After This Night

by Lauren Blakely

  “I know you do too,” she said.

  “I do. Seeing you in my shirt and your heels is my kryptonite.”

  “Oh, is that it? That’s your kryptonite?”

  “Or maybe it’s just that you are,” he whispered, admitting more than he wanted to.

  “I think the same could be said here.”

  There was a pause, and though they were three thousand miles apart, the silence was heady. He was in a drugged-out state tonight. This woman was his pill, and closeness with her was what he craved most even as he feared she would destroy his heart. Smash it to a million tiny pieces and eat it for lunch. But he had a built-in barrier in distance, and with no trips to San Francisco on his immediate calendar he saw nothing wrong with this temporary moment of relief from the pressure inside of him from wanting her. They couldn’t be together in any meaningful way, and he couldn’t get hurt if he didn’t actually see her. Right? Right, he answered for himself.

  “What are we doing, Julia?” he asked, and he was sure she could hear the longing in his tone, but he didn’t care. There was no need to hide it after they’d just broken down and pleasured themselves together.

  “I wish I knew,” she said, her voice wistful and full of yearning. “I really wish I knew.”

  He heaved a sigh, trying to sort out his thoughts, but his brain was a mixed-up mess and he didn’t know how to untangle all the threads. Or if he wanted to remain tangled up with her instead.

  “What are you going to do when we hang up?” he asked, changing direction.

  “Read a book.”

  “What are you reading these days?”

  “A crazy story about a guy who treks across Antarctica.”

  “That does sound crazy.”

  “Yeah. He’s kind of hallucinating and talking to penguins right now,” she said with a small laugh.

  “Can you blame him? I have to imagine if you’re stuck in the polar ice cap that talking to penguins might be a rare source of comfort.”

  “As long as he doesn’t eat the penguins I’ll keep reading it.”

  “Here’s to no penguin meals in the books we read.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I suspect I will fall fast asleep and dream of a beautiful redhead on the other side of the country.”

  “She would like that dream very much,” she said in a sweet voice, the kind that worked its way beneath all the hard edges in him, and settled deep in his heart. “Will I talk to you again soon?”

  He took a fueling breath, and put his armor back on, steeling himself. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next month passed in a paradoxical fashion. The days were long, but the weeks sped by as Julia won and lost for Charlie. She took the fall he asked for, but mostly she won, clearing another few thousand off her debt. The rest of the time, Julia mixed drinks at Cubic Z where she listened to Kim discuss whether to decorate the baby’s nursery with horse or teddy bear wallpaper.

  “Craig wants teddy bears. He says horses are too scary for little kids,” Kim said, referring to her husband who helped out around the bar now and then as he looked for a regular bartending gig.

  “Can I vote for otters instead?” Julia offered. “Have you ever seen an otter that’s not utterly adorable?”

  Kim laughed. “Can’t say I’ve ever technically seen an otter at all. But I will hunt out otter wall-art now.”

  Julia held up her arms in the victory sign. “Ladies and gentleman, my greatest accomplishment may indeed lie in convincing my friend Kim to go for the otters.”

  She also helped her sister with final wedding prep, which included last-minute visits to boutiques and stores as McKenna chose gifts for the guests. No gifts for herself, though; McKenna and Chris had specifically asked for none, with the invitation saying, Your presence is our gift. In lieu of presents, please consider a donation to your local animal shelter.

  Tonight, she popped into the bar to bring Julia a sample of cake. “I changed my mind at the last minute. I think I want to get this cake. Try it,” she said, thrusting the carton across the bar.

  Julia reached for a fork and took a bite, and her eyes rolled in pleasure when the sweet cake hit her tongue. “This is amazing.”

  McKenna clapped. “Oh good! Wedding cake is usually awful. But I want to have an amazing cake.”

  “Speaking of amazing things, try my newest concoction.” She whipped up a Heist and slid it across the bar. “I named it for Clay,” she said in an offhand way.

  McKenna’s eyebrows rose. “Wait! Are you back together with him?”

  She shook her head. “No. We talk on the phone sometimes though,” she said, adding an olive to the martini she’d just made for another customer.

  “What do you talk about?” McKenna asked, her voice dripping with curiosity.

  Julia shrugged playfully, remembering the late-night conversations with him, the way his voice went low and husky when he asked her what she was wearing, then when he proceeded to tell her exactly what he wanted to do to her when he’d removed every last shred of her clothing. “This and that.” She handed the drink to the customer and returned to her sister.

  “Are you having phone sex with him?” McKenna whispered, her eyes wide and eager for a yes.

  She nodded. “And we talk too. About whatever. Our days. Movies. Books. Life. That sort of thing.”

  “Wow,” McKenna said and her jaw was hanging open. “So are you going to see him again?”

  “I think he likes the barrier. I think he probably figures it’s for the best.”

  “Why?” McKenna asked, holding up a hand as if to say what gives. “I don’t get it. You like him. He likes you. You have great phone sex. What is stopping the two of you from getting together?”

  Instinctively, Julia’s eyes flashed to the door, checking for Charlie or Skunk. Neither was there, but they might show up any day. That was the real thing keeping her and Clay apart. Keeping her distant from everyone, come to think of it.

  “Who knows,” she said evasively as a gray-haired and sharp-dressed man in a suit and tie raised a finger to grab her attention. “I need to go tend to some other customers. Can’t wait for more cake this weekend.”

  She headed to the other end of the bar, slapped down a napkin, and flashed a smile at the older gentleman. “What can I get for you tonight?”

  “A friend of mine tells me you make the most amazing cocktail ever,” the man said, speaking in a most proper voice. He didn’t have an accent per se; he simply had an air of sophistication about him, from the well-tailored suit to the classy speech. “A Purple Snow Globe, I believe?”

  “Indeed. One Purple Snow Globe coming right up.”

  She mixed the drink and deposited it in front of him. When she returned five minutes later to check in, his eyes were sparkling and he was licking his lips. “That is a divine creation,” he told her, then extended a hand. “I’m Glen Mills. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me soon.”

  “Why will I be hearing from you soon, Glen? You gonna offer me a job at some swank new bar you’re opening?” she asked playfully.

  “Not exactly,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, then he pushed off from the stool, and walked away.

  She shook her head in amusement. The things men said in bars never surprised her, nor did she ever put any faith in them. Something about his name felt familiar though. Glen Mills. The named nagged at her brain for a spell, and she turned it over several times, like a strange object she could decipher if she looked at it from another angle, but she couldn’t recall where she’d heard it before, so she let it go.

  * * *

  She could picture him perfectly when he told her he was crashed out on his couch, his shoulders sore in the way he liked from a hard workout tonight. She imagined him freshly showered, in shorts and a T-shirt, a combo she rarely saw her sharp-dressed man in, but a fantastic look nonetheless.

  “Tell me why you like boxing,” Julie said, as she closed the
door to the tiny office at Cubic Z, slipping away for a short break while Kim handled the bar during a quiet time. She was spending her rare free minutes her favorite way. Talking to Clay. It wasn’t the same as being in the room with him, but he was a far better phone date than any in-person date she’d ever had with another man. Though, he didn’t call these stolen chats dates. He didn’t call them anything. Maybe because the two of them were so undefined right now. They took what they could get from each other, but didn’t push too far.

  “Because I have to use my mind and my body,” he said.

  “Mmm. Two of the things I like about you.” She sank down into the office chair, leaning back against it, letting his voice warm her. “And how do you use your mind when you’re hitting a bag?”

  “You have to focus with boxing. You have to know exactly where to land a punch, and then deliver on it.”

  “How did you get into boxing in the first place?”

  “In high school.”

  “I thought you played football in high school?”

  “I did. But I had no choice about boxing. Brent did it.”

  “And that meant you had to?”

  “Can’t let my little brother beat me. I had to keep up with him. Wouldn’t let him have the chance to win. So I took it up too.”

  “I can beat McKenna if I have to,” Julia joked.

  “Girl fight. Don’t get me excited,” he said playfully.

  “But I like getting you excited.”

  “And you’re very good at it. You excel at that,” he said, then paused and she heard the slightest rustling sound.

  “You stretching out on the couch?”

  “I’m making myself more comfortable.”

  “Do your shoulders still hurt?”

  “A little.”

  She sighed wistfully, her eyes fluttering closed as she imagined being there with him, soothing out the soreness from the punches he’d thrown. “If I were there I’d rub your shoulders for you. You could lean back into me and I’d make you feel better.”

  “Mmm…I bet you would.”

  “You can rest your head between my legs while I massage you.”

  He laughed. “If I’m between your legs, there’s no massaging going on. Unless it’s of you and with my tongue.”

  She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Always able to make things dirty, aren’t you, Clay?”

  “If you’re going to start talking about being between your legs, I’m going to start telling you what I’d be doing if I were there, and it wouldn’t be lying still.”

  “What would it be?” She asked, unable to resist drawing out his naughty mouth.

  “Wait. I would be lying still, now that I think about it,” he said, quickly correcting himself.

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes, really. Because I’m tired, but I’m never to tired to eat you. I’d just need you to ride my face,” he said. Hot tingles roared down her body at the memory of the ways he’d buried his face between her legs. On the chaise lounge in her bar after closing time the night they met, in the town car when she’d arrived in New York for their weekend together, and tied up on his bed, her ass in the air. Heat flooded her center, and she was going to need to change her panties before she went back out to work if this kept up.

  “But maybe I want to do things to you,” she said, taking the reins, so she didn’t turn into a puddle of molten heat.

  “All right. Have at me. What do you want to do to me?”

  Her ears tuned into the noises from beyond the door. It sounded like more customers had just come in. She’d need to get back out there soon.

  “Besides rub your shoulders and run my fingers through your hair?”

  “Yes. Besides that.”

  “My favorite thing,” she said in a sexy whisper, closing her eyes and picturing exactly what she wanted to do to him.

  “What’s your favorite thing, Julia? Tell me. I want to hear you say it.”

  “Tasting you.”

  He groaned, and she was sure his hand was already on his cock.

  “Taking you in my mouth. Doing all sorts of things to you with my lips and tongue.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Taking you deep the way you like. Licking you all over. Using my hands everywhere on you.”

  “Everywhere?” he asked, and she could practically see him arching an eyebrow.

  “Everywhere you’d want me to,” she said, and soon his breathing intensified. “Are you touching yourself?”

  “You leave me no choice when you talk about sucking me. I love those sexy lips of yours wrapped around my dick.”

  “And you love using your hands on me too while you’re in my mouth. Grabbing my hair, pushing your fingers through it, pulling me closer to you.”

  “Making sure you take me hard,” he growled.

  “Of course. I want to make sure I rock your world with my mouth.”

  He drew a sharp breath, and she could tell he was getting close. “You do, Julia. You do.”

  “I can almost taste you right now,” she said in a hot whisper, wanting to bring him there.

  “You should be able to any second now,” he said, breathing out hard, and groaning loudly.

  She grinned widely, thrilled that she’d gotten him off like this. “You taste so fucking good,” she said.

  He sighed deeply, the sound of a contented man. She loved that she’d found a way to satisfy him even from this kind of distance. “Your turn,” he said in that deep, sexy voice that sent sparks through her.

  She shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “I need to get back to work. It’s getting busy.”

  “Next time then. Because I want to hear you let go,” he said, and a hot wave rolled through her as she pictured their nights on the phone, and how he drew out her cries of pleasure. “I love how you let go when you touch yourself.”

  “Why would I do anything else?”

  “I want you to let go with me.”

  “I do, Clay. I’ve never held back.”

  “I don’t mean sex. I mean other ways. I want you to be as free with me in other ways as you are when you’re naked.”

  “I want that too. I swear I do,” she said, and she was sure her neediness was coming through loud and clear. But she needed him to know. “I miss you.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

  “So much. I wish you were here with me.”

  He sighed heavily. “I wish I could be,” he said, but it didn’t sound as if he were wishing he could be there right now so he could touch her. More like he was wishing he would allow himself to be close to her again. Because in spite of all their late-night chats, and all the things they shared, there was a distance between them more palpable than the miles. She’d been getting to know him better, and yet, she had never felt farther away from him than she did now. “I have to go,” he said, and now it was possible to feel even more distant.

  When their call ended, she knew it couldn’t go on much longer like this; this in-between state was wonderful and thoroughly unsatisfying at the same time.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Before the wedding she played another poker game. She was on some kind of streak the last few weeks, and she won most nights. “I only have $10,000 left,” she said to Charlie at the end of the cash out. She couldn’t hide the smile that curved her lips.

  “You can count. But I also gave you a deadline and you have two more weeks to clear it.”

  “May isn’t over yet,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “You could always ask your sister. I did a little research on her business. Seems she sold it for a pretty penny. Or perhaps you could just transfer your debt to the peppy Fashion Hound,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he crisply punctuated the name of McKenna’s fashion blog, making it clear he knew everything about the people she cared about. “I could find all sorts of ways for her to work for me. She has a nice dog, too.”

  Julia snapped, lunging for Charlie’s throat in the
restaurant. “Leave my sister and her dog out of this.”

  He cackled, grabbing her hands and flicking them off his skin. “I won’t have to involve anyone if you do your job, Red.”

  She was tempted to ask McKenna for a loan, but she’d gotten this far on her own. She’d managed to keep her sister and Kim and everyone she loved out of Charlie’s crosshairs. You don’t run the first twenty-five miles of a marathon to send reinforcements in to finish the last mile. Even if that last mile feels like five hundred.

  “I will do my job if it’s the last damn thing I do,” she said, and some days it felt like it would be. Like she’d be under his thumb until the day she died.

  * * *

  “Perfect.”

  Gayle rested her hands on Julia’s shoulders, admiring her work in the mirror. “Want to see the back?”

  “Hell yeah,” Julia said, and Gayle swiveled her around and held up a silver hand mirror for her to use to see the French twist.

  “I love it,” she said, carefully touching the tendrils that fell on her neck.

  “You do?”

  “Of course! I love everything you do.”

  “Don’t mess it up on the drive to the Presidio,” Gayle said, wagging a finger playfully in admonishment, though she surely meant the directive too. Hairstyles were to be taken seriously.

  “It’s fifteen minutes away! What do you think I’m going to do? Hang my head out the limo window like a dog?”

  “If you do that please make sure everyone knows I was not responsible for the mess. I only want credit for the good hair days,” Gayle said.

  “Thank you for coming in early for me on a Saturday to do this, when you’re not even working,” Julia said, gesturing to the empty salon. The front door was locked.

  “Anything for you. Now I’ll walk you out. And by the way, I want an update on your guy.”

  Her guy. Was Clay her guy? She didn’t know what he was, except a sexy voice on the end of the phone. She’d gotten to know more about him in this last month from their easy chatter and conversations, and everything she learned made her long for him more. They never talked about a relationship. Never brought up seeing each other. Actual contact was off the table; they were only phone buddies.