by Rose Croft
“Yeah, I can’t wait to see it.” He shoved his phone in his pocket.
We walked to the door. “It was so good to see you again and spend time together. I’ve missed that so much.”
“Me, too.” He laid his hands on my shoulders with so much concern in his eyes that I thought I’d melt. “If you ever need anything, let me know.”
I need you to break up with Alyssa and be with me. “I will.” I slipped my arms around his waist. His arms tightened around me, too. It was as if neither of us wanted to let go. At least I hoped so. I leaned my head against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat pulse against me. His hands pressed me closer.
I felt his chin on the top of my head. I glanced up and his eyes were dark like they were before we’d dove into each other and kissed like the world might crash around us if we didn’t touch.
I closed my eyes and stood on my toes, searching for the solace that only he could give. I was so close, and the moment felt real. I pursed my lips leaning in nearer feeling his breath on my mouth but then…nothing.
“We can’t do this.” He pulled back, dropping his arms from me like I was illegal contraband. His jaw ticked. His brows pinched together and his eyes were dark.
I felt like the biggest idiot. I obviously misread this situation. Embarrassed that I was practically throwing myself at him and he’d rejected me. What the hell did I expect? He was a rich, successful man who was dating a flipping supermodel. Reality check! “You’d better go.”
“I can’t do that to Alyssa.”
I waved him off and reached for the door handle. “No explanation needed.”
His hand clamped down on my wrist, stopping me. “I’m sorry.” His voice sounded grave, which made me feel even worse.
However, I kept myself together and forced a smile. “Just go. I’ll send you my synopsis.” His hand dropped. I opened the door and stared out into the street.
He inclined his head. “Keep in touch, please. I’m looking forward to reading your book.” He watched me for a few seconds before striding away, and I gripped the door so I didn’t drop to my knees.
Present
I almost kissed her, and I’d wanted to. Bad. It was as if eight years had never separated us. Not after what she’d said. She’d loved me. As I lay in bed knowing I needed to sleep because I had to get up at fuck-early a.m., I tried to will myself to stop thinking about Loren. But I kept remembering her honeyed eyes filled with a mix of despair and desire, before she closed them and leaned against me. I could almost forget that Alyssa existed when I was around Loren. But, I couldn’t do that to Alyssa. I wasn’t a cheater. I was confused. I was fucked.
And, Loren was writing erotica? I wasn’t trying to judge. It wasn’t something I chose to read, but I had to admit—if her purpose was to get the reader off, she did that in spades. She wrote about a threesome, and it was fucking hot—as in two guys tagging a girl and filling every hole. Like she was familiar with this. Had she had a threesome before? And, that thought pissed me off. No way she would. I shook it off. I was being a hypocrite because I’d been with two girls before, a long time ago, and it was just sex, nothing more.
But, in her book, she was very detailed in her descriptions, and with the characters’ thoughts and feelings throughout, so it made the act more meaningful. I thought about the poem she’d written about us, and remembering how worked up I was over that, I shouldn’t have been surprised that she could write a good sex scene. It seemed as if one of the men was in love with the girl and was trying to fulfill her wishes.
I don’t know why I clicked on her laptop. The screen was already up, and I was bored. Okay, maybe I was being nosy; sue me. When I heard her padding behind me, I had to adjust myself because I was rock hard. Shit! What the hell was wrong with me? As I turned to face her, she’d appeared embarrassed about it. She shouldn’t. I wished she could just let go and see how talented she was—as I saw her. I was actually looking forward to reading her work just like I did in high school.
Giving her my email address seemed more sensible than sharing phone numbers because that seemed too personal, and I wanted to keep boundaries. I had to keep boundaries with her. As long as we were working in a professional manner, I could handle it.
When I landed in LaGuardia, I took a cab straight to Alyssa’s. She said she couldn’t wait to see me and texted me a picture of her topless in a black thong. Normally, I loved seeing her naked, but something felt…different.
Arriving at her door, I unlocked it with my key and entered. I had barely dropped my luggage before she pounced on me. Her beautiful, full, naked tits pressed against my chest, and I gripped her ass, which was exposed by the strip of lace. After this disaster of a weekend, my body needed some relief—some sexual healing. However, I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that something was off.
We kissed frantically as I carried her to the sofa wanting to prove to myself that everything was normal. I released her, and she dropped to her knees, unfastened my jeans, and pushed down the waistband on my jeans and briefs.
“You’re happy to see me.” She smiled impishly and took my full length in her mouth. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to enjoy, letting go.
I ran my hands through her hair, and after a few strokes, I started imagining Loren’s sinful mouth taking my cock—her tongue swirling around my length as my head hit the back of her throat. “God, I’ve missed you. It’s been so long, too fucking long.” I gripped her head, crushing her sun-kissed brown hair against me. The longer she sucked, the closer I was to going over the edge.
She released me and whispered, “It’s only been a day and a half.”
That brought me out of my sexual stupor as brown hair turned blond. I stared down into Alyssa’s striking blue eyes. My eyes knew what they saw, but my mind and body were in denial and still worked up over the bewitching brunette with brown eyes who waxed poetic about threesomes. The one who let me be her first. The one who had shared her world with me. I closed my eyes, not wanting to believe reality. The fucking fantasy was so much more real to me.
Like an addict who lies to himself when he wants something that’s destructive, I gave in to my never-ending dream. In my mind, I pushed Loren down to the floor, ripped off her thong and kissed her full lips, capturing her sighs as I aggressively drove my cock deep inside her wet pussy. Her body kept inching back against the floor as I pressed harder. Her legs wrapped tightly around my hips, and she ground into me just as desperately. I gripped her legs, dragged them over my shoulders as her ass hit my thighs, wanting to go deeper, wanting to punish. Her cries grew louder against me, and I thrust more roughly, if that were even possible.
Her screams reverberated off the walls as she convulsed on my dick.
I flipped her over on her stomach and lifted her up on all fours, spreading her legs wide, and drove into her like a man possessed. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. She moaned like an alley cat, and I felt her climax again as her body sagged. I wrapped my arm around her waist, holding her up as I pounded harder. I felt the buildup in the base of my cock. I knew I was about to come. I buried my face into her neck as I thrust. “Fuuuuckkkkk!” I growled and spilled into her. Letting all my sexual frustration out. My eyes were still closed as I sucked on her neck.
“Oh. My. God. Andrew. That was the most intense sex ever.” I heard her voice, but it wasn’t Loren’s.
I paused and the reality took over. “Yeah, it was,” I said softly, sheepishly, feeling guilt bubble up inside of me. I felt like I had just cheated on Alyssa. And, the thing was…I hadn’t cared at that moment. I knew whom I was with, but I chose to fantasize about her. No one held a fucking gun to my head.
In the past, I had visualized being with Loren when I slept with other women, but there was never a serious relationship involved. I never fantasized about Loren when I was with Alyssa…until today. Since spending the day with Loren yesterday, it seemed like that’s all I thought about. Loren. Our past. How easy it was to talk to her yesterday. Whe
n we spoke about my movie, she actually wanted to analyze it and know my thought process. I understood because that’s what I did with her work. When I shared my projects with Alyssa, she would usually say That’s nice or Sounds great. It wasn’t a rude response, but it was like we were talking about the weather. She never seemed interested enough to have an in-depth conversation about what I did.
I kissed her cheek, pulling out. I held her, fighting the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach over what I had done. “I’m going to take a shower.” I stood and helped her up and kissed her on the forehead.
I turned and walked down the hallway to the bathroom.
I ripped off my clothes and started the shower. I stared into the mirror, looking into my soul, hating myself for what I did, almost hating Loren for invading my thoughts after all this time. Making me have doubts about Alyssa. The steam floated around me as the clarity of the mirror blurred.
I stepped in the shower and allowed the scalding water to punish my body.
“CiCi and Lundy want us to go out with them tonight to this new club.” Alyssa was standing in the doorway. I didn’t want to go to a club tonight, especially with them. They were some of her modeling “friends” who were fake and pretentious, and I suspected did drugs because they were always gone for long periods of time in the bathroom whenever we went out. I’d told Alyssa that, but she’d laughed it off saying I was paranoid from my years in L.A.
“Alyssa, I’m tired. I just want to relax here tonight if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” Her voice seemed tinged with disappointment.
“You can go if you want.” I didn’t like the idea, but I wasn’t going to argue about it either.
“No, I’ll stay.” She sounded like she was making a sacrifice for me.
I nodded, leaning back, allowing the water to rinse away my thoughts, my sins. “Great.”
“Would you like me to join you?” she asked in a sultry voice as she stood naked with her hip propped against the doorjamb.
“No, it’s okay. I’m really exhausted.” She seemed let down but respected my wishes.
Through the glass, I watched her walk away, and again berated myself. Here I was with one of the most gorgeous girls in the world. There’s no telling how many women were envious of her and how many men had beat off to her pictures. She was truly stunning and a nice person. Yes, there were little things she did that got on my nerves, but I was sure there were things about me that irritated her, too.
As I started lathering my body, my traitorous mind conjured up images of Loren again. And my dick stood up at full attention. He apparently had no guilty conscience. It was as if I had opened the floodgates when I allowed myself to think about her. I almost gave into the temptation to stroke myself and keep the Loren fantasy reel rolling. I was rock hard and disgusted.
I furiously rinsed off and ignored my raging cock. Christ, this was ridiculous. I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I cut the water and grabbed a towel. Wiping the moisture off the mirror, I ran a comb through my hair, and then a sobering thought popped up as I solemnly peered at my reflection.
I still had strong feelings for Loren. I thought we could just be friends or at least collaborate through email. I had thought yesterday I’d finally gotten closure on our relationship. I was lying to myself. But I didn’t want to screw up my relationship with Alyssa. This was the first real thing I had experienced since I’d been with Loren years ago.
I needed to sort this shit out before it got out of control. I truly wanted Loren to do something with her writing. She did deserve some success with that, if I could help it.
I threw on some clothes and joined Alyssa. She was dressed in a robe on the couch and seemed enthralled in some movie.
“What are you watching?” I asked from behind the sofa as I bent over and kissed her head. I walked around and sat down beside her.
“Oh, some movie where this couple goes back to their high school reunion, and the husband hooks up with an old girlfriend behind the gym. He later has regrets about it, but the girl begins stalking him.”
“Wow, that sounds like a hell of a reunion.” I was trying to be funny but was comparing my situation to the movie. I shook it off because nothing had happened between Loren and me. Loren wasn’t a stalker—okay, maybe a cyberstalker.
Alyssa loved watching movies like this, and I couldn’t stand them because they were usually over-the-top ridiculous and always involved cheating, murder, abduction, or a stalker. But, she loved the excessive drama, just like she loved reality TV. The acting, in my opinion, was subpar, but some of that was because the writing wasn’t that great. Loren could definitely write a better script than this. At least I knew there’d probably be some hot sex.
I pushed aside thoughts about Loren and my movie snobbery and snuggled up next to my girl.
As the movie ended, the husband and wife worked out their problems, and the crazy lady was thrown in jail. I turned to Alyssa in seriousness. “I’m so glad there was a happily ever after, or I probably would’ve put my fist through the TV.”
“Hey, that was a good movie!” She elbowed me in the ribs. “I’m hungry. Are you?”
“Really? You even need to ask?”
“Shall we order takeout?”
“Yeah, and watch some more Lifetime and chill.”
She laughed but then eyed me suspiciously. “What’s gotten into you?”
“What?”
“You can’t stand these movies.”
I pulled her against me and touched my lips to her temple. “I watch them because you like them, and I want to do whatever you want to do.”
She eyed me strangely. “Okay.”
Later, we had eaten dinner and were lying on the couch together, watching our third movie. I stared at the movie, but wasn’t paying attention because I was wondering if Loren had emailed me. I also thought about how down she’d seemed. I kept remembering her face when she smiled and sang our song. I thought about how dejected she seemed about her career. After seeing her house and overgrown yard, it was apparent that she was struggling to make ends meet. It seemed like most of the furniture in her house was secondhand, but she made it work. Those old feelings of wanting to take her sorrow away pulsed through me like a strong current. I loved you, Andrew.
“Andrew, what’s wrong?”
I hadn’t even noticed Alyssa watching me.
“Nothing’s wrong. Why?”
“You’ve been very quiet tonight.”
Fuck! I guess I was more transparent than I thought. I smiled, feeling like the biggest sleazeball in the world. “I’m still really messed up over Mike.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was being selfish. Making it all about me.”
Her comment made me feel even shittier than I already did. And shame overcame me again.
“By the way, how was Loren holding up?”
“She’s good,” I said, trying to hide my remorse. Why was she asking about Loren? Because you told her that Loren and Mike were close, dumbfuck. Not that she was the love of your life. “Are we watching this movie or what?” I didn’t want to discuss Loren with Alyssa. That was the last thing we needed to do tonight.
Alyssa and I alternated spending time at each other’s places between Austin and New York. I planned on staying here for at least a week while she worked. Luckily her current job was here, in Manhattan. Monday morning, she woke up at the crack of dawn to get ready for a Chanel campaign shoot for Vogue that would take her around several parts of the city.
After toiling around, drinking coffee, and watching MLB Network to catch the highlights of my brother’s baseball game, I made myself sit and work on my novel. I opened my laptop and clicked on my emails. I always checked emails first. Yeah, right.
I saw her name at the top of the list. Loren had sent something late the previous night, and it was titled “Synopsis.” My fingers itched to open the message, and I had a moment of hesitation. I’m helping an old friend. A fellow writer. If I said it enough times I’d believe it.
I clicked on the message. I was intrigued. It was a story about a washed-up thirty-something-year-old writer, jaded and disillusioned about life, who’d lost his desire to write anymore. Then he met a college student, shy—an ingénue, who loved his work and conducted several interviews with him for a class assignment. Soon, she became his muse, and he found the desire to write again. He wanted to experience everything with her—philosophically, emotionally, and sexually. And, they fell in love.
I hit the reply button. I tried to keep it professional.
“Your story sounds interesting. You want to send me some of your chapters? I could look at them and give you some feedback.”
I found myself anxious to read it, wondering when she’d respond. It was early so she was probably at work. I sat there staring at my laptop, willing a new message from her to pop up. I clicked on my Word document and leaned back in my chair, trying to focus on my work.
Then, I saw a notification pop up on my email.
“I’m at work now, but I’ll send some chapters tonight when I get home. It was so good to see you again. Thank you for doing this for me. It means more than you’ll ever know. You always made me feel like I could do anything.”
I smiled like an idiot and hit reply.
“You CAN do anything, Scout. Believe in yourself and fuck everyone else.”
She responded a few minutes later.
“There’s my dark angel who drew morose and prolific pictures and didn’t care what people thought.”
My dark angel. I thought of the poem she’d written, and realized I was bouncing my leg as if anticipating something exciting to come. I stilled myself. I needed to get a grip. I needed to get my ass in gear and write. Not email my high school flame and reminisce about the past. But, fuck, that’s all I wanted to do right then.
I reluctantly switched back to my Word document. I thought about Loren and wrote. How she laughed over every far-fetched story that Mike had told…and wrote. How she always self-consciously handed me her notebook each time she showed me her poems…and wrote. How she looked at me with a flushed face, her expressive eyes languid in postcoital bliss…and wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote. The words came out rapidly as I kept thinking about her.