“That’s fine. I’ll find my new best friend Adrian and ask him to eat with me. Gosh, I hope he thinks I’m cool enough.” We’d forgiven Adrian for telling Caitlin about the doctor’s note, and he now works with us when he’s able to escape her evil clutches.
“Parker.”
He fairly shoves me out the door. “I’m messing with you, Rachel. Enjoy your booty call. Lord knows accountant Todd didn’t make you blush this way.”
“It’s not a booty call!” I hiss. “It’s dinner. And I’m not blushing.”
“Whatever you say.” Parker follows me into the hall and cups his hands around his mouth in his best Rocky imitation. “Yo, Adrian!”
* * *
“Hey.”
“Hey.” I slide into the corner booth across from Dean and slip out of my suit jacket, aware that he’s watching my every move. The small burger joint is busy, and the aroma of grilled meat and cheese makes my mouth water. “Good choice,” I say, shooting him a smile. “I’m starved.”
“Me too.”
A server comes by to drop off menus and glasses of water, and I skim the options, though I already know what I want. A massive burger, all the fixings and fries. And a milk shake. Wine can’t help me today; it’s time to call in the big guns.
“How was your training?” I ask after the server has returned to take our orders. Dean had listened to my meal request with a raised eyebrow, then copied it.
“Fine.” He drinks his water and scans the room.
I purse my lips and nod, irked by his reticence. “Okay.”
Suddenly Dean leans forward and folds his hands on the table in front of him, looking at me intently. “Listen,” he says in a low voice. “Don’t take this the wrong way.”
I frown. “What?”
“I really want to fuck you. Right now.”
I barely manage to keep my jaw from coming unhinged. “I beg your pardon?”
“That’s not why I called,” he adds hastily. “I just thought we could eat together before I went back, but watching you walk in...” He trails off, the rest implied. I say nothing for a moment, even though I know he’s waiting. Dean no doubt thinks I’m incredibly offended by the statement, but after the day I’ve had, a quickie sounds perfect. And I’m kind of flattered. I feel my nipples tighten and my blood thrums with anticipation.
“Okay,” I say, enjoying the way he blinks in surprise. “Where?”
“You serious?”
I lean out of the booth to look down the dark hall marked with a sign for the bathrooms, then glance back at Dean. Wordlessly I stand and head for the hall, feeling his heated gaze on my back. Part of me can’t believe I’m actually doing this, while another part of me can’t believe I get to do this. No way would Todd Varner tell me he wanted to fuck me in a restaurant. And to be honest, I don’t think it would turn me on the way it does hearing it coming from Dean. I want him to want me.
I pass the men’s bathroom and pause in front of a door stamped with a little pink cow, then squint at a third door a few feet past it. I check over my shoulder to confirm that I’m alone before twisting the handle of the mystery door. It swings open to reveal a cramped supply closet. If there’s a light I can’t find it, but in the nearly nonexistent glow from the hallway I can see that it’s lined on three sides with shelves of paper towels and cleaning supplies.
A big hand splays itself across my back and shoves me inside, then Dean stalks in after me, shutting the door and enclosing us in darkness. I feel his fingers wrap around my neck, holding me in place as he slants those soft lips over mine, sliding his tongue into my mouth, hard and seeking. I don’t waste time with pleasantries, dipping a hand into his sweats and finding his cock through his boxers, already impressively stiff. I reach through the slit in the fabric and wrap my hand around his length, jerking him roughly, feeling him swell against my palm. His tormented growl makes me wet, and I fumble with my free hand to lift my dress over my hips.
Dean turns us so my back is to the door, then drops his hand between my legs, finding my panties and forcing them down. I step out of the scrap of silk and lift a leg over his hip, whimpering when the searing tip of his cock slides over my damp folds.
“Condom,” he grunts, pulling away for a second. I hear a package tear, a pause as he rolls it on, then he’s at me again, pushing inside without prelude.
My breath catches as tender tissues part, and when he squeezes my breast with one rough hand, I realize this is very much like our first night together, up against the door in his apartment. And then I realize that even though the positioning is similar, nothing else is: I trust Dean. I’m a lawyer who trusts the ex-convict who’s fucking her in a restaurant supply closet. I don’t know what this says about my mental state, but it turns me on even more.
Dean’s breath rasps in and out as he pounds into me, almost brutally. He cups my ass in both big hands, holding me away from the door, tilting my hips for deeper penetration and absorbing the blows so my tailbone doesn’t bruise. He’s going too fast to get me off, but I don’t mind. He’s taking what he wants for once, and I’m surprised by just how much it turns me on to let him, knowing it’s just for a little while. That I can trust him to return the favor, with interest. That I can trust him, period.
After a couple of minutes I hear him groan low in his throat, the sound he makes when he’s close. “Come on, Dean,” I murmur. “Let me feel it.”
He frees one hand to stroke my face, holding my head as he kisses me, then swears softly as he comes, jerking into me three, four times with his release. With our chests pressed together like this, I can feel his heart pounding against mine, thudding against my ribs like an out-of-control stallion. “Okay,” he mutters, pulling out. “Okay. Your turn.”
I can’t see him but I feel him drop to his knees in front of me, and more than anything I wish I could turn on the lights and watch this big man kneel at my feet and bury his face between my legs. Dean parts his lips and sucks me into his mouth, making my knees buckle. I stifle a cry and balance my hands on his shoulders as he strokes up the back of my thighs, helping me stand.
He plunges his tongue deep inside, again and again, the wettest, most thorough tongue-fuck of my life. His thumbs reach around to pull me open, exposing my clit to his lips and teeth, dragging out an orgasm I’m all too happy to surrender. I clamp a hand over my mouth as I come, hearing Dean’s satisfied groan as he eats me, then the soft sound of him swallowing my release.
“Oh God,” I moan as the pleasure abates. “Jesus.”
Dean stands and tugs my dress down. I feel his elbow brush my chest as he lifts a hand to wipe his mouth, laughing quietly. “I’ve got your panties,” he says. “You good to go?”
Ha. Hardly. But I nod, though he can’t see it, and say that I am. Dean returns to the table as I duck into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror I expect to see tousled hair, swollen lips and guilty eyes. Instead all I see is myself, work-appropriate dress, smooth chignon, flushed cheeks. Nothing that says “Just fucked.”
I wash my hands and return to the table as the server sets down our plates. “Looks good,” Dean says. He’s talking to the server but his eyes are on me.
I smile and pick up my milk shake, drinking through the straw. “Thanks,” I say after a moment.
“You don’t gotta thank me.”
“I needed that. More than I needed this milk shake.” I take another sip. “And I really needed this milk shake.”
“Rough day?”
“The worst.”
“Caitlin? I told you, take her down.”
I laugh. “Bigger than Caitlin.” Over dinner I tell him about Fowler, about Nunes, about how I can’t decide if I’m happy or infuriated by the settlements.
“You like what you do?”
I chew on a fry. “Yeah.”
“You ever think about downsizing?”
I stop eating, midfry. “What do you mean?”
Dean shrugs. “I mean, you seem to like the little things about your
job, not the big things.”
I bristle. “I like the big things.” I like the thirty-second floor, the private cars, the embossed business card that says Rachel Moser, Attorney. I like the trappings of success, even if I don’t always have time to enjoy them.
“What about that little house you always wanted? Nice backyard, yappy dog, apple tree?”
I haven’t thought about those things in a long time. “It’s different now.”
Dean studies me for a moment, then shrugs again. “Okay. Forget I said anything.”
I shake off a vaguely unsettled feeling and finish my fry. “What about you then?”
“What about me?” He polishes off his burger and wipes his fingers on a napkin.
“Do you ever think about upsizing?”
“To what?”
“You said they’re making you do this training, that it might be for a promotion. Why don’t you want it?”
Another shrug. “It’s not for me.”
“And working in a warehouse is?”
“You got a problem with it?”
“Stop answering questions with questions. Do you like the warehouse?”
Dean sighs. “It’s fine, Rachel. I do what I’m paid to do, I don’t have to deal with people, everybody leaves me alone. If I get a promotion, I’ll be the warehouse manager, have to wear a suit and tie, answer to the higher-ups. It’s not worth it.”
“Why not?”
With his plate clean and mine still half-full, Dean reaches over and snags a fistful of fries. “That’s enough,” he says. “Finish your meal. I’ve gotta go.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
I push away my plate. “That was abrupt.”
“It’s been a long day.”
I catch the server’s eye and signal for the check. “Let me get this,” I say when he reaches for his wallet.
“Fuck no.” The words are flat and unyielding, cold enough to make me pause.
“Dean, it’s just dinner.”
“Don’t push on this, Rachel. I know you’re an evolved feminist and all that now—”
“What?”
“But I’m old-fashioned. I fuck you, I buy you dinner, I teach you how to beat up the coworkers who give you trouble.”
I fold my arms in front of me, unimpressed but also amused. “What do I do?”
Dean sets down a few bills and stands, looming over the table to kiss me in clear view of anyone who might bother to look. “Just show up.”
Chapter Twenty
The next three weeks pass in a similar, lulling routine. I go to work, struggle to find interviews, realize that the people who will talk to us don’t have the strongest cases, sign up the ones with any potential whatsoever and beat my head against the wall. On the plus side, I see Dean more often than not, holing up at his place for takeout and a movie, sometimes falling asleep without sex, waking up in the morning to exchange perplexed looks and unspoken promises that the no sex had been an accident, neither of us ready or willing to add a new element to our tentative arrangement.
I try not to dwell on the shifting foundation of our relationship. How it started out as sex, remote and angry, then slid into something sadder and more plaintive, a temporary cure for loneliness. Without the sex, the landscape of our relationship is transforming again, this time into something I can’t quite recognize. I make no attempt to define it or fight it, letting the pieces fall into their own strange places, telling myself I’ll make sense of things later, just enjoy the peaceful status quo for now, however long it lasts.
I leave work at eight fifty on Friday night, swinging by to pick up the car I’d rented for the weekend. Dean finishes work at ten and we’d agreed to meet up afterward, so after a quick change of clothes, I set out for Camden.
Carters is a large grocery chain and the warehouse where Dean is employed is connected to the rear of the Camden store. Dean had told me to go inside and ask one of the butchers to call him when I arrived. I’m ten minutes early so I take my time, meandering through the store, trying to picture myself with a grocery cart full of food I’d actually plan to cook and then eat. I can’t do it. The majority of my meals come from restaurants, the rest are things that come in a package I take out of the freezer and stick in the microwave.
I’m in the cereal aisle and approaching the back of the store when I hear a low, sexy laugh. I halt abruptly, cocking my head to the side and earning myself a strange stare from a woman walking past with her child. The male laugh is followed promptly by high-pitched female laughter—two, maybe more women. They’re in the next aisle.
Feeling foolish and unexpectedly jealous, I creep to the end of the row and peek around the corner, spotting Dean, Jailbait and two of her scantily clad friends a few feet away. Dean’s back is to me and the girls are too focused on him to notice my attempt at spying, so I shuffle back out of sight and pretend to study the display of breakfast bars while I eavesdrop.
“...Winner’s later?” Jailbait is saying.
“I don’t know,” Dean replies. “Maybe.”
“Come,” a different female voice insists. “It’ll be so much fun.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You have something better to do tonight?” Jailbait asks, sounding like whatever Dean has planned, she’d be up for it.
“I’m working here, girls.” But Dean doesn’t sound stern, it sounds like he’s smiling.
They titter in response.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” somebody asks.
Dean laughs again. “I’m too old for you.”
More laughter, as if that was a joke. “Seriously, do you?”
I roll my eyes, but like them, I’m waiting for the answer.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “I do.”
My heart stops for a second. I don’t know how to feel about this information: Does Dean really consider me his girlfriend? He’s the one that proposed this little “deal” we have—one based on the understanding that we wouldn’t fall in love and live happily ever after. I can’t even picture myself buying groceries, can I really see something as far-fetched and juvenile as Dean and me being boyfriend-girlfriend—again?
The girls pout and plead with him to come out later, but he finally grows serious and tells them that he’s working, maybe he’ll see them, maybe he won’t. Satisfied with “maybe” in the way only children can be, the girls finally leave. I take a deep breath, count to ten and round the corner.
He’s crouched down, his back to me, green Carters smock stretching across his broad shoulders as he restocks a shelf with bags of flour from a large pallet. “Hey,” he says without turning around.
I pause midstep. “Hi.” Did he know I was listening? “Are you working late?” I glance at my watch. It’s ten-oh-four.
He drags the last bag from the pallet and tucks it in with the others. “No. Just finishing up.”
“Okay.” I shuffle my feet, feeling as fawning and silly as Jailbait, just lingering here. “Do you want me to wait up front?”
Dean straightens and dusts off his hands on his black work pants. “No. Here’s fine.” He closes the small distance between us and kisses me briefly. “It didn’t mean anything.”
So he did see me. Shit. How embarrassing.
“I shouldn’t have been listening. I’m sure girls hit on you all the time.”
“I’m not talking about the flirting. I mean the last part. I just said it to get them to go away. I know what we are.”
My indecisive heart kicks up a notch, drumming almost painfully hard in my chest. So he doesn’t consider me his girlfriend. Our “deal” is still firmly in place. Terrific.
I force myself to smile. “Good. Let’s get out of here. I’m starving.”
“You waited to eat?”
“Yeah. Hurry up.”
Dean smiles back, a brief, sexy smile that makes me hate Jailbait & Co. for even existing. If those are the kind of girls he flirts with—the kind he sleeps with, if their little exchange a
t the bar was any indication—then what does he see in me? I’m nothing like those girls with their short skirts and overplucked eyebrows.
“Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking,” Dean warns, chucking me under the chin. “Let me change real quick. Don’t move.”
Another strained smile. “I won’t.”
I watch him go, those big arms maneuvering the heavy pallet with ease. He disappears through a set of swinging doors and I shake off my hurt feelings. I’m being stupid; nothing has changed, everything is the same and I am absolutely okay with that.
“You again.”
I turn at the sound of a deep, vaguely familiar voice, and find myself looking way up into the face of Oscar Hall.
“Are you stalking me?” he asks, mock frowning.
I smile, a real one this time. “I heard this was a popular place to meet boxers,” I tell him. “So I hang out in the baking aisle on Friday nights.”
Oscar taps the side of his head. “I knew you were smart.”
I gesture to his enormous body, clad now in a fancy suit, complete with silk tie, cuff links and polished shoes. “Speaking of smart.”
Oscar laughs. “It’s my boxing outfit. I wear it to intimidate my opponents.”
“I can see that.”
“I’m an accountant.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I’ve even got a pocket protector.”
“You’re lying. Nobody would ever try to steal your calculator.”
We both laugh. “What are you doing here on a Friday, Rachel Moser?” Oscar asks, eyes warm on my face. “I didn’t get the impression you lived in Camden.”
“I don’t. I’m meeting somebody.”
“A boyfriend?”
Ha. “A friend.”
“I see.”
A shadow falls across the floor and I glance over my shoulder to find Dean standing at the end of the aisle. The smock is gone and he’s changed into a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt that clings to every well-defined muscle. His arms are crossed and he looks extraordinarily unhappy to see Oscar. And me talking to Oscar.
“You ready to go?” he asks, stepping forward to stand beside me.
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