by Fiona Zedde
Renee shook her head. “I was here three months ago. Not so long ago.”
Thinking back, Mayson narrowed her eyes. Ah. When Linc called her the last time.
“If it’s not Linc, it’s Alonzo or somebody. One day”—she pinched Renee’s bare toe—“you’ll learn that men are nothing but trouble.”
“One day I will, but for now I guess I’m just a slow learner.”
“It’s okay. One of us has to fuck to preserve the species. It might as well be you.”
Her friend wrinkled her nose.
“What?” Mayson demanded.
“I don’t know why, but I thought once you got more into yoga and the spirituality behind it, then you wouldn’t curse as much.”
“I don’t know why you’d think that either.” Mayson grinned lazily, rocking back in her chair. It was relaxing sitting here above it all, allowing the chaos to happen while being apart from it. “Since we were kids I’ve had this dirty mouth. Why would I change now?”
But she knew it wasn’t really about her. Renee’s dissatisfaction with the things in her life—her job, her relationship with her ex-husband—was starting to spread. On a normal day, she wouldn’t give a shit about Mayson’s language.
“There is something to be said for a well-placed ‘fuck,’” Mayson continued, watching her friend’s face. “With all the action you’ve been getting these days, you should understand that now more than ever.”
Renee snorted. “Making love is one thing, saying that word is another.”
“You are not making love with these men, Renee Matthews. What you’re doing is fucking, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It makes us animal but it makes us human too.” Mayson unsuccessfully fought against the irritation in her voice. Renee didn’t do prissy and hypocritical often, but when she did…Mayson clenched her back teeth.
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.” Renee’s tone hardened in response to hers. “Don’t judge me like that—”
“What’s this, a lovers’ quarrel?”
The bitter voice turned them quickly around in their chairs. Mayson’s eyes narrowed. A tall man stood just behind them, self-consciously fashionable in his sneakers, designer jeans, and Marcus Garvey T-shirt. A laptop bag hung from one shoulder. The sunglasses didn’t disguise the scorn on his face.
Renee’s mouth shut with an audible snap. Her face tightened, and the eyes that had been crackling before with the beginnings of her anger were suddenly dead, flat brown in her frozen face.
“What this is, is none of your business, Linc,” Renee said.
Mayson stood up so fast that her chair rocketed backward. Here was a much better target for her irritation. “I swear to heaven, if you don’t keep your ass moving away from us, you’re going to make me do something I won’t regret.” Her chair creaked angrily back and forth in the air.
At a few inches above six feet, he was taller than Mayson but it gave her a vicious pleasure to see him back away from her. As people passed by, a few glances flickered their way but no one stopped to pay them any lasting attention.
Linc’s gaze moved from her to Renee, contemptuous and sad. “Nothing’s changed, has it? There’s no room in your world for anyone but the two of you.”
He gripped the strap of his laptop bag. “The last time, all you could do was talk about her. Now, I finally see you after almost six months and you’re with her.” He shook his head. “You two deserve each other. The pathetic thing is, you don’t even see it.” His shaded gaze focused on Renee. “No wonder you couldn’t love me. You’ve been in love with Mayson your whole damn life.”
Renee shrank back in her chair.
Is this the kind of dumb shit the asshole is beating her down with every time they have a conversation? A red mist flashed behind Mayson’s eyes. Her knee came up, connecting with a solid thump between his legs. He grunted, the air slipping from his mouth in a high squeak. Linc folded, cupping his balls, groaning. He fell to the ground. The bag slipped off his shoulder.
“You should have kept walking like I told you.” She almost kicked him again for fun.
“Oh my God! Is he okay?” A woman in pink ran up to him, her two children trailing behind her with large, interested eyes. She dropped to her knees beside Linc’s curled body.
“Fuck.” Mayson looked around. “Security! This man needs some help.”
On the floor, Linc panted, gasping and incoherent while the woman patted at him, asking if he needed anything. Her children hovered around them. The uniformed woman from the stairs stomped toward them in her heavy boots.
“I think he fell.” Mayson jerked her head toward Linc.
The woman grabbed her radio and shouted into it.
“No!” Linc panted from the floor. “She—!” Another groan cut off whatever he was going to say.
“Time to go,” Mayson muttered.
But Renee already had her shoes on and the jacket thrown over her arm. Wide-eyed but quick, she clutched at the hand Mayson held out and they walked swiftly away from Linc and the crowd growing around him.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Renee hissed.
They jogged down the stairs, weaving through the slow-moving crowds.
“I wish I’d done it years ago. That fucking prick.” The breath moved easily through her lungs as she ran.
At her side, Renee clattered along on her high heels, panting. Pissed. They ran toward the automatic doors and the glass slid open, shoving them out into the warm day. Mayson swallowed hard to control the anger still surging through her veins.
“But it’s the airport. They have cameras. He’ll press charges.” Renee’s hands fluttered in agitation.
They slowed down, walking toward the pedestrian crossing and the parking lot.
“He doesn’t have the balls to press charges.” Mayson snorted. “And the cameras only saw me giving an old friend a hug. It’s not my fault he went faint from my affections.”
Renee sputtered with reluctant laughter, shoving at Mayson. “You!”
They moved with the stream of pedestrians, crossing in front of the cars waiting patiently for the light to turn back to green. As they walked toward the parking meter machines, Mayson squeezed Renee’s hand that she still held in hers. “We need to talk.”
Deep brown eyes flickered to her face. “Yes, we do.”
She pulled Renee down beside her on a nearby bench. A man in a black shirt and white pants glanced at them briefly as he paced near the parking machines. His cigarette smoke left a trail of gray behind him.
On the bench shaded by the low overhang, they sat with their shoulders touching. Mayson took Renee’s hand in hers. “You know I love you.”
“Of course.” Renee frowned.
“And you know I respect the person that you are.”
“Yes.” Renee drew out the word as her frown deepened, but she said nothing else.
“Good.” She gave a tight smile. “This thing you have with the job is wearing both of us out.”
“That’s what—?”
“No, let me finish.” Mayson held up a hand, resisting the initial urge to touch a finger to Renee’s lips.
Renee folded her hands in her lap, rolling her eyes.
“Before Linc showed up, I was starting to get pissed and you were starting to get pissed.” The skin around her eyes tightened at the remembered irritation. “I’ve never had a problem with you being a prude, and I know you’ve never cared whether I say ‘fuck’ or even who I fuck. But as work has been getting more annoying, things that didn’t bother you before are driving you into bitch territory.” She shook her head when Renee tried to talk. “This is the last time I’m going to say this: Fix this thing with your job before I do something drastic.”
“Like what? Kick Alonzo in the balls?” Renee’s mouth stretched in a thin smile.
“Sure. I’ll try that.” Mayson shrugged. “He’ll fire you then for sure, and you’ll have no choice but to move on.”
Renee bit the inside of her cheek and looked a
way. For once, it was hard for Mayson to decipher the look on Renee’s face. There was something behind that half frown; she just didn’t know what it was.
“Is that all you wanted us to talk about?” Renee finally asked. The line on her brow wavered.
“Yeah. Is there something else you think we should talk about?”
Renee pressed her lips together. “Linc …” But she didn’t say anything else. She sighed and leaned into Mayson’s shoulder. “God, I’m such a…” Again, she didn’t finish.
“Baby, that turd isn’t worth the piece of paper it would take to wipe him off your ass.”
Renee chuckled weakly. “I know, but it’s so hard to ignore him. The things he says, the way that he says them.” She sighed again, her forehead on Mayson’s shoulder. There was something desperate about the way she clung briefly to Mayson’s arm before letting go. “I don’t know why he hates me so much.”
“You didn’t become the person he tried to turn you into. That’s all.” She lightly stroked her friend’s head, unable to help the shudder of pure sensual appreciation at the tight curls licking at her sensitive fingertips. “When men, and some women, see a girl like you, they want to turn her into a doll, something to play with and dress and show off. It doesn’t matter what or who you were when they first met you. If you reject that transformation, they’ll hate you for it.” A fleeting smile moved across Mayson’s lips when Renee snuggled even closer. “And that’s just life.”
Renee shuddered against her and said nothing.
Chapter 30
No wonder you couldn’t love me. You’ve been in love with Mayson your whole life.
The words haunted Renee into the hotel, tumbling over and over in her head, an echo of a bad dream. When would she ever be free of Linc and the shadow he had cast over her life? Renee drew the thin coat tighter around her shoulders, shivering despite the day’s relative warmth.
In the hotel lobby, she greeted the woman behind the desk with a bland smile and made her way to the stairs, the black overnight bag a comfortable weight on her shoulder. She had just pulled the room door closed when she heard the key card slide in from the other side. Her heart began a slow, hard thud in her chest. She turned away from the door just as his solid presence filled the room.
As always, the darkness was a comfort. He came behind her, smelling of the outdoors and mint, with something spicy-sweet on his breath. Ginger? The blindfold slipped over her eyes, that special darkness he brought with him meant for her alone.
She’d told him what she wanted. Written it confidently in the e-mail, as her thighs clenched together in anticipation, wondering if he would be able to do it. If it would bring the release it promised. And he’d said yes to her, just as he’d said yes to everything else that she’d suggested, bringing his yes and the blindfold and the stinging fulfillment of his body into their dark room.
With the blindfold on, she turned to him, eager to taste. Yes, it was ginger. Candy, spice edged with sugar. With pleasure, she uncovered tiny pieces of the root under his tongue, between his teeth. She sighed, drinking him in, losing herself in the sheer sensuality of the experience that he allowed, even encouraged with low sounds, unending kisses, sinuous movements of their tongues that mimicked what was to come. Groaning, Renee licked the corners of his mouth, sucked his full lips, tasted every part of his mouth until he was growling against her. He pulled her closer.
No wonder you couldn’t love me.
She clung tighter to her stranger. No. Please.
Tonight was about forgetting. Tonight was something she’d asked for. She wanted to erase Linc and his words and her cowardice. And this would help her to forget, if only for a few moments. Renee shivered under the stranger’s touch.
No wonder you couldn’t love me.
He pulsed against her hand, an echo of her heartbeat, her lust. Abruptly, her world spun and she gasped. He lifted her and dropped her on the bed, settling his body against hers moments later. She sighed into his mouth. He pressed into the V of her thighs, his manhood rubbing at her center through his jeans, through her panties.
“Hmm.” Her whole body vibrated with the sound.
He moved against her, pushing himself against her. She wriggled against him, pressing her clit against his hardness as he touched her breasts through her shirt. As they breathed each other’s breaths.
Although he’d been inside her over a dozen times, it felt so dirty and forbidden to rub against him, nearly out of control with need for more sensation. Renee tightened her legs around him, locked her ankles, trying to climb up his body while desire climbed through her. Her wetness straining against his hardness. She couldn’t get enough.
His tongue twined with hers, sliding, probing. Her stranger’s kisses fanned the arousal higher and higher. The tiny orgasm caught her by surprise. Her eyes abruptly squeezed shut and she shivered deliciously in his arms. A breathless laugh broke the seal of their mouths. And she shivered again.
His fingers probed beyond the edge of her panties and for a moment he paused at her entrance, perhaps surprised at the unexpected flood of wetness there.
“I got one early.” She giggled against his mouth, unable to keep quiet.
He chuckled. His fingers moved again, sliding easily inside her, teasing. He stroked her clit. Long, languid strokes that reignited her. Her breath caught when fingers dipped inside her again. She was ready for another one. This one she wanted them to reach for together. Renee fumbled for his belt buckle, loosened it. Peeled down his zipper. His thickness sprang into her hand. Wordlessly, he pushed a condom into her hand, then moved his body back, giving her enough room to put it on. Even with her blindfold, she managed it quickly. He panted with her hands on him.
When she released him, he reached down and dragged her panties off with a low noise of impatience. I need to be inside you. It was frightening sometimes how easily she could read his silences. But this one was obvious, a shout of his need.
He sank deeply, swiftly between her waiting thighs.
“God!”
They were both fully dressed. Just his jeans unzipped, her panties off, and her skirt flipped up. The sweat of arousal and sex slid under their clothes. She was as horny as a teenager in the backseat of a car. The zipper of his jeans dug into her thighs. She felt overheated under his heavy body, under her clothes. But it was also sinfully, unbelievably good. She twisted her arms around his neck, kissed the parts of his face she could reach, licked his mouth.
This lust she understood. It was physical and mindless and simple. There was nothing else. There was no one else.
His slow movements were exquisite torture. Slow, methodical strokes easing into her body, then pulling out almost completely before easing back again. The bed rocked with their weight. He breathed easily over her, effortlessly in his exertion, but she could smell his rising excitement, the clean sweat that rose off his skin mingling with the scent of mint.
Faster. She wanted him to move faster. But he was a man intent on a mission. A slow, torturous mission. Renee clamped down on him and he gasped. She sank fingers into his back and moved her hips faster, urging him on.
With his large body over and inside her, she was desperate again, skin clawing for satisfaction. Her nipples tingled and drew up tightly. She gripped his head and drew it down to her breasts. She sighed when he tongued her nipples through the cloth. Getting it wet. Getting her wetter.
Faster. He moved faster inside her. Renee arched her neck, gasping. The zipper bit into her thighs as he moved faster. Then she didn’t feel the discomfort anymore. Only the friction and bubbling heat in her center, his mouth sucking her nipples, sending sensation deep into the heart of her. She bucked harder against him, reaching for more. The bedsprings squeaked, screamed as he pounded into her. He groaned something into her breasts.
“Yes,” she gasped. Splaying her thighs wider, feeling her body drip, and weep, and sigh for more.
Something covered her face. Something thin. Her underwear. She could smel
l herself in the silk, feel the dampness from the crotch pressed into her nose. Renee shook her head and twisted away from the thin fabric, although she could still smell, although she could still breathe. He moved faster, his iron length slamming into her until she was gasping under the silk, overwhelmed by her own smell.
Then his hand clamped over her nose and mouth.
She struggled against him, trying to breathe. She couldn’t. Spots of light danced behind her tightly clenched eyelids. A darkness reared up, threatening to swallow her. It retreated. Her head thrashed against the sheets as awareness came and went. The sensation was there, a conflagration, a steady pull of heat promising total oblivion. There! Just out of her reach. Renee stretched for it, her body arching in the sheets, thrashing up, desperate. Like a hungry fish, she leapt up for it. A thousand lights exploded inside her. Then darkness.
When she came back to herself, it was still dark. Not the darkness of the blindfold, but of a shuttered room. She drew in a long breath. That simple act she’d taken for granted was divine, the air moving easily in her lungs, her chest rising and falling without effort.
“Did it go all right?” she asked.
“You tell me.” His voice was a hoarse whisper from very near. She turned, surprised to feel him so close to her in the bed.
“My orgasm was amazing,” she whispered. The memory of it made her tingle still. Renee reached for his hand in the dark, took it, and brought it to her throat. “You were perfect.”
Her trust in him had been spectacularly rewarded. She shuddered again at his strength when he’d stopped her breath. She’d felt the hesitation in him, but only briefly, then he dove into it as headlong as she had.
That long moment of breathlessness had been sublime. Amnesic. All of her body and her mind had been wiped clean in that surge for breath and pleasure. Nothing else had intruded. No one else had appeared behind her tightly closed lids to haunt her.
Breathplay was something she’d heard of in school. She’d even talked about it with Mayson but had never thought she could try it. Until him. When she asked him to choke her, he’d hesitated. Even in the e-mail she could sense that uncertainty. Then he had asked for time to do some research to make sure it could be done safely. His days of investigation led them here, finally, to this dark and full room.