by Lauren Wood
“Okay.” I took his card with his name, e-mail, and phone number on it. “Thanks, Dennis.”
“If anything more happens, then I can do something. Hopefully the guy shot his load and is happy and won’t bug you anymore. Jack, when Andrews shows up to collect his things, you leave him alone. Got it? I don’t need to haul you in for hassling him.”
“I’ll be the perfect gentleman.”
“That’ll be the day.” Dennis reached across his desk and shook my hand. “Isabelle, it was great seeing you again. Don’t hesitate to call me if you get more pictures, or phone calls, or anything suspicious. Except Jack, of course. He’s always suspicious.”
“Ha, ha.”
I stood up. “Thanks a lot. I feel better about coming here, Dennis.”
“That’s what we’re here for.”
He escorted us out, a big genial guy with close cropped hair and warm brown eyes. He wore body armor under his uniform, a belt filled with his gun, what I thought was mace, a Taser, and handcuffs, impressing me with his sheer air of competence.
“Jack, let’s get together for a beer, talk about football and the women who got away.”
I didn’t miss the sly glance Jack shot me, though I pretended I did, while Jack shook Dennis’s hand. “We will, man. Stay safe.”
Back in Jack’s truck, I pulled my phone out and deleted the horrible photo. “Do you think he’s right?”
“About what?”
“There not being a legitimate name behind the phone number.”
“I do.” Jack started the truck and looked at me sidelong. “I also think this is the beginning, Izzy, I really do.”
I groaned, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. “Don’t say that.”
“Got to. My gut says so.”
“I suppose your gut is always right.”
“Most of the time. Look, guys don’t text pics of their dicks unless they’re serious about something.”
“And here I thought the opposite.”
“Tsk. How little you think of us males.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him. “Not true. I have a very high regard for most men.”
I knew Jack wanted to ask if he was one, I could see it on his face, the way he opened his mouth. Then he closed it and focused on his driving until he dropped me off at my apartment.
I arrived at the office exactly at nine the next morning, and as I was the first one there, I unlocked the door. Usually Debbie beat me in and sat waiting to greet me with her usual smile and banter. I turned on the lights, then clocked in, then found her arriving a whole minute late.
“Oh, my goodness, the traffic,” she exclaimed, putting her purse in her desk drawer. “I can’t believe I am late.”
“Debbie,” I said dryly as she clocked in. “There is one main street through the whole of this town. There is no such thing as traffic.”
“I beg to differ.” Debbie sniffed and sat down. “The school bus who delivers the kindergartners broke down in the center lane, and I had to take a detour of three blocks out of my way.”
I laughed. “My apologies.”
Debbie folded her hands on her desk and smiled at me with anticipation. “Now tell me about your weekend. Were there any romantic interludes?”
I made coffee at the machine behind her. “Oh, yeah. Some loony tunes sent me a photo of his you know what.”
“No!” Debbie was old enough that she found things like sexting absolutely shocking. “Who was it?”
“I’m not pointing any fingers, but Roger cornered me against my car Friday after work.”
At her insistence, I told her about Friday, then the picture, and reporting it to Dennis. Debbie listened, not with outraged horror as I expected, but a narrow-eyed intensity that made me suspect she knew more about this whole thing than she let on. Yet, when I had finished, she shook her head in a what is the world coming to gesture.
“I’m sorry about what is happening to you, Izzy,” she said. “Sometimes men look at us women as objects and not sentient beings.”
“Oh, please. That is pathetic.”
We both turned and found Roger Andrews in the open doorway. He eyed us both with contempt, his upper lip curled. “I came to get my stuff.”
Though I stood near Debbie’s desk and in no way blocked his way to his office, he continued to stand there as though afraid to step across the threshold. He wore a plain t-shirt and baggy khakis, his gut hanging over his belt. Roger hadn’t shaved, nor did it appear that he had brushed his hair recently.
I tried to imagine him taking a picture of his erect dick, and it wasn’t a far stretch. “Go ahead,” I told him, “but I’ll be making sure you don’t take anything that doesn’t belong to you.”
Muttering under his breath, of which I caught a few words, “cunt” included, he stomped past me and to his office. I met Debbie’s outraged expression, then tagged along behind Roger. He glanced over his shoulder at me with a scowl but said nothing. As his desk faced the door, I easily watched him collect his private desk calendar, pens, an extra tie from a drawer, a bottle of gin.
Feeling a presence behind me, I half turned, seeing Jack watching over my shoulder. He didn’t smile as he caught my eyes, but they still flashed with warmth and humor. He said nothing as Roger finished emptying his property from his desk, then stared at Jack with a half challenge.
“Leave your key with Debbie, please,” was all Jack said, then went into his office.
I stepped aside, but didn’t retreat as Roger passed me by, his khakis’ pockets stuffed with his possessions. As he wasn’t much taller than me, he looked me in the eye as he passed. I saw a challenge in them, as though he dared me to speak of the photo, his lips smiling faintly.
“Pretty girls like you should be careful,” he said. “Lots of bad boys out there.”
Jack leaned against the door jamb of his office, his arms across his chest. “Is that a threat, Roger?”
“What? Me, threaten?” Roger glanced from me to Jack. “I’m wishing little Isabelle well is all.”
He met my eyes again. “Good luck. Be safe.”
Then he ambled down the hall, his butt swaying in a way that I found almost as disgusting as the hard on. I tried not to have anything against people who were overweight, but there was something about Roger that just rankled.
He paused at Debbie’s desk to pull a key from his ring and set it on her desk. Then with a final glance back, he left.
“What a sleaze,” I muttered.
8
Jack
With Roger gone, I asked Izzy to clean his former office and make it habitable for the next occupant. She did so without objection. After polishing the furniture, she vacuumed with the small closet sweeper, threw away anything Roger left behind, and then sprayed the entire place with an odor neutralizer.
I had to laugh at that last one. “Did he stink?”
She eyed me. “Sleazebags always stink in some form or fashion. Did you change all his passwords?”
“Yup. And cancelled his e-mail,” I replied.
I spent the morning looking at resumes, then called each of the applicants for a quick phone interview. Only one stuck out as someone I didn’t think would be a good fit in my small company. He spoke with an arrogance that put me off immediately and used the word “broad” rather than “woman”. I didn’t need another yo-yo with a bad attitude toward women, or a sexual harassment lawsuit should this guy prove, shall we say, handsy.
After making appointments with the others to come in for a face to face, I transferred Roger’s showings to my calendar, then called each of his clients to inform them I’d be handing their property listings. As he had only four scheduled, it was easy and no one made any objections.
Absorbed as I was in my work, I hardly noticed when Debbie came back to my office and knocked timidly. “Mr. Stanton?”
“When are you going to start calling me Jack?”
“Oh, that wouldn’t be appropriate.” She appeared nervous and skittish, glancing over her sho
ulder as though she expected someone stalked behind her.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No, yes.” Debbie clasped her hands together in front of her. “It’s my daughter. My son-in-law called. My daughter has gone into labor a week early. I really would like to be there when she delivers.”
“Oh.” Did I know she had kids having babies? Probably not, but maybe she mentioned it. “Where’s your daughter?”
“Louisville.” Debbie almost looked ready to cry. “I know it’s on terribly short notice, Mr. Stanton –”
“Go. Family is more important than work, Debbie.” I smiled to show her I meant it. “Just drive carefully. It’s a long way to Louisville if you’re under stress.”
Relief flooded her features, her voice. “Oh, thank you. I’ll make up the time, I promise.”
“Do I look worried about it? Just be safe, okay?”
“I will, Mr. Stanton.”
Looking as though she wanted to reach over the desk and kiss me, Debbie finally turned and rushed out of my office. As the plexiglass between us was open, Izzy had heard every word.
“That was good of you, Jack.”
I shrugged. “Family is important,” I said, looking back down at my appointment schedule. “You and I can handle the phones.”
Izzy would do most of that as I needed to show properties to prospective clients. Only then did I realize I would be leaving her alone in the office. If Izzy hadn’t gotten that sext yesterday, I’d have thought nothing of it. Today was a different ballgame.
I stood in her doorway. Izzy looked up from her computer, her expression questioning.
“Will you be all right?” I asked. “I have to show two properties.”
“Well, yeah, why – oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. If Debbie was still here, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. But after yesterday I don’t like leaving you alone.”
“I’ll lock the door, Jack.”
I glanced at the front door, then back at Izzy. “Yeah. You can go home early if you want.”
“Quit being paranoid, Jack,” she said, impatient. “I’m perfectly fine by myself. Someone has to answer the phones or you’ll lose business. And I have tons to do.”
“All right. Keep nine-one-one on speed dial. Use it if anything pops up.”
“Like Roger?”
I grinned. “Him and any other predator.”
“I think one is enough. Now go, I’m busy.”
Resisting the temptation to kiss her before I left, I locked the door behind me and focused on my pitch as I drove to meet the clients. Yet, even as I showed the two properties, I constantly worried over Izzy. If Roger had a second key, or if he gave the wrong one to Debbie….
One couple loved the sprawling Victorian and its hardwood floors, and asked me to start the paperwork. The other hemmed and hawed over a modern ranch, nit picking the smallest details. I kept my smile plastered on and pointed out the great schools, the quiet neighborhood, the low price, and by the time we parted company, I think I had them in my back pocket.
“Thank you, Mr. Stanton,” the wife said sweetly. “It is a lovely house.”
“I can see you in it now,” I replied with a grin, locking the door as they walked down the drive to their car.
Nearing five o’clock by the time I headed back to the office, Izzy was uppermost in my mind. My office door was still locked when I got there, and part of me thought she had gone home as I suggested. But, no, I saw her Mustang in the parking lot.
Though no doubt she heard me enter, Izzy busily wiped tears from her cheeks as I strode toward her office. She sniffed, and faked a smile, hiding the tissue under her desk. “How’d it go?”
“Fine.” My alpha male protective instincts kicked in immediately upon seeing the tears. Being a complete and utter sucker for a female crying, I folded my arms over my chest as I leaned against her wall. “Maybe sold both.”
“Good.”
Naturally, my thoughts turned to Roger and the look he gave Izzy this morning, which prompted me to ask, “What’s wrong?”
Izzy turned her face to her computer, trying to evade my question, but she was too honest a person to simply lie. “My mom called,” she answered stiffly. “We argued.”
“Oh.”
I remembered why Izzy spent so much time at my house when we were kids, giving me ample time to bully her. Her mom, a single parent, would never have won the Mother of the Year award. While she was not exactly abusive, she was very much neglectful. Izzy tended to play with Nell at our house until supper, and then accepted our mom’s invitation to stay for the meal.
Izzy never had enough to eat as a kid, which I knew then, but was too self-centered and stupid to really think about at the time. Her mother never really cared if Izzy ever came home, and when she did, yelled at her. Nell had often told me how Izzy’s mom called her stupid, lazy, a horrible child, and would have four kids before she was twenty years old.
Izzy wiped her face with her fingers. “No worries,” she said, aiming for cheerfulness. “She’s a long way from here, thank God.”
I couldn’t stand her courage any more than I could her tears.
Leaving the wall to support itself, I walked around her desk and put my hands on her shoulders. She froze at the first touch of my hands, then relaxed as I massaged the tension I felt there. Her muscles were like mesquite knots, hard, filled with memories of her mother, of Roger, of her past boyfriends.
Her inner pain poured from them as I used my thumbs, my palms, to extricate it from her muscles. Izzy leaned her head back against my chest, her eyes closed, as I worked her shoulders, her neck, and her upper back. Feeling the release of that tension gave my owned stained soul some much needed absolution.
“That feels so good,” she murmured. “Your hands are magic.”
I knew I shouldn’t do it. Izzy was vulnerable, trusting, emotionally wide open for an invasion.
I did it anyway because I’m a shit-heeled bastard.
Turning her chair around to face me, I knelt in front of her. Her wide blue eyes, naked, defenseless, stared into mine. She didn’t resist as I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. Perhaps she was too vulnerable, for her arms slid around my neck, drawing me into a deeper kiss. Her mouth opened under mine, her tongue dancing the tango with my tongue.
My cock grew hard in my trousers. Izzy, in her effort to bring me in closer, was forced to spread her legs. My right hand cupped her left breast, my thumb teasing her nipple through her clothes. Then I traced my hand down her firm waist, over her hip to the V between her legs.
She wore slacks, and her hot mound with her panties already getting wet told me my advances were not just welcomed but wanted. Izzy never stopped kissing me as I slipped the zipper of her pants down and slid my fingers into her clit. In fact, she moaned as I teased her tiny nub, rubbing it, flicking my fingers over it, arousing her to greater heights.
My cock, hard enough to pound nails with, ached with need. If I didn’t plunge it into her pussy within minutes, I would explode in my pants. Without halting our French kissing, I stood her on her feet. Izzy pressed her body against mine, her pelvis grinding against my cock. Frantic with need, careless in my haste, I pushed her slacks down.
As Izzy stepped out of them, I unbuttoned my trousers and unzipped my fly. I took my hands from her long enough to bare my very hard erection and to spin Izzy around. I pushed her over her desk and spread her legs. She moaned like an animal in heat as I shoved my cock into her hot, wet pussy.
I knew it was not love making. I recognized it for what it was – a hard fast fuck driven by years of wishing I could tell her how I felt about her. I pumped my shaft in hard, hard and fast, my hands on her hips holding her steady. I groaned as I fucked her, tired of loving her from a distance, my dreams of at last being buried in her tunnel finally realized. Only to know I was in her out of need, not true love.
Or any love.
Feeling her exploding orgasm, her pussy convulsing over my
driving shaft, I pumped faster, hoping to bring her to a second orgasm. If I could accomplish it, then maybe she might forgive me taking advantage of her emotional vulnerability.
It didn’t work.
Instead, I blasted my load deep in her before I was ready, my cock spasming, jerking deep within her body, my come, without a protective condom, splashing into her womb. The pleasure sweeping through me was no good guard against the way I had used her. And I knew I had. Just as I used all those girls and women before her. I wasn’t good enough for a nice girl like Izzy.
And never would be.
9
Izzy
Done, Jack pulled his cock from me, the sound like a wet plop in my ears. I heard the rustle of his clothes as he zipped up, and buckled his belt, and felt shame wash through me. My mother, in all her rages, could not top the feelings of humiliation, the embarrassment, of my letting Jack Stanton turn me into one of his conquests.
I deserved it. I needed a kind word, a shoulder to cry on, and I let Jack, of all people, fuck me. He didn’t even make it appear tender, like he cared at all about me. He mounted me like a bull in the field and took me without a word.
I straightened and tucked my panties back into my slacks without turning around. My panties and pants were soaked, and though his fucking brought me erotic pleasure, the shame of the act was far greater. I knew my face flushed a dark red, and tears stung my eyes. But as I participated in this farce, I couldn’t lay the blame entirely upon him.
It wasn’t rape. I wanted it, yes, I did. I just didn’t expect to feel like trash afterward.
“Izzy.”
I ignored him, knowing that I was one more notch on his belt, another pussy invaded, another conquest. He didn’t even feel the shame of using me. Of course, he wouldn’t. He’s Jack Stanton, the hero of ten thousand fucks. I meant nothing to him, no more than any other girl from high school, or his gal pals from Europe.
Without looking at him, I grabbed my purse and strode around my desk. His hand touched my shoulder, and I flinched away, as though I’d been burned. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t speak to him, and headed down the short hall to the door. I went through it without seeing where I was going.