Pinned Beneath You (Gay Erotica)

by Tommy Twist

"Is something wrong?" It seems as if he's noticed that she's a little weirded out. He sets his fork down.

  "What was that all about?"

  "I don't know. Not all of it."

  "But you know some of it."

  "Sure I do."

  "And?"

  "That black horse. The one you saw the boys riding. Need to get it sold. Simple as that."

  "That seems like an awful lot of complication for a sale."

  "Horse is a little older than anyone would like. I made a deal, and he says he'll meet my price, but I owe him a favor. He wants to have dinner with me, fine. I don't like it, but fine."

  "Ah." So that was it. For a moment, she'd almost grown concerned that he had made a very different deal altogether. One that was somewhat more disturbing. The thought won't leave her head, though. What if he had? What if she was some sort of sacrificial… something or other? And he'd just gotten cold feet?

  "Sorry you had to get involved in it."

  No kidding.

  What was she even doing here? What was she thinking, trying to… what, get some kind of relationship going?

  The thought that she ought to have known better had run through her head more times than she could count, the past couple of days. The thought that maybe she should have realized what this always was, from the very beginning.

  It was a business deal. That business arrangement went too far the minute that her clothes had come off. If he was just some guy, someone she'd met and never wanted to do any business with, and never planned on doing any again, then that would be something different.

  But that wasn't the case. She was here to work, and she knew him because she wanted to work through a deal with him. She wanted something of his, and so she'd decided, what…

  She'd decided to pay for it with her body? To grease the wheels a little? And now she was getting funny ideas about it.

  Well, that was how it always was with women in business, wasn't it? They let their feelings get in the way of making smart decisions. Men don't have that problem, and when they do have that problem, they can excuse it.

  They can just wave their hands and the problem goes away. Not for her, though. Not for her and not for other women like her. She should have been more careful, should have known what she was getting herself into and she should have known to avoid it.

  But she hadn't. Instead, she'd just gotten herself involved further, just made decisions that would ultimately hurt her more in the long run.

  And now, just like she should have known it would, it was biting her in the ass. He was using their relationship as some sort of strange bargaining chip.

  Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was being completely honest. After all, he seemed to believe that his answers were all completely believable. He'd picked his fork back up and went back about eating, as if there was nothing more to discuss.

  But if he hadn't told her the truth, if there was still plenty left to discuss, what would the difference be?

  None at all. She'd be getting the same answer, he'd be trying to play it off as if it meant nothing. But she knew the truth. It didn't mean nothing. It meant something, and what it meant, in the long run, was that she was the idiot who believed that it was going to turn into something real.

  She was the one who shouldn't have been such a God damned fool. She'd sign away the check on his property, she'd transfer deeds, and then she'd figure out a way to forget any of this had ever happened.

  She was an idiot and a fool. If she should have learned anything from the call Andrea made to her, at five in the fucking morning, she should have learned that you don't get to be a big success, not on the level of Andrea Neill, not as a woman, and get to have feelings.

  You have to put those away, because if you let yourself have some kind of weakness, any kind of weakness, then other people will just exploit it.

  She wasn't going to give up Lowe. There was no way that would happen, not in a thousand years. Not after all the work she'd done, not after all the time she'd spent. She wasn't going to let herself be put into that position, forced into that box.

  Whatever she was supposed to do about her feelings, how she was supposed to turn them off like that… that would come later. She'd have to learn it, over the years.

  But she would have good practice coming up soon. Because there was one thing that was repeating through her head, over and over, and that was that she couldn't afford to have any weaknesses. She couldn't afford to have people with something to hold over her head.

  Nobody could pose any threat to her, because with the way that women were treated in her business, they'd take even the slightest sign of weakness as proof that you were a pushover.

  And if there was one person who posed a threat, one person who presented a chink in her armor, one person who got too close and she had to close off, that person was Philip Callahan.

  It was going to hurt, but she'd tear it off like ripping a band-aid.

  Because Philip Callahan had to go.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The fact that something was wrong wasn't hard to figure out. She was showing it right there on her face, for anyone who cared to look. Philip Callahan was trying to restore the mood, and he wasn't going to do something as stupid as ask what was wrong.

  But he wasn't going to do something as stupid as ignore it, either, or pretend that it wasn't a bad mood, because clearly the lady was upset. Why? Well, that would come later.

  But she didn't tell him for a while. Not for a long while. Instead, she frowned at his jokes, seemed to altogether ignore anything else he said, and generally she seemed pretty down. Was it something he'd done?

  That wasn't altogether clear. He hadn't done anything intentionally. Callahan had honestly thought—anticipated without necessarily expecting—that she would be quite pleased with how the whole thing had played out.

  Women have a funny way with men expressing their manliness. They don't like it to be too overt, and they like the hell out of it when the guy has to eat humble pie—only in a manly way. Which, to the best of his ability to say, he had done.

  But for some reason, she didn't just have the opposite reaction. After all, that would have made sense, at least for some women and in some circumstances. She didn't like the violence, maybe. Sara hadn't liked roughness, and it wasn't inconceivable that someone else might feel the same way.

  But that had usually manifested in sympathy when he took the fall. She wouldn't get mad with him for it.

  Or maybe he was reading the situation wrong. Maybe she was upset because he hadn't been aggressive enough? Because he'd embarrassed her by losing?

  One look at her told Callahan how stupid that idea was. She didn't seem like the sort of girl who wanted a guy that would kick assess and take names, and what's more, she didn't seem like she was particularly upset that he had lost the fight.

  She was upset about something, but for all that he could tell, she wasn't particularly reacting to the fight having occurred in the first place. There was no reason to, from Philip's perspective. Unless you just wanted to try to lighten the mood—which he did.

  There was no world in which she was upset about the fight. She was upset about something else, which opened up a whole wide world of possibility. Whatever the hell it was that had gotten her upset, he couldn't begin to guess.

  But the fact that she was? That much was indisputable. Not debatable. She was avoiding anything to do with him, it seemed like. Acting weird. And whatever the reason, he wasn't God damn happy about it.

  This was supposed to be a day where the two of them went out, celebrated a little, and finished off with their business coming to a close.

  Once they were past the money stuff, maybe they could move forward with something else. Especially now that he'd finally figured to pull his head out of his ass and admit to himself that there might be something there.

  But no. Now they were having some kind of stupid fight, and for what? For nothing at all, near as Callahan could tell. Just because they co
uld.

  He takes a deep breath and a step back and tries to slow down. No way. Whatever it was, if it was bothering her this much, so much she was acting like a totally different person, then it was a big deal.

  He just wasn't seeing the big picture from her perspective. Whatever it was that was getting to her, it was something that they'd have to figure out together. Because Callahan wasn't an idiot, but he wasn't a genius, either. He needed help figuring shit as much as the next guy, and two heads were always better than one.

  They finish the meal in silence. There's only so much a guy can take, in the end. Only so much one side can push and push and push without the other half budging, before you have to say, 'fine, alright.'

  If she wanted to talk about it, then she'd talk about it whenever she was ready. Until then, she didn't want to talk about a whole hell of a lot of anything, and that was her right. But it didn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense from where he was sitting.

  They slipped into the car and he turned the engine over and got the truck out of the parking lot before he spoke.

  "Morgan? Y'alright?"

  She doesn't answer. He looks over at her, and she's looking out the window. A hand on her knee doesn’t get a response. Whatever the hell it was that he did, she must be pretty unhappy about it.

  The sun's just starting to set properly, streaks of purple and pink jumping off the clouds. Any other day, he might stop and just want to stare at it, but right now Philip's got other concerns. He barely notices the sky at all.

  "Morgan?" She looks over at him. "I don't know what's wrong, but if it's something I did, then I apologize."

  She looks back out the window. No response. He shrugs and then settles himself into the car. If she's going to act like that, then there's nothing to be done about it. She'll do what she wants to do and in the end he's just going to have to deal with that however the hell he wants to.

  They slip onto the interstate, the falling sun leading itself into twilight, which then falls into darkness. The city's a solid few miles out of the ranch, and not close to the factory build site either.

  It takes near forty minutes to get back, and under normal circumstances he'd probably be on auto-pilot by now and forget to go to the build site at all. She'd be annoyed about it, maybe, but it would be totally understandable. After all, how often does he go back home compared to going someplace else?

  But he doesn't slip into the comfort of easy driving. His mind is still razor-edged, his thoughts unable to escape the situation that he's stuck in.

  Why on earth she's mad at him, he couldn't begin to say. She's mad about something. Mad at him about something.

  But whatever in the hell it is, he can't begin to guess. The thing with Glen? That was nothing. If she's mad about it then he can't begin to guess how or why.

  He slides the car into one of the spots. The one closest to her office. The little red sports car is right beside him.

  "Come on inside, I'll get you your check," she says, finally. She doesn't sound angry, per se. Which is unexpected, to say the least, after how she's been acting all night.

  Callahan follows her in. Whatever's got up her ass, he'll figure it out. But right now, he's just going to have to play to her tune and see how things go.

  They climb the short ramp outside the little shack. It'll have to come down soon, with the way that the factory itself is coming together. She'll probably take the interior office until she moves on to… whatever the next thing is.

  Through the front section, where that upstart kid got lippy with him. Into her office. Callahan had seen it before, when she brought him around that first day.

  She reaches down into her desk.

  "I'll be by to transfer deeds in the morning," she says. Professional. Flat. Whatever the hell is wrong with her, she's not damn happy, that much is clear.

  "You want to tell me why you're so upset?"

  "No," she says. Flat. Like that.

  "Alright. See you tomorrow, then."

  "Goodbye, Philip."

  He lets out a long, low breath. "See you tomorrow."

  He knew even as he said it that he wasn't going to.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Maybe it was disrespectful. Maybe she shouldn't have done it. But when she sent someone else, instead of going herself, to pick up the deed and transfer the one in Lowe Industrial's name over to Phil Callahan, it was as if she had just had a weight pulled right off her chest.

  Like she'd solved all of her problems at the same time. Everything had been about that ranch. About getting ahold of that property. And now she had it. She'd paid a pretty heavy price, but in the end she'd gotten what she came for.

  That was what made her a winner, whether or not she liked the way she had to do it, she'd done what needed doing.

  What made it less pleasant wasn't that she'd gotten too close. That happened. You make mistakes, you move on from them. No, what was upsetting was that she still didn't really feel bad about it. She still wanted to keep doing the same things.

  She wanted to go back to the ranch. She wanted to sit and have a beer with Philip. She wanted to watch a movie with him that she'd probably seen three times back in Nevada. But now, with him, it felt different. It was practically a different movie with him there, because it wasn't about what was happening on the screen, not really.

  It was about laying there on the couch with her head on his chest and just. Relaxing, for once in her life.

  If she could, she'd go back right now and do it. She'd take that any day of the week.

  That was what was worrying her, because she sure as hell couldn't afford to make that mistake again, not knowing full well what it meant.

  Not when she knew exactly how much it could damage her—her reputation, both professional and otherwise, how much it could make her look weak.

  If she wanted to stay in this business, she had to look stronger than anyone. She had to be stronger than it was possible for a person to be, it seemed like. And this wasn't the way to get it done.

  She was just being flighty. Womanish. She was putting the wrong things ahead and making mistakes that a man would never make. That was exactly what she'd been warned about. That was exactly what she needed to avoid to get ahead.

  She had a bright future ahead of her, no doubt about it. She'd already done as much in a year as anyone could have possibly asked for. The company was expanding, was building. They were putting more people to work, they were turning more profits, and they were bringing manufacturing back in America.

  All of those things were what was important. The important things to remember.

  The other stuff? Not that important, in the long run. She could learn to cope. It was just feelings, after all. She didn't need to listen to them, any more than she needed to feel anything else.

  Men didn't worry about feelings. They didn't worry about what they were going to do about their precious whatevers. They made decisions based on logic and reason and feelings took a backseat when they had to.

  It was only by reminding herself of that, over and over again, repeating it to herself until she practically heard it repeating in her head without even needing to try, that she could stay sane. Because that was the only way to drown out the urge to go over. To see him. To talk it out.

  But there wouldn't be any point in that. There's nothing to talk out. The problem isn't inside her, and it's not inside Philip. It's everything else in the world that's the problem.

  It's the world where she can't really let herself be herself, because she'd look too weak. It's the violence of the business world. It's how people look at her when she says she runs a factory. The way they look her up and down, surprised.

  If she's going to be able to deal with that, she can't have some man in her life who they can immediately look at and say, oh, he probably does it. She's just there as some kind of figure-head. She's just there as T-and-A.

  This was her business, her baby, and she wasn't going to give it up. And if she wasn't going to
give it up, then she had to make sacrifices. For her father's legacy. For everything.

  If she made those sacrifices now, it would be worth it in the end. She'd get what she needed to get. She just had to hope that she didn't screw it up first. She had to hope that she wasn't going to let her weakness get to her over and over and over again.

  This time was a mistake. She could recover from it, but it was a mistake, nonetheless. In the future, though? Could she keep saying the same? Could she keep claiming that even though she knew better, she just made a mistake and she'd do better next time?

  No. This had to be it. And she had to walk away.

  She picks up the phone. It's going to be a couple more days before they can officially cut the ribbon, but maybe it would be a mistake to stay here. Too many risks. Too much temptation. She wants to stay too much.

  So the answer is pretty obvious, in the long run.

  Just walk away. Someone else can come on up and finish out the job. She's been neglecting the home factories for too long anyways, in her effort to get things taken care of here. So she'll return to Nevada, she'll check out how things are going back home, and when they're ready to open up the factories, she can come back and make a few speeches, cut the ribbon, and get the hell out of here.

  A man's voice answers the phone. Her assistant been staying in Colorado the last couple of days. Her eyes and ears around the home plants. He was supposed to head back to Nevada in a couple days. She'll just take his place, and he'll take hers here.

  "I need you to get me a plane ticket."

  "Anything else?"

  "Not really. Send the information to my email."

  "Of course, ma'am."

  It's a good plan, really. Truly it is, because if she were to stay here another minute longer, she might have to stay for good.

  Leaving is the right thing to do. It's the right way to go. And if it hurts… well, that's fine, too. Because sometimes you have to get hurt in business. If it's the right decision, it really doesn't matter if it hurts or not.

  You do it, because the right decision is the right decision, and the success of her business is what the real priority is. Not her feelings, and not avoiding pain. You can't avoid pain in a factory.