by Lainey Davis
He’s on me like a man starving, licking and sucking at my neck as we wrestle-walk down the hall to my room. I can feel his hard-on pressed against my back as I fiddle with the lock on the room door, and as soon as we’re inside, I’m in the air.
Isaac tosses me onto the bed and is on top of me an instant later, kicking my suitcase off the bed and sending the contents flying. As he starts peeling off my sneakers and workout clothes, something catches his eye and he pauses.
“Is that the package I signed for,” he asks, pointing with my shoe at the purple vibrator rolling across the tile floor of the hotel room.
I crawl up the bed and spread my legs, nodding, letting my hand dip down to roll my nipples between my fingers. I’m horny as fuck and he’s already mostly undressed. I start using my feet to pull down his shorts.
“I’m going to make you forget you even own that thing,” he growls, grabbing at my ankles. He tosses my legs up over his shoulders and I squeal as he slides his fingers along my damp seam.
“I brought it because I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” I confess, the last sentence I can eke out before he drives me insane plunging his tongue inside my pussy. “Fuck, Isaac.”
He growls again, the deep tenor vibrating against my lower lips, sending gentle waves through my clit. “I want to ruin you,” he grunts, sliding two fingers inside me now.
“Oh god,” I pant, feeling the orgasm build. “I’m so close already.” How does he do this? How does he— “Fuck! Yes! Yes! Isaac, yes, holy shit. Right there!”
I come so hard I see stars and my body jerks violently in his grasp, my heels kicking into his back, my thighs smashing against his ears until I fear I might suffocate him. I feel so much wetness. So much warmth. When I open my eyes, I see Isaac kneeling between my legs, gently lowering my limbs to meet the mattress.
“That. Was. Hot,” he says, punctuating each word with a stroke of his index finger along the tops of my thighs, where my wetness is seeping, yearning for him. I just fucking squirted for Isaac Brady and I’m too stunned to move or do anything about it.
But then he’s sliding inside me, and I’m wrapping my legs around his waist as best I can. “Fuck me, Nicole, you feel so good. I’ve never felt anything so wet before. This pussy is so fucking perfect. Are you this wet for me?”
His dark eyes meet mine as he thrusts slowly, deep and long, pulling almost the entire way out each time before crashing back in. I sigh and I nod, but he puts a hand on my chin. “Say it.”
“I’m sopping wet for you, Isaac. I’m wet each time I think about you.”
And with those words, I unleash the wild demons inside him. He sets a brutal pace, and I pull him against me with all four limbs, thrusting my hips up against his, meeting his every thrust until I feel him swell even larger.
Then he’s coming, spurting inside me while he drops one hand to the apex of my thighs, gently rubbing my clit until I come a second time, right along with him.
He collapses on top of me and I feel like he’s uncorked something inside me.
My thoughts are clear for the first time since he told me I wasn’t losing my house. “I can see it now,” I murmur into his neck.
“Ungh?” He slides off me to the side, but makes no effort to move or wipe up.
“I know why I’m mad at Tim,” I tell him, and I wriggle a bit out beneath him to stretch and reach for the tissues.
“Wait,” he says, grabbing my wrist before I dab between my legs. He props himself on one elbow and peers between my legs, staring.
“What are you doing?”
“Watching my seed drip out of you.”
“Your fucking seed, Isaac? Gross.”
He shrugs and I move my arm again to wipe myself up, but he holds my wrist. “Just let me look at it for a minute. Tell me why you’re so pissed off.”
“I’m not going to talk to you while you’re staring at a pool of jizz seeping out of my twat.”
He sighs and takes the tissue from me, dabbing reverently at the mess between my legs. “Better?”
I nod. “So anyway!” I toss a pillow at his head and he ducks, shooting the wadded up tissue for the small trashcan in the corner. “Tim’s been telling me what to do since he made me sign up for that damn race.”
“Isn’t he your boss?”
I roll my eyes. “I mean, that’s only sort of a technicality. He hired me to tell him what to do with his company. I’m the strategic mind behind Stag Law. At least I was.” Isaac flops back down on the bed and starts playing with my hair. It feels really fucking good and I try to remember if I’ve ever had anyone do this.
Emma used to braid my hair for me every now and then if I needed it to be tight and stay back for awhile. But this is meditative twirling and stroking. It’s putting me in a trance. “And then Tim has been obsessed with us beating you guys in the race, and listening to Mick’s ideas about this fucking foundation.”
I sit up. Isaac follows, asking, “What’s wrong?”
“I feel like a shitty person, but Augusto isn’t going to find the support he wants if his foundation mission is mitigating landslides in South America. It’s just…”
I drift off. Isaac lies back down on the bed, clasping his hands together behind his dark hair. “I ran focus groups. I pulled data from other foundations. I just never asserted myself about it.” I nestle into his armpit, noticing that he smells of sweat and soap and sunscreen. And…me. I smell myself on him; I smell our sex session. I like it, and I can sort of see what appealed to him just now about staring between my legs. “People watch sports to escape,” I whisper. “Our American audience isn’t going to be ready to fund this project.”
He nods. “I hear you.”
I sigh, relieved he’s not pissed off or rushing to defend his dad. Isaac swallows, and I stare at his Adam’s apple moving along his throat. I reach out a finger to trace the path of his neck, feeling content.
“So, we still have those meetings with the President tomorrow,” I tell him, tapping my fingers against the firm skin of his neck. “But I’m going to assert a new direction for the meeting. A more appropriate direction.”
Isaac nods, his eyes closed like he’s going to drift off. I’m not really ready to move on to sleepovers. How the hell do I get him out of here? Am I an asshole—stealing orgasms from him, making him listen to all my problems, and then tossing him out?
Probably.
He seems to notice my discomfort eventually, though, because he rolls onto his stomach and props his chin on my bicep. “You’re putting up walls, Nicole.” When I don’t say anything, he nips at the side of my boob with his teeth. “I can tell because I do it, too.”
He stands up, and I feel the chill immediately once his heat leave my side. “Where you going?”
He bends and slips into his briefs and shorts, pulling the shirt from his pocket and sliding it over his head. He’s still got his ankle socks on from our run. I reach for the sheet and pull it over my nakedness, feeling goosebumps spring up all over my skin. “I have to prepare for our presentation,” he says, slipping into his sneakers.
“Right, but, like I said, I’m redirecting the meeting.” My voice drifts off. Why in the hell had I agreed to have him come to the meetings in the first place? There’s no earthly reason he should be here with us. It’s ridiculous, how off my game I’ve been. Ever since that damn crack in my yard. It’s like the earth opened up and swallowed all my good sense.
“Be that as it may,” he says, his voice growing cold and distant, “I’m also here with my boss, and I have to be ready to convince the president of Paraguay that nothing is more urgent than hiring Beltane to help mitigate the nation’s landslide problems.”
“Excuse me?”
“Excuse you what?” His eyes look sharp. “You think this…” he gestures around the room, “means that I’m not still looking to advance in my career? I’m sorry that you aren’t happy with what’s going on at work, but I still need to bring my A game.”
�
�This is some grade A bullshit, Isaac. What the fuck are you even talking about right now?” I feel like throwing pillows at his head. No, I feel like bashing his head off the walls of the hotel room or maybe smashing a mirror over his head to show him how ridiculous he sounds. “I thought we both agreed that it’s inappropriate that your father brought you here. This isn’t a Beltane project.”
“And just what do you know about Beltane projects? You just said yourself you deal with entertainment superstars. Our company does life changing work, Nicole.” His nostrils flare. I’m not even sure where this is coming from, but all I know is that he needs to get the hell out of here or I’m going to slice his aorta.
“Get out,” I spit. “Get out and lose my number.”
“Already forgotten, Medusa.”
After he spits that out, he turns to walk out of the room. The vibrator is on the floor near the door, having stopped its roll. Isaac looks at it and kicks it toward the bed. He opens the door, steps into the hall, and closes it without another word.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Zack
I DON’T SLEEP. Between my shame at acting like such a petulant child with Nicole, and wanting to wring my dad’s neck, I’m not sure what to do with my emotions. I recognize that it’s a good thing that I ripped the bandage off with her before things got too serious.
I also don’t shower because I can’t bear to wash away the last lingering remnants of her scent on my hands, on my skin. Yes. I marinated in my own post-run, post-sex funk. So that’s about the level of functioning I’ve reached.
My father asks to meet me for breakfast to prepare for our meeting, and I only agree because I feel the need to tear into him about how badly he has ruined my life so far this spring. I know he wants to go for a run, so I still don’t shower, because what’s another layer of salt when I’m already wounded and sweaty?
I know damn well my father won’t sit down to eat until we run ten miles together.
“There’s my boy,” he says, jovially, not showing the slightest sign of jet lag or weariness. I can keep up on our run, but just barely. He’s decades older and waves a chipper hello to every person we pass out along the riverbank. I often wonder if there’s an actual fuse lit inside him.
When we do sit down, Dad orders a Yerba mate and pulls out his own gourd cup from his fanny pack, to the delight of our server. “You should really get your own gourd while you’re here,” Dad says, ordering a cup of the foul brew for me, too.
I listen while he and the server talk about the magic properties of the tea, and then I wish I could melt into the floor when they pivot to discussing its effects on bowel health. “Jesus, dad,” I growl as the server pops off to the back to get us bread and cheese. “You always do this shit.”
He sips his drink and frowns at me. “And what is it that I do?”
I scoff. “Please. You know damn well that you’re always buttering everyone up—everyone but your kids—and using everything to your own gain.” He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, letting me rant. So I do. “You’re using me as a fucking puppet here to get Beltane some damn government contract we aren’t equipped to service, and it’s not even the direction Stag Law wants to be going with their foundation work.”
“Anything else?” He keeps sipping from his damn gourd. I rub my hands along my thighs, shaking my head back and forth.
“Jesus.” I pull at my hair by the roots. “I earned that fucking promotion, Dad. And you pulled me out of the meeting like some child to come to your office and run off for a domestic project.”
“That domestic project brought us to this opportunity today, son. We’ve been over this.”
“No, you’ve been over this. You have this whole twisted vision swirling around in your gourd head and you only let us peons in on your ideas at the last second so we look like idiots with no time to prepare.”
I read half the night, fighting jet lag and trying to make sense of all the notes, all the papers Kellen put together. I still couldn’t make heads or tails of what we are even supposed to be saying later, what my role is in this circus.
I exhale and chug down my water. I am sure the mate drink is probably amazing for my insides, but I’m too angry at my dad to consider tasting it. His face reveals nothing when he asks, “So you’re angry that you’re not leading the division at work?”
“Fuck. Yes. That’s what I’m saying. Instead I’m following you around sipping tea on the off chance one of your random connections pays off.”
The server comes back with our food and my dad thanks her, asks after her family in fluent Spanish. She beams and hands him the sugar bowl, saying something back to him that I can’t understand. When she’s gone, he looks at me for a long while without speaking, which is unusual for him because he doesn’t often shut the fuck up.
“Son, I don’t want you to lead a damned division in the office.” I throw my napkin down on the table and stand up, sick of this shit and ready to bail. “Sit down,” he snaps, and I don’t. But I stand, staring at him. “I want you to run the entire company,” he says. “You and your brothers—you’re going to run the company someday. I’m not going to be around forever, you know.”
I roll my eyes and sit back down. “Dad, you’re in your fifties and healthier than most people my age.” He waves a hand. “Even if it were true that you wanted me to take a leadership role, don’t you think leading a division is the next logical step in that trajectory?”
I don’t tell him that I have no desire to run the organization, to worry about profit and loss sheets and board members. If my father can’t see that I need my hands in the dirt, that my mind needs to be crunching actual calculations…
“What do you dream about at night, son?”
Nicole, screaming my name, naked. I shrug, not sure where he’s going with this.
“Your uncle and I dreamed very different things when we were young, but all the roads led us together at Beltane. He lives and breathes engineering and numbers and order. I see how all the wheels turn at the other organizations who need engineers.” Dad picks the cheese off the bread and takes small bites, washing it down with his tea. “Your brothers are like Kellen.” He points a fork at me. “But you’ve got ideas.”
“First of all, my brothers have amazing ideas.” Dad rolls his own eyes at me, and I shove a wad of cheese in my mouth. He challenges me again to tell him what I dream about at night, and I sigh. “You know, my buddy from MIT is at the university back in Pittsburgh working on machine learning.”
“Robots?”
I shrug. “I guess. Anyway I know they’re working on landslide prediction stuff, and they’ve got contacts with the state, and they’re looking to form a startup when he’s done with his Ph.D.”
Dad’s brows raise. “See, son, this is what I’m talking about. You’ve got ideas. This is really relevant for today’s meeting. Why didn’t you bring this up sooner?”
The mention of today’s meetings sours my stomach. “Dad, you didn’t fucking brief me on this trip or these meetings. You pulled me along like an idiot after sending me to work on someone’s yard.”
He waves a hand at me. “You thinking of leaving your family to go work for this robot guy?”
I shrug. I’ve thought about it. A lot more recently, since Ray has started having conversations with investors. But I’ve also heard the line my dad gives to engineers when they get better offers. I might not be able to pay you as well as them, but my work is steady. Beltane builds long-term, repeat business. Our competitors shoot the moon and dry up every few years. He’s not wrong.
Dad leans back in his seat. “You really don’t want to come along today and meet the president of Paraguay?”
I shake my head. “I do not want to do that, no.”
“Tell me more about landslide prediction. What’s that got to do with engineering?”
I explain how Ray’s software films hills over time and computer programs analyze any changes, shooting out alerts when things seem u
nstable. In a city like Pittsburgh, where the rivers slowly carved the land from the hills over the eons, our major roadways snake through rocky ledges and shaky valleys. The earth is slippery when it rains, which is almost all the time.
“Increasingly, the state is having to spend millions repairing rail lines and state highways buried after a brutal storm.” Dad nods. I know he knows this, because Beltane inspects a lot of the factories cranking out the concrete and asphalt for the repair work. “Ray had the idea to put his special cameras on city buses.”
Dad scratches his chin at that. “They’re doing the same routes every day, passing the same hills and whatnot.” I nod. “Bring Ray in for a meeting. Let’s poach him from those tech assholes.”
I crack a gin at that. “What tech assholes do you know?”
He waves a hand. “All those assholes Cal spends time with.” Dad pulls a pen out of his shirt pocket and starts writing things down on his napkin. We talk about how machine learning can be useful in a lot of areas at Beltane. I tell him what’s been nagging at me. “A guy like that Ray…he can help our inspection program, probably. Figure out what elements need to be replaced in the dams and power plants, really help us help our clients improve their efficiency.”
Dad squints off into the distance and drinks the last of his tea. “This could be a really bold new direction for us, Zacky. Really make an impact.”
I resist the urge to remind him we could have had this conversation a month ago if he’d open a door for such things, or, you know, ask me questions before mapping out a grand design. He pats my hand. “You’re more like your uncle in some ways. You need to open your mouth more if you see people burning the wrong fire.”
“You want me to call you out on your bullshit?”
“Well sure! What am I paying you for?” He laughs. “Seriously, kid. I’ve always been like this.”
“I’m well aware.” I spent a lot of time trailing after his whims, especially when my brothers were at their mom’s house. I always begged to go along with them, until I was old enough to understand why that couldn’t be.