by Anna Lewis
“Oh!” I cried as the bliss started to consume me. “Fucking hell, Kyle. You really are incredible.”
I moved my hand onto him too, grabbing at his thick, warm length. I stroked it lightly, wanting to bring him to the same point that I was.
“Stop,” he panted breathlessly against me. “Stop it, you’re driving me mad! I need you, I need you now!”
I moved my hands backwards above my head, allowing him to thrust powerfully into me. He filled me up, making me feel whole. With every movement he brushed against my clit. I’d never experienced lovemaking like this. I wanted to melt.
I already knew that I loved this man, with everything that I had, with everything inside of me. I thought that he might love me too, but we hadn’t yet said it aloud. I couldn’t wait until we finally felt brave enough to do so.
As the orgasm shattered through my body, my heart thundered powerfully in my chest, sweat poured from every part of me, I looked a mess. I probably looked like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. But in the middle of that amazing orgasm I couldn’t have cared less.
Kyle hugged me tightly, holding me close to him, and I molded into him completely. Heather had made me distrust Kyle. She’d made me think that he had been cheating on me the entire time that we were together, but she’d lied. All that she really wanted was for me to help her in her plan to take Kyle down. It seemed like she was still holding on to a lot of bitterness from the divorce, which she had been the one to cause by cheating on him. Sheer greed had her wanting more from him. The money that he’d paid her in the divorce settlement wasn’t enough. She felt like she deserved more.
I’d made things up with Kyle. All my trust was back, but I still had one person that I wanted to see. Talia, my friend and colleague model, had spent the night with Kyle a long time ago. Heather had convinced me was recent. I hadn’t spoken to her since then, and I needed to give her a chance.
“I suppose I should get going soon,” I told Kyle regretfully. “I arranged to meet Talia for a drink ages ago.”
“Yeah,” he turned to smile at me. “I have a lot of work to do too. I suppose I should let you go eventually.” I knew that he didn’t want to. I knew that he still felt worried about me because of this photographer, but I wasn’t going to be alone. On top of that, the photographer hadn’t actually done anything to hurt me. He was just a nuisance. There was no point in focusing too hard on him. He had to go away eventually. I just needed to be patient. “You will come back though, won’t you?” he said. “You are coming to stay tonight?”
“I am,” I confirmed, whilst sliding out from under the sheets. “It would be too weird to sleep by myself now anyway.”
I had gotten so used to being with Kyle that I honestly wasn’t sure if I could ever go back to being on my own. I needed him now. I was addicted to him, and that was all I cared about. To be perfectly honest, I would have been willing to even give up on my dream to have him… but luckily I didn’t have to. Fortunately I could have both.
***
Kyle
As I kissed Ellie goodbye and she left to meet her friend, my mind was racing everywhere. She seemed to have given up on trying to get rid of her asshole stalker, but I wouldn’t. It was constantly festering in my mind, driving me insane, and I wouldn’t rest until he was gone.
The restraining order against Heather had been successful, but it didn’t seem to be enough. She couldn’t contact me or Ellie anymore, but I guess that didn’t apply to anyone else.
It didn’t help that I hadn’t decided what to do about Greg yet. Maybe that was the problem. My business partner and best friend had fallen for my ex-wife and become consumed by her spell. She had manipulated him, and he had been a part of the plan to take me down. Despite all of that it was hard for me to simply turn my back on him. We’d been through so much together. I would have to make a solid decision in the end, but at the moment I was giving him a chance to continue working at the company (not that I had much of a choice while he was still co-owner) to prove himself to me. Hopefully everything would turn out okay.
I wanted someone to talk to, someone to give me the advice that I so desperately needed, but there wasn’t anyone. Ellie didn’t know what to do either, and my family were all tied up with their own affairs, running their own successful companies. I couldn’t go to them without looking like a complete and utter failure.
I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to work out how to deal with Greg, so I focused on the one problem that I hoped I could solve: the stalker. If he wasn’t anything to do with Heather, then he had to work for one of the newspapers, but Ellie had already mentioned to me that she didn’t ever see any of his pictures turning up anywhere.
It was a really odd mystery, one that I absolutely needed to solve, and the only way that I could do that would be to find out what he didn’t do in the hope that it would lead me to what he did do. Even if Ellie was willing to leave it alone, to hope that everything would simply work itself out, I wasn’t. Her life was potentially in danger, and I couldn’t have that.
I loved her.
In the middle of an argument with Greg, when he’d accused me of loving Ellie, I’d rebuffed that accusation completely, thinking that it was far too soon, but he’d gotten me thinking, and now it was obvious. No other woman had ever affected me so deeply or made me want to change so much. It had to be love! That was the only possible answer.
Ever since Heather had destroyed my heart by cheating on me and throwing our marriage down the toilet, I vowed never to fall in love again. For a while, that’s exactly what I did do. But then Ellie came into my life, and I had fallen for her hard.
I knew that I would have to tell her how I was feeling eventually, Right now, things were going so well between us. I didn’t want to spoil things by moving too quickly and taking things too seriously. I wanted to wait until the opportune moment to arrive, to do it right. Ellie and I had the potential to last forever. I wanted to start everything on the right footing, no matter what it took.
But first I needed to do my best not to call her up every few seconds. I had to stop worrying, and I had to put an end to this matter of the photographer before it got out of control. Once I had his name, it would be easy to get rid of him. I just needed some luck.
Suddenly, the phone rang.
“Shit,” I muttered to myself, seeing the name across the screen. “Hello, Greg, what do you want?” I couldn’t help being frosty with him, however hard I wanted to forgive and forget.
“I… I… I just wanted to tell you that I’ve made up for my mistake,” he stammered, nerves completely getting the better of him. “If you buy any fashion magazine today, you will see the original images in them. The advertising campaign has been reinstated in the way that it was supposed to be.”
“You did?” I gasped in shock, realizing that all that I’d wanted was for this to happen. I’d asked for it, but I’d never really expected it to come true. “Really?”
“I did, it cost a lot more,” he confirmed, which I honestly didn’t care about. “But it’s done. I hope… I hope that this helps to make up for what I did.”
I actually felt like it might have gone some way to doing just that, but I didn’t say that aloud. I still wanted him to do more. His betrayal had been absolutely awful.
“Well, I’m going to take a look,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Wait, Kyle I…” he started, but I cut him off and hung up. I didn’t want to listen to some impassioned speech from him about trying to repair our friendship, not just now.
My heart kicked up a notch. I started to feel really good as I grabbed my keys to go and find out more. I would buy a hundred copies of the magazine for Ellie. Anything to see that smile spread across her cheeks, anything to make her happy again.
The publication of the original photo was great news. It was a positive step in the right direction, and that was wonderful. We could finally move forward from this whole mess and really start over.
***
>
Ellie
“You know, I’m so glad that you came to talk to me,” Talia said, slurring her words only slightly. We’d managed to get a little tipsy during our time together. We felt we had to. The conversation had been a little stilted at first.
I’d met Talia during my modeling job at KM Styles. She and her friend Katya had taken to me immediately, really introducing me to the fun side of the modeling world. I had always noticed that Talia was less chatty than our other friend, but I hadn’t taken anything from it. I always assumed that was just the way that she was… but now I knew that it was because she felt strange around me.
She sensed that Kyle and I were growing close, even before we told people about it, and she felt weird and embarrassed about the fact that they’d hooked up a few years ago. She had just told me that she always wanted to get her brief affair with Kyle out in the open, to make things easier between us, but she didn’t know how.
Now, we were okay again. Our friendship was stronger. I didn’t think that anything could get in the way of that. It had just taken one boozy lunch for us to get it together.
“We should go out like this more often,” I told her with a tipsy seriousness. “It’s been so much fun.”
“Yeah, whenever you can drag yourself away from Kyle,” she teased. “You guys seem to really be into one another. I have never seen him like that with anyone.” She paused thoughtfully for a few seconds, before continuing. “You know what, I don’t think that he was even into Heather as much as he was you… not even when they were first in love.” I’d known for a while that Talia was one of the older models like me, but I didn’t realize that she’d known Kyle and Heather when they were married. “I think that was childish love. This, what you guys have, it’s real.”
Just then, my phone rang.
“Oh, sorry!” I jumped up and grabbed my bag. “It’s my phone, I just have to take this.”
I rushed outside into the cool, sobering air as I grabbed the phone from my bag. The name across the screen made my heart flutter. It was my mom… a woman whom I’d barely spoken to in months. She was under my father’s spell, totally controlled by him. Since he’d cut me off the moment that I ran away to New York City, she hadn’t been allowed to speak to me either.
“M… Mom?” I stammered into the phone, doing my best to sound sober. “Is everything alright?”
“Your father is out,” she replied in a hurried tone of voice. “I just wanted to call you to tell you that I saw your picture in the fashion magazine. I’m very proud of you.”
“But… it was cut.” Confusion flooded me at her words. She didn’t know any of my story, so why would she know that was my hand and leg in the picture.
“It was you. You have such a pretty face, Ellie.” I heard a door open in the background. Mom’s voice became more hushed, which showed me how little time I had left.
“I love you, Mom,” I managed to get out, before the line went dead.
I knew that Talia was still inside the bar, but I needed to check, just to be sure, so I raced across the street and picked up the first magazine that I could find. I flicked through the pages, my heart racing in my chest. All of a sudden I saw it. I saw me, wrapped around Kyle, and my spirits lifted tenfold.
It was happening, it was finally happening. All of my dreams were coming true.
I paid the shop keeper quickly, racing from the shop, back across to the bar where I could show my Talia. Even I had to admit that I looked good in these shots… hopefully this would be the start of something brand new and very exciting. Those long weeks of searching for a new job were surely finally over.
“Talia, Talia,” I yelled, not caring that anyone else was looking at me. “Look, you have to see this. Oh my God, I still can’t believe that it’s true.”
We jumped and screamed around the bar, looking like idiots as we saw the pictures. In that moment I knew for sure that any bad feeling had gone.
“We should call Katya,” I jumped in quickly. “Tell her the good news!” I meant about the pictures, but about me and Talia too. Katya had been trying to steer us back together for ages, but with no success. I felt a little bad finally doing it behind her back, but I wanted to ensure that it was the right move before I involved her. I didn’t want to disappoint her further.
“Yes, she will be so happy for you! Let’s do it.”
As the phone rang, my mind whirred back towards the phone conversation that I’d just had with my mom. She had risked a lot to call me just then, to let me know the good news, and I was really appreciative. Of course I still thought that it was a shame that we couldn’t just be a normal, supportive family, but I had to accept that would never be the case.
Calling me against Dad’s wishes was a real act of love for Mom, and that made me feel on top of the world. She really did care about me, she really did want to me to get what I’d always wanted. Her support made me even more determined.
I will make the best of it, I will do it for you, Mom. I promise you that I won’t let you down. I might have been a little tipsy, but the thought of Mom’s love and support would stick with me, and it would keep me going even when things were tough.
***
Kyle
I grinned happily to myself as I ran my fingers over the picture. I was proud to have starred in such a wonderful picture with the woman that I loved. People wouldn’t ever know it, not like Ellie and I knew it, but that photo pictured the start of an amazing love story for us. That was where we met, where we connected, where we fell for one another. That was where our romance started, and for that reason it would always be special to me.
I wanted to call Ellie up right now, to tell her everything, but I didn’t want to interrupt her when she was rebuilding that bridge with her friend. I would have to force myself to wait until she called me.
I smirked to myself as I recalled teasing her at the photo shoot, making her blush, causing her body to react to me, and I knew even then that she would be an incredible lover if she just let go of her fear. Of course I didn’t know that it would eventually happen, but still…
“Imagine, I’m leaning in to kiss you. Imagine we’re in bed and I’m on top of you, you can feel the weight, the warmth of me. You can feel me inside of you, moving in… and out…”
I remember how I made myself hard with those words, picturing it too. I remember seeing her reaction. She was feeling aroused too. Afterwards I’d been forced to return to a friendship mode, just to help her relax. That had actually been the best thing for all of us.
What a woman. She really was amazing.
Suddenly my phone rang. I snatched it up quickly, hoping that it was going to be Ellie, but of course I wasn’t about to get that lucky. It was Greg again. I’d been ignoring him ever since our chat earlier on, but he’d been persistent. I decided to just speak to him, to let him say whatever he wanted to say.
He probably wanted me to thank him for what he’d done, even though he was the one in the wrong in the first place.
“Yes, hello? Greg, what is going on now?”
“I just want to talk to you,” he insisted. “I had something to say to you earlier, but you cut me off. It’s important, I wouldn’t keep trying to call you if it wasn’t.”
“Go ahead,” I replied wearily, rubbing my forehead in distress.
“I just think that you deserve to know that people think your heart isn’t in the business anymore. There has been a lot of talk in the office, and people want you out.”
“What?!” I said back, anger bubbling inside of me. “The reason that I might not seem as interested anymore is because of you! I absolutely cannot stand to be around you anymore, you make me sick for what you’ve done. You betrayed me to my ex-wife!”
“I’m sorry…” he started, but I had no intention of letting him get another word in edgeways.
“I keep waiting for it to become obvious, for me to easily make a decision when it comes to you, and do you know what? It just has!” I paced the room, tryin
g to keep my rage-filled pulse rate under control. “I want you out of the company,” it was obvious, there was no going back. “I keep thinking back on all the good times we had, but they are gone now. Heather has affected you in ways that I don’t even think you realize. I can’t work with you anymore.”
“You can’t just do that,” he replied coldly. “The business is mine too.”
“I will buy you out,” I shot back. “It’s KM Styles, my name. I will pay you and buy you out of the business. Then you and Heather can fucking run off together for all I care. I cannot have someone that I don’t trust around me. It’s affecting everything and I worked too hard for that.”
“I only did it because…” his voice was shaking. Clearly he hadn’t expected this reaction, which proved just how damn naïve he was. Did he expect me to just walk away? Did he think that I would give up that easily?
“No, there is no more chances, no more explanations. I just want you gone.”
As I hung up the phone to him, I hit dial on my lawyer’s number right away. This was it, the only way out, the only chance to put all of this behind us. I had tried with Greg, I really did. At first, I didn’t want to accept that it was time to move on, but things had changed now. I had made a bad decision by leaving him to keep working because he could have been poisoning all of my staff against me, but if that was the case I would just get more.
A fresh start. A fresh start for all of us. KM Styles had been needing a reboot for a long time anyway. That was why I’d agreed to use my notoriety to help boost the advertising campaign. Of course, Ellie now had her own notoriety these days, but we hadn’t expected that at the time.
I wanted Greg out, I wanted the company to be just mine. I would hire a manager to do the day-to-day stuff that he had been doing, but everything else I would have full control over. There wouldn’t be any more fiascos, not like the one with the photograph.