I pick up the phone with suddenly clammy hands and call my voice mail, pressing Play. The first two messages are just hang ups; the last one is short but ominous: Rachel. You didn’t bail on me, did you?
Coming from another man, with another voice and seventy-five pounds less muscle, it might have sounded sad, even plaintive: You didn’t bail on me, did you? But coming from Dean it sounds like the message you’d receive from a mafia don: You didn’t bail on me, did you? Now you sleep with the fishes.
I put away the phone, check my email, wince when I have sixty-four unread messages and get to work while my stomach growls and I wait for Parker to return. I don’t know what I was thinking, contemplating an unnecessary trip out to Camden to meet with Dean and reminisce about old times. They’re in the past for a reason, and that’s exactly where they belong.
* * *
It’s approaching eleven o’clock when Parker and I say goodbye in the elevator. He’s heading down to the underground parking lot to pick up his car, and while he was kind enough to offer me a ride, I’d opted to make the twenty-minute walk home.
I wave goodbye to the security guard and exit the building, the night air washing over me. It’s still warm enough that I shrug out of my suit jacket and carry it under my arm, my black silk tank perfect summer evening wear. Ha, I think wryly. Perfect for walking home alone and collapsing into bed. Alone.
I feel physically and emotionally drained by the day’s events, frustration at Caitlin’s newest manipulations providing the energy to help me put one foot in front of the other. Nine times out of ten I take a taxi to and from work, but tonight I wave away the lone yellow cab parked at the curb and head down the mostly empty street on foot.
“That’s what you blew me off for?”
The voice comes from just over my left shoulder, and instead of whirling or running, I do the opposite and freeze. I can feel the angry energy pulsing off Dean and I’d like to postpone confronting it for as long as possible. Which is all of three seconds, when his fingers circle my upper arm and turn me to face him before his grip falls away.
We’re bathed in the muted glow of streetlights and neon signs. The overhead light casts shadows around Dean’s dark eyes and in the hollows under his cheekbones, making him look even more menacing. The sweats are still present though the hoodie is absent, replaced by a black T-shirt that strains across his massive chest. His biceps are bigger than my head, his forearms the size of my thighs. I should be smart enough to be afraid, but I’m too tired and frustrated to work up to it.
I’m about to apologize when Dean cuts me off.
“Another fun night at your desk? Paperwork and emails, that satisfy you?”
I should cut to the chase and tell him I’m sorry for blowing him off, but what comes out instead is, “I had to work. How long have you been out here?”
He ignores the question. “Let me see your phone.”
My bag is slung over my shoulder and I cover it with my arm. “No.”
“Is it broken?”
“No.”
“So why couldn’t you extend me the common courtesy of a phone call, Rachel? Tell me you weren’t coming?”
He’s got me there. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have called.”
“But you didn’t.”
“That’s right. I didn’t. How long have you been out here, Dean?”
“Long enough.” His eyes comb me from top to bottom, lips twisting in a sneer. “This is you now, huh?”
I sigh. “Obviously.”
“Take off your shoes.”
I stiffen. “What?”
“Take off your shoes. Put that fancy fucking bag on the ground and take your hair out of that goddamn knot. Let me see the girl I used to know.”
“I told you already, she doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Why not? I liked her.”
“Because she was trash!” I try to stifle the words, but it’s too late. They ring around us in the empty night like sirens, alerting everybody to who I used to be. And who I’m not.
Dean takes a menacing step forward, hooking a finger under my chin and forcing me to look up into his face. His dark eyes glint in the moonlight, furious. “So what does that make me?”
I jerk my head away and stumble back. “Why was tonight so important?” I demand.
He shrugs. “It wasn’t.”
“Then why are you waiting outside my office like it is?”
He scratches his shoulder, muscles bulging. The hem of his T-shirt lifts up slightly, revealing countless cut abdominal muscles. I roll my eyes when my libido sparks to life. Absolutely not, sex drive.
“You obviously thought it was important,” he counters. “Important enough to blow off. What are you afraid of?”
He’s half-right. I blew him off because I had something better to do, something better than repeating past mistakes and risking everything I’ve worked for. I didn’t go because I’m smart. And I lash out at him because it’s so fucking terrifying to know that five minutes in his company makes that slippery slope to the past so much steeper. “What did you think was going to happen?” I snap. “I’d come over, we’d talk about old times and you’d feel better?”
He shrugs again. Goddamn him and the shrugging.
“Really?” I scoff. “You wanted to tell me about Ally and Kurt’s wedding so bad that you camped out downtown just to talk about it? Then please, tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out. I want to know all about the flowers and the cake and the vows—”
Dean backs me into the wall so quickly that I have no chance to react. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarls. “If you didn’t want to talk, all you had to do was say so.”
“Take the hint,” I gasp, feeling his chest press against my mine. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to do anything with you.” The words slip out before I can stop them. I don’t want Dean to know his casual inquiry after our run got to me, made me think about things I can’t afford to think about. It was safer when his question—You fucking anybody, Rachel?—went unacknowledged. When he didn’t know it had rattled around in my brain, slowly winding its way south until I almost couldn’t breathe.
His gaze drops to my breasts. “Like what?”
I squeeze out from between Dean and the wall, feeling the bricks snag my hair and my shirt, no doubt ruining the silk. It’s late and I’m tired and tears sting my eyes. I’m not about to spell it out for him. He’s the one who put the topic on the table; let him bring it up. Again. “Like anything.”
“Would it be so bad, Rachel?” His voice is deceptively soft, conciliatory, though his prowling steps forward belie his intentions. “Would it really fuck up your fancy little world if ‘anything’ happened?”
I swipe at the stray strands of hair curling around my face. “Why?” I ask finally.
That halts his advance. “Why what?”
“Why would you want...anything to do with me?”
Dean laughs suddenly, a mean, intimidating sound that has nothing to do with humor. “Why?” he echoes. “Why?”
I shrug helplessly. I may have been contemplating his invite all week, but circumstances clearly conspired to help me make the right decision. This is the real Dean. The angry, bitter Dean who has ten years’ worth of hatred built up, ready to unleash it on stupid, stuck-up me. That nonthreatening man in the park was just an act, just a means to an end: he wanted to get me in that apartment, and what happened next was going to be up to him, not me. Tears of hurt and guilt and exhaustion leak from my eyes and I wipe them away.
“Can’t you just get over it?” I plead. “What more do you want from me?”
His hands fist at his sides as he tries to calm down. I see the muscles in his neck bulge, and something in his jaw ticks. “I want you out of my head, Rachel.”
“What?”
He clarifies: “I want to fuck you out of my head, Rachel.”
My mouth is dry. “I can’t help you with that.”
“Why not? You owe me
, wouldn’t you say?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He’s pacing forward again, forcing me to take matching steps back. “I was nineteen when I went to prison. Three weeks after you left me. I’d never been with another girl. Who do you think I thought about all those nights?”
I try to swallow, but I can’t. None of my muscles will work. I’m frozen in place, desperate to leave but unable to move.
“I spent eight years in prison, thinking about one fucking girl, Rachel. And when I got out I thought of nothing but replacing that image with any other face, any other pussy, but you know what? No matter who I fuck I can’t get you out of my head.”
My breath whooshes out, angry, scared, aroused. “Try harder.”
His lips curl in a facsimile of a smile. “I’m plenty hard.”
Unbidden, my eyes flit down to the crotch of his pants, but it’s too dark and the pants too loose to see anything. A shiver of remorse weaves its way down my spine, merging with arousal to create something potent and uncomfortable. I can’t pity-fuck Dean. I won’t.
“I want to hold you down, Rachel. I want to spread your legs. I want you to fight when I pin your hands over your head and shove my cock inside you. I want to pound into you until you’re begging me to stop and to make you come harder than you’ve ever come before. But I won’t let you come until it suits me, you know why? Because you called the shots for all those years, and now it’s time for a little payback.”
His big hand curls around the back of my neck, fingers nimbly undoing my chignon. I feel hair spill down my back and he chuckles, satisfied.
“That’s a good start. You don’t gotta be afraid, Rachel. Or maybe you do. Because I want to fuck you so hard you can’t possibly run away in the middle of the night again. Not until I’m done.”
Dean’s lips are inches from mine. His eyes are hot and cold combined, shining in the neon lights. Since leaving Riverside ten years ago, I’ve been with a handful of men. I wouldn’t say that any of them loved me, but none of them hated me, either. I don’t know how to react to the fact that my panties are drenched even as my heart races in a sickening combination of fear and arousal. But my brain has one message for my body, for Dean, and that’s a firm, “No.”
He freezes at the word, and after a second he steps away and buries his hands in his pockets.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I say for what feels like the thousandth time. “I’m sorry I stood you up tonight. But it doesn’t make it okay for you to hurt me.”
Dean’s gritting his teeth, I can see it from here. He turns his head to look at nothing across the street, the strong line of his jaw flexing.
“You want it,” he says finally. “I can tell. You need it.”
I shake my head, lying. “Not with you.”
He scoffs, then suddenly relaxes. “All right,” he says, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Have it your way.”
My legs almost give way at the sudden relief that washes over me.
“But you need to get laid, Rachel.”
My stomach clenches.
“Whatever you’re doing in that office isn’t working for you.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying.”
I turn on a heel and stalk down the street toward home. Dean doesn’t follow.
“I’m not coming back here, Rachel. When you’re ready to admit that your way isn’t working for you, you got my address. But only come calling when you’re ready to do it my way.”
I give him the finger over my shoulder and he laughs, the sound sharp in the night.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he calls.
* * *
I’d always prided myself on being smart. In college I’d been able to take minimal notes in class, somehow managing to simply retain the key points of the lectures, reciting them almost verbatim when called upon to answer questions.
Now I’m kicking myself.
I cannot get Dean’s wish list out of my head. I want to hold you down, Rachel. I want to spread your legs. I want you to fight when I pin your hands over your head and shove my cock inside you. I want to pound into you until you’re begging me to stop and to make you come harder than you’ve ever come before.
I’d like to believe I’m a strong, independent woman, which is why I’ve been so at odds with myself in the week since our confrontation: part of me hates Dean for holding on to his anger this long and slapping me in the face with it again and again; an even bigger part of me wants to show up at his place and say, Okay, fine. I give in. Let’s do it your way.
But I’m terrified of his way. This isn’t the Dean I was madly in love with from ages fifteen to seventeen. This isn’t the Dean who claimed my first kiss in a stolen car. This isn’t the normal-sized Dean I’d given my virginity to in the second bedroom of his dented double-wide, the one who’d given me his with gasping breaths and promises to love me forever. And it really isn’t the Dean Barclay who lay spent beside me, smug and satisfied, and asked, “So—whaddya say? You wanna be my girlfriend or what?”
That Dean is long gone. Ironic, since I have the new, angry Dean’s address stashed somewhere, and a standing invitation to...visit.
I sigh and stare at the stack of files on the corner of the desk in my small home office, then sigh some more and look out the window at the bustling city. It’s the Fourth of July and the city is hot and excited, people already heading down to Navy Pier to prepare for the fireworks. This is one of the few days a year our offices are officially closed, which, since I have no life, gives me very little to do.
As he does for every holiday, Parker invited me to spend the day with his family, but after misguidedly accepting an offer to spend Christmas with them three years ago, I’d made my excuses. I really like Parker. And I like his wife and kids. But sitting in their lovely home with a table full of food so perfect-looking it could come from a magazine just made me feel sad and out of place.
Not that sitting at home alone on a beautiful sunny day eating three consecutive cherry Popsicles isn’t sad.
Two hours and two more Popsicles later I’m finishing my fourth episode of a surprisingly addictive show about first-time home buyers and feeling a little sick. My phone beeps to indicate a text and I fumble for it, mentally urging the young couple on the show to go for the fixer-up bungalow instead of the move-in-ready condo.
I read the text: Busy later?
I frown, perplexed, when I realize it’s from Todd. I’d seen him three more times since the strange elevator run-in where I’d given us both mixed messages. Given that it’s normal for me to see Todd around the office approximately three times in three months without careful planning, I’d been starting to suspect that he’d been trying to dip a toe in the water to feel things out. Lucky for him, a glance in the mirror reveals bird’s nest hair, circles under my eyes, and bright red lips and tongue. And chin.
I need to get out.
No, I type back.
He replies instantly.
In Evanston now. Will be home around ten. Fireworks and...?
Well, I think we all know what ... means. Unwittingly, an image of Dean pops into my mind. I don’t imagine he’s the kind of guy to use ellipses when what he really means is fuck. Does Todd know how to fuck? Do I? And do I really want him to? Oh, God, yes.
My thumbs flicker over the keys.
Sounds good.
Come over around ten.
Okay.
I turn off the television and shovel Popsicle wrappers into the garbage, then shuffle off to the bathroom to begin my booty-call beauty routine.
* * *
Because shaving, exfoliating and moisturizing only takes an hour—twenty minutes of which are spent scrubbing my general mouth area—I decide to go shopping for some new underwear. The irony of making good money is that I spend so much time earning it I actually have very little time to spend it.
I drop by a couple of fancy lingerie stores, settling on a black lace bra and matc
hing panties, enjoying the contrast on my fair skin. Since it’ll probably be a year before I do this again, I get teal, pink and white sets too. What the hell.
Because I’m out and spending money, I also find a pretty summer dress with a deep V-neck that shows a hint of cleavage and lots of leg, a new pair of silver heels to go with the dress and shell out for a mani-pedi. When my Popsicle diet catches up to me I head back toward home, picking up a bottle of wine to make arriving at Todd’s for a night of hot sex seem a little more respectable. Or not.
The combination of the heat, sugar and weeks of sleepless nights takes it toll and though I never nap, I’m out like a light the second my head hits the pillow. And that’s when I dream about Dean. I see him silhouetted in the door of the convenience store, feel the pang in my chest when I recognize the boy I’d loved had grown into a huge, angry man. I see him striding toward me in the gym, heavy bag slung over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. I see his dark eyes, the full lips, strong jaw, the muscles of his chest straining against his T-shirt. And I hear him too, the words running like a confused soundtrack, nice Dean, angry Dean, hurt Dean, nice Dean, angry Dean... And, of course, I feel him. I feel his chest against my back, his breath on my ear, his grip on my arm, my knees, my hands. I feel the heat and the power, the promise, the threat. And it makes me wetter than I’ve ever been.
It’s growing dark when I finally wake up sprawled facedown on top of the rumpled covers, sweat pooled in the small of my back. I’d forgotten to turn on the air-conditioning when I’d come in, that’s it. That’s why I’m so flushed and feverish, my legs weak, pussy swollen, every brush of my thighs making me catch my breath.
I glance at the clock. Nine forty. That’s cutting it close. Fortunately Todd’s place is only a ten-minute walk, enough time to pin up my hair and take a cold shower to cool my skin and my libido. Your turn is coming! I mentally tell my crotch as it begs for attention. Knock it off.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve been this aroused. Who knew Todd “Golf Fan” Varner had it in him to request a booty call? And who could have predicted that it would turn me on this much?
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