by Bromberg, K
In the mirror, with my body melting in his embrace, he wasn’t the man I wanted to destroy. He was the man who held my catharsis in his hands.
“Bad. Please.”
“Come for me.”
Without stopping or teasing, he gave me my orgasm, holding me up when my knees buckled, keeping my face on his when my neck wanted to arch upward. His grip was a rein on the wild horse of my pleasure, and with that boundary secured, the release expanded in every other direction.
When I was no more than twitching flesh, he let me lean on the hall table, head down, his arms around my waist. He kissed my back.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said.
I was brought back to the reality of who he was, what he’d done, and what I’d just allowed. More importantly, I realized what I was going to continue allowing for the rest of the night, and a part of me shrank back in stunned wonder. I overrode it and turned to face him.
“Thank you,” I said.
In response, he knelt in front of me and slid down my underpants and stockings. I leaned on the table when he reached my feet so I could step out of my shoes.
“Don’t thank me until we’re done,” he said, standing in front of me.
My eyes traced down the line of his jaw to his chin, then halfway down his chest where my view of his skin was cut off by a closed button.
“Why am I naked and you’re not?” I asked, running my hand along the path of my gaze and pinching open his shirt buttons.
“Are you always so impatient?” He opened his belt, then his pants.
My touch followed down to the warm front of his briefs. “Only to pay a debt.”
“Get on your knees and open your mouth.”
I wanted to worship at his feet. Give myself to him. Fight as if I was yet to be conquered. Offer my body like a spoil of war.
Kneeling before him, I stroked the enormous rod under the last piece of his clothing. He took out his cock, fisting it below the liquid-tipped crimson head, dark and swollen. It was a club. A cudgel. He was going to kill me with it, and I was going to surrender to it. I wanted to taste it on the broken battlefield of my will, subjugated and defiled like captured territory.
He put his free hand on my jaw and forced my mouth open, looking down into me as if he could see the bottom of my soul. “I said to open your mouth.”
“Sorry,” I said around his pressing fingers.
“You want to taste forgiveness?” he said.
“Yes.”
I stuck out my tongue, and he laid the tip on it. He tasted of dried plums, salt, and fresh linen.
“Take it,” he said, putting a hand behind my head. “All of it.”
When he pushed me into him, I opened my throat and took him to where my tongue tasted bitter melon, breathing through my nose as he jerked forward harder on the next thrusts.
“Jesus, Olivia.” He stopped and looked down at me.
I pulled my mouth off him. “What?”
“Fuck. How far can you take it?”
“You said all of it.” I laid my hands on his thighs. “When I want to get good at something, I get good at it. You’re welcome, asshole.”
Before he could reply, I took him all the way, leaving my nose pressed to his stomach because I had something to prove.
So did he apparently. He jerked out with a gasp, eyes squeezed shut.
“Come on,” I said. “Let me finish.”
In his own way, he surrendered, letting me take him even as he set the rhythm, holding my head when he came down my throat. Forgiveness tasted like Callery blossoms, pennies, and bleach. It tasted like a sweet seed in a bitter fruit.
When he was done, he helped me up.
“Now,” I said after I’d swallowed everything, “you get to taste.”
I jammed my tongue in his mouth before he could refuse and was pleasantly surprised at his acceptance.
“I could fall asleep right now,” I said, so relaxed my eyes were drooping.
“The penthouse has a perfectly serviceable bed.”
He scooped me up under my shoulders and knees as if I were a bag of feathers and crossed the front room.
He pushed the door open with his shoulder. The bright, moving lights of the city disappeared into the dark splotch of Bel-Air. By the bed, a champagne bucket and a bowl of fiercely red strawberries sat on a service cart. He laid me on the duvet and stood at the foot of the bed.
“Olivia the Righteous. Champion of champions. Vanquisher of my resistance. Tell me what you want.”
Vanquisher of my resistance.
I got up on my elbows. I’d been so focused on my fight to refuse him that I hadn’t considered that he’d spent a moment struggling with his desires. More than the knowledge that he’d lost the same battle I had, the admission itself made me want him.
“I want to fuck.”
“Do you?”
“Don’t make me fight for it, because I will.”
He smiled and took off his shirt, throwing it on the floor.
“I know.” He got a condom out of his pocket before tossing his pants over a chair. He stood at the bed’s edge with his enormous dick sheathed in a condom, ready for me.
When he crawled onto the mattress, I opened for him with renewed hunger. We kissed, savoring every taste, every touch, until I reached between us for his cock and pushed my hips into it.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Please what?”
“Please fuck me.”
He groaned, and his hand joined mine, lining himself up and looking into my eyes.
“Now.” The word was an impatient gasp.
He entered me, stretching unused muscles and stimulating pleasure centers left unsatisfied in the front hall. With a grunt, he pushed himself deep and paused.
“Yes,” I cried, clawing his back.
He took me then, letting go of whatever had stayed him before. His release was like the detonation of a concrete wall, as if he’d been holding a grenade in his fist. His thrusts were powerful, unrestrained, unyielding. He took the soft parts of my body in his control with the ferocity of an animal. The power of him inside me accepted no less than utter surrender, and I gave it, letting pleasure wash over me with each drive forward.
“By-Byron,” I squeaked. “I—”
The rest was lost clamping down on a flood.
“Come,” he said, pushing deep. “Give it to me.”
I let go before he finished his sentence, giving him my howl of ecstasy, grasping the skin and muscle of his back. His balls pulsed against me as he came with a last thrust that was so deep it hurt, but so precise it caused a new wave of delirium.
His lips were in the crook under my jaw when I opened my eyes, and the champagne and strawberries were in my view.
“You killed me,” I said, turning back to him. “I’m fully dead. You can’t feed strawberries and champagne to a dead woman.”
I expected a smile or a laugh. Maybe a promise that the right proportion of berries and bubbly, administered by an expert such as himself, was known to revive the deadest of the dead. But that was not what happened. His face went dark, rebuilding the concrete wall I’d imagined blowing a hole through.
“Are you okay?” I asked when he got off me.
“I’m fine.” He rubbed his face and stepped off the bed. “You can have some.” He pointed at the strawberries and champagne. “They’re for you. Obviously. I’m going to the bathroom for a second.”
He closed the door behind him.
You killed me. I’m fully dead.
Well, that hadn’t been the right thing to say, and it was obvious I’d reminded him of Samantha at the wrong time.
Partly, that was my fault. But not really. Because if he was still too raw about her, he had no business having sex with me or anyone.
Or was I making up what had just happened? Overthinking it? Was I weaving a story that would make it easier to go back to hating him tomorrow?
The shower went on.
I got up a
nd laid my hand on the bathroom door’s brass lever.
Had he locked it?
Did I want to know?
What I wanted was irrelevant. What I needed was to know where I stood with him.
Gently, I pushed down on the lever, and it stopped before the latch opened.
It was locked.
I was alone, on the other side of a locked door, naked from toes to tits with no armor but my ravaged skin. Exposed to the despicable man whose stabbing cock had broken down my defenses and made my pussy sore. I’d thought I had the upper hand, but that was a fool’s assumption. He’d been better positioned from the moment I got into his car.
I found the second bathroom and cleaned up between my legs. My mascara was smudged, and my hair was a nest. As I rubbed under my eyes in an attempt to make myself presentable, the shower on the other side of the wall was turned off.
I looked at myself in the mirror one last time.
With furling nipples, my body said yes to the possibility of his hands and his cock. Just a few more times, maybe. Then Byron Crowne and Olivia Monroe would be back on opposite sides of the table, where we belonged.
I could wait, just to see if I’d misinterpreted his coldness. Maybe his reaction wasn’t about Samantha, and maybe it wasn’t what had set him off. Or maybe he hadn’t been set off at all. Maybe we were good for another turn or two before the sun came up. We’d agreed to an entire night, not a fuck and a dodge out the door. There were so many things we hadn’t explored yet, and we had hours.
And then, like a slow, thick leak, a trickle of fluid dropped inside my thigh.
That shouldn’t be. I reached down and took some on my finger and recognized the texture and smell of it.
It wasn’t my body’s response to the sex. It wasn’t mine at all.
Still naked, I stormed to the other bathroom and pounded on the door. “Byron!”
He opened the door, towel around his waist, hair and skin wet, eyes scanning my body as if he was considering another go at it.
“The condom broke?”
“It did. I was—”
“What the fuck?”
“Going to tell you as soon as I got out.”
“What the fuck?” I didn’t realize I was shouting until I saw his reaction.
“I didn’t realize until—”
“I’m on fertility drugs! You piece of shit. I’m ovulating, and I’m on—”
“Wait,” he barked. “You’re what?”
I stormed to the outer room where the floor was littered with my clothes. I slid my dress over my head as I gave him an explanation I didn’t owe him. “I’m trying to have a baby. I’m getting intrauterine insemination, and the next one is tomorrow morning.”
“Why did you insist on a condom then?”
“I want a baby. But not yours.” I stuffed my hairpins and stockings in my bag. “Not some random guy I fucked for—”
“I’m a random guy?”
“Shut up. Just shut your fucking mouth. This isn’t a game. This is my life, and I don’t want you in it.”
Period. Bottom line. Nonnegotiable.
And now?
Now I might be stuck with him forever. The thought of it opened my adrenal floodgates, giving me two options: fight or fly.
Choosing flight, I opened the door and rushed into the little hallway. He followed in his towel.
“Can you wait a second?” he said.
I pushed the button. “No.”
Then I waited. It wouldn’t be long. The elevator was exclusive to the penthouse, but I was stuck there. Every second would be torment while the DNA inside me would probably fight like hell to get to its destination.
“Let me get this straight,” he said as if he could decorate the hallway with his perfect body until the towel dried and fell off. “You’re paying a doctor to put some stranger’s sperm in you.”
“He’s not a stranger. Not that it’s your business. But it’s my friend, Emilio.” I pressed the button again, but it didn’t glow any brighter. “He’s just helping me out. He doesn’t want to raise a baby any more than I want a partner.”
He scoffed. “I bet he wants to try the old-fashioned way.”
“He’s gay,” I punched the button again. “So, you can put your jealousy, or whatever that is, back in the box it came in.”
“Olivia,” he said with the tone of a hostage negotiator, “can you slow down for a minute?”
“No. I feel trapped. So just back up.”
He surprised me and backed up. The distance brought down the heat in my blood.
“What are you going to do now?”
He didn’t demand an answer or bark at me. It was just a question, and it was totally my decision. I hadn’t thought about it past getting away from him.
The elevator doors slid open, revealing the same operator who had brought us up.
“Going down, Mr. Crowne?”
“I don’t know,” Byron said, looking at me.
“Can you come back in two minutes?” I answered.
“Of course.”
The doors closed. Byron leaned on the penthouse’s open doorjamb, towel drooping below the groove of his Adonis belt.
“I have options,” I said.
“What are they?”
“They’re not actually your concern.”
“Agreed. But tell me anyway.”
I sighed, looking at the space above where the picture railing met the wallpaper. There was an uneven notch on the wood. It had gotten brushed over when the molding was painted. Even here, in a hallway seen by the wealthiest guests of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Beverly Hills, imperfections had to be made right.
“One, I call off tomorrow’s insemination, spend two weeks praying I’m not having your baby.”
He nodded, wearing an iron mask over his opinions.
“Two,” I continued. “Go into Dr. Galang tomorrow. Get inseminated as usual. Wait until I know if I’m carrying one of two men’s babies, then spend nine months in misery, praying it’s not yours. Have a DNA test to find out if my prayers were answered.”
“Which one is better?” he asked, jumping the gun.
“Three. Call off tomorrow’s insemination and get Plan B. Morning-after pills. That’ll cut the whole thing off before it has a chance to fertilize. Start over next month.”
“Wait.” He pushed himself off the jamb with his shoulder.
“Byron.” I held out my hands to ward him off. Not just his physical presence, but his voice and his command. He’d soften me into considering what he wanted. I’d be lost.
“Just…” he started as if he knew bossing me around would shut me down. “Please just—”
“No. This is my life. Do you understand? My life.”
The elevator opened.
“Ma’am?” the operator asked.
“Thank you.” I stepped inside, and Byron came to the edge of the doors.
“Can you let me know?” he asked. “Can you just tell me what you do?”
“Yes. I will.”
The doors closed.
Chapter 8
OLIVIA
The drug store was big into tinctures and herbal remedies. The pharmacy in the back had a PA on staff who listened to my story and disappeared to get my pills. While I waited, I browsed homeopathic stress reducers and vitamins that promised peace. Turning the corner, I landed in a section that smelled of sweet powder and actually did offer a slice of harmony. On the bottom shelf, a box of breast pump attachments had a picture of a porcelain-skinned woman with a baby. The design was soothing shades of green and lavender. On the other side of the box, an African-American woman gazed down at her infant with a blaze of love in her eyes.
Me, me.
That could be me. I could direct all that love at my baby.
“Ms. Monroe?” the pharmacist called from three rows away, her youthful voice reaching the right pitch to find me without shouting.
I put the box back and went to the window. “That’s me.”
> “Have you used this medication before?” Her nametag said Jun.
“Yeah. Long time ago.”
After a breakup with my first college boyfriend, I got drunk and screwed a man whose name I couldn’t remember in a frat-house bathroom. The girls in my house said it would be a great rebound. It sucked. I didn’t have to do it twice to prove it.
“So, you may experience some side effects,” Jun said, holding a lavender-and-green box with fine type printed all over. “Nausea, vomiting, headache. Menstrual bleeding may be accompanied by cramping.”
My phone buzzed. Byron was texting while Jun explained the circumstances that should lead me to call my doctor.
“Okay.” I held my hand out for the box.
“Do you need a cup of water?”
“Yes, please.”
—What did you decide?—
I read, then ignored Byron’s text until I’d finished signing the screen and paying.
—Can’t talk. At the pharmacist—
I sat on the chairs set up for customers waiting for their medicine and put my water cup on the table. I opened the box and slid out a tiny white pill encased in a plastic blister seal.
—Did you take it?—
—Can we talk before you do?—
Though it was perfectly expected for a man to minimize what getting pregnant meant to a woman and suddenly, desperately, want whatever baby he’d seeded, I was shocked at his hesitancy. Two simple questions illustrated how powerless he felt.
—It’s not going to change anything—
—I know—
—Can I call you?—
I called him instead.
“Hello,” I said, my voice low in the small space.
“Where are you?”
“The pharmacy.”
“Did you…?”
“Not yet.”
I could hear him swallow but not much else. Outside the window, people hustled to work with their phones at their ears and coffee in their hands.
“Can you talk me through this?” he asked finally.
“What do you want me to say?”
“What happens?”
“I’m going to go to work feeling like shit, and I’m going to feel shitty all day.”
“Not that.”