Thick As Thieves: A Romantic Comedy

by Julie Olivia

  Stuart, in particular, is an anomaly. We haven’t pressed into it together, but my curiosity has been peeking around the corner more and more the longer it goes on. Whenever I offer help, she pushes her laptop to the side and insists that she doesn’t like to work outside of regular office hours. This is where we differ most. While she’s intelligent and hard-working, she can stop thinking after hours. I am, unfortunately, a man obsessed. The moment Fran falls asleep, I’m back to my project.

  I fall back into my routine like an addict, zipping away line after line trying to penetrate this company’s code. Ryan is getting pushier. At this point, every time I look over to see Fran, I realize just how little this risk matters to me, and every subsequent text or email from Ryan seems that much more ridiculous and irrelevant.

  Fran, unlike myself, has zero issues hitting the hay. She’s out by ten o’clock if I’m not too busy distracting her with my tongue, and she can sleep in any position. Hell, I’ve seen Leia sleep in more comfortable positions. Even she will curl up in a quaint little ball. Not Fran. She has a leg up with an arm raised, prone in the air over her head like a marionette tossed aside by its puppeteer. Though, it’s cute—even with the drool. Her face looks so soft in the glow of the New York lights illuminating her through the window. I admire the way her lip curls into a sleep-filled smile like she’s dreaming of butterflies or axe-bearing unicorns. I like to think she’s feisty even in her sleep.

  I wish I could join her, but one more unlock in the code, one more passage I haven’t taken, and my soul pulls me through to the big one once more. The information is so close, yet so far away from my grasp. Whoever is directing security for this company is good—better than me by a long shot—but Ryan doesn’t need to know that. He’s paying me by the week, and I’m already rolling in it. He’s banking on my obsession, and he’s betting on the right horse.

  On Thursday, the day of the next meet-up, only a few weeks since I went home with Fran but what feels like a lifetime of happiness, I tell Emma and Taylor I need to work from home that morning. It’s not entirely a lie because I do work until noon, focusing on client projects I’ve slowly started to neglect as Ryan and I grow closer to our ultimate goal, then I leave around three to have my mouth on Fran’s as much as I can before I have to share her at the Hackers Anonymous meet-up.

  Seeing Fran for the first time after a few hours apart never gets old either. It’s the way she clutches my arms the moment I cross over the threshold to her building like she’s desperate to have me, as if I’m a sailor who’s been lost at sea. It’s the way her mouth moves over mine, feverish and heady, like the taste of me will never be enough to make up for our lost time. And, more than anything, it’s the way her skin feels under my touch: smooth, warm, and so pliable with every move of my finger and gesture of my hand.

  I lay her down on the couch once we’re upstairs and behind closed doors—it’s a miracle we made it this far without ripping our pants off. I attribute that to Fran wearing her adorable white overalls more than our own self-restraint.

  Leia is already bolting to the opposite side of the apartment by the time Fran’s back hits the cushions. That cat knows the drill by now. She unfortunately learned her lesson on Sunday afternoon when Fran and I experimented with that one position she kept asking about and I think Leia saw a bit more of her non-furry roommate’s backside than she ever wanted to.

  Fran arches into me as my thumbs bend into the straps of those damn white overalls, tugging them over her shoulders. She maneuvers her arms through the loops, freeing herself from the top and shimmying it down her body to her hips. To think only weeks ago I couldn’t stop imagining the blonde in the white overalls and here she is on full display for me, open and trusting in a way the woman at the furniture store I initially met would never have been.

  “I’ve had fantasies about these overalls,” I mutter against her cheek, kissing in a line down to her chest.

  “Ooh, so sexy. Women love to hear that,” she says sarcastically. She seems confident in her words, but they falter as I take her nipple in between my fingertips, rolling them between index and thumb. She’s already perked up for me; I could feel the pebbled buds of her breasts push against me the second I walked into the building from the cool afternoon air.

  I take both of her wrists in my hands, pulling them above her head, wrestling them into one of my fists and pinning them together. Her wrists are so small compared to my large hands, so delicate. I kiss the edge of them on my way back to her chest.

  “I’ll make you eat those words,” I whisper, tugging her overalls the rest of the way down with my free hand until they’re close to her ankles, only her tight black camisole and pure, angelic-like white G-string peeking back at me. I don’t deserve such a sight, but I’ll take it all the same.

  I bend down, trailing my tongue along her sides until I reach the rise of her hips and the slope of her thighs down to her knee. I kiss from there to the dip between her legs and the start of her underwear, taking the edge of it in my teeth, playing with the hem against her inner thigh, rolling my tongue across the entrance. Fran bucks her hips against my cheek, where I rest with a smile, trying to let her feel the anticipation. If only my own anticipation could be kept at bay.

  Her underwear is nudged to the side bit by bit with every inch I nose my way in until I’m level with her lips and then devouring them, slowly at first but quickly heavy with fervor, until her moans are more audible beyond just the usual tiny gasps of pleasure.

  I release my hold on her wrists as they push against me. Once freed, her hands dart to my hair, digging through my locks and tugging. She likes to do that when I’m between her thighs. She moans louder, and I reposition my hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Every muscle twitch and flex of her thighs around my ears gears me in the right direction. Her fingers clench when I hit that right spot, until I can just faintly hear calls of my name. Then the tugging in my hair releases into a gentle massage and I know she’s reached her peak.

  I meet Fran’s gaze, and she’s all heavy breaths and sweaty brow. It’s like dew on a nice spring morning, so gentle and perfect. I run a finger over it, pushing her messy bangs across her forehead.

  She rolls her eyes. She can see I’m too much of a romantic, and it embarrasses her. But, the look of Fran post-orgasm is something I could easily wake up to every morning for quite a long time, and I’m not ashamed to bask in it.

  “We’re not done,” I say. With how quickly her hands go to my belt, I figure she agrees. It’s unbuckled in record time as she pulls the strap from its encasing. I release the remainder through the buckle and rip the belt from the denim’s loops before tossing it to the side.

  Fran’s eyebrows rise, and she tilts her head to the side. “Are we gonna use that next, Eli?”

  What a woman.

  I wink at her. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” I feel her sink deeper in the cushions beneath me, as if her entire body relaxed from that statement alone. I attempt to bring her back to the present by inserting one then two fingers into her. Her eyes close and her hands blindly fumble to unzip my jeans and lower my pants and underwear down.

  With one last curl of my fingers inside, enough to make a lingering gasp that carries her from that point of ecstasy to the next, I remove my fingers, roll on a condom, and level myself to replace them.

  I thrust in, quick and deep like she demands, making every subsequent push more penetrating than the last. Her walls close in around me, squeezing me tighter, pushing my head into a different space—a space with Fran and only Fran. Her furrowed eyebrows, her plump lips, her breathy moans that I’m forced to muffle with my hand once more lest we get another passive-aggressive note from her neighbors. She laughs into my palm, the sounds barely audible but still there: a woman still able to have fun and enjoy life while getting pounded into by her man.

  The thought alone sends me over the edge, and I empty out, clutching a fistful of the couch’s back padding while I feel her release und
erneath me, her constrictions and moans of “Elijah” over and over driving me absolutely insane.

  I try to catch my breath, evening my breathing with an easy in 1-2-3, out 1-2-3. When I open my eyes once more, she’s already looking at me with a distant look, lost in her own mind.

  “Let’s shower,” she suggests after a moment.

  I tilt my head to the side. “I can’t see you soaking wet and naked without doing something about it.”

  She grins. “I hoped as much.”

  Fran is a confident woman, more so than most I’ve met, but her confidence shifts into borderline cocky territory the few minutes following her orgasm. It’s like the pure ecstasy thrills her into a state of invincibility, and it is so unbelievably sexy.

  I exhale, and we do exactly as she wishes, because I can’t seem to do much else.

  We’re back on the couch one hour later with laptops out after she’s wrung me dry once more. I’m not sure my mind can take any type of work, but Fran insists on wrapping things up at her job before we leave for the meeting, so I follow suit. I pretend to work, but all I really do is think about Fran and try not to look at her for too long so I don’t appear like a creep. But, god, she’s so beautiful. Stunning in every aspect of life. Sexy and intelligent with no limits.

  “We don’t have to go tonight,” I say, the musing of continuing to have her all to myself for the remainder of the night slipping out of my mouth.

  Fran continues clacking on her keyboard as she arches an eyebrow in response, not moving her eyes away from the monitor for even a second. “No, we promised Emma.”

  “Technically, I did, so it won’t look bad on you if we bail.”

  “Weren’t you taught not to flake?” she asks.

  I smirk. “Whoever said that?” She purses her lips, and I take it as a sign that Fran is too distracted to attempt an argument with me.

  If I have to be honest, I don’t see the value of attending the meet-up group anymore. I got what I wanted out of it. Sure, my original intention was not to pick up a date at a meet-up for hackers in the trade, but the moment Fran showed up at my first meeting, I knew it had to be the reason I’d ventured into the outside world. After that, she continued to be my reason for meet-up visits. Now that I don’t have to masquerade under the pretense of a public place, why attend any more gatherings? I haven’t paid attention to the featured speaker one single time I’ve attended, anyway. We could be a ladybug enthusiast group for all I know.

  “Emma’s murder mystery party is Saturday,” I continue. “We could just do that instead.”

  Fran’s keystrokes fade out until they’re paused completely, and a small smile crescendos onto her features followed by the slightest of blushes. “But we’re not even dating,” she says. At the rise of my eyebrows, Fran tilts her head in an Oh, calm down type of stare. “I mean, we are, but…are we ‘dinner party’ dating?”

  “You seemed to think so a few weeks ago. Right after we slept together the first time, if I recall.”

  She scoffs, tossing her hand out to me. “Yeah, but that’s my kooky old neighbor and my cousin on video chat. Not many stakes to that.”

  I laugh. “Do the stakes need to be high?”

  “I don’t play without big risk.” Fran’s fingers all curl together, and she shakes them in front of her face Godfather style.

  “I didn’t know you were a gambler.”

  “Top-dollar player in many countries.”

  “Name one.”

  “The United States.”

  “Okay,” I continue, rolling my eyes as she giggles at me. She’s curled into the egg chair, socked feet tucked under her butt and her laptop open and tilted across her thighs. I would kill to watch her work every day. “Well, she’s inviting Randy on Saturday. Is that high stakes enough?”

  She pauses mid-giggle. “Who?” Then it dawns on her. “Randy? Glasses Randy?”

  “Yeah, I think she doesn’t trust being alone with him,” I say. Emma confided in me just yesterday that I may not be the only person at Hackers Anonymous with a little bit of a crush.

  “Oh no, is he a weirdo?”

  “No, I think she might be the issue.” Which is the truth. Emma is a woman obsessed. He’s most likely twice her age, and it seems those weekly sessions have been acting as aphrodisiacs for more people than just Fran and me. “She can’t stop talking about him.”

  “Seriously?” Fran asks once more, her tone deadpan as she squints at me, like she’s trying to catch me in a lie. I can’t help but laugh as I hold my hands up in defense to insist it is very much not a joke.

  She balks. “Round glasses Randy?”

  “Got a problem with glasses?” I ask in mock defense.

  “No,” Fran says, head cocked to the side with the slightest bit of a smile creeping along her features. She readjusts her laptop and settles back into the chair. “No, they’re hot.”

  I lean forward until she catches my eyes, and I say, “That’s what I thought.”

  We stare at each other. It’s a weird thing we do, this habit of poring over one another like we’ll never get the chance again. I’ve never felt such a compulsion to revel in the presence of another human being. I like it, though.

  “I’ll pencil it in for Saturday, but we’re still doing tonight as well.” Fran speaks very matter-of-factly, as if that’s that and the conversation has ended. It’s her prim English tone that settles the matter.

  “Fine,” I mutter, slouching back into the couch.

  “Just give me one more second to wrap stuff up,” she says with a laugh, her fingers swinging across the keyboard once more. She rolls her eyes, but it’s an empty threat. Fran is the master at playful irritability, and I work to see that mixed expression any chance I get.

  I inhale and exhale heavily, checking the clock and finding I only have maybe thirty minutes to kill anyway.

  “I’ll find something to do,” I mumble.

  By ‘something,’ I mean browse news articles or watch silly cat videos on mute so she can focus on work, but my vibrating phone refuses to give me an afternoon off.

  I pick it up, seeing a text from Ryan. Thank god this man has unlimited texting. Were this the early 2000s, I think he might be in serious debt with the number of messages he sends me regularly.

  Ryan: I’m done with. this wizard security person. Plz tell me you have Another idea.

  I can sense his frustration through the flawed grammar alone, the staggered periods and oddly capitalized words. This project is taking longer than he’d like. Heck, I don’t blame him. I’m starting to believe it’s a near impossible break-in. We’ve tried everything, checked the list once and then twice. We’re practically Santa at this point.

  I lean back against the cushions, sifting through our attempts and puzzling over it. There’s maybe one more thing we haven’t tried, or maybe we have and it was a bust like all the rest of our attempts, but I send it to Ryan in the hopes that he’ll shut down for even one night.

  I ping him the information and close my laptop after it sends.

  Without the screen obscuring my line of sight, I only see Fran. The chair tilts away from the window, and with the sun setting behind her, she’s a perfect image in silhouette, so beautiful she could be painted. I like the way her overall strap falls down her shoulder, forcing her to continually adjust it. She does it without thinking, and the absentmindedness of it all only makes the moment that much more real, more tantalizing.

  The tiny specks of dust floating around, lit by the sun filtering through the window and illuminating the image like an old film, a moment passing by in erratic spurts with every zip of her fingers.

  It’s idyllic, and I wonder if Fran would prefer the cabin life, or maybe a beachside condo after a few years. I’ve never really considered a long-term relationship before, but this isn’t just some woman. I’m done with the city life and the fast-paced thievery of my contract work. I could spend my entire life savings to get a house in the countryside and just watch this blonde-h
aired beauty type all day long.

  Fran’s beautiful doe eyes suddenly widen, and in a second she’s standing, holding her laptop out in front of her like a stray animal she just found on the street, unable to let it go but brow furrowed and eyes concentrated in an effort to not look away.

  “Shite,” she spits. “Bugger. Bloody hell.”

  I laugh. “Sweetheart, your British is showing.”

  The second the sentence leaves my mouth, I know this is not a joking matter. Her face falls more and more with every passing second like a wax figurine losing its shape. A tilt of her face then her shoulders slumping until she’s back into the chair, staring off behind me at nothing in particular.

  “Shite,” she repeats.

  “What is it?” I ask, placing my own laptop to the side and getting up to walk over. She holds her hand out, arm straight as a board, stopping me in my tracks. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s compromised,” she says. “My system…my work…” Fran’s sentence trails off, as if letting herself take in the moment—a moment I’m still completely blind to. I say nothing, letting her parse through things at her own pace, but the fighting in my chest to do something, to say anything, to help her in any way beats through me.

  Fran suddenly snatches the laptop and pulls it back to her, fingers racing across the keyboard faster than I’ve ever seen them up to this point. I almost wonder if she’s going for a world record or if maybe the laptop will catch on fire soon with that type of speed.

  Her eyes dart up to meet mine and she shakes her head, her hands still not missing a beat while also trying to talk to me.

  “I can’t go tonight,” she says. There’s no uncertainty in that statement. It’s absolute and unyielding.

  “Do you need help?” I ask. I take a step forward. “Talk to me, Fran. What’s going on?”

  She inhales deeply and continues typing. I don’t even think I hear an exhalation, like she’s so focused she can’t bother herself to breathe.