by Kilby Blades
His arms tightened around her at her first sniffle, causing her to abandon all hope that there was any fooling him. But it changed into something more. Those first tears opened the floodgates, and it wasn’t about the movie anymore. It was about her shitty day and the growing fear that this was only the beginning of a huge war at work.
When Michael shifted, she began to sit up, swiping her tears with the back of her hands. An apology was on her lips. But before she could form the words she felt her body being shifted. She bit her lip as he pulled her into his chest and tucked her head under his chin.
“Let it out,” he whispered, kissing the crown of her head.
And she did. She was too tired to fight the unwelcome emotions and for those few moments spent in his arms, she gave in to thoughts about everything she feared. Just when she thought she was past it, he kissed her hair again, held her just a bit tighter and whispered “It’s okay” in her ear. It set her off again. She hadn’t been comforted like this in years and she’d been too stubborn to admit that she needed it.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally.
“You’re having a really tough time.”
“This wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Don’t do that.” An edge crept into his voice and he pulled back to look down at her. “Don’t treat me like some creep who just fucks you. I’m your friend.”
“I know you are,” she whispered. “I just…hate being like this.”
“Why don’t you let me help?”
“What would you do?”
“Find out why he’s doing this. Something doesn’t add up.”
“How would you find out?”
“I could always hire a private investigator.”
Her jaw tightened at the suggestion.
“That seems a little extreme…”
“Falsifying test results to get someone out of the way sounds a little extreme, too.”
She put her head back on her chest and nuzzled in. He kissed her hair again.
“Not yet, okay?”
BY THE NEXT DAY, THE temporary crisis at work had blown over, but things had worsened between Darby and Huck. She didn’t know for sure what had happened with the Board, but when she’d checked her phone the next morning, she’d had a text from Chandy letting her know she could come to work. She’d awoken on the sofa that morning, still wrapped in Michael’s arms. It was the first sexless night they’d spent together. She wondered whether it would have turned out the same—with them falling asleep watching movies like normal couples did—if she hadn’t been in such a fragile state.
But now, work was over. They had reconvened at his place and he was serving her champagne. She’d had a predictably bad day at the hospital, and she could tell he was trying to take her mind off of her problems. As they sat up against the upholstered headboard of his bed, the sheets only half-covering their naked bodies, they talked casually about strange fetishes of people they’d each been with before.
Darby remembered a different Michael, a six-foot-five hulking Adonis from her sophomore year French class in college, who had harbored a deep obsession with her feet. Her Freshman year roommate—a girl named Ariel—had a tongue piercing that had brought Darby hours of pleasure. After sharing her own same-sex experience, she asked Michael something she had been wondering.
“You’ve been with guys, right?”
He smiled through a playful frown. “Let me guess…the ass play gave me away.”
“Maybe,” she shrugged, appearing to be stifling a laugh.
“The first time I got my heart broken was by a guy,” Michael admitted easily. “He wasn’t the first guy I was ever attracted to, but he was the first one who was ever attracted to me,” Michael continued.
“Doubtful,” she muttered and he kicked her gently under the covers, which made her smile.
“Everything we did together was new to me…you know? He made me feel things I never felt before. He would fuck me to within an inch of my sanity and whisper filthy things in my ear while he was doing it. He owned me. And I loved it.”
The smile disappeared from her face. “That is hot,” she whispered, almost reverently.
He slid a wicked finger beneath the covers, reaching between her legs, presumably to confirm his suspicions.
“You minx,” he accused, with a smile as wicked as his fingers. “I’ve heard of this—women who like watching two guys together.”
She leaned her hips in toward his fingers, increasing the friction.
“So what?” she countered. “Guys love to watch two girls together—it’s the same thing.”
“Tell me what’s hot about it,” he demanded, slipping the long finger of one hand inside her as he set the champagne flute down with the other.
“I don’t know…” she said, somewhat breathlessly, clearly affected by his ministrations. “One beautiful man is hot. Two beautiful men is hotter.”
“Have you ever actually seen it in action?”
She set her own champagne flute down, angling herself still closer to him.
“Is that an offer?”
She kissed him deeply.
“Hell, no,” he replied when they came up for air, positioning himself over her and fixing her with his eyes. “And risk you getting distracted by some other dude who fucks you better than me?”
“Nobody fucks me better than you.”
He entered her sharply, and she half-gasped. He wouldn’t last for long, but then, neither would she. She bit back words, about how it felt to come around him while she was riding his cock, about how she had never even come close to feeling so good with anyone else. Moments later, her teeth sank down hard on his shoulder as she climaxed, the last straw before he growled his own satisfaction. It had been months, but with Michael, the pleasure never wore off.
“Hey, Darby,” Andrew chirped, picking up on the second ring. Michael had vowed that he would be attentive to her texts and calls, no matter what time of day, no matter where he was in the world. Though he’d made good on that promise, she refused to wake him in the middle of the night to coordinate schedules. Whenever it made sense, she just called Andrew.
Something about having to work through Michael’s assistant to get through to him made her mildly uncomfortable. There were things about Michael—little things like this—that made her think of her father. But today, she wasn’t trying to reach Michael—it was Michael who was trying to reach her.
In the message Michael had left her, he’d told her explicitly that he’d instructed Andrew to pull him out of whatever he was doing to take her call.
“Let me get him for you, sweetie,” Andrew chirped without her even explicitly asking.
With all the lunch deliveries and other indulgences orchestrated by Michael, Andrew and Darby had become fast friends. When he’d texted her his contact card to add to her phone, she’d been tickled to find that it held a picture of him in huge bedazzled sunglasses, a gold lamé jacket, and a brilliant smile as he posed with his tiny dog. The image came up every time he called her and on more than one occasion, that photo alone had turned around a bad day. His ringtone was Sexy and I Know It by LMFAO. It had been the easiest ringtone decision she had ever made.
“Hey,” Michael’s much deeper voice came in, faster than she’d expected.
“Hey,” she said, curiosity lacing her voice. No call between them had ever been urgent. “Everything okay?”
She heard him sit down and exhaled a bit of a sigh.
“I think I forgot something last night.”
He sounded uneasy, but the mere mention of the night before caused her lips to melt into a smile.
“Really? Cause I thought you were pretty thorough,” she said, her voice lowering as she remembered how good he had felt. With them both having to work that next day, neither had planned on an all-night fuck session. Months into their arrangement, they had never tried a sixty-nine and she didn’t quite know how they had found themselves in that position the night before. Yet the sixty-nine ha
d gone so much farther than being foreplay, and been so sublime, that they had fucked until dawn.
“Protection,” he said gravely.
His words snapped her out of her very welcome memories.
“Oh,” she said a bit sourly. “Do we need to have the talk?”
“How does your lunch look?”
“Open.”
“Sushi?”
“No. Come to my office.”
At 11:59, she heard a knock on her door.
“Come in,” she called, rising from behind her desk and motioning to her sofa. She had planned on napping there during lunch, but this was a talk they needed to have. She slipped into doctor mode and started to talk.
“I’m not worried about pregnancy. Birth control is covered. Hospital workers are tested monthly for all kinds of things given our exposure to bodily fluids, so I know I’m clean from STDs. And I’m not sleeping with anybody but you, let alone without a condom.”
He’d looked relieved the second she’d clarified the pregnancy risk. Upon that, the air in the room had changed.
“I had my physical last month. And I haven’t slept with anybody but you,” he echoed.
“Then we have nothing to worry about.”
He looked at something on her desk before setting his intense gaze back on her.
“You know that I respect you, right?”
“I do.”
“And that I would never betray any agreement we made.”
“I know that.”
“But we never agreed to be exclusive.”
His words hung heavy between them.
“And you’re afraid that if we do, I’ll fall in love with you.”
He groaned. “I’m sorry I ever said that. It makes me sound like an egotistical jerk.”
She nudged him playfully. “I get why all the girls fall in love with you, Michael. You’re kind of amazing,” she admitted in a joking-not-joking kind of way. “But you’re a pretty amazing fuck buddy, too. I’d be pretty stupid to jeopardize that.”
It took him a moment to build up what he had to say.
“Last night was hot,” he said finally. “I wouldn’t mind another night like that.”
Darby felt a flush in her body and a tingle up the column of her neck.
“Neither would I,” she said quietly.
He reached out and took her hands.
“But I don’t want to complicate things.”
He searched her eyes.
“Neither do I.”
His studied her carefully.
“I’m not gonna sleep with anyone other than you, cupcake. I know it’s temporary, but for as long as it lasts, I’m in.”
Her heart sped up at his words. It was the strangest declaration of commitment she’d ever imagined. But for them, it was perfect.
“Ditto.” She watched him as her words sink in. “If that changes, I’ll tell you upfront. Things will only get complicated if we stop being honest with each other.”
They continued to look at one another intensely.
“A wise woman once told me that the most successful relationships are the ones that define themselves.” She was surprised to hear him echoing her own words from that first night on the beach.
“Wise words indeed,” she said. By then, they were gravitating toward each other for a kiss.
His tongue was just beginning to massage hers in the most delicious way when her phone rang with the least welcome ringtone of all. It was You’re So Vain.
Michael pulled away and raised an eyebrow. “Who’s that one for?”
By then, he was well aware of her obsession with personalized ringtones.
“Huck.” She said his name as sourly as ever. “He prob’ly thinks this song is about him.”
She leaned back in to resume their kissing, but he gave her a chaste peck after chuckling a bit at her pun.
“He’s also your boss.”
She scowled at Michael and picked up the phone.
“Dr. Christensen,” she answered formally.
“Do you want to tell me why you spent $45,000 of the hospital’s money on a microscope that we already own?” he practically shouted. She held the phone away from her ear.
She tensed immediately, shaking her head as she held Michael’s eye. His brow furrowed as he listened.
“I assume you’re talking about the Zeiss?” she asked, referring to the brand name of the molecular scope she had purchased for the current phase of her research.
She put the phone on speaker and made her way over to her desk. She needed two hands to log onto her computer. In the meantime, Huck continued his rant.
“Yes, I’m talking about the Zeiss. The one this department already owns. I know money means nothing to somebody of your means, but carelessness with hospital funds is wasteful and unacceptable.”
She cast a quick glance at Michael, who was beginning to look upset. She cheered internally at his protectiveness.
“Actually,” she retorted, keeping her voice as even as possible, “we discussed this back in June. I asked whether I could have the scope transferred from your research lab to mine or to gain limited access to your lab in order to use it and you declined my request.”
“I would never decline a request to share an expensive piece of equipment, Dr. Christensen. Money doesn’t grow on trees.” He said it indignantly.
But Darby had searched her e-mail quickly.
“Actually, I’ve found the e-mail exchange in which we discussed this issue specifically. Shall I forward it to you? Your instructions to have me order my own are stated clearly.”
She was already typing in Huck’s e-mail address as well as that of the financial controller for her department. She clicked out a brief note.
Per your inquiry for approval to order a second Zeiss microscope, please refer to the below exchange. Thank You, Dr. Christensen.
She pressed send, and waited a pregnant moment to ask, “Did you receive it?”
“Hang on, please,” he groused testily, “I’m reading.”
So she gave him a moment. Michael shook his head slowly, looking pissed.
“Don’t do anything like this again,” Huck growled, before hanging up the phone.
Before she had even pressed the “end” button on her own phone, Michael had risen from her sofa and pulled her into a hug.
“I don’t like that guy.”
“Me either.”
“Have you figured out how you’re going to stand up to him yet?”
“No.”
MICHAEL HAD TOLD DARBY THAT he would meet her outside the hospital to pick her up. What he hadn’t said was that he’d be leaning against his Maserati, which he’d parked illegally right in front of the exit for everyone to see. Darby’s first reaction was to laugh, then to hide her face in her hands as she walked through the sliding automatic doors. Until then, she’d only seen the Maserati parked on her own quiet street, or coming out of valet parking. She supposed, with a car like that, he was used to parking anywhere he wanted. Besides, any ticket he couldn’t charm his way out of, he could afford to pay. The car drew a lot of attention in this setting.
So did Michael. On any given day, he could have stood alone, hiding behind a tree wearing a burlap sack and he still would have caught the attention of everyone who passed. But in a fur trim shearling parka, sporting $1,200 sunglasses, leaning against a $160,000 car, he looked like a million bucks. Since everyone was looking with interest at him, and he was looking with interest at her, Darby knew she’d have a lot of explaining to do the next day.
“Really?” She failed at sounding more stern than amused as she asked the question, her hands in the pocket of her own fur trim parka as she approached. “I thought we were going to dinner in the loop—that’s, like, a six dollar Uber drive away.”
He pulled what looked like a blow pop out of his mouth.
Holy hell.
“I missed her,” he shrugged unapologetically, the smile that had come to his lips when he’d caught sight
of Darby widening a bit. “Ten days away from Starla is ten days too long.”
She chuckled, happy to see him, because ten days had felt long to her, too.
“Starla is the name of a diner waitress.
“Starla has a 4.7 liter v8 and 460 horsepower.”
“Starla gets twelve miles to the gallon.”
“Thirteen. Don’t be rude.”
“You gonna let me in, or what?”
“It depends. You gonna stop talking smack?”
She raised two fingers to her mouth in a pincer grip and drew them from one corner to the other, in the universal sign for zipping her lips shut.
“Alright, then,” he said smugly. Taking her bag from her shoulder, he opened the passenger door and held her hand as she stepped in.
For all the marathon kissing sessions they had in private, they had still never kissed in public. Darby noticed that in moments that might have merited a kiss, he touched her neck and looked in her eyes instead. They had their own private language now, which she supposed was bound to happen between two people who had cultivated such an intense connection with one another’s bodies. The more important things they said to one another were rarely spoken out loud.
“You look fresh for someone who just got off a plane,” she observed during their short drive.
“That’s because I didn’t just get off of the plane. I landed this morning and slept all day,” he admitted. “I needed it. I wanted to preserve my energy for tonight.”
His comment caused her mind to wander to all she’d been missing while he was gone. She would’ve preferred to take him home then, to lose herself in that kiss she’d been craving, to beg him to fuck her all night, but he’d been adamant about having an early dinner out. After crossing the river, he took them north on Michigan, but instead of turning in toward the loop, he stayed on Millennium Park. When they passed by the front of the Art Institute before turning off onto a side street and into what appeared to be a private underground garage, realization dawned.
“Is there an event here tonight?” she asked, her mouth suddenly dry. She remembered telling Michael that she hadn’t been there since her mother’s death. She knew he hadn’t forgotten. He was like an elephant.