by Roxy Mews
The red shirt he wore pulled a bit at his biceps. As he fidgeted she could see the muscles move just beneath the surface. He was frowning, but she was used to people frowning around her. She was a supervisor in her own office and she saw a lot of frowns. By the way he was dressed he had to have been pretty high up on this store’s food chain too.
The red light caught in the lines in his brow. He would have looked menacing were it not for the teddy bear and urinal planters in the background. “Why would I tell you a secret?”
“Because we’re in a deserted building? Because we’re all alone in a strange situation? Because I don’t even know your name? It’s always easier to tell a stranger more than someone you know.” April looked into his eyes, and she saw the harshness soften. He parted his lips and took a breath. The lines in his forehead smoothed out, and she realized she couldn’t wait to find out something about him.
Then she couldn’t see him anymore. The hum of the light stopped. The last bit of red making the room visible clicked off. April hoped her eyes would adjust, but there just wasn’t any light to adjust with. “And you should tell me because we’re in the dark until someone gets that power line fixed.”
Chapter Eight
Taylor tried really hard not to panic at the absolute blackness surrounding him. He was getting someone out here to put in a window, or something, because this was ridiculous.
What was more ridiculous was he wanted to share secrets with this woman. It would be a distraction in this insane situation, but that wasn’t what was making him want to talk to her. He didn’t have many secrets, and he suddenly wished he had a hobby like naked rock-climbing, because it would have been something he could’ve told her. It would be something exciting and new, and something totally not him. Because the way she’d looked, like she saw something worth knowing in his eyes, made him feel he needed more than this job for once. He wanted her to look at him and see something more exciting than upper management and a good 401k.
Not that they could see anything at the moment, but when the lights turned back on, he wanted something more than enough income to keep his bank account happy. He figured a nice dinner would be a good place to start.
Taylor unbuttoned a couple buttons and pulled the back of his shirt out to get a bit of air against his skin. The air conditioning was also powered by the missing electricity. It was starting to get warm.
Lost in his thoughts for a moment, he jumped at the touch on his knee, but quickly grabbed the small hand. “Well, at least I know where you are.”
“Wouldn’t want me getting into trouble.” She laughed. “And you still didn’t tell me a secret.”
The small sound vibrated across his skin. He smiled and didn’t bother to remove her hand. As long as she didn’t go any higher she couldn’t see that her touch was affecting him. Perhaps he did have a bit of something exciting in him.
“How are you not freaked out by this?” he asked.
“My mom took us to visit this cave when I was little. They took us deep underground and turned off the lights. A few kids cried, a few screamed, but not me. I’ve always thought the dark is peaceful.”
Taylor tried hard to find this peaceful instead of a reason to panic. “Your mom seems…interesting.” Taylor couldn’t think of a better word to describe a mother who would suggest her daughter have sex with a stranger.
Luckily the woman didn’t seem to take offense. “You could say that.”
“So, your mom was here. Are you two close?”
“She was helping me move out of my parents’ house. And, before you say anything, it’s not like it sounds.” She grumbled. “I’m not a mooch. I just wanted to own a house instead of renting an apartment. It takes some time to save up enough for a down payment.”
Interesting. She wasn’t just leaving the nest—she was financially independent. “What did you buy?”
“Just a little cottage in the suburbs for now, but it’s the smallest house in the neighborhood, and I can fix it up and probably get a really good gain on my investment when I do sell it and upgrade.”
“Belleview?” Most of his new customers were moving into the development.
“Yes.” She sounded surprised. “How did you know?”
He settled a bit. This was much a much more comfortable line of conversation. He was able to relax by dragging her into some small talk. “A lot of house flippers buy up there. I know a couple of contractors that work the area. If you give me your name, I can pass along their information.”
“We’re going to tell secrets, remember? I can’t be a stranger if you know where my home is and my full name. So…no more names, and no more talk about family.” He heard her chewing.
He was a bit sad as he confessed, “I’m not interesting enough to have any secrets.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying.” He let go of her hand, and for lack of a better spot, put his palms next to his hips on the floor.
“Nobody is completely open about who they are. But if you’re going to play this game, at least tell me something embarrassing that happened in your past.” Her nails scratched him through his pants as she pulled herself forward, and the zings went straight to his cock. “I know. You said you hated April Fools’ Day. Tell me why.”
How he could even feel like getting an erection after all his poor cock had been through was beyond him, but the blood flow was definitely headed south of the border thanks to her hot little hands. He cleared his throat. “There aren’t enough hours in the day to go over that one.”
“Bet I hate it more than you,” she challenged.
He’d always been competitive, and now he was intrigued. He knew there were people out there who had a rougher life than he did, but this was one day of the year where he had the crappy day award pretty locked up.
“I’m the butt of all the pranks at the store here, and my boss lets it go on.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“You saw the bathroom.”
She gave him a little of that soft giggle. He pulled at his collar. The sweat forming on his brow was not just from the increase in temperature now. Was she flirting with him? Why did he want to flirt back so badly? This couldn’t be good for his career, and for the first time in his adult life, he really didn’t care.
Her fingers made little circles on his knee as she reminded him, “I saw a lot in this bathroom.”
“Just remember it was cold in here before the air conditioning went out, okay?”
She laughed and shifted closer. Her hand crept a bit higher. He grabbed her fingers again. If she reached forward any more she’d see exactly how much he enjoyed her laugh. And that wasn’t good. It wasn’t professional. But like she said, they were in the dark. It didn’t have to count in the dark, did it?
“Want to know why I hate April Fools’ Day?” she asked.
“If you can top being glued to the toilet seat and getting assaulted by a bucket of bouncy balls before coffee, have at it.”
“My parents conceived me on April Fools’ Day.”
“Why do you know that?” He couldn’t imagine having knowledge of his conception from his own parents.
“They named me after it.” She sighed. “My first name’s April, all right? It’s their favorite funny story. They told it to everyone. Every date I took home. Every friend I invited over. And mind you, my very first birthday sleepover they told all the girls in my second grade class, that they had sex on this very night eight years ago.”
“Thinking of your parents having sex every time someone says your name? Okay, you win.” Taylor couldn’t stop laughing. “I do know your first name now. Wonder if I’ll get your last name out of you before we’re rescued.”
“Not a chance, mister. You’re not getting any more out of me. We’re having an intimate conversation between strangers.”
He heard some crinkling.
“What is that?” he asked the blackness. Her mother had slipped two things under that door. One was food, th
e other… He opened his eyes further to try and process.
“I got hungry,” she said around a bite of the granola bar. “Don’t worry. I’ll share.”
Taylor wasn’t sure what she was sharing, but he damn sure wasn’t thinking about food when her hand crept higher.
Without his sight, the touch had every nerve in his body going off like a strobe light in the darkness. The hand that touched him was small, but definitely not shy. She pressed at the midpoint of his thigh as she shifted her weight and adjusted, so her knees were no longer touching his.
She pressed the half empty wrapper against his abdomen. She walked her fingers up his chest. His heart pounded as her digits tickled his nipple while they slid past.
He would have said something, but he wasn’t sure the sounds he made would be at all appropriate, and they might’ve been past that point now anyway. Her fingers continued up his neck and then traced along the line of his jaw. Even though it made no difference in the amount of light, Taylor felt his eyes close. He kept silent and he felt his face go lax with pleasure. Whether he should or not, he enjoyed her touch. For once he wasn’t worried about if the woman was marriage material or if she would be able to put up with his schedule. He wasn’t thinking about any of that. In the dark, he didn’t even have to worry about how she was reacting, because he couldn’t see. It was all about how she made him feel, and he felt alive.
Then her fingers found his lips. His suddenly dry lips. Without thinking, his tongue darted out to wet them, but he ended up licking her finger instead.
“Oh.” She cleared her throat, but she didn’t move her finger.
Taylor should have leaned his head back and put his tongue away, but her finger tasted like chocolate. He licked her again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d licked a woman’s finger. It hadn’t been on his schedule before. From the way the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, he realized how tragic that was.
“I think I dropped the granola bar.” She said as she slid her finger along his tongue.
They were trapped in here, and didn’t know when they would get out. His brain realized him he was being incredibly inappropriate with a customer.
“I’m sorry.” It took all his effort to move his head back. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?”
This was when having a conscience put him at a disadvantage. Working in retail sucked the life out of a person on many levels, but one thing it had taught Taylor was how to read people. Just like a game of poker, little tells in body language told him a lot. But there was nothing here. Just her breath and the few words she gave him.
Then she moved her fingers back to his chest.
“Why shouldn’t you lick my finger?” Her hands slowly curled in on themselves and she gripped his shirt. Her whispered words thickened the air around him. “I liked it.”
He had to be hallucinating at this point. There was no other explanation for it. This woman was the figment of his thirteen-year-old self’s imagination. She was the hallucination that resulted from sitting in his parent's basement trolling through the Penthouse magazines and finally reading the letters all those years ago. She couldn’t be real.
But she really pushed her finger back into his mouth, and he told his rational inner voice to shut up, as he sucked her deeper.
Chapter Nine
Sizzles raced through her fingers all the way up her arm. Sure, darn near everything had gone wrong today, but nothing felt wrong anymore. Nothing about this felt like what her parents talked about either. For the first April Fools’ Day she could remember, April was not thinking about her parents having sex. Thank. The. Gods.
Her heart raced in her chest, as her breaths warmed the air. The setting wasn't ideal, but this stranger was. He could be anybody she wanted him to be. She couldn’t see, but she could feel. His chest was muscled and hard. April’s body felt more alive from touching his, and she realized that this was what she wanted as she started her new life. She wanted to feel this excitement. She wanted something all to herself, and in this moment, he was hers.
She pushed the meal bar off to the side and it skittered somewhere near the sinks.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I got rid of the wrapper. I wanted to touch something else.”
April slid her hands down from his chest, to his abs. His stomach fluttered beneath her palms as he sucked in his breath. Then he grabbed her wrists.
“What are you doing?”
April paused at his words. Had she misread him? He sounded shocked, sure. But there wasn’t any revulsion in his voice. Quite the opposite in fact. Unlike her parents, April learned to read people fast.
She knew when someone wanted to get away from her or her family. The hitch in their voices or the way they would take a second too long to respond, let her know to back off and retreat.
His voice didn’t hitch, but it stuttered a bit in his rush to get his words out. The heat from his hands seared into her skin. He pulled them closer instead of pushing them away. It had been over two years since April had someone pull her close like this. And in the dark…locked away…she decided she wouldn’t pull back.
“We’re all alone.” She reminded him. She spoke because she had to let him know she wanted him to touch her too. “We have to use our senses. I like your hands on me. Now tell me what you like.”
He didn’t say anything, but his grip stopped being so punishing. His thumbs stroked the backs of her hands.
“I don’t even know your last name.” His voice dipped low and he was trying to tempt the information out of her.
She wasn’t going for it. “That just means I can be whoever you want me to be.” And it meant she could be whoever she wanted herself to be too.
She pulled from his grip and reached her hands out into the darkness. Her arms slid over his shoulders and she readjusted just a bit.
“You know you gave me a concussion less than two hours ago.” He sucked in a breath as she stroked the back of his neck. “I’m probably imagining this. You have to be a hallucination.”
April licked her lips and slid her knees forward. If she wanted to be reasonable, she could start a conversation and pass the time. They might hold hands. They might share confidences.
They might miss this opportunity.
April let her voice sound as sure as she felt, and she could only hope he needed this as much as she did. She let all that longing out in her plea as she reminded him, “If I am a hallucination, then you can do whatever you want because I’m not real.”
This whole scenario let her pretend too. She imagined she was the woman with all the answers. She was the brilliant brunette in the boardroom. She was someone who was sexy and in control, and she certainly wasn’t the woman who slammed this man’s head into a urinal.
She was the woman who smiled and watched as the man swelled at the sight of her, and who knew how to take advantage of the situation. She’d read about that kind of magic, and thought it was just fiction. She’d been wrong.
Those fantasies weren’t just in her mind now. The hot swell of a man was beneath her as she climbed on top of him and wiggled into place. The heat traveled up her spine, and the groan from in front of her gave her the exact location of his mouth.
He’d lost all conviction when he said, “This is a really bad idea,”
“I couldn’t disagree more.”
April kissed him. If she hadn’t closed her eyes, she would have been sure that the sparks would have lit up the darkness. Her lips opened as his tongue stopped protesting and plunged into her mouth. She sucked him further in and wrapped her legs around his back.
She was so lost in the sensations that she jumped when his fingers dug into her back and began to ease her shirt up.
April felt the heat of the already-warm room amplified through his palms and the first trickle of sweat formed between her breasts.
She wanted to feel more.
“Take off my shirt for me.” She wiggled from h
is grasp and held her arms up. “I don’t want to accidentally elbow you in the face.”
“I think you’ve beat me up enough today.” Stalling at the sound of his own words, he began to ease the fabric back down. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Even though he couldn’t see it, April rolled her eyes. It was good this man was a nice guy in reality, but she didn’t want to be in the real world at the moment. His tongue felt ignited her, and she wanted to nothing more than how he made her feel. She needed to be blunt. Nothing had gone right today, so she was damn sure going to revel in this one gloriously wrong moment.
“I want you to fuck me. I want to feel something beautiful in the midst of this insane situation, and I want you to quit dicking around and take my shirt off.”
He laughed against her skin and gave her a little nip for her attitude. But instead of backing down she felt his lips slide into a smile against her shoulder as he slid back only to reply, “Yes, ma’am.”
He lost the timid touches and yanked her shirt from her torso. The air should have been cool against her skin, but they were undoubtedly fogging up the mirrors in this place.
He unhooked her bra with an expert twist, and April wiggled from its hold on her. Instead of the hesitation she felt his hands grow sure. April put her palms flat on the ground behind her to ease her descent as he leaned her back.
“You know…since we aren’t talking,” She thrust her chest up, “Why not suck a nipple into your mouth?”
“I could point out you are talking at the moment, but instead, I’ll just let you know that I need a bit of wiggle room.”
The air moved around her and April felt the faintest touch of fabric brush her skin. He moved something behind her, and this time when April arched she felt the stubble of his chin nuzzling against her collar bone. She gasped at the rough sensation, but she was unable to exhale. She held her breath until she felt dizzy, but she didn’t want to move and miss one second of this.