Private Engagement

by Adrienne Perry

  “Okay,” Ethan gasped out, as if even saying that was too much for him. His breath was raspy and rapid. Emily could see his pulse pounding in his neck and a drop of sweat beaded on his temple.

  Emily sank back down, and started moving in a faster rhythm, riding in an ever increasing pace. She moved her hips so that her clit rubbed against his pelvis, but when that didn’t give her the more focused touch she wanted, she pulled one of his hands away from her breast, and pressed his fingers onto the hard nub at her center. It was all the encouragement he needed, and he moved his fingers against her, his speed matching hers and she bucked above him.

  She raced towards the edge.

  “I’m…almost…there…” she panted.

  “Come for me, baby, come now.”

  “Oh god, oh, oh!” Coherent words and thoughts deserted Emily as the orgasm gripped her core, and she reached for Ethan’s hand to press him harder against her. She pumped once more on him, her hips rotating on his cock as her muscles clenched around his length.

  With a deep groan, his hips lifted off the seat, and his free hand grabbed her waist and held her in place as he trust once, twice, more, and emptied himself into her.

  Emily slumped against him, wondering how long her muscles would keep clenching on him, trying to catch her breath. Ethan slid his hands around her waist, wrapping her in his solid embrace. Emily snuggled in closer, reveling in the sensation of being held.

  Minutes passed. How many, Emily couldn’t say, but eventually she noticed her legs were beginning to cramp from the awkward position she was holding them in, and she imagined Ethan couldn’t be too comfortable either, though he resisted her attempt, weak though it was, to move off of him.

  She gave an experimental wiggle on his lap, and felt his dick stir inside of her. She raised her eyebrows in surprise, and Ethan grinned devilishly at her.

  “Really?” she asked, disbelieving.

  “It’s a first for me, but I think I could give it another go.” Ethan seemed pleased with himself. “You up for it?”

  This time when Emily made a move to shift back to her seat, Ethan let her go. Emily felt warm and heavy with the pleasure that can only come from amazing sex, and was surprised to feel her own stirring of arousal again. She wouldn’t have thought she’d be interested again so soon, but the idea actually sounded intriguing to her.

  “I could probably go again,” she replied saucily.

  Ethan rearranged himself and zipped up his pants. He left his belt unbuckled.

  “Good,” he said, and restarted the car.

  Emily could have asked where they were going, but didn’t really care. She was still lush with the lingering remnants of a rocking orgasm, with the promise of more to come. And that was all that she cared about at that moment.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Emily awoke the next morning, she was sore in all the right places. She stretched luxuriously and ran her hands over her body, remembering the ways she’d been thoroughly taken the night before…and the early hours of the morning.

  A quick glance to her side, and Emily knew she was alone in the room, though Ethan’s pillow was still warm, so he must have just left.

  Emily took the time to think over the events of the previous night, how he’d driven them to his house, and pressed her back against his front door the second he’d closed it behind them.

  “I know I should offer you something to drink, but I don’t want to take the chance that you’ll accept. Later.” He’d rumbled the words into her ear, his hot breath tickling the hair around her ear and sending shivers down her spine. She remembered pushing him back and grabbing his erection through his pants, rubbing him and being amazed that he was already ready to go again.

  She remembered a voice much sexier than her own coming from her mouth and purring at him, “That’s okay, I can help myself,” before she dropped to her knees before him and unzipped his pants.

  “Good God, Emily, what are you doing?” he’d asked in a voice that hitched. He’d tried to pull her up, even as his cock pressed closer to her. She’d batted his hands away, and lapped at the tip of his cock. She’d kept her eyes on his the entire time, her tongue sliding up and down his shaft, her hand gripping and fondling his balls.

  “I’m just helping myself to something to drink,” she had said innocently, her eyes wide and virginal. “Seems like there might be something here I could have, and I’m so thirsty.”

  “Christ, Emily. You don’t…I mean, I don’t expect…Oh god, don’t stop!” he’d moaned as she took the whole length of him deep into her mouth, all the way to the back of her throat. She’d continued to cup his balls, her fingers exploring and pressing the space behind them, while her tongue lapped at him and her mouth slid up and down over him.

  Ethan’s hands gripped her head and he’d tangled his fingers in her hair, flexing with the movements of her mouth, helping her set the pace. She’d kept sucking him until she felt he was ready to explode in her.

  “I can’t hold back anymore, Emily. Get up before I come in your mouth.” Again, he’d tried to pull her up, but she stayed in position, continued to work him with her mouth.

  “Ah, fuck,” he’d groaned, and then his hot cum spurt into the back of her throat again and again. When he was finally drained, she’d licked her way off him, and swallowed it all down, while he gazed down at her with half-lidded eyes.

  When she’d looked up at him, still on her knees and licked her lips, he’d scooped her up and carried her into his bedroom. There, he’d stripped them both naked then brought her to climax again, first with his fingers, then with his mouth, and then again with his dick. He’d left her body sore, muscles fatigued, her skin marked with purplish bruises where he’d sucked her hard, and a red burn where his five o’clock shadowed jaw had scratched her while his tongue had dipped into and over her. She didn’t know how his muscles were doing, but she knew she’d left fingernail scratches down his back that she’d later soothed with her tongue.

  Emily stretched luxuriously as the smell of brewing coffee drifted into the room. Smiling, she slipped on yesterday’s clothes and padded after the aroma in her bare feet. She hadn’t paid attention to the house the previous night, and now she walked slowly, taking in all the details.

  It was an older home, each ornate plantation-era detail meticulously maintained. Walnut bannisters shone with a recent oil rubbing, brass fixtures were polished to a mirror-like finish. She trailed her fingers along the stair railing as she descended. It was warm and smooth, worn into soft velvet by generations of families treading these same steps.

  The air was thick with the history of the home. It had a masculine scent, as if the male of the house dominated the space, dictating the décor even when he may have passed the duty on to the wife. Even then, when she was in control, each furniture piece, each fabric and carpet, would have been chosen with him in mind. Chosen to suit him.

  At the bottom, Emily followed the scent of coffee and faint clinking noises of dishes and silverware, and ended up in the kitchen. While the rest of the house preserved the history and legacy of generations past, the kitchen was something all new. Still with character, it was all white-washed cabinets, gleaming quartz countertops and sleek stainless appliances.

  Ethan stood by the cook top, stirring at something that smelled phenomenal, his back to her. For a moment, Emily stood still, enjoying the simple perfection of the moment. Calm and relaxed, she thought idly to herself, I could get used to this.

  A memory flashed. Emily, four, perched on a kitchen chair. Her father, at the stove, stirring gluey oatmeal. Her mother, eyes distant, puffing on a skinny cigarette. Her father calls to her mother, but her mother doesn’t hear him, or ignores him. He slinks out of the room, head down. Her mother continues smoking. Emily’s hungry, so she goes to the stove to get some food. Her father has left the burner on; the oatmeal is charred and black. Her heart began thumping in her chest. The memory was nothing like the scene in front of her, but the panic rose an
yway.

  Ethan sensed her presence and greeted her with sleepy pleasure and faint pride at being up and taking care of her. But he must have seen the panic on her face and the walls coming back up. His own face chilled in response.

  “Good morning,” Emily said awkwardly.

  “Mornin’.”

  “Sorry, I slept in. I don’t mean to hold you up.” Emily gestured vaguely in the direction of where she figured the door was. “I should just get going.” She nearly cringed at her own words. Obviously, he was making her breakfast, had counted on her staying. Maybe making love again. He wanted her to stay and she was one step away from fleeing.

  Ethan turned back to the store. Stirred some more. “There’s coffee. And breakfast, but I suppose there’s no time for that. There are some travel mugs in the cabinet to the right of the sink. Help yourself.”

  “I, uh…thanks. And for the food. It smells really great. I’d love to stay, but I’ve got a really busy day today.” Emily’s heart wanted to stay, wanted so desperately to wrap her arms around his waist from behind and feel his hands come down to cover her own before he turned to face her and gathered her in, lowered his mouth to hers. She wanted the breakfast to burn as he backed her up against the cold stone countertop and lifted her up, then dropped to his knees before her, spreading her legs open before covering her core with his mouth. Her heart screamed for it, but her mind rebelled, shut down her longing and ordered her body to leave.

  Emily couldn’t see Ethan’s face, but she could imagine his eyes would be filled with disappointment and frustration. When he turned to her again, she saw that she had been right. The look he gave her nearly killed her.

  “You could stay. You don’t have to leave. I’d like you to stay.” Ethan spoke the words so softly she had to strain to hear them. He watched her as he talked, and Emily could tell this was something of a test. Her answer would dictate the direction their relationship would go, if they’d have a relationship.

  Emily wanted to stay, just as she knew she wouldn’t.

  “I can’t. I would, really, but I have meetings…” her voice trailed off. Her answer was so lame, so awful that she wished she hadn’t uttered the words. She wished she could suck them back in before their awful truth came out. She wished she could see the hope, and fondness in Ethan’s eyes for just a second longer. Because when she did speak, when she did stammer her excuse, she watched his eyes fill with something else in addition to the disappointment and frustration—anger. It broke her heart that she’d hurt him.

  “Right. Well, thanks for your help last night. If this goes as planned, then we’ll get him and there won’t be any need for us to interact anymore. We’ll just need you to send some more invoices to Ron. We gave you the dollar amounts, and when he accesses the money, we’ll get him. They’ll look into the videos too, might be something there they can get him on.”

  Emily nodded. This is what they’d all been working for, and now it was within reach. Once Ron was caught, his scams would be exposed and the wedding called off. And Ethan would move out of her life as quickly as he’d appeared.

  “I’ll get started on the invoices as soon as I get into the office.” She turned to leave.

  “Dammit, Emily. Don’t go.”

  His words froze her. Her foot trembled in mid-air, wobbled with the uncertainty of where to go, which direction to take. He’d done everything. Last night had been fantastic, this morning held the promise of more, a chance for them to sit, just the two of them and try out real life together. See what their mornings together could be.

  “I can’t. I don’t do this.” Emily waved her hand vaguely in the air, indicating the “this” meant relationships, normal life, all the things normal people did that Emily couldn’t.

  “You haven’t tried. You don’t know if you can do it because you’ve never given it a shot. I’m asking you to do that. Here, now. Just give us a real shot. See what happens. I think this could become something great.”

  “You know why I can’t. My parents…”

  “Fuck, Emily, stop with that!” Ethan exploded. “Stop using them as your excuse to avoid relationships. Your parents, your mother, did something shitty. No one disputes that, no one argues that you were dealt a shitty parental hand. But not all relationships are like that. But you’ll never know that, you’ll never get there if you won’t even try.”

  Emily just shook her head. She couldn’t do this. She’d never been meant to do this. This was the first time she wished she could. Instead, she turned away and walked down the hall and out the front door.

  Only when she made it outside did she realize she didn’t have a car. She couldn’t go back in. That would be too awful, but she didn’t know where she was or how to get back home. She could call a cab, but she didn’t even know the address of the house. Tears of frustration and loss filled her eyes. She pulled out her phone to check the GPS and see if she could walk somewhere, find where she was, when a sleek black car rolled out of the garage and pulled up to the gravel driveway in front of her. A uniformed driver stepped out and opened the back door for her.

  “I can take you wherever you’d like to go, Miss,” he said formally.

  “I don’t think anyone can get me there.” Emily slid into the car, anyway, and gave the driver her home address. Then she nestled back into the soft leather seat and let the tears fall.

  Chapter Twenty

  A trip home, a shower and a good cry, and Emily felt revived enough to head into the office. She would be late, of course, but that was something that she couldn’t bring herself to care about at the moment. Let Mari rip into her; she couldn’t damage Emily worse than she’d already hurt herself.

  Still, Emily’s nerves grew and fluttered in her stomach as she neared the office. The elevator ride did nothing but remind her of the first time she’d seen Ethan, and his loss from her life sliced into her. One more set of invoices to Ron, and she’d be done with the whole mess. She’d be out. With Charlotte’s influence and recommendation, Emily might finally be able to start up her own business, and just start fresh, on her own. Alone.

  Emily squashed that thought out of her head. Alone was fine. She’d been alone for a long time now, and she was doing just fine. So what if, for the first time ever, alone felt lonely?

  If Emily hadn’t been engrossed in her thoughts, and really, her self-pity, she would have caught the atmosphere of tension and anger when she’d walked into the Rivera Productions offices. She would have sensed the danger and been able to, if not prepare herself for it, at least set up some sort of shield to deflect the worst of it. But it seemed her own self-sabotage was destined to continue that day. In the end, Emily was so caught up in her head that she didn’t see Mari in her cubicle opening until she’d almost walked right into her.

  When Emily did look up, she stopped dead in her tracks. There was a fury in Mari’s eyes unlike anything Emily had seen before. Troy stood off to the side, and when Emily flicked him the briefest glance, he just shook his head before looking down. A feeling of dread crept into Emily’s stomach. Something very bad was going on.

  Mari was holding a sheaf of crumpled papers in her hand, which was actually trembling slightly with anger. At Emily’s approach, Mari lifted the papers, and thrust them at Emily’s face.

  “There had better be some kind of phenomenal explanation for this, Emily,” Mari spit out. The rest of the office was completely silent. Not a cough, or the typing on a keyboard, or the quiet hum of background voices marred the pristine quietness.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mari,” Emily replied. Her stomach twisted and her brain struggled to think of what Mari could be talking about, what she was holding.

  Mari belted out a scornful laugh. “Of course, you’d deny it. You worthless, stealing, lying…alright, we’ll play it your way, shall we?” Mari glanced down at the top paper in her hand.

  “Perhaps you can explain to me…to all of us here, why you charged the Wests a full thousand dollars over the
actual cost of the ice sculpture. Or,” she shuffled the top page to the bottom of the pile, “why the cost for the harpist is double the actual charge. Or why the bill for the caterer is over two times what it should be. Hmmm? Can you explain that? Can you?

  “Or,” continued Mari, voice quivering with rage, “maybe we’ll talk about the invoices for the bartender, and the photographer, or why you are overcharging for every single item for the West wedding. Well?”

  This was not what Emily had expected. She’d printed out the correct invoices for the file she kept in the office, she’d only altered them prior to sending them to Ron, and then saved the correct version for the records. She’d done just what Ethan had said she needed to do. She hadn’t thought she’d left a trace. She’d shredded every document that contained the bumped up charges, so where had Mari found these? And how could Emily explain them?

  “I, uh—where did you get those?” Unable to come up with a reasonable explanation, Emily tried stalling.

  “Where did I get them?” Mari spat back at her. “That’s what you have to say?” The venom in the other woman’s voice was thick and dangerous. “Well, Emily dear, you’re not exactly the brightest or most subtle person in the world. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your strange behavior around the Wests, or your skittishness the last few weeks. These things don’t get past me. All it took was a quick review of the keyboard logger I have installed on your computer to see what you’ve been up to. It was bad enough when you were just planning to steal my clients and try your hand at setting up your own business.” Mari scoffed at the mere thought that Emily would have been successful at that venture before continuing. “But when I discovered you were overcharging clients, stealing actual money from them and from me, that took your betrayal to a whole new level. It’s called fraud, and don’t think I’m not planning to expose your treachery to the community, and the police. Your only chance to work in this industry again will be from behind bars, arranging lesbian convict weddings in the prison cafeteria.”