Sizzle

by Whitley Green

  Why don’t I know how to answer that?

  “Joelle, for as long as you work here, you are safe from me. Do you understand? Your job is not in jeopardy. My actions the other night are my responsibility and mine alone. You’re not at fault here.”

  She’s meeting my eyes now, and it does crazy things to my pulse.

  “I don’t think ‘fault’ has any part of this,” she says carefully. “But I appreciate your apology, even if I don’t agree you need to give it to me.”

  “Will working with me make you uncomfortable? Because I can make arrangements around that.” Meaning I wouldn’t be in the building while she worked. It’ll gut me if she says yes, but I’ll do whatever it takes if it keeps her coming back here.

  “Yes,” she says and I think I’m going to die. But then she smiles, a flirtatious half-smile that I’ve never seen from her before. “But not the kind of uncomfortable you mean.”

  She’s… Jesus Christ, she’s flirting with me.

  I’m so taken aback all I can do is sputter. Joelle has never once, not even for a minute, flirted with me.

  Now I know I’m going to die, but for an entirely different reason.

  It takes me a minute to stop gawping at her, but when I do, the urge to press is ferocious.

  “If I can live with that kind of uncomfortable, you’ll be okay.”

  She likes that, the not-quite-confession that I’ve been wanting her all this time. That familiar pink bloom is back in her cheeks.

  “Has it been terrible, then, working with me? I did my best to make it as easy as possible.”

  “Easy is not the word I’d use,” I say drily. “If anything, you’ve made it so damn hard, half the time I can’t speak.”

  The pink spreads across her face.

  “That bad, huh?” She says in a faint voice.

  “That bad,” I agree.

  “Maybe I should apologize.”

  “I’d like to see that, sunshine,” I say. My conscience is sitting on my shoulder, hands clamped over his ears and eyes squeezed shut. What the hell am I doing?

  “See what, exactly?” she says, fixing herself another bite from the platter between us on the table. She dips her thumb in a drop of oil and brings it to her mouth. “Seems to me you’ve seen plenty already.”

  When she licks the oil off, I damn near cream my pants.

  “Not enough,” I say.

  Joelle lets up, smiling into her napkin.

  “Fair enough,” she says.

  She doesn’t mention Alex, and she doesn’t appear to be embarrassed any longer, which means I’ve done my job. She’s at ease and she didn’t quit, and she doesn’t—thank Christ—appear to be afraid of me. So now we can get back to work.

  Except she’s still moaning into her food. How the hell is any man supposed to think under these conditions?

  “Do you always eat like this?”

  Joelle looks up, surprised. She swallows the bite down, her delicate throat working and just like that, I’m weak at the thought of seeing her throat move like that under somewhat different circumstances.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you forgot to put on panties this morning.”

  There was a line here somewhere. I crossed it so long ago that I don’t even remember where it was. As long as she keeps smiling at me like this, I can’t seem to stop the words.

  “What makes you think I’m wearing panties at all?” says Joelle, that half-smile reappearing for a second. Then she winks.

  This is it. I’m going to die. I’m going to die hard and unsatisfied with my heart bursting because she’s so damn sweet. If I could sit right here for the rest of my life flirting with Joelle, I would.

  But duty calls in the form of the doorbell, signaling the first of my staff has arrived for the day.

  * * *

  The next several hours keep me busy, but not busy enough to ignore the drumbeat in the back of my mind spelling out my doom. If I’m not careful, I’m going to lose my head over this girl and I need my wits about me. I still have to save the Duckbill, for one thing. And then there’s the fact that Alex hasn’t called or texted once since he left.

  Yet another sign that my new normal is off the rails. Since when do I care if my roommate calls while he’s out of town?

  Except he usually does, even if it’s just to check in. And Alex isn’t usually out of town the morning after we spent time together with tandem hard-ons.

  Not that I’m thinking about his dick. I’m not. But it wasn’t exactly a typical experience for us. In fact, I’m thinking Joelle’s the first girl he’s laid a hand on since the Ice Bitch left him last year. That makes it a big deal for him, probably. Checking on him is the least I can do.

  And this is the third time this afternoon I’ve had this conversation with myself. Once again, instead of sending the damn text, I delete it all. Again. Alex is a grown ass man, capable of taking care of himself.

  Leaving things to others isn’t really my style, so I pick up the phone again.

  To say what?

  Hey dude, remember that time you made a girl come while I watched? Let’s pick a day and do that again.

  “Something funny, boss?” says Jimmy at my loud snort.

  “Just laughing at myself, Jimmy. If I don’t, who will?”

  The rest of the kitchen crew chimes right in with jibes and laughs, as I’d hoped. To hell with it all. As soon as I’m done here, I’ll track Alex down one way or another. It’s not like he’s going to be hard to find.

  11

  Alex

  There’s a bite to the air that wasn’t there when I left for the conference the other day. Guess that thunderstorm brought winter with it. Among other things.

  I stall the thought before it can spin out of control, grabbing my luggage from the trunk and hauling everything inside. If I remember his schedule right, Elliot won’t be home for another hour or so, which means I’ve got an hour to get my head on straight about what happened the other night.

  We haven’t spoken since then, but I know we’re going to have to soon. He’s not one to let something like this go.

  Truth be told, I don’t want to let it go either. I don’t know if it’s Joelle, or the fact that Elliot was there watching us, but I feel like I’ve been walking through thick fog for the last year and it’s finally starting to clear. That’s a helluva thing to lay at the feet of a woman I’ve only just met, but I can’t bring myself to give a damn. It feels so good to be able to see again.

  My head tells me I really ought to be more worried about my friend and the fallout on his end. But my gut is telling me it’s not a big deal.

  What a fucked up thought. Elliot’s not exactly the sharing, flexible type. Despite how hot it was for me—and something obviously worked for Joelle too—to get her off in front of Elliot, I have no idea how he’s feeling about the whole thing. Which should worry me.

  Maybe he doesn’t care about her as much as I thought. Maybe that’s why he was so into watching us together. Or maybe he’s got a thing for watching in general, but I don’t think that’s it. There’d been plenty of opportunities for that back in college. I mean, people can change, I guess.

  But mostly they don’t. And Elliot’s definitely not the changing type.

  I need to get my head on straight—hah—before he gets home. Just because my friend got hot watching me make out with the girl he likes doesn’t mean he got hot for me.

  I need to remember that.

  And God only knows what it means for Joelle. It’s killing me that I didn’t at least ask for her number that night. I make a note to ask Elliot to pass mine on, then smack my forehead. What is this, middle school?

  I’m digging for my keys so I can go to the restaurant to see her—I don’t even know when she’s working—when I hear a car pull up in the driveway.

  * * *

  I hadn’t yet bothered to turn on any lights when I got home, but Elliot has to know I’m here since he’s parked behind me. I set my keys d
own and head to the liquor cabinet, thinking maybe I’ll open that scotch I’ve been saving. This conversation is going to require some focus, but the scotch might help.

  Right. Because that’s totally how it works.

  I uncork the bottle anyway, pouring a short glass over ice as I listen for the door. I’m still listening for it when I head back to the living room, taking a seat in a chair by the window.

  I can see Elliot through the sheer curtains. He’s just sitting there behind the wheel, staring at his phone.

  The sound of my own phone ringing cuts through the darkness. I set down the glass and pull the device out of my pocket only to see the caller is Elliot.

  “Hey,” I answer.

  “Hey. How’s it going?”

  “Okay. Where you at?”

  “On my way home,” he says. Interesting. “Did you make it back from the conference?”

  I’m amused by the question, by this whole charade, since I know damn well he’s sitting there looking at the ass end of my car in the driveway.

  “I did. Boring as always, but the food was good this time.”

  “Nice.”

  A beat of silence. I wait it out, because he’s obviously got something on his mind.

  Three guesses what.

  “About Joelle,” he says finally.

  “What about her?” I’m suddenly glad he decided not to have this conversation face to face. I can’t think about the woman without getting hard and this is no exception. I lay a palm over my stirring dick.

  He’s quiet for a minute.

  “I really like her, man,” he says in a low voice.

  Shit.

  “I really like her, too,” I tell him, because lying is not what we do. Maybe I can’t always tell him everything, but I don’t lie to Elliot. Not ever.

  “I know,” says Elliot on a choked laugh. “I caught that.” His voice has dropped and my cock fills, rising fast now.

  “I won’t get in your way,” he says. “It might fucking kill me, but if I can’t be with her, it should be you.”

  “I can’t do that to you, Elliot.” Much as I want Joelle, Elliot is too important to me to risk losing him.

  “The other night—” he says.

  Finally. The goddamn elephant in the room. I have absolutely no idea where he’s going with this but I can already tell I’m going to be in for one hell of a cold shower when it’s over.

  “That was fucking hot.”

  I frown at him through the window even as my dick jumps. Whatever I thought he was going to say, that wasn’t it.

  “I thought you’d be mad,” I say slowly. Elliot laughs a little.

  “I thought so too,” he says. “Weird, huh?”

  It is, but maybe no weirder than what we did in the first place. I stroke an idle hand across my erection.

  “She’s something else,” I venture.

  “You don’t know the half of it, bro,” says Elliot. I can hear the smile in his voice, and it makes me turn back to the window. I can just barely make out his face in the light from his phone and the dash of his car.

  “She’s going to single-handedly save Duckbill, did I tell you that?”

  “The food’s that good?”

  “It’s that good. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have much hope. Jimmy and I ran the numbers this weekend,” he sighs, the smile I heard before gone. “Barring some miracle, we’re probably going to have to shut down before New Year’s.”

  Shit. It’s going to break his heart, closing that place. I say the first thing I can think of that might cheer him up.

  “Joelle looked pretty miraculous the other night.”

  Elliot’s breath catches, and I can’t stop myself from adding, “At least, that’s the way it looked to me. Maybe you had a better view of things.”

  For a moment, all I hear is Elliot’s breath picking up speed.

  “That was insane,” he says.

  “Crazy.”

  “She thought I was going to fire her,” he says.

  “The hell?”

  “Yeah, I know. We had a come-to-Jesus talk this morning during our meeting,” says Elliot.

  “Is she okay?” I’m kicking my own ass now for not getting her number. How could she think he’d fire her over something like that?

  But if I put myself in her shoes for a minute… I can see how she got there. It’s not exactly an irrational idea. Poor baby girl. I want to hug her.

  Haven’t yet worked out how I’m going to manage that, when I don’t even know if I’ll get to see her again.

  “We worked it out,” says Elliot. Then he laughs again. “Which of course means she decided to start flirting with me.”

  “Of course she did,” I say, because who wouldn’t? “She knows you want her. God knows she wants you.”

  “You think?”

  “Elliot. She got herself off while you watched. What part of that sounds like indifference to you?”

  He’s holding the phone too close to his face, otherwise I’d never be able to hear his breathing get faster like this.

  “I thought…”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, just… I thought maybe it was for you. She likes you, you know.”

  I close my eyes. I did know that. But there’s a pretty big line between liking and doing anything about it.

  “Who knows?” I say, pressing my cock into the palm of my hand. “Maybe she got off on us both being there.”

  That causes Elliot’s breath to hitch.

  “You think?”

  “You tell me, Elliot,” I say slowly. “She wasn’t so sure about kissing me before you came back into the bar.”

  “That’s not how it looked to me,” he said, his voice going rough. “She wanted it so much she was shaking. I could see it all the way across the room.”

  She had been. Joelle had started trembling the instant she realized we were alone together.

  I hear fabric rustling and sneak a peek out the window. Elliot’s holding the phone to his ear with one shoulder, his hands in his lap, and I damn near drop my own phone when I figure it out.

  Jesus. Jesus bleeding Christ. He’s got his cock in his hand.

  I grasp the arm of the chair as hard as I can, trapping the groan before it escapes.

  “What else did you see, Elliot?” I ask. I scoot forward off the chair, careful so as not to disturb the curtains too much, kneeling on the floor so I can unzip my fly. “Did you see the way her tits shook as she bounced on me?”

  “God, yes,” he breathed. “I wanted to yank that shirt over her head.”

  “So did I,” I say, palming my cock. “Tell me what else you saw.”

  Elliot obeys immediately, like he always does. Not for the first time, I wonder if he knows what it could mean between us.

  Not that there’s anything between us—other than a decade of friendship and trust. I can’t let myself think of more, wish for anything more.

  Except right this minute, Elliot needs more from me.

  “She loved it when you pulled her hair,” says Elliot. I can see his arm working even in the dim light of the car. Thank Christ our neighbors aren’t home yet.

  I grunt in agreement, swallowing a moan as I shove my pants down my thighs, letting my strangled dick free at last. I give it one good hard stroke, up and down, before I’m able to speak again.

  “You know what she really liked, Elliot?” He’s panting in my ear now. Even if I’d never glanced out the window to see him, I’d know exactly what he was doing. The sound of flesh on flesh is unmistakable now.

  Christ, I’m going to come so hard.

  “She liked you watching us, watching me get her off. It made her so hot, Elliot. She soaked through my jeans just from you watching us. Can you imagine how many times we could make her come if I actually fucked her next time?”

  I match my strokes to his as best I can, speeding up to match him. I’m so hot for it I can barely breathe, but he needs me for this, needs me to get him there. I can�
��t stop now.

  “Maybe next time I’ll pull her into my lap. Just flip her skirt up and let her climb on for a ride. Would you like that, Elliot? I can sit her up so she takes your cock in her mouth while she fucks me.”

  “Jesus, fuck.” He’s stifling the groan, but I can hear him coming and that’s all I need to send me over the edge.

  “God damn it. Elliot.” It’s all I can do to keep from moaning his name as I come.

  The quiet sets in as we both catch our breath.

  “I gotta go,” he says after a minute. “I’ll see you at home later.”

  I watch as his headlights come back on, wiping the sticky fluid on my thighs as he backs out of the driveway and takes off down the street.

  12

  Joelle

  “Joelle! Delivery for you up front!” The hostess doesn’t even stop on her way through the kitchen long enough for me to ask what she’s talking about. I don’t get deliveries here.

  The lunch rush has died off so I wash my hands and head to the counter by the door. Suzanne, the hostess who called me up here, is grinning with glee as she points to the edge of the counter.

  There on the ledge is the biggest bouquet of daisies I’ve ever seen, in every color imaginable. There must be three dozen at least. Other employees are already stopping to rib me.

  “Secret admirer?”

  “Joelle’s got a boyfriend!”

  Suzanne intervenes, thank God.

  “All right, children, enough. Let the woman enjoy her flowers.” She shoos everybody away and hands me the card. When I raise an eyebrow, she shrugs. “Hey, it was either me hanging on to it or those vultures getting into it.”

  I open the card as she walks back to her station.

  * * *

  I can’t stop thinking about you. -A.

  * * *

  Alex. And there’s a phone number written on the back of the card.

  I hide my face in the blooms, inhaling their sweet scent as I scramble to get my body under control. I haven’t seen Alex since the night of the storm, almost a week ago now. Elliot hasn’t mentioned him and despite the new understanding between us, I didn’t dare to bring him up.