by Crowe, Liz
Sara finished her second beer and sat up, staring at Rob.
“He called me overseas the week of graduation, told me he’d bought her a ring and was going to ask her to marry him after their law school graduation. He had plenty of money after years being foreman on Keystone job sites.” Rob sighed and ran a hand through his thick blond hair. Blake reached up and touched his cheek. “He’s my friend, Blake, I’m not gonna pretend otherwise,” Rob insisted. “I’m sorry I gave you the wrong impression about him,” Blake reached out and took Sara’s hand. “He was crazed with something. Some kind of combined buzz over trying to compete at a tough school and taking on this whole-new ‘lifestyle’ thing she insisted on. It nearly killed him.”
She nodded, realizing this was the “ask but don’t tell” moment with reference to Jack Gordon.
“Look, I’m not planning on marrying the guy,” she told them. “I know him better than most at this point. I know what I’m getting is whatever he’s willing to give and it’s okay.”
Rob grabbed her other hand and pulled her over to sit with him and Blake, putting a strong arm around her.
“I love you, just like I love your brother, Sara, and I don’t want you to get hurt. Jack has the potential to be a great guy, but trust me when I say he’s fully unrealized that right now. Jenna told him she had been fucking both of his roommates for the last six months, laughed at his offer of marriage, and never spoke to him again after graduation day.”
He kissed the top of her head, then Blake’s. “You don’t live through that, after all the bullshit he had growing up at home, and emerge with your psyche intact. I was in Paris by then, at cooking school. One of our old roommates called me to say he’d had to take him to the emergency room during the night. Jack had passed out on their couch, after drinking an entire fifth of bourbon himself. He’s been a different man ever since.”
Jack chose that moment to buzz her with a text.
Rob touched her shoulder.
“I can’t advise you to expect anything more from Jack than what’s on the surface. He’s spent a lot of years making himself into this guy his is now,” he shrugged. “He will either be the worst, or the best, thing that will ever happen to you.” He put a hand over Blake’s mouth before he could speak. “You decide.”
Sara looked down at her phone screen.
“Hey, what are you doing? Did you get my messages?”
She sighed and looked over at Rob and Blake. Rob had both arms around her brother’s neck, and was kissing his bare shoulder. She lowered her eyes to her phone and responded.
“Yeah. Up North. With brother. He’s not happy.”
It took a minute before she got her response.
“Blake, right? Partners with Rob Frietag? I know that guy.”
“Yep. And he has a pretty definite opinion about you.”
“I’ll bet he does. He and I did some collateral damage in our day.”
“Really? He was into girls?”
“Oh yeah, we were quite the tag team, don’t let him tell you any different.”
“Wow.”
“I’ll bet he swings both ways now — some things are hard to give up.”
“Hmm. Makes him a good match for my brother. He’s done his own fair share of female-related damage.”
“Yeah babe, remind me to tell you about your brother’s last girlfriend. She’s a friend of mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if those 2 find a nice young lady to settle down with someday — a nice and cozy threesome. I hear that can work out quite well.”
Sara didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Thoughts of Jack, in love, vulnerable, hurt…she couldn’t process it.
“So what lies are they telling you about me?”
“Well, let’s say you are NOT their fav person at the moment.”
“Whatev. I get that a lot. So about that strawberry …”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nearly two weeks passed before she saw him again. Jack sent daily sexy texts, teasing, inviting but never calling or making any kind of formal invitation to meet. She had to sit on her hands, but she would not allow herself to respond. It somehow energized her, the self-control she had found, in spite of her underlying disappointment with his inability to reconnect with her.
She had convinced three of her listing clients — including the Open House Picnic one with the view — to lower their prices, and she felt that she’d have offers on two of them soon. Hot yoga had become part of her fitness routine — the perfect exercise for a type-A personality as it entailed pure physical and mental torture for ninety minutes in a one-hundred-degree room.
The second week of virtual silence after having spent a lonely two hours at her most recent open house, no picnic in sight, she finally admitted feeling absolutely horny. Strange really, having gone so long without close physical contact with a man, how a few highly erotic encounters would leave her with a real taste for more. He probably planned it this way, she thought as she prepped for her weekly sales meeting, realizing that if “he” showed up at that moment, she’d rip his clothes off and fuck him where he stood. The psychological angle of him taking control, making her submit to him, made her shudder with anticipation.
Sara smiled at her reflection in the mirror. If she were completely honest with herself, she’d have to admit that the illicit nature of this thing they were doing, whatever it was, turned her on more than anything she’d experienced ever in her life. Even though she knew it was likely the entire real estate community knew about them by now since Jack was not known for his silence on the subject of women.
She sighed and brushed her hair back. The occasional twinges of wanting more from him — visions of a future that included him — haunted her, but she would not allow them to gain a foothold. She was an independent woman. Successful in her own right. She could cope with a purely physical relationship, as she had claimed to Blake and Rob. But something in her yearned for more. The small taste of his real self, that day at the open house, had not been enough.
Smoothing her hands over the black linen skirt, she turned sideways, admired the sunny yellow top that flared out over the waistband and allowed the slightest hint of cleavage she chosen for today. She allowed herself a small moment of satisfaction. Her latest shoe conquest: a pair of classic patent leather Jimmy Choos she’d ordered online and had spent an entire commission check to buy, graced her feet. After grabbing her to-go coffee, she headed for the car.
Small talk with Meg and a few other colleagues distracted her on her way into her weekly sales meeting. She took a seat, eating a banana without tasting it.
When she looked up from the latest crisis evolving via email on her phone her eyes clashed with a pair of dark brown ones she didn’t recognize across the table. They belonged to a guy looking at her so intently it was a wonder no one noticed. She smiled, and her face got hot when he winked.
The rolled up sleeves of a soft-looking white button down shirt revealed tanned and muscular forearms. However, instead of looking frumpy and disheveled in his rumpled khakis, he looked, casual, easygoing and…well…hot. Dark blond hair brushed his collar, longer than she usually cared for in a guy, but somehow he made it work. If a central casting call had been for “Sexy California Surfer,” he would have the job. She wondered if the European motorcycle she’d seen coming in that morning belonged to him and figured it did. Not usually her type, something compelled her to keep watching him. She blushed when she realized he had raised his eyebrows at her blatant stare, and looked down at her phone as an excuse to ignore him.
“Gang,” Pam began. “Allow me to introduce Craig Robinson, our new downtown Stewart Realtor,” she nodded at him and he waved a casual hand at the group. “He’s spent a few years selling BMW cycles, and brings his A game to our little love nest here. And, if we ask real nice, he just might play the guitar for us. Now, onward — who’s got a new listing?”
The meeting proceeded as usual, new listings were described, price reductions announced, “want
s and needs” enumerated. Sara ducked her head and tried not to think about her real want or need at that moment, when her phone buzzed with a text.
“Nice skirt. R U dressed underneath in a way that will please me?”
She looked up, wondering how in the hell Jack knew what she had on, all thoughts of the hot new kid across from her forgotten. The phone buzzed again.
“Don’t worry. I’ll find out myself.”
The door to their meeting room flew open and Jack strode in, imposing, impressive, and dressed to kill in a summer-weight brown suit, blue shirt that perfectly matched his eyes. He grinned, raised one hand in a mock formal greeting to them all.
“Jack’s here to pitch his new development, and invite us to an opening party, I’m sure.” Pam, announced, as she glanced around at the affect his entrance had on her sales staff.
She was a no-nonsense, empathetic, and tough manager, fully in tune with the subtleties and nuances of the highly-strung professionals under her supervision. The older agents who’d been with Jack from the beginning didn’t really seem fazed and smiled indulgently as if observing a precocious and slightly naughty four year old. Sara watched the rest of the women straighten up, fidget with hair, lips, unconsciously drawn by whatever the hell it was he emanated.
The other men in the room watched him, as if studying the technique of a master. Sara fought the urge to lean forward and remained lounged back, coffee cup in one hand and phone in the other. The pheromone level in the room ramped up so high she had to take long deep breaths to keep New Sara at bay.
She glanced over at Craig. He remained cocked back in his chair, ankle crossed over opposite knee, looking straight at her. Her face flushed and she glared at him briefly. He would have no idea who Jack was, of course. Or why the aura of the room had electrified since he walked in. But he’d learn soon enough. Sara smiled at him, gratified by his blush when she popped a cherry into her mouth and winked.
Jack pitched and walked the perimeter of the room with his slick brochures, describing the latest and greatest mixed-use residential/commercial/retail development that he’d nearly completed on a long-neglected downtown Ann Arbor corner. He’d pause occasionally to touch one or another colleague on the shoulder or bring up some amusing antidote or memory. The female who had his attention would inevitably blush, or smack his hand in mock anger.
By the end of his spiel, the room belonged to him, although Sara remained stock-still and had not risen to receive his hand on her shoulder. She looked across the table at Val, one of her closest friends. Jack’s wiles had no effect on her whatsoever, as her tastes ran more toward fellow females, but she certainly admired him as a salesman and Sara was convinced that she knew what was going on between them. Val raised an eyebrow at her. Sara sensed the entire room — including the new guy — observing her, aware of the pornographic movie running through her head that was her Open House from three Sundays before.
With a final flourish and promises of opening party invites to come, Jack headed towards the door, declaring himself on a mission to visit all five Stewart office meetings that morning. He turned at the last minute and locked eyes with her, winked slowly, and his smile morphed into something more than the shit-eating grin of the consummate salesman.
She glared at him. Pam cleared her throat, trying to air the room of the fogginess his little performance had induced and moved on with the meeting, none of which Sara remembered. She struggled to manage her roiling emotions which lurched between elation at his attention, thrill at the fact that her colleagues knew he had singled her out, and sheer, unadulterated arousal, aware of a dampness under her skirt and a hitch in her breath. Jesus Christ but he was walking testosterone. And, he knew it, which pissed her off and turned her on in equal measure.
Keeping her emotional distance was becoming tougher with every day that passed. Matching his aloofness took everything she had. She wanted him, needed his voice, touch, lips — and she’d even be willing to cede some of her tightly held control, if he asked again.
She rushed out of the meeting a few minutes early, feigning an emergency phone call, ignoring everyone, including the dark gaze of the new guy. Her closing at noon went well; no last minutes surprises or random craziness from either buyer or seller.
She grabbed a salad and iced tea afterward on the way back to her office. The suffocating heat and humidity seemed more in keeping with a sultry Southern summer than the usually mild and easygoing Michigan climate. Settling at her desk, she returned a call from her most high-maintenance seller:
“Yes, Martha, I agree, but I can’t stand at the door of every showing and demand that the buyer’s agent leave a card. No, it’s not professional but I can’t account for the behavior of agents not with my company. Of course, I tell everyone who schedules to leave some sort of card so you know they were there. That’s right, we did have a second showing now that you have lowered your price. I’ll keep you posted. And please, remember to vacuum the cat hair every day and make sure the air freshener is working. Bye now.” She stuck her tongue out at the phone before hanging up.
“Nice save, chick,” Val declared over the top of her cubicle wall. “And you must fill me in on that incredibly hot moment you shared this morning with our fine company cocksman,” Her grin widened.
Sara rolled her eyes, but knew her skin betrayed her by flushing red.
“Oh, he was just messing with me because I wasn’t drooling. Guy can’t stand it when he thinks there’s a female in the room not completely ready to fall on her knees.”
“Hmmm, maybe,” Val said, turning to go. “I’ve known Mr. Gordon a while and I sense something else — anyway, I’m here to listen, when you want to talk.”
By three that afternoon, the office buzzed with activity and Sara let work consume her. She talked with prospective clients, provided info for current ones, and was generally sufficiently distracted enough to forget that morning’s drama.
As she wrapped up a comparative market analysis for a potential seller, her phone buzzed. Jack. She decided to let him sit for a while. Within five minutes, he had called again. When he called yet again a few minutes later, the phone nearly fell off her desk, buzzing its way across the top.
She grabbed it and hit redial, wondering what was so urgent, and realized the moment he picked up that the appraisal must have hit his desk.
“What the fuck is your lender up to?”
Sara winced and held the phone away from her head.
“I haven’t seen it yet. Let me pull it up.” She searched through her email inbox for the incriminating file.
“Don’t bother. I can assure it won’t stand. It’s a complete bullshit hack job. We gotta come up with a report to justify a re-do so get your sweet ass over here and help me.” He hung up.
Sara sighed, but her body began to betray her when she realized she would be working alongside Jack today, even though he was spitting mad. A low appraisal was every realtor’s nightmare and then some. Her buyers needed to borrow a large percentage of the purchase price from the bank. If the bank is told the house isn’t worth it, they won’t lend.
She punched in a text to him: “I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.”
“FINE” he yelled via return text. “I’m on floor until eight anyway.”
She spent about fifteen minutes sprucing up before leaving her office, her brain half-misty with desire and half terrified at the thought of yet another obstacle in the road towards a successful closing of this particular transaction. The drive would have normally taken ten minutes but side street construction gave her an extra twenty minutes to ponder what the evening held.
Sara had done a little online research, claiming to herself it was just to figure out what it all meant. What she found had been a surprising insight into the psychology of people who, like herself, needed to be in control of pretty much all aspects of life, except one. And how much pleasure could be gained from releasing that very control to someone you trusted.
Trust
Jack? Yeah, as if.
But she had, once, and it had provided her with the most incredible sexually charged moment of her life.
Sara squirmed in her seat, remembering how she’d reacted to the pictures and stories. Somehow, the home page of one club in Detroit stuck in her head with its lush colors and vivid yet classy descriptions of the services they offered. One photo in particular of a tall man with dark hair dressed in a suit standing over a woman on her knees with her hands bound behind her, blindfolded, had set her off. She’d had to haul out her trusty vibe to take the edge off after seeing that.
Was that what she wanted from him? To be “topped?” Dominated? Sara had never considered any kink as part of her psyche. But her scary visceral reactions to Jack from the beginning may have an explanation if some of the material she read about this sort of relationship was true. She shook her head. No, that was just crazy. A passing obsession. Jack might be an amazingly dynamic and successful man, but he didn’t feel connected to her beyond wanting to mess around, surely. She had to put a stop to it before she fell any deeper.
She entered the original Stewart Realty office with its more traditional perimeter offices, and smiled at the receptionist.
“Hey Sara,” the young girl chirped. “Jack’s been waiting for you.”
She headed towards the back, following the sound of his voice as he argued with someone on the phone. Locating him at the far corner, in one of the few private rooms, Sara discovered him leaning back in his large chair a hand on his face. His voice didn’t betray his body’s frustration, as he smoothed over trouble.
She leaned in the doorway and observed him before he acknowledged her. The shockingly blue shirt was rumpled, eye-catching tie was off and hanging on the chair back. She found herself focused on his hands — large, talented and the stuff of her dreams during the past few nights. She cleared her throat and he looked up at her. The moment sizzled. She gulped.
Work. She was here to work.