks with a new time.”

  Sam gazed down into her eyes for moment. His hand moved up and stroked her cheek. “All right,” he conceded after a moment. “But when they call back, I want you tell me.”

  The next day a
fter lunch, Kate lingered in the front lobby. When she spotted Sam come through the front entrance, she slowly strolled towards the elevator bank. He came up beside her and said, “Good afternoon, Miss Logan.”

  “Mr. Montgomery,” Kate acknowledged primly.

  When the doors opened, she sauntered past him and stopped in front of the buttons. As it was the middle of the day, the elevator traffic was light, but there were two other men and one woman in the elevator with them.

  “Are you heading up or going down, Mr. Montgomery?” she asked coyly.

  “I’m up,” Sam retorted with half-smile, “but later I’ll go down.”

  “Is that so?” Kate murmured as she pushed his button and stepped away. She purposefully positioned herself a few inches in front of him. With her back to Sam, as soon as the elevator started moving, Kate leaned over to scratch her ankle. She heard Sam take in a deep breath of air. When she righted herself and turned around, he was staring blankly at the wall beside him.

  Just before the door opened on her floor, Kate turned around one last time. “Oh and Mr. Montgomery, I hope you enjoy your meeting.”

  She returned to her office as she knew she wouldn’t be called to present for a few hours. She almost felt sorry for Sam having to sit through the tedious quarterly meetings until she remembered that after each one his bank account was padded with millions of dollars. Not a bad gig if you could get it.

  When they did eventually call for her, Kate’s stomach was fluttering. She wasn’t nervous about Sam; it was the other members that worried her. As far as she knew, no one but Mrs. Cole knew of their connection, and Kate would just as soon keep it that way. A little foreplay in the elevator wasn’t likely to out them. After all, compared to how some of the other female employees acted around him, her behavior was downright innocent. She was apprehensive that the other board members might despise her and the awkward moment when they realized they couldn’t fire her because she was dating the boss.