Bait

by M. Mabie

  Finally, he said, “Come here.”

  My right leg, my left leg and I, we all went to him together. My entire body working on its own. It was so easy.

  “Wait, one more thing,” he interjected. Then did the international sign for spin-it-a-around, his smile bleeding through every feature on his face. His eyes looked like neon in the darkness.

  I did a slow twirl, looking over my shoulder on my way back around. I batted my eyes to get a reaction.

  “You look like the definition of temptation.” His eyes squinted and he pantomimed a come-here head nod. God, his claws were sunk so deep into me. If I looked like temptation, he looked precisely capable of charming-the-pants-off the Queen of England.

  With my shoes, the height brought my eyes to his lips, my favorite latitude on planet Earth.

  He ran a hand over my hair and pushed it behind my shoulder. “I can almost taste you, you smell that good,” he said, hushed. “You did all of this for me?”

  “I did.” I was fixated on his mouth. I wanted to put my lips on him. I wanted to touch and undress him, but this was his show and I was only too happy letting him run it. The energy coming off him was palpable.

  “Do you know how hard I am? I don't know if you considered my lack of restraint when it comes to you this close to me.” His hands grazed way down my arms. “What is all of this?”

  “I wanted to do something for you.” I looked up at him through my lashes. “I want to make you happy. I want to be your Valentine.” I took a deep breath, the anticipation of his body hot against mine at the forefront of my thoughts. “Open me.”

  Ten fingers rushed my face and his lips crushed mine. Then he lifted me into the air. Eye to eye. Mouth to mouth. His arms wrapped around me and held me close. Mine went straight into his hair, my fingers spreading to get a grip on my unavoidable man.

  “You taste like the night we met,” I heard him say.

  He walked us farther into the room, me in his arms, our mouths tasting one another, his tongue circling mine to a beat unheard before.

  I let my head fall to his neck and I opened my mouth to wet him with kisses, inhaling his scent—earthy and masculine and something sweet and only him.

  The music changed again, but at that time, I couldn't tell you what the song was.

  When my feet touched the floor again, his hands were urgent. He undid the bow where my robe tied in the front and he pushed the silk off my shoulders. The fabric easily slid off me.

  The look in his eyes was feral. “Look at you. You're trying to kill me, aren't you?” He teased as his hands found my breasts and cupped me. Like he couldn't decide what he wanted to touch, he roamed me. Over the tight trussed-up corset, around to my ass, and back in quick succession.

  “I’ve missed you. I know I'm not good to you and I'm sorry,” I said, not knowing where the words were coming from.

  With a finger over my mouth he said, “Shhh. I'm a big boy. I can handle it.”

  He was right. He did handle it, but what I didn't know was how. I could barely manage.

  He continued, “You're my Valentine. Tonight you're mine. Understand me? Even your thoughts.” He caressed my cheek. “Don't think about anything but me. That's what I want. I'm going to take everything you're wearing off. I'm going to touch every inch of you with my mouth. And I'm not going to pretend this is just a fling tonight, like I've done every time. For one night, I want you to pretend like it's me you're promised to,” his thumbs ran over my lips, “Mine to care for and adore. Say yes to me. Even if it is only for tonight. Please?”

  His words came honest. I knew he didn't always say what he felt, because of me. Because I fought my feelings hard and so, battled his as well.

  I'd said the most honest sentence I had, “Then I'm yours.” And with all my damned heart, I wished the words were true. He had never offered me more, and I didn’t think he ever would.

  He took his time unwrapping me. I luxuriated in the feeling of his hands on me and my body followed his gentle direction. When the corset was gone and I stood there in my panties, my hands began wandering him. I couldn't help want to touch his body the way he had been mine.

  My nimble fingers undid the button on his coat and he shrugged out of it. My hands untucked his pressed dress shirt and began the climb of buttons separating him from me. I pulled it open and found him, like always, well defined and muscular. His stomach cut with lean muscles that flexed under my hands. His chest strong and firm. The long ridge of his collarbone, my favorite meal.

  I didn't bother with removing his shirt. Having even the slightest access to him was enough for me.

  In my panties, stockings, and shoes I bent down to my knees with one thing in mind. I wanted to taste, to touch, and to have all of him. To please only him.

  I kissed along the top edge of his dress pants, undoing his belt, and pulling it through its loops. Then, I tossed it away. The zipper went the way zippers do in these situations, and to my wonderful surprise, he wasn't wearing anything underneath. I smiled at my discovery. It looked like he had finally made a decision about his undergarments.

  My mouth continued to water.

  His skin, too, was bare. But unknown to him, so was I.

  My fingers circled underneath his length and pulled him out. I ran both of my hands under his pants to his ass and pulled them down farther to expose his scrotum, taught and collected tightly against him. Everything about him was beautiful.

  I took him into my mouth and felt him flex inside me, growing even fuller. The taste of him was so intoxicating. His skin was like catnip and the more I had of it the more I needed. I looked up at him to see him watching me in wonder, his jaw ticking and every glorious muscle from my face to his was in full view.

  I moaned around his cock, the sight of him like this stealing the remnant of every wayward thought from my head. It was only him and me. This night was for us.

  I moved to a slow beat, enjoying every twitch, every breath he took while I pleasured him. He stood anchored in his spot. He brushed my hair back away from me, threaded his fingers through it, and pushed himself deep inside me before he pulled out of me and urgently pulled me up his decadent body. He kissed me, still holding my head in his hands with my hair. It was rough and his chest rose and fell in time with mine.

  “Go lay down over there, Blake. I want to play with my Valentines’ gift.” A shiver ran through me. He released my hair and I backed up without looking at where I was going. My body on autopilot, I did what I was told.

  I felt brazen and daring. I felt like I was living a fantasy. I leaned back on my elbows and drew my legs up then parted them like I'd dreamt of doing so many nights on the phone.

  He came to crouch next to me and took stock of the table’s offerings.

  “May I have a drink, honeybee? Good choice with the cognac. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were sentimental.” His voice was rich with sensuality, but his eyes were alight with happiness. He was going to play with me. I was his toy tonight. His toy.

  He fixed himself a drink. Two pieces of ice clanked in the glass, then two fingers of the sweet liquor followed. He brought the short glass to his lips and hummed his pleasure at the taste.

  I was on fire and the anticipation of him touching me was thrumming through my veins.

  His shirt was open and his pants, although still undone in the front were pulled back up.

  The runaway lock of hair, which had broken formation from the rest, was gathering company from us running our hands through it.

  While I'd been studying him, I hadn't paid attention to my wandering hand that was now rubbing my breast. My mouth was open and I was nearly panting.

  After he drank down half of the glass, he touched my leg at the knee and leisurely ran his fingers up the skin to my thigh. His barely there touch wasn't enough.

  I wanted more. I needed more.

  I spread my legs farther for him and unabashedly ran my hand to my sex. I rubbed myself over my panties trying to satisfy a need th
at was blazing deep inside me. His eyes watched me touch myself and I saw that his desire matched mine. The usually cool and easy-going Casey, was again gone, and in his place was the take-control lover I dreamed about nearly every night.

  On his knees he climbed closer to me, between my legs, and his hand met mine.

  “I want you, Casey.”

  He replied, with a firm demanding voice, “Say it again.”

  “I want you.”

  Maybe it was the ambiance and romantic mood of the room. Maybe I felt so free because it was, decidedly, my last time with him.

  That singular thought made me panic and I had to remind myself why. I had to recite in my head, Because you're marrying another man. Because Casey only likes chasing you. Because he doesn't want the same things you do. He doesn't want a family. He doesn't want a home. He likes traveling and being carefree.

  And it was those exact things that made me believe I had to leave him and made my heart retch to let him go. Because he would never offer me anything different and I could no longer live with the desperate yearning I had for him, that was entwined with my deeper desires for home, future, and stability.

  Then he caught me and halted the runaway train that was my thoughts.

  “I told you, honeybee. No thinking like that.”

  Had I said all that out loud? Or was it possible my thoughts were loud enough to hear.

  Still, even though my mind was playing chess with itself, my body and heart never strayed. They belonged to him.

  “Then kiss me. Distract me.”

  He reached for the table and his glass, emptying it in his mouth and I watched as he downed every last drop, including the ice. Returning the empty glass to the table, his eyes found mine and I saw a hint of mischief.

  He dipped his head to my neck. The sensation was hot, but I could feel the coolness of the ice at the same time. He kissed my chest and when he took my nipple into his mouth the ice across my warm flesh sent a rush of need straight through me. I bucked my hips trying to find the pressure and friction I craved, but he backed away and down my body, taking his ice with him.

  When he got to the elastic at the top of my panties he stopped and looked up at me.

  “You're so beautiful, Blake. Your body was made for me.” He kissed above the little blue bow on my panties. He said, low and sultry, “Your smell haunts me.” He dipped his head lower and breathed me in, his eyes flickering as he inhaled. “I crave the taste of you, like a man starved.”

  Sitting up a little, he grasped both sides of the thin string that circled my hips on both sides of the expensive lingerie bottoms.

  Then they were gone.

  He caressed me with his stare. His eyes took in my bared flesh and he prayed, “Mercy.”

  We laughed and had sex and then laughed some more. We stayed up longer than the moon and watched the sun rise over Aspen out of my terrace door. He stayed curled up and the blankets.

  When I got up to re-fill my glass he said, “Sensuous.”

  I looked at him perplexed. It was a strange time for a complement.

  “Excuse me?” I retorted.

  “Since-you-was-up, get me one too.” Then he handed me his glass. “And more ice, please.”

  We drank all the cognac, ate all the food.

  We were tired, but because we hadn't gone to bed, Casey stayed with me.

  Whenever I'd start to fall asleep he'd remind my body what it wanted more.

  Him.

  I had to fly out that afternoon and since all of my hopes and prayers were denied, and feet upon feet of snow didn't fall over night, making my voyage home safe and undelayed, I'd have to just come out with it and let him go.

  I looked at my nails, they’d been bigger messes than that, and I willed myself not to bite them. I didn't want to show him any of my trepidation. If I was going to end this, I had to seem sure.

  I allowed myself more minutes, chickening out every time I began to speak.

  My back against his chest, his back against the bed. Both of us still on the floor.

  “We had a good time, didn't we?” I said as so many memories flashed through my mind.

  He jostled me and held me tighter, readjusting his hands around my stomach.

  “Don't,” he said and kissed my hair. My heart agreed with him. It didn’t want this to end either.

  “I have to. I'm getting married,” I said, my voice small, but I thankfully I still sounded resolute despite the sharp pain I felt in my chest.

  “Why? Don't marry him.” His mouth met my head again, but he didn't kiss me. He simply put his lips there.

  “I have to Casey. This isn't right.”

  He shifted and I steeled myself; it wasn't going to end well. I'd known for months that this was coming. Those months went so fast. I'd give anything to have a few more. To relive all of them again.

  “What's not right about it? Name one thing,” he argued.

  “It's not real. This isn't real life.” I scrambled off his lap, pulling one of the covers with me and facing him. I felt exposed and my feelings for him burned me from the inside out.

  His head fell back onto the bed and I watched his pulse thump through the flesh on his exposed neck.

  “How did this get so out of hand, honeybee? It isn't real because you won't let it be. Why? Is it because I don't have money? Because I hate to break it to you, but I'm doing just fine. You want a house? I'll get you a house. What else? What else!?” He looked up and shook his hands at me. Then stood, not bothering to cover himself up.

  “You know that’s not what this is about.”

  “No, I don't. I don't know shit about what this is about. You never tell me. I'm always guessing and I'm tired of it. Tell me how I get you.”

  I wished I knew. If there was some magic time eraser I would have waved it around and taken me back to school in San Francisco, before I'd met Grant.

  I'd meet Casey first instead and I'd love him the way he deserved. Entirely. Without conditions. And I wouldn’t feel so sad to see him so sad, because he wouldn’t have to be.

  “You won’t get me, Casey. Besides, you can do better than this. Look at us. All we do is fight.” He could do better, but I didn't ever want to know about it. I planned on making a clean break.

  It was better that way. Better for him. I wouldn't be stringing him along. And I wouldn't be cheating on my fiancé who, also could do better than me. It was all I could do to make it right.

  The tiny piece of my heart that was noble, the same sliver stamped with Casey’s name, reminded the rest of me it wasn't any way to treat either of them.

  He said, “Maybe I like fighting with you. Ever think of that? Maybe I like doing everything with you.”

  He pulled his pants on and found his shirt. Then, after a minute to reflect, he turned to me. “You know you're right. This isn't fair. But you're wrong though, too. I do get you. I have all of the parts he doesn't want or give a shit about. And if you can't see that, then fuck it. Fuck all of it!” he shouted.

  I was glad I didn't wait any longer than I already had. I was going to be a mess when he left. I'd need some time before I had to board a plane and away from him for probably the last time. I could already feel pieces of me pulling apart and dying.

  I stayed where I was on the floor while he got ready to go. He surprised me and came to me before he left. Leaning over, that beautiful man kissed my forehead.

  “If you really want to marry him, then don't call me anymore, honeybee. If this is what you want, then so be it. For the record, I know it's a big fucking mistake. You're going to realize it, too. One day. Don't fucking call me then, either.”

  I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming that I’d changed my mind. Which was a lie because I never really wanted to do this in the first place.

  “You never offered me an alternative,” I whispered.

  His lips pursed one more time against my skin, and paused as if savoring me.

  My eyes shut tight. I only had to hold onto my emotion
s for a little while longer. I'd made it that far without breaking down.

  I watched him walk out the door.

  Sobs retched out of me the second I knew he was really gone. I would hear the slam of that door for the rest of my life.

  So many times I'd prayed he would choose to stay.

  Sunday, April 26, 2009

  I SLAMMED THE DOOR on her, again, when I should have stayed and fought. I should have fought harder for her, for me, for us. But she wasn't on our side.

  She wasn't on our side.

  There was no use.

  That winter seemed to take forever and I stayed gone a lot. I was working, building our brand, and I was doing well professionally.

  Personally, I was sucking big-time.

  It was easy to avoid people when you were out of town five days out of seven. I talked to my family on the phone regularly, but I hadn't seen them much since the holidays.

  But it was finally April, and I was hoping that with spring shit would start clicking again, because for the last two months it seemed like nothing had.

  I didn't go around Micah or Cory much, they were laying kind a low too, but they had a much cooler reason. They were preparing for parenthood. My mom had told me that she went with them to get strollers and baby things a few weeks back and that Cory was a nervous wreck. She made fun of him and said that our dad had been the same way.

  “You'll make a good daddy, too, one of these days. I hope I get to see it, baby-boy.” She laughed on the other end of the line, again poking fun at me for not having a steady girlfriend. Even though, I knew she knew something, because after Micah's baby shower—an event I made sure to be out of the state for—she told me that Micah's best friend had chatted her ear off and that she was a pretty girl. Then, she’d said, “Oh, Casey,” which was mom-speak for what did you do?

  I didn't tell her. Not then. I didn't talk to anyone about it. No one would say what I wanted to hear and no one would want to hear what I had to say. So I saved us all a big fucking headache and kept my mouth shut.

  That April morning, I'd picked my suitcase up off the luggage carousel and started for the front of the airport. I'd been gone for days and all I really wanted was a hot shower and my bed. That was the last time I was taking a red-eye on a Saturday night.