Insatiable

by Lucy Lambert

  I plunked my butt down in the chair and used my body to try and hold him away. It looked like Trish had been going through some of my recent slideshows and documents.

  That made my shoulders slump with relief. She probably hadn’t seen the picture. If she had, she wouldn’t have held that back. She wasn’t that sort of person. If she had a dart to throw at you she tossed it right away.

  “Everything okay? You know, I could make sure that she’s not working here tomorrow,” Ward said.

  I considered it for a moment. It would be so delicious to get her out of here, to see the expression on her face while she cleaned out her desk and while security marched her out.

  It felt too easy, though, and she deserved so much worse than that. “No, forget about it. She’ll get what’s coming when she’s due. And no, it doesn’t look like there’s any permanent damage.”

  “No permanent damage? I like the sound of that,” he said.

  I glanced at him and he smiled. My cheeks started heating up so I turned back to my screen. “We’ll see,” I said.

  I wanted to ask him what he was doing here, but I also got the compulsion to get rid of that picture before it actually did cause any trouble. I knew I should wait until later, but after having my computer snooped once while I was away I didn’t want to risk it again.

  I’ll just drag it over to the trash bin. The thumbnail’s so small, he won’t know what it is.

  I pretended to check a few of the files Trish had looked at. Then my moment came. Ward looked away, uninterested in what I was doing. I minimized the windows quickly and then clicked the image.

  I started moving it.

  “What is that?” Ward said. My heart lurched up into my throat.

  “Just some old file I’m deleting,” I said.

  “Where did you find that?” he said. He took my hand off the mouse and then clicked the picture again to make it full-sized. A young Vaughn Ward and his two college friends smiled out at us.

  Excitement blipped inside me. I’d been so curious about that picture and the effect it might have on Ward. I thought that I must have let myself get caught there, my subconscious unwilling to deny my curiosity.

  “Some old college message board,” I said.

  “Why?” Vaughn said. His tone caught me off guard. He stared wide-eyed at that picture. It looked like he couldn’t decide whether he should be enraged or terrified.

  “It’s just some old picture,” I said, my own nerves acting in sympathy with his. “You were a cute nerd back then.”

  “You didn’t have any right to go looking for this,” he said, his teeth clenched. The tendons started standing out in his neck.

  “I wasn’t looking for this specifically. I was just doing some research. Why are you so upset? You look happy there with your friends. Maybe a little goofy in that shirt, but certainly nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  I didn’t know what sort of nerve I’d struck in him. Only that it was a deep one.

  “Get rid of it,” he said, his eyes hunting over my keyboard for the delete button.

  “Yeah, sure, fine,” I said. I wanted to know why he felt the way he did when he saw it. What memory did it bring back that was obviously so upsetting to him? I dragged the picture over to the recycling bin and then clicked around until that was empty, too.

  “There, it’s gone. You want to tell me why you came here, now?”

  His eyes kept scanning my desktop, as though he didn’t quite believe that the picture was really gone. I’d never seen him so unnerved and upset before. I didn’t even think he was capable of those feelings.

  Then again, a couple hours ago I didn’t think he’d been that kind of person in college. I had the urge to comfort him, but I wasn’t certain how. I reached out for him.

  He recoiled from my hand. “No. This was a mistake. You were right. Emails only.”

  He turned and started back towards the elevator lobby. I stood up, watching him over the false wall. “Vaughn! Wait!”

  He jerked at the sound of me using his first name, but didn’t stop. He continued around the corner to the elevators.

  What the hell was that? I wondered. It was just an old school picture! And then I wanted to follow him. I looked at the clock. Not even lunch yet. I couldn’t leave work. Shouldn’t, rather.

  I’d never skipped out on work, never left the office before it was time to go. Most of the time I stayed late.

  Except work didn’t seem so important at that moment. It was diminished in my mind.

  I couldn’t think about anything but the stricken look on Ward’s face when he saw the picture. And then I recognized that expression. It was like seeing a ghost, seeing someone from the past you thought was out of your life and had suddenly reappeared.

  But what could possibly haunt him so much? What could make him crack like that? I had to find out.

  This time, I carefully logged off my account on the computer before leaving my desk. And then I went to catch the elevator down.

  From there, I went to Vaughn Ward’s brownstone.

  ***

  I didn’t know if he would answer the door, but I rang the bell anyway. My heart kept pounding in my chest, and I could feel sweat gluing my blouse to the small of my back.

  I kept thinking about the look on his face, my curiosity over the photo, and Ms. Spencer’s speech about missed opportunities.

  I didn’t have long to think about it, because Ward answered the door before I could even think about ringing the bell again. He’d taken the time to compose himself again, and once more he looked like the man I’d known before.

  I tried picturing him with the smile I saw in that picture and couldn’t. Although I also found that it did feel nice to be near him.

  “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “It’s not obvious? I came to talk to you,” I replied.

  He frowned. “About the picture, I’m guessing.”

  “Yeah. That and other things.”

  He gave it some thought, and for a little bit I thought he might actually ask me to leave. The frown disappeared, his forehead smoothing out, and he stepped aside. “Come in, then.”

  I did. He started up the stairs, probably heading up to the third floor and its big den. I didn’t want to go there, though. It made me think of Alisha and her warning, and any other women he might have had up there.

  “Can we stay down here, maybe?” I said. He turned around on the stairs, another frown directed at me. He nodded, then led me to another, smaller sitting room with bare brick walls, a couch, and an easy chair.

  He took the couch and I sat down in the overstuffed chair, the leather pleasantly cool for now.

  “Are you going to make me drag it out of you?” I said, wanting to dispense with all the meaningless preamble. “I’ve been trying to figure you out since we met. What is your deal, Ward?”

  Ward sat back, his hands gripping his knees, and nodded. He looked me in the eye, his gaze intense.

  “That picture was taken my senior year. I was smiling because I’d just released my first app and it looked like it was promising. It was such a simple thing, but I guess sometimes the simplest things are the ones most often overlooked. I was expecting beer money, maybe something to put towards my loans after graduation.

  “It exploded. I couldn’t explain it, no one could. The only fact that seemed to matter was that I was suddenly pretty much a rock star. Then I had another idea, and another. And not long after that I had people working for me, my face was appearing on magazines. I had publicists getting me interviews, personal trainers getting me in shape. And I didn’t know why. How could a few lines of code, code that anyone else in my class could have come up with, start up all that?”

  It was my turn to frown. I leaned toward him, “You don’t think you deserve any of it?”

  “Maybe. Sometimes I feel like I was just in the right place at the right time, and somehow I keep ending up back there. Except now I’m not who I used to be. Now I’m who peop
le expect me to be. And if that’s true, how do I deserve any of this?”

  He thinks he’s an impostor, I thought. And that no one seemed to see it but him. That was what he feared, I knew: he thought that if someone was with him long enough, looked at him close enough, they might see through the façade.

  It was almost funny, but not in a comic way.

  “No,” I said. “You are who you make yourself to be. Trust me on that one.”

  “And what have I made myself?” he said, spreading his hands and grimacing.

  “Well, I don’t know what you think you’ve made of yourself. Only what I can see of you.”

  “Do I want to know?” he said, smiling.

  “You’re the type of person who lets himself put a lot of faith in other people, but doesn’t hold any back for himself. Maybe you need a bit of that faith to believe that maybe you deserve what you’ve made. Sure, maybe that first release was luck. Everyone needs a little luck. But everything that came after that? There’s no such thing as coincidence. Especially not that many times.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me, “No such thing as coincidence? Coincidences like the two of us meeting?”

  Heat flushed my cheeks and I had to look down from his eyes. “Maybe.”

  “So what else did you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  “You told at the door that you wanted to talk about more than the picture. What is it? And don’t tell me it’s something to do with the account.”

  Now that I sat there, alone with him, I wasn’t certain I could do it. I mean, I wanted to. His little reveal about his past really did push past those barriers I’d set up around me, trying to keep him out. He wasn’t who I’d first thought he was.

  “Nothing. I should go,” I said. I stood and started for the door.

  He caught me, turning me so that I faced him, pulling my body against his. “Don’t tell me that. Not after what I just told you.”

  I swallowed, my throat dry and closing. We were so close. Our hips touched. His fingers were gentle but firm, holding me in place. I started trembling inside, heat building up in my core.

  “Someone told me that I really needed to think about my life. What I want out of it… and who I want in it.”

  “Who do you want in it?” he said, his eyes searching back and forth between mine.

  “Are you really going to make me say it?” I asked him.

  He didn’t. He kissed me instead, hauling my body harder against his. My hands slipped up the firm flesh of his stomach, up under his arms so that I could grab his shoulder blades and pull him even closer.

  His mouth was hot on mine, and fit against me perfectly.

  Then, his face flushed, he pulled away. “You know what you want now? You’re not going to tell me never again, and push me away?”

  “No,” I said, my lips tingled from the kiss, and I missed his mouth against mine. I gave into his desire and mine.

  “Then show me,” he said. We kissed again, more fiercely than even before.

  He picked me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist. I looked down into his face. The air rushed in and out of my lungs like fire, but I still couldn’t get enough of it.

  We paused every few steps to kiss some more. I needed the feeling and the pressure of his lips against mine, and he needed it, too.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked when he carried me out of that room.

  “To bed,” he replied.

  We started up the stairs and I tightened my legs around his waist until I realized that he had no trouble carrying me up them.

  And now that I’d given myself over to my desires I couldn’t wait any longer. My inner thighs burned. My clothes felt stifling and tight. And I needed to see what he looked like without anything covering him up.

  His suite was on the second floor, and when he opened the door it revealed a large bed in the middle of the floor and a curtained picture window hiding us from the rest of the world.

  He set me down on my feet, keeping his hands on my hips to steady me. We kissed again, and this time I put my hands between us, popping the buttons out of their loops on his shirt one at a time.

  He made a deep, satisfied sound when I pulled the tails of his shirt from his pants and then put my hands on his bare, flat stomach.

  His skin was warm and soft to the touch, but beneath that firm and hard.

  “You like?” he said.

  “God, yes,” I replied. He was an Adonis, a perfectly-sculpted statue of ideal male beauty, everything in proportion, everything toned and smooth.

  I kissed his neck, letting my lips slide down to his chest. The feeling of my lips against his body exhilarated him, and his strong fingers squeezed me. He ran them up into my hair, balling them into fists so that he tugged at the root.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said. His mouth pressed to mine again. Pressed close to his body like this, I could feel the barely-restrained passion locked within him. I wanted him to release it, to let me feel the full force of it.

  His mouth slipped away from mine, running down the delicate, sensitive skin of my throat, and stopping only when the collar of my blouse got in the way.

  “We have to do something about all this clothes you have on,” he said. I felt his lips curl into a smile against me.

  “What do you suggest?” I said. The heat in my body reached dangerous levels. I began trembling all over. Too much more of this and I thought that my skin would get hot enough to simply burn all the fabric covering me up.

  Then Vaughn picked me up again, scooping me up off the floor with one strong arm under my knees and the other supporting my back. He climbed up onto the bed and set me down gently.

  I could feel him trembling too. The fire in his eyes told me he wanted to tear the clothes from my body and ravish me. The restraint told me he wanted to control himself, to make this last.

  I started unbuttoning my blouse, eager to take things to the next level.

  He grinned. “No, you don’t,” he said. He grabbed my hands and then pinned both my wrists above my head against the mattress.

  Then with his free hand, he continued the job I’d started. His fingers kept brushing against the bare skin of my chest. Desire and need fluctuated and shifted up and down my body. I couldn’t keep still, writhing about on the mattress beneath him.

  Every time his fingers grazed my bare skin I sucked a breath in through my teeth. My skin tightened into goosebumps at every caress, my breasts ached with the need for his touch, my nipples stiffening until they panged.

  “Will you be gentle?” I said.

  “I’ll be whatever it takes to have you screaming my name,” he replied, his hungry wolf’s grin returning.

  He undid the final button and pushed the blouse down my sides. A thread of worry moved through me. I wasn’t as toned as a swimsuit model, not as tanned as a cover girl. What if he didn’t like what he saw?

  But then he traced his fingertips down the middle of my stomach, his touch barely grazing me but somehow still making me gasp. He let those fingers move in a gentle circle around my navel before traveling back up between my breasts to cup my cheek.

  He leaned down to kiss me and I arched my head up to meet him, but he pulled back at the last second, smiling a teasing smile while I yearned for him.

  “That’s not fair. You’re so much stronger than I am,” I said, one of his hands holding my wrists firmly against the mattress, keeping me from moving any closer to him.

  “I don’t fight fair,” he replied. He slid his other hand back down my stomach. Then between my thighs. He pressed where I wanted pressure most. My hips lifted off the mattress, trying to push him harder against me.

  I wished there was nothing between us.

  “I love the little sounds you make when you feel good,” he said, his fingers still working their marvelous pressure between my thighs.

  Then he let go of my wrists and sat on the bed beside me. Before I even knew it ha
ppened, I found myself on his lap, the two of us kissing fiercely while we both worked to push my blouse down off my arms. His big, warm palms slid up my back, found the strap of my bra, and undid it with a single flick.

  I loved the way he watched as I revealed myself to him, loved the well I felt his desire swell when I slipped the bra off.

  He kissed my neck again, reveling in the freedom of movement of his lips against me, no more clothing to stop them. He slipped that hot mouth of his along my throat, my shoulders, and down between my breasts.

  I put my fingers into his luxuriant hair, squeezing them into fists when he suctioned one nipple into his mouth and let his tongue lash against it until I groaned and shivered on his lap.

  And then he only stopped to move over to the other one.

  Then he laid me down on the bed beneath him. I ran my hands along his bare shoulders and chest, down to his abs. He was impossibly sexy and arousing. His desire rolled off him in waves.

  “I’m going to make you feel better than any man has made you feel before,” he said.

  “Show me,” I said.

  “I’d rather taste you,” he replied. He slid his mouth down my throat again, down between my breasts, the nipples still puckered and raw. His mouth kept going until it could go no more, meeting the waistband of my pants.

  He sat up briefly, long enough to peel my pants down off my legs, and then my panties.

  My heart hammered in my chest. I was completely naked before him, nothing left to hide. I forgot about all that when he put his mouth on me again, just below my navel.

  It was almost too much, feeling him so close, knowing what he wanted to do to me. I could barely withstand the anticipation of feeling the wet heat of his mouth slide first to the crease in my flesh where one leg met my thigh, and then over to the other.

  He urged my thighs apart and then slid his mouth down between them. I kept feeling the light, delicious tickle of his stubble, the hot wash of his breaths.

  “Oh, yes…” I groaned, my hips lifting up off the bed again when he put his mouth where I wanted it most. He put his hands beneath my hips and held me there against him like that, powerless to stop him.