by Julia Kent
She’s fragile and strong, determined and insecure, gentle and iron-willed, and as my body fills with a groundswell of urgency, of pleasure at the feel of being in her, of watching her own release pour out of her because of me. I join her, raw and real, our mutual vulnerability the only thing that matters.
(And coming inside her, too. That matters. A lot.)
The room is so quiet. There’s no wind today, and the windows are all closed in the bedroom, the candles generating a sandalwood scent and a hazy heat that charges the air with a kind of private grace. I’m worshipping at the altar of Shannon. My mouth has just taken my version of communion. And once I propose, I shall have no other goddesses before her.
She’s my religion now.
“Mmmm,” she says, pulling me to her for a kiss, that ripe mouth mine to pluck. “I needed that.”
“You needed that? I was about to float off into the air like a weather balloon if I didn’t—”
She curls into a ball, giggling, her pushed-up breasts jiggling like an unseen juggler’s hands toss them into the air. Her nipples rub against the edge of the bustier and I’m entranced. Hypnotized. I could watch this for hours.
Who needs a fish tank for stress reduction? A red corset and a joke book for Shannon to read work just fine.
“All you ever think about is sex.”
My stomach rumbles. My mouth stays shut, though, because she has a point.
“And food,” she adds. “And work.”
“And you.”
“I think I’m filed under sex. Shannon is a subcategory under ‘Places I like to stick things in.’”
“That would be Golf Courses.”
“I’m your sexual golf course.” She doesn’t ask it as a question, but it hangs there, judgmental. I’m in the danger zone here. One wrong answer and it’s into the penalty box for Declan.
“You don’t have eighteen holes.”
“No, I don’t. I only have two.”
“That you’ll let me in,” I mumble. That earns me a smack. I love it when she gets rough. My turn. I grab her and spin her on her belly, gleaming white ass so round and abundant. I’m about to give her a hot spank when—
Bzzzz.
“Whose phone is that?” we ask each other in unison.
My pants are buzzing. Damn it. I jump up and rifle through the pockets.
“Bet that’s New Zealand,” she sighs, turning over and sitting up, elbows on her knees.
Ah, the view. The view....
“McCormick,” I snap into the phone.
“Hey, Declan!” says a voice so cheery it needs to be featured in a Pixar movie. “Greg here. Amanda told me you called and had a business issue to talk about? How’s it going?”
I look at Shannon. She’s making gestures that ask who it is. The problem is, I can’t tell her. Greg is part of my whole proposal plan, and if she finds out, my perfect set-up goes down the drain.
I grab my wallet and toss it to her.
“I get paid for sex?” she asks with a twitchy smile.
“You should,” I whisper. “Especially dressed like that.”
She giggles and everything jiggles and I can’t stop staring.
“But no. That’s to order takeout. Thai?” She nods and scampers out of the room, that ass—oh, that breathtaking ass—departing as Greg’s voice turns my arousal into a knot at the bottom of my stomach.
That growling sound isn’t hunger anymore. It’s frustration.
“Is Shannon there?” Greg asks, lowering his voice. “Did I—is this a bad time?” His voice slips into a register used only between men.
“She’s here and she’s fine. So listen, Greg, I need your help. It’s about Shannon.”
“I haven’t called her in eight months!” he protests. “I don’t ask her to do mystery shops for me ever since you played Santa and bailed me out! Carol’s the one who got her to do that bookstore evaluation the other day. Not me!”
Bookstore evaluation? “What? No. It’s not about that. It’s about having Shannon do a mystery shop.”
“You’ve lost me completely. I thought you banned me from having Shannon pick up mystery shops?”
“I did. This one is special.”
“Okay. Like how?”
“I’m going to ask Shannon to marry me and I—”
“You’re proposing! Congratulations! Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy and gal. You know, Shannon’s like a daughter to me, and you’re like a—”
“Client,” I say.
“Uh, yeah...client. A good client. A nice, big client I like very much professionally,” he backpedals. “So how can I help my best client?”
“I don’t want Marie to know I’m proposing. She’ll stalk us. Bring a camera crew or something,” I mutter, experiencing something close to a PTSD flashback as I stand here, naked, post-sex, talking about her.
“How can I help?”
“I want to completely surprise Shannon. Shock her. This proposal needs to come out of the blue, so I want you to have Carol ask her to do a high-end dinner evaluation at Le Portmanteau.”
Greg lets out a deep, low whistle. “That place charges four figures for a single dinner.” He goes silent. “Do they hire mystery shop companies? If so, I’ve never had a chance to bid on their contract.”
Maybe I’ve underestimated Greg. I always considered him affable and a little clueless, but I’m hearing the hints of some quid pro quo here.
“You help me set this up for Shannon and I’ll talk to their owner. See what I can do.”
“That would be much appreciated!” Greg booms. “Let me get this straight. You want me to tell Carol to call Shannon and offer her the mystery shop. You know Carol and Amanda will slit my throat if I don’t give them the chance to do this shop, right? They’ll rip my balls off and stuff them up my—”
“I get the picture. How about this—I’ll put in an order for three fake mystery shops. One for Carol, one for Amanda—”
Greg clears his throat. “Ah, Judy and I would—”
“Four. Make it four,” I snap, hearing Shannon’s footsteps coming down the hall.
“I put in the order for pad Thai and chicken satay! Enough for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, too!” she calls through the open doorway as she heads to the bathroom.
She’s got my attention. An order that big can mean only one thing.
A sex binge.
The sound of the shower in the distance makes other parts of my body come to attention. I’ve got to get off the phone. Now. Now now now.
“Great. Take care of the details and bill me directly. This won’t go through Anterdec. Make sure Shannon gets an evaluation form and instructions, an expense account...whatever it is you do. Make it look real. It has to be convincing.” I start to get off the phone and add, “And this is confidential.”
“Oh, my lips are zipped. No worries, Declan, and thank—”
I end the call and sprint for the bathroom.
There’s just enough time for shower sex before the food arrives.
Shannon makes a great, wet appetizer.
CHAPTER FIVE
Four days before the proposal...
Going to Marie’s yoga class is about as much fun as playing Mall Santa was last Christmas. With less pee and more pinching.
We have jock straps and cups to protect the jewels during athletic events, but there’s no comparable product to protect your ass from the nimble fingers of a determined ninety year old named Agnes.
Shannon begs me to go. “Mom really feels bad about what happened with the, uh, cameras.”
“Feels bad? Our first amateur sex tape was filmed by your mother. ‘Feels bad’ doesn’t cut it.”
Shannon’s cute little nose scrunches up, her eyes narrowing as her eyebrows meet. “‘First’ sex tape? What do you mean by ‘first’? That implies you intended to have sex tapes. More than one sex tape.”
Damn it. Caught.
“I just thought someday...you know....”
“How about
never. Someday is never. The camera adds ten pounds, and YouTube is forever. Plus¸ who wants to watch themselves having sex? Ew.”
If the camera adds ten pounds to your tits or ass, go camera. I don’t say that aloud, though, because I do not have a death wish. Scratch that one off my list of sexual fantasies. For now, at least.
How in the hell did we get from Marie barging in on us in flagrante delicto to my being the bad guy? “Look, I never taped us having sex, but your mother did,” I argue.
“Technically, Agnes’ grandson did,” Shannon says primly. She really hates that I’m angry with Marie, and is doing the whole people-pleaser thing that she does when there’s conflict. I think conflict is underrated. When two people clash, you learn more than you can ever find out when everyone’s doing the fake passive-aggressive pretend game.
“It’s hard to decide who to blame more, but I’m leaning on the side of Marie,” I grumble. I’m driving my SUV out of the city and into the suburbs, toward Marie’s yoga studio. Given that the proposal takes place soon, I should try to mend fences with my future mother-in-law. Give her a chance to apologize and all that, right?
“No one realized we’d be in a compromising position when Mom walked into my bedroom.”
“Let’s parse that sentence for a minute and find all the ways it’s just plain wrong. Starting with ‘Mom walked into my bedroom.’ You’re twenty-five years old and have a boyfriend. At a minimum your mother should knock.”
“She’s never needed to knock before.”
“My point exactly.”
“How did I just make your point?”
“Shannon, what kind of mother of a grown daughter doesn’t stop for a second and wonder if she’s going to walk in on a private moment? For all she knew you were doing something indecent.”
“I was!”
“Sex with me isn’t indecent. It’s private, and it’s hot and sweaty and awesome...” What are we talking about here? I had a point, right? Now I’m just ready to skip yoga and go back to my apartment for another sex binge. We need to find a Thai place nearby...
“Then what would I be doing alone that’s indecent?”
I frown. “You could be masturbating.”
She makes a choking sound. “Wait. Having sex with you isn’t indecent, but being caught...you know...is?”
“Right.”
“Explain.”
All this talk about having sex and Shannon taking care of things herself is making my mental picture gallery and video archive turn into one big sexfest. I slip up. I err.
I tell the truth.
“Because that would be a waste.”
The temperature in the car drops a good ten degrees.
“A waste?”
“Right. You have me now. You don’t need to...you know...”
The look on her face makes this tiny little voice in the back of my head scream Do over! Do over! Abandon ship! Abandon ship!
“Let’s go back to the word ‘indecent.’”
Uh, oh.
Bzzzz.
Saved by the phone. I’d rather be screamed at in Balinese than hear whatever’s about to come out of Shannon’s mouth.
It’s a text from Marie.
Yoga cancelled due to water leak in studio. You kids have a fun afternoon. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!
That list is so small.
“Your mom just canceled yoga,” I explain as I get into the left lane to pull a U-turn and head back into the city. “Water leak in the building.” Broken pipes are so underrated.
Shannon’s still upset, but pivots. “Text her back and let’s offer to meet for lunch.”
“Do we have to?” I can’t keep the gruffness out of my voice. That Resting Asshole Face quality applies to my voice, too. I have a bad case of Resting Asshole Baritone, apparently.
“You hate my mother,” she says out of the blue, bursting into tears.
Oh, shit. Just what you want your future fiancée to say four days before you’re about to pop the question.
“I don’t hate her.” Diplomacy bubbles up at the perfect time. “I just need more space than you do when it comes to Marie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Shannon’s eyes are red and puffy already. Something in my chest feels like I’m being stabbed. “It’s not like I wanted her to come in like we were filming an episode of Sons of Anarchy!”
“There was a motorcycle in the room?” I’m lost now. Then again, there could have been a motorcycle in the room for all I cared. When I’m having sex with Shannon, the rest of the world just fades away.
“I meant your naked, sculpted ass on video.” I’ve seen the episode of Sons of Anarchy that she’s talking about. I sit up a little straighter knowing she thinks my ass is that muscled.
Wait.
How did she see my ass from that angle?
I pull over into a parking lot and slam the SUV into Park.
Her eyes widen, a creeping flush of red starting in her neck and moving up. Turns out I’m not the only one who’s caught.
“You saw the video?” The only way Shannon could know something like that was if she viewed it.
“Have you?” Her chin juts up in defiance. Didn’t expect that question.
It’s a standoff. We stare at each other with narrowed eyes, like characters in a really bad spaghetti western, the kind my grandfather used to love to watch on Saturday afternoons.
“How did you see it?” we ask in unison.
Stare.
God, she’s sexy when she’s filled with righteous indignation and lying to me.
“You told me you got the camera from those boys and destroyed every version of the video,” Shannon says slowly, pulling back from me in the front seat and giving me a look meant to convey that she was being cagey and viewed me as a pervert, all while running through a visual loop of my naked ass in her mind.
I can see my own ass in her eyes. She’s transparent like that.
“I did. But the kid without the camera was using his phone to tape everything. Said they were taught in media class that they should always have back up.”
“Great. College freshmen who actually listen to their professors,” Shannon mumbles, crossing her arms over her chest in fury. “Just our luck.” She frowns. “You deleted it off his phone?”
“No,” I say, patting my pants pocket. “I bought the phone from him.” Nice phone, too. Better than mine, which makes me realize I’ve become a dinosaur in the tech world. Need to hire an eighteen-year-old geek to keep me supplied with the latest gadgets.
“You bought his active phone on the spot? Phone number and all? He just gave it to you?”
“I didn’t really give him a choice.”
She goes silent.
“How did you see the video?” I ask.
“Agnes’ grandson had a flash drive in the camera. So there was a copy. He gave it to Mom and she gave it to me.”
I smash my fist into the steering wheel and she jumps, terrified. I don’t do violence. Hitting things is a sign of weakness, a symbol of the inability to use words and power to get what you want.
Which is why I hit the steering wheel.
Marie has made me resort to pounding the car dashboard like the frustrated oaf that I’ve become.
“Did your mother watch it?”
“No. She swears.”
“You’re sure she didn’t tweet it to Jessica? Make some popcorn and invite Agnes over? Offer a still for the side of a promotional vehicle?”
“You’re taking out your anger on the wrong person,” she replies with a coolness I’ve never noticed in her before. Looks like Shannon’s been getting some lessons in Resting Bitchface.
I wince at the thought. And her words...
“I’m sorry. You’re right.” I turn the car on and put the car in Drive, but her hand stops me, covering mine on the gear shaft.
Knowing I’ll see eyes filled with reproach, I look at her slowly, dragging my gaze.
What I get, instead, is
a kind of ragged lust.
“What did you think about the, uh, video?” she asks breathing roughly through her nose, her face carefully neutral.
“It was mercifully short.”
“That’s all?”
“And hot.” The video lasts about six seconds, a clear view of my always-pinchable ass and Shannon’s gorgeous legs, quite a bit of fevered movement, and then the screaming starts.
First the cameraman (who knew a guy could hit that octave?), then Marie, followed by what I think is Chuckles’ laughter. I don’t know. I’ve never heard a cat laugh before. But if cats can laugh, that’s definitely the sound.
“Oh, yes.” The top of her tongue pokes out of her mouth and suddenly, I’m breathing hard, too. See? This is why I thought maybe, some day, we’d make our own little personal porno.
But I never thought my future mother-in-law would beat me to the punch.
“All the copies are gone, though,” I assure her as that hand moves from the car’s gearshift to my gearshift. I go from neutral to fourth gear in three seconds.
Shannon’s right.
All guys really do think about is sex.
“Let’s get out of here,” I murmur as I reach over and kiss her neck.
“Where?”
I pause and inhale through my teeth, the hiss the sound of relief as she gives me a contrite look. Neither of us was wrong, but neither of us was right.
(But she’s more wrong, of course).
“How about we go back to an old haunt,” I say, turning toward the road that leads to the trail we were on nearly eighteen months ago when she almost turned my penis into a pincushion.
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
“Not the gas station where you insisted we try to have a quickie?” I can’t tell if she’s making an offer or being sarcastic.
“I made a joke. Once,” I growl.
The rest of the drive we’re silent, though she reaches over to hold my hand, her lips remaining in a neutral, straight line, eyes hooded. The Incident is one thing, but the relationship between me and Marie is another. Shannon wants everyone to be one big, happy family. I get it. I do. But I come from a family environment where everything warm and fuzzy ended the day something warm and fuzzy stung my mother and killed her.