Clichéd Love: A Satirical Romance

by Lynn Galli

  My finger stopped circling and dipped down to her opening. In the next instant, I surged into her. She gave another sexy grunt as her tunnel squeezed my finger. Her head lifted, and she stared down at me. I couldn’t look away, didn’t want to. We began to pump our fingers in rhythm, drawing out and surging back in. Our hips rocked, meeting each thrust. Never once did we look away from each other.

  Her thumb added to the mix with crafty but targeted swipes. I lifted up to capture her mouth and swallow the loud groan trying to work free. My hips pumped harder against her hand. Hers came down against mine, my palm slapping her engorged clit. With one strong swell upward, my hand twisted, palm digging and finger caressing just so. She cried out, climaxing against me, body shaking, hand jerking. The motion grazed my clit precisely, and I yelled her name as I joined her bliss. My orgasm shuddered through me, my body twitching and spasming out of control. Only the weight of her body crushing against mine kept me from lunging up in wild contractions.

  “Oh, yes, yes,” she murmured as her body rippled above me.

  I kissed that beautiful mouth that said and did such beautiful things. “The best,” I mumbled against her lips, breath still erupting in huffs as my body worked itself down to boneless.

  “You are,” she gasped into my mouth and finally collapsed all of her weight on top of me.

  My arms snaked around her, running up and down her back. I summoned all of my remaining energy to turn us onto her back. She smiled against my lips, not at all bothered that I’d just taken this position back.

  “Let me catch my breath,” she said, her lips crawling over my jaw to my still burning ear. “Then I’m going to taste you. I didn’t get the chance before I had to have you.”

  I chuckled, lazy and pleased. Best sex of my life, and I knew without having to ask that I’d be getting as much as I wanted, whenever.

  45 | Tristan & Presley

  A bodyguard. I was talking to someone who claimed to be an actual bodyguard. Like when Iris told me she was a PI, I wanted to grill this woman to make her prove she was truly a bodyguard. That just didn’t happen outside of books. Or a bad movie. Good enough music, but a bad movie.

  Iris. Deep sigh, stupid smile, zip of heat, flashes of flesh. And back to—nope, one more stupid smile and burning flush—now, back to business.

  A bodyguard. The woman sitting next to her had been her protectee. The bodyguard used that word. Honestly. Like we were in a romance novel, and in the next moment, someone was going to take a shot at her protectee, and she’d have to cover her with her body, then drag her off to some remote cabin that absolutely no one but the bodyguard knows about. Of course, the cabin will be completely stocked and have working electricity, despite her not having been there for months because a bodyguard can somehow afford two places, one to live in and a remote cabin for convenient hiding of her protectees.

  “I thought it was all nonsense.” The protectee, better known as Presley, brushed her hand through the air.

  My eyebrows shot up, and I refrained from nodding in agreement. It was kind of ridiculous. No one had been stalking her or threatening her, and she wasn’t exposed to criminals who might want revenge. She was a software executive. A big software company. Technically, the biggest software company, but still, just a software company.

  “Easiest damn job I’ve ever had,” the bodyguard, who went by Tristan, winked at me. She was a winker. Not flirty, just someone who used the wink as part of her facial repertoire.

  “How’d you get it?” Based on the expensive watch she was wearing, the cushy job paid extremely well. Could be the executive wife bought her the watch, but not the way she proudly flashed it.

  “I was an Army MP. When I got out, I applied to a police department. Went through several rounds of interviews and background checks. Then it came down to an eye test and I failed. Colorblind.”

  My brain rattled inside my head from the confused shaking. I had several questions, but took them one at a time. “You’re colorblind? Do you know how rare that is?”

  Presley slid forward in her seat. “Not that rare. A couple of my colleagues are.”

  “Male colleagues, right? Not so rare with men. It’s carried on the X chromosome and is a recessive trait. Women are far less likely to get both chromosomes with the recessive trait.” I watched Presley turn her head and stare at Tristan, amazement in her eyes. She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal to be in a category with less than one percent of other women. I asked my second question, “Why does it matter to a police department? It’s not like you’re flying jets and need to be able to determine if lights go from green to red on the instrument panel.”

  She shrugged. “No one could actually tell me. The lieutenants who wanted to give me the job had no idea it was a requirement. One of them is still petitioning to have the rule changed. He thinks I’ll drop this gig to become a beat officer at a third of the pay.”

  My eyebrows lifted higher. The watch told me she got paid well. It didn’t tell me she got paid three times what police officers made. That was a little despicable. Not her fault, and I couldn’t blame her for sticking with the well-paying job, but the fact that security detail personnel were paid three times the salary of someone placed in dangerous situations every day to protect the public at large made me sick to my stomach.

  I thought of Iris again. All summer, she’d sprinkled little tidbits of what her job had been like. Extremely difficult at first because she was one of only a few women in her division and the only female detective for a while. I’d been proud of her accomplishments and her chosen career when I was just her friend. Now that our relationship had changed, I was impressed and honored to know her.

  “Did anything ever happen?” I asked the executive.

  “Other than being served bad chicken that gave everyone food poisoning at one of the conferences we had to attend, no. Not one scare. It’s just a policy that the company has. Once you reach a certain level, there’s a security detail that follows you anytime you leave the campus. Keeps the key-person insurance costs down.”

  “And Tristan was one of the security detail?”

  Presley gave her a fond look. “She was. One of the few women, which almost always put her on my team.”

  “Lucky for me.” Tristan winked again. “I couldn’t stand guarding that marketing lady, and the IT exec almost never left the basement.”

  Presley pushed against her shoulder. “She doesn’t work in a basement, and there are more than three female execs. Don’t give Vega the wrong idea about our company.”

  I waved off their concern. It didn’t matter what I thought of their company as long as their software kept working on my laptop. I only cared about their story.

  “We were at the TED conference. Tristan was on call twenty-four hours a day because all the execs were attending, and there weren’t enough females on the detail to go around clearing public restrooms and department store changing rooms.”

  I slid back in my chair. “You were out shopping at a TED conference?”

  Presley’s shoulders hitched. “Some of my colleagues would go shopping after hours or between talks. They go a little crazy away from campus at conferences.”

  “Presley was the only one not darting off to find other things to do,” Tristan reported. “I had seniority by then, so I got to assign others to the execs running around off the rails. One detail just stayed at a strip club as several of the execs rotated in and out of the place. Took them weeks to get rid of the glitter.”

  Good imagery. “You stayed with the exec who was there to work?”

  “My favorite exec.” Wink, wink. “Only she didn’t know it, but spending twenty-four hours a day together for five days gave me enough time to win her over.”

  She had the same kind of arrogant but still charming quality about her that Iris did. I wondered if it might be a law enforcement trait. She wasn’t quite as charming or good looking as Iris, and there was no way she kissed or touched or made love as well as Iris, but s
he had a chance at second place in the arrogant but charming race. A slower, less charming, more arrogant second, but still second.

  “The stress of keeping up with all the business back at the office, making the right connections at the conference, prepping my part of the talk a colleague was giving, it got to me. Tris was the one calming influence throughout.” Her left shoulder popped up and down. “I couldn’t resist.”

  “Are you both still working there?”

  Tristan nodded and winked, while Presley said, “Yes, but she’s hardly ever on my team. HR likes to keep things in their places.”

  “I’d like to see them try,” Tristan bragged and winked again. Her hands came up to roam Presley’s body and had the executive giggling and slapping them away.

  A few questions later, I was done with the interview. They were off to some tech event and cleared out pretty fast. I gave the bar a cursory glance, hoping to find Iris, but not having any luck. She was assessing the security needs of Nykos’s office today. After spending almost every second together since Thursday, it wasn’t easy to let her leave my bed this morning. We’d get to a routine at some point, after this can’t-wait-got-to-have-her feeling tapered off. For now, I’d keep counting the minutes until she was back in my sightline.

  I bounced my eyes among the regulars to keep from shifting in my seat while I decided on whether to wait here or go home to call Iris. Lane was conversing with an attractive woman while fixing her a drink. Greer looked like she was staking out her next victim as her friends prodded her into another questionable act to obtain information about her. Cheryl was talking to Devon and Sawyer. Cyrah was heading toward wannabe James Dean. My gaze narrowed. I needed to deal with that. She hadn’t seemed the type to lie about conquests, but I’d see what she had to say about it before overreacting.

  A slap landed on my back when Riley took the seat next to me. “Good people?” Her head tipped toward the door.

  “They were, yeah. How’re you tonight, Riley?”

  She shrugged and looked away. Her grin hadn’t been as forthcoming recently. My increased deadlines kept me from hanging out in the bar much after completing interviews, so I didn’t know what might be going on with her. “Pretty good. Wanna play some pool?”

  I turned to face her. As showy as she could be at times, I still liked her. More so than any of the others in her usual foursome. In fact, I thought all of them could be kinder to her. Devon was pretty nice, but they all took Riley for granted. “Tell me your story, Riley.”

  She pushed back and gave a loud guffaw. “Oh, now you want to hear it when you rejected us from day one.”

  I knew she was teasing, but she’d guessed right. I didn’t think her story would have been that unique. I also didn’t think they’d last as couples. I needed the couples I wrote about to stay together long enough to see the end of the series. “That’s not entirely true.”

  “Just giving you a hard time.” She was quick to let me off the hook. Another thing that would make for a good friend. I made a note to do something about that. Ask her to do something outside of the bar soon.

  “What is it about Adrian that does it for you?”

  She tipped back in her chair and folded her arms. “What do you mean?”

  “Personal question, but do you like being the one to take care of your woman? Do you like always having to make sure she’s happy? Is that what gets you going?”

  Her eyes searched mine. They were a pretty light brown. I preferred Lane’s reddish brown, but Riley’s light brown stood out against her dark brown hair. I hadn’t noticed that before. Her demeanor kept me from noticing anything beautiful about her. “Why?”

  “I think you’re pretty cool, Riley. You’re funny and interesting when it’s just us.” I hesitated because I didn’t know her all that well, and she’d probably take offense to anything else I said.

  “Us? You mean without Adrian around.”

  I gave a slight nod, hoping she’d piece together what I was saying and not hate the messenger. “You sometimes disappear when she’s here. You’re there, I see you, but you’re attending to whatever she needs or wants. Don’t you want something for yourself?”

  “That’s what you’ve seen?” Her brow furrowed.

  “I don’t mean to offend. Like I said, I think you’re cool. You just care more that Adrian and your other friends have a good time than if you’re having one.”

  “Is that bad?” For the first time, a chip in her self-confidence formed.

  “It makes you a good girlfriend, but you have to enjoy yourself as well or what’s the point?”

  “Yeah.” She dropped her folded arms and heaved a sigh. “Yeah.”

  “Have you been realizing that lately?” I guessed.

  Her gaze darted away. “A little. I thought I knew what we had, but you’re right. I should be getting more out of it. As much as she is.”

  “When partners feel they’re on equal standing, those are the partnerships for the ages.”

  She looked back at me, a grin forming. “Is that on a fortune cookie somewhere?”

  “Probably,” I said and laughed, but I’d always felt that way. It was why, until now, none of my girlfriends ever made it to the partner stage. I didn’t have any doubts about where my relationship with Iris was heading. Even as brand new as it was.

  “What about you? You’ve been here a while, but none of your dates are sticking.” She threw up a hand when my eyes narrowed. “I know now that you and Iris weren’t ever together, and I’m not sure what Cyrah’s saying about the other week.”

  I wouldn’t be telling Riley about Iris until we’d talked about it. “I don’t know what Cyrah’s saying either, but she gave me a ride home. That’s all.”

  “Thought so. I’m pretty sure it’s her friend Ruth that’s spreading the rumor. Cyrah’s not really like that.” Her eyes flew to the group with Cyrah and Ruth, aka James Dean wannabe. “You’re a hot commodity in here, you know. Beware that someone doesn’t try to use you for that.”

  “Right there.” My finger pointed at her. “That’s what I’m saying about you. That concern for me makes you a damn good friend. Everything I said tonight is out of friendship and concern for you. That’s what you deserve.”

  She clapped her hand on my shoulder. Much softer than her usual backslap, as if now that we’d had our first really serious chat, she didn’t have to play the role of the tough butch around me anymore. “Thanks, Vega. I know you’re right. It’s time I did something about it.”

  “Good luck,” I said as she stood and made a beeline for the game room upstairs. If Adrian had joined Devon and Sawyer up there, they’d be getting an earful. She looked determined.

  “Is she okay?”

  My lungs filled at the sound of Iris’s voice. I let the breath out in a deep sigh and turned to look at her. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” she said in an equally dazed tone and took the seat Riley had vacated.

  “How was the job?” I shouldn’t resent Nykos’s need to increase security at his office. Iris and I needed the break. It was good for us. Made the vision of her before me now that much sweeter. I’d never been a twenty-four-seven kind of girlfriend. I liked breaks, needed them to do my work and keep from screaming about all the little things that bugged me in relationships. Breaks were good. Today had been hard. I found out I didn’t need a break yet, which should have scared me a little. I’d never needed a girlfriend before. Wanted, sure, but needed, absolutely not.

  “The building needs more security. It’ll be good to get that squared away for them.” She placed her hand on my thigh under the table, needing the connection as much as I did. “Nykos had my sides hurting from laughing so much. I knew he was funny, but he and Willa together are like a professional comedy duo.”

  So, we’d both had a good day. Not as good as the last two spent in her arms and in my bed and on a tennis court and on bikes and on walks and everything else we’d done together the last two days, but a good day otherwise.

&nb
sp; “Helen’s sister is finally in town? Will she be coming by to actually see the investment she made here?” I’d been wondering that for a month now.

  “Didn’t ask her. I’m sure she’ll go over to Helen’s before she leaves. You may actually meet her.”

  “If she really exists. So far she’s been more like a fairy godmother, making things happen for the people she likes.”

  “Oh, she’ll hate that description. Make sure you mention it if you meet her.” She laughed and moved her hand to stroke down my arm. It sparked all sorts of tingles. “I was hoping I’d catch you here. I want to tell Lane about us. Is that okay?”

  My eyes flicked over to Lane, who was talking to the same woman at the bar. My insides wriggled knowing that Iris wanted to share the news about us with her best friend. I was already in pretty deep with her. The slope got even slicker knowing that she wanted to tell one of the most important people in her life about something that was still very new. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

  Her hand tugged gently on my forearm as she tipped her head toward the exit. “Let’s take a walk. I don’t want anyone to overhear.”

  I glanced around and caught one or two people looking at us. People were often curious as to whom I might be interviewing, but when it was just me and someone else from the bar, no one noticed. Until today. “All right.” I followed her outside, and we started walking up the block.

  “You look amazing, by the way,” she said as soon as we’d cleared the door.

  I flushed at the compliment. That was one of the best things about her, making the people she cared about feel good. “As do you.” Slacks and a silk top never looked better on a woman.

  Her eyes closed slowly, taking in the mutual admiration. “Was the interview interesting?”

  “It was. Did you know some tech company around here pays massive amounts of money to have bodyguards for their executives?”