Love Him: A Love Him, Hate Him, Want Him Novel
Page 37
He reached down between us and started undoing his belt buckle.
Where are my condoms?
That thought flashed to all those hours I had spent clicking and googling contraception methods.
And that made the image of Susan’s wretched vagina light up like a sign in Times-fucking-Square.
And just like that, I was cold as an ice cube, all the need and heat and frenzy evaporating in less than ten seconds.
A tiny, sullen voice cried, They are in the top desk drawer!
She wept, sobbing and calling out plaintively.
We were sooooo close!
I pushed my hand against Franco’s chest. “This isn’t going to happen.”
He licked my collarbone and went head first into my cleavage.
I clamped my hand across his forehead and pulled his head up out of my boobies until his eyes defogged and he met my gaze.
“I said, this isn’t going to happen. I need you to leave now.”
He groaned. “Are you kidding?”
I wished. “I just remembered I have to be downtown in twenty minutes.” That was at least a thirty-five minute cab ride this time of day.
I could see Franco doing the math in his head. Being a deliveryman made you an expert on transportation time.
I saw the moment resignation made his expression drop, so I threw him a bone… so to speak.
I reached over and pulled my purse to me, deftly finding my emergency stash of cash and handing him two fifty dollar bills.
“To make up for your lost time,” I said and tucked the bills into the waistband of his jeans.
Franco reluctantly pulled himself off me and started putting his t-shirt back on, shaking his head the whole time.
“Sorry about this.” I was more than sorry. This hot stud should have blown right through my little problem.
Hell, he should have been banging me up against the wall by now!
Franco pulled my order from the heated bag and gave me another long look. I pretended to brush the nonexistent wrinkles from my skirt.
“This is the first time a woman has paid me not to have sex with her.”
Jesus…
I grabbed my suit jacket and started pulling it on as he unlocked my office door and swung it open.
As if on cue, Lance was standing there, hand up as if he were about to knock. His eyes went wide, and an evil smile slid across his face.
Franco said, “Hey, dude,” and bumped his knuckles with Lance's as he walked past him.
Lance watched as Franco left, his gaze running over him like he was scanning him for weapons.
When he turned back to me I had myself pulled together and was reaching into the box with Lance’s Italian hoagie in it, going for my half.
“Where’s Franco?” he asked, his voice heavy with innuendo.
“That was Franco junior.” I took a huge bite of the hoagie.
Lance closed the door behind him, pulled up a seat and grabbed the rest of the sandwich.
“So?”
I looked at him with no expression on my face, simply chewing my sandwich.
“Don’t be a bitch!” he crooned, and took a dainty bite of his half of the hoagie. “Tell me everything. Did he end your curse?”
Curse? “That’s a hell of a way to say it.” God, I needed a cigarette!
But I quit six months ago.
I reached for my stash of Milk Duds.
I know, not the most appealing of names for candy… but damn, they were good.
Just not good for your figure, sweet cheeks…
Shut. Up.
“Well?” Lance scooted his chair closer, the look of excitement on his face was priceless.
I sighed and 'fessed up. “No, nothing was ended, slapped, or penetrated.”
Damn it…
His face fell like a house of cards, his lip sticking out in the most adorable pout.
“Stop that,” I scolded, throwing a Milk Dud at him. “It’s not like he didn’t have sex with you! I’m the one not getting laid here.”
Lance caught the Milk Dud and stared at it for a moment, lost in thought.
So unlike my mighty gay assistant.
“Lance?”
He blinked and then popped the sultry little chocolate morsel in his mouth, faking a smile. I know Lance, and he was giving me his best faux smile.
“Is there something wrong between you and Churchill?”
He shook his head, “No, everything is great.”
I gave him my Don’t bullshit me glare.
He sighed, reached across the desk and stole the box of Milk Duds out of my hand.
“I love him,” he said, shoving a handful of the gooey candy in his mouth. “Mut… mee affen ad ex et.”
I blinked. “I’ll wait for you to swallow that load before I ask you to repeat yourself.”
Lance gave me the finger, and kept chewing. When he finally swallowed he grimaced and then sighed again.
“We haven’t had sex yet.”
I laughed.
Lance shot me a scathing look.
I laughed some more.
“Oh come on.” I leaned over the desk and stole back my Milk Duds before he ate them all. “I thought sex on the first date was like the gay standard. Like a hand shake.”
“That’s stereotyping.” He reached for the Milk Duds but I clutched them protectively to my breasts. “I thought you were above such things.”
I threw a Milk Dud at his head and he deftly caught it in his mouth.
“I live for stereotypes.” I upended the box of Milk Duds—empty. “So how many sexual partners have you had?”
Lance’s eyes widened.
“Including blowjobs and hand-jobs.”
He pursed his lips and sat up straight. “How many have you had?”
He knew how to play dirty.
“Fine, we’re both born again virgins. So how is it you and Churchill haven’t done the deed? It’s been, what—six months?”
“Seven…”
Oh…
Lance took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling.
“Okay, but you have to promise not to let Churchill know you know!”
“I promise.” I placed one hand over my heart and one up in the air, as if swearing it.
Lance bit his lip, looking so young and naïve.
“Churchill can’t get it up.”
I shrugged.
“And he’s too ill to try… artificial means.”
“Oh…” I didn’t need to know that.
And yet you asked, didn’t you?
“His physician says that the surgery to put in an implant would surely kill him, if not the act of having… you know, having sex at all.”
I got the picture. If poor… well, if rich-as-sin yet old-as-the-hills Churchill wasn’t healthy enough to take the erection pills, or to undergo penile implant surgery, he certainly wouldn’t last long while having sex.
I gave Lance an appraising look.
Everything firm, if not bulging—and I knew he was a yoga devotee.
Yep, five minutes of Lance would certainly send old Churchill to the grave.
I nodded vigorously, trying to get the picture of the two of them out of my head.
“So,” I said, trying to hit the forward button on our little heart-to-heart, “Now you want to go out and… get some? Well, I can understand that, sweetie. Seven months at your age.”
Hell, I was only a few years older than him and I was ready to climb the walls after only half that long.
Lance sobbed.
Sobbed.
His eyes were brimming with tears as he slowly shook his head.
“I don’t want to be with anyone if I can’t be with Churchill.”
Dear god…
“I had no idea you felt like that. I’m so sorry.”
Lance tried to take in a breath, but kept on gasping. Just when he looked about to explode, he cried out, “He wants me to sleep with other men!”
He melted into t
ears, his pretty green eyes turning a watery bloodshot, his aquiline nose turning puffy and red. He sniffled, looking about to wipe his nose with his sleeve.
I couldn’t let my best gay ruin his fine fashion standards. I reached in my bottom drawer for the boxes of tissues I keep for clients—and Susan—and held one out to Lance.
He took three and swiped his eyes, ending in a very dainty, elegant blowing of his nose.
“So he wants you to go out and find someone to…”—How to word this?—“To satisfy your urges?”
“No…” Lance grimaced as if he’d bitten into rotten fruit. “He wants me to bring someone home so he can watch us fuck.”
Big oh…
“So, Churchill is a… voyeur?”
Lance crossed his arms over his chest, looking so beautifully lost.
“He feels I can’t keep this no sex thing up, and wants me to stop it. But he also wants to see me happy.” Lance gave me a beseeching glance. “Literally see me being happy.”
I walked over and sat on his side of the desk and took his hand in mine.
“And you can’t go through with it because you love him.”
He nodded, sniffling. “Plus, I’m afraid that he might get excited and have a heart attack just watching.”
I looked over at my window for a minute, gazing out on Hyde Park Boulevard.
“I’m not qualified to advise you here.” I looked back to him.
Lance sniffled. “No shit.”
We both started laughing. I dropped into his lap, entwining my arms around his neck, and then kissed his blotchy, beautiful face. He wrapped his arms around me and we sat there for a moment, just holding each other.
“Aren’t we a pair?” I said.
“I can fuck anyone, just not the one I want…” He kissed me on top of the head. “And you can’t get laid to save your life.”
I elbowed him in the ribs. “Asshole!”
He held me tighter. “Okay, I’m sure if it was the fate of the world in the balance, you would pull a Hail Mary orgasm out of your yoohoo.”
“You do remember I’m your boss, don’t you? I think a bit of respect is in order.”
Lance scoffed. “Do I hafta?”
I spied the lovely Howard Miller wall clock I’d bought the last time I was in San Francisco and saw I was indeed late. I had a meeting with a representative of the Chicago Arts Council, and he wanted to meet at his office across town.
“I have to run, so you watch the store while I try to get old musty pants to add us—finally—to the council’s charity ball invite list.”
Lance coughed. “That guy smells like rotten cabbage doused with Brut.”
“But he’s the only member of the council that’s even returned one of my phone calls.” It was my turn to sigh. I’d been a major art dealer in this town for four goddamn years, and yet I couldn’t get invited to their twice yearly charity ball.
The list was so select that almost no one on the outside of it knew who was on it.
Like freaking Fight Club.
I had to get on that invitation list! The contacts, the mingling… the future sales to filthy rich gajillionaires…
I hopped off Lance’s lap and grabbed my purse and cell phone. “Call me if there’s a problem. I’m going to go home right after, so lock up…” I thought of the collection of zombie turkey oils hanging on my gallery’s exquisitely designed walls, like road kill in a Rockwell canvas. “Or torch the place, your call.”
I walked toward the door to the now tainted gallery.
“Don’t forget about tonight,” Lance said.
I stopped in my tracks. “Tonight?”
I looked back and Lance was standing there with a miserably dejected look on his face.
“You know, dinner with me and Churchill at La Pampillon?”
Christ! Could this day get any worse?
Not that I wouldn’t enjoy myself—Lance and Churchill were two of my favorite people… even with my new personal knowledge of their sex life. Or was it their non-sex life?
Ah fuck it! I would probably need cheering up after meeting with old musty pants.
“Of course! We agreed on eight, right?”
“The reservation is for seven.” Lance had a wary look on his face.
“That’s it, seven. I’ll be there, dressed to the teeth.” As I went through my office door I saw the puppy dog look on Lance’s face.
“I promise!”
“Swear on your shoes.”
I stopped again. “What?”
“Swear on your shoes that you’ll be there.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I cocked my head at him, hands on my hips. “I like these shoes, but they’re hardly swear-worthy.”
Lance matched my pose exactly, and the pissy look on his face was fierce.
“Swear on all of them.”
All my shoes?
I could just see him “letting himself” into my apartment and kidnapping all my heels. There had to be close to a hundred thousand dollars worth of Italian leather in my walk-in closet. He’d need a U-Haul to transport them, but he was a well-trained assistant. I put nothing past his skill set.
“I’ll swear on my Prada mules and my Dolce and Gabbana pumps,” I countered.
“The lace and jewel bow ones?”
Damn, he did know my closet inside out.
“Yes, those pumps.”
He smiled. “Fine, I believe you. Now get out of here and charm the pants off old musty pants.”
Look for Hate Him, coming soon!
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54