Reckless

by Stella Rhys

  And though I expected AJ to pull off she responded by looking up at me, continuing her wet stroke on my cock, and watching with glimmering eyes as I emptied in her mouth, spilling hot cum all over her tongue and watching in a trance as she swallowed each burst like she wanted more.

  Holy… fuck.

  I was still recovering, delirious as I watched AJ lick her lips and zip me back up with a satisfied little smile. But as soon as she got up, I hauled her onto the sofa, pinning her on her back and pushing up her skirt.

  But I’d barely gotten to kiss her pussy over her soaked thong before she was giggling—Christ, that sound—and squirming out of my grasp.

  “You have dinner with Engelman in an hour and you need to go home to change first,” she said, back on her feet and smoothing her dress down at the sides.

  “Fuck dinner.”

  “He’s your boss,” she smirked.

  “I’d rather eat your pussy all night,” I said, so dead serious that I could see arousal glowing in her eyes, making her bite her lip for a second before she shook her head, wearing a little smile.

  “Get up, Maxwell. I’m kicking you out.”

  I was reluctant to move but she wound up getting me up by lifting her dress, wiggling out of her thong and leading me to the door with her naked pussy. But instead of letting me lick it like I’d hoped, she slipped her panties in my pocket and slid her hand up my chest. “Souvenir for you,” she murmured with a crooked little grin. “Thanks for everything. Enjoy your dinner tonight.”

  Then as promised, she kicked me out.

  17

  AJ

  I’d tossed and turned last night, unable to sleep till past 4AM, which wasn’t all that surprising. Given the rather eventful night I’d had, it was surprising that I slept at all.

  But luckily, I did, and when I woke up at 10:15, I was already biting back a grin, smiling to myself before I even opened my eyes.

  Unlike my past few mornings after Adam-related incidents, I felt… pretty damned good. And content.

  It was surprising, and a little strange, but a part of me was relieved to have no regrets whatsoever.

  If there was any at all, it was just the fact that I slept in so late, because after twenty or so minutes of just lying lazily in bed, I popped up and hissed, “Crap!” because I totally forgot about brunch.

  It was Sunday, my usual day for boozy afternoon catch-ups with Georgia and Emily, the latter of whom I shot a quick text to before I bolted into the bathroom to take the world’s quickest shower.

  ME: No need to pick me up. I just woke up. So sorry. Order the usual and start eating with Georgia I’ll be there ASAP

  By the time I got out of the shower, I checked my phone expecting to see a text from Emily. But instead, it was Georgia.

  GEORGIA: Lol she thinks you’re sleeping in because you’re depressed over how lonely you are and that we need to stage an intervention or take you on a girls trip ASAP

  ME: Oh God no

  I snorted despite feeling pretty damned guilty about my sister’s worry.

  While Georgia was completely caught up on my Adam escapades, having been the person I was texting till 2AM, my sister was still in the dark.

  About everything.

  The last time I spoke to her about Adam was when I texted her at the Engelman gala in Palm Beach, and I wound up just telling her that I got way too drunk with some female coworkers who were egging me on about my hot boss, and the “tell me I can’t sleep with my boss” text was just the result of being hammered while dealing with some pretty raw post-breakup emotions.

  She bought it, and I never updated her about, well, full-on sleeping with Adam, because I knew what her reaction would be. It would be all the horror and disappointment in the world, and maybe even a little panic on my behalf. The plan had been to just not tell her anything forever, until the end of time, because I’d very much planned on snuffing out whatever weird feelings I was having for Adam. I mean they’ll be gone in no time, so why bother? I kept telling myself.

  Yeah…

  No time my ass, I thought only somewhat ruefully as I finally got into brunch a whopping thirty minutes late. Thankfully, the hostess had been kind and let Emily and Georgia get seated first, which meant they were already halfway through their first round of mimosas when I sat down.

  “Aww! You don’t look sad at all!” Emily said happily, making me laugh, because tucked behind her ear was one of the flowers from the vase on the table—though that was no doubt Georgia’s doing, because even when she was tipsy, my sister was still ever the practical one.

  It was actually amusing to see her in her typical blue Oxford and jeans while sitting next to my free spirit of a best friend, who was the polar opposite as usual, decked out in a yellow gingham print dress, a big, floppy hat and heart-shaped sunglasses. I blamed how cute they looked—specifically with their big smiles and playful hair flowers—for the fact that I decided to just come clean to Emily about Adam.

  My heart was pitter-pattering already, but I figured it was best to put Emily out of any worried misery she might have about me and my breakup with Caspar, so within the first few sips of my mimosa, I went for it.

  “So, I have something to confess to you about Adam.”

  Emily’s eyes went wide, but she was still laughing. “Oh God,” she said in her I’m horrified voice. “You still want to sleep with him?”

  Oof.

  “I slept with him,” I said, ripping off the bandage before I could change my mind. But I regretted it as soon as I watched the mirth flicker from Emily’s eyes, leaving them cold and hard as she stared at me for a second.

  “I’m sorry, what?” she said.

  “She slept with Adam,” Georgia confirmed. “In his office. Like a porno.”

  I looked at her. “Georgia.”

  “What? That’s the best part.”

  “I agree, but I don’t think that’s where Em’s head is at right now,” I said slowly, and a bit humorously in hopes of tricking Emily to be lighthearted about this. But I should’ve known that wouldn’t work.

  “You have got to be kidding me, Adrienne,” she said, her voice so stone-cold and sober it was as if she’d never had a drink in her life, let alone one a second ago. “How could you do this?”

  I heaved a giant sigh, saying things I knew would be useless, things about the tension, the inability to work. How we were actually doing better now than we were before we had sex. I even played the Caspar breakup card in hopes of earning some sympathy, but I got absolutely none. The cross-armed death look that Emily pinned on me was so potently icy that the waitress kept nervously peering at us and skipping our table, even as Georgia tried to flag her down for another round of drinks.

  “Look, I know you’re pissed, but all I want you to know is that I’m actually fine,” I said in the end. “I’m not depressed and you don’t have to worry about me.”

  “Oh, I think I do,” Emily said in singsong, raising her eyebrows as she turned her attention briefly to her drink. Across the table, Georgia shot me a crap look because we both knew the singsong meant Emily was about to throw down.

  And that was precisely what she did after a sip of her mimosa.

  “I’m sure you know this, AJ, but you are playing with fire here. Adam might be a good boss, but you have no idea what he’s like in a relationship, because he has no idea what he’s like in a relationship. He’s never been in one. He can’t commit to a single human being beyond a work level. He can’t even keep in touch with his own sister without you reminding him.”

  “Hey—easy,” I frowned hard, feeling defensive. The only people I’d ever talked to about Adam and Holland were Georgia and Emily, and it had always been with the understanding that there was no judgement.

  Emily took in a deep breath.

  “I’m just saying, AJ. I like Adam. A lot. I know he’s a good person. But this is uncharted territory for him, and we have no idea how he’s going to act. I mean how many times have you slept with hi
m?”

  “Once.” I paused. “Plus some stuff last night.”

  “At his house?”

  “Mine. And then I kicked him out.”

  “So you gave him that one orgasm last night and you haven’t talked to him at all today?”

  I squinted at her. “No…”

  “And you guys haven’t carefully mapped out the exact logistics of your new friends-with-benefits situation?”

  “No, because we aren’t serial killers—what are you even getting at right now, Em?” I asked.

  “The fact that it’s his one off day a week, and I highly doubt he’s going to just spend the day jerking off in his living room like the homebody he’s not,” Emily said. “You make his schedule. What’s he doing tonight?”

  I took a second to think. “He has a dinner tonight,” I replied.

  “With who?”

  “A friend.”

  Emily arched an eyebrow. “The kind he has sex with?”

  I pursed my lips. The answer was yes, because his dinner date was with Naomi, his fuck buddy from his days at Stanford Law. She was particularly eager to see him while she was in town, which was why I’d confirmed this reservation for them over two weeks ago.

  Emily took my silence as the “yes” it very much was.

  “So, how would you feel if Adam slept with her tonight?” she asked.

  “Well, we’re not dating, so he’s well within his right to sleep with her,” I said.

  “Obviously, but how would it make you as a person feel?” Emily pressed.

  Totally fine? I tried the thought out in my head but realized it didn’t actually fly as hoped. Okay no, not really. Ugh. I couldn’t even lie in my own head.

  Reading the look on my face, Emily sighed.

  “Alright, well, I’ll wrap this up since you both look like you want to jump off a bridge right now,” she snorted, glancing over at Georgia who had her chin in her hand and her glass overturned to drip the last bit of mimosa onto her tongue. Shaking her head, Emily laughed before turning to me, her eyes softer now. “I’m sorry for being an asshole about this stuff, AJ. I know it’s annoying and it’s not what you want to hear, but I’m only this tough, because I know what this job means to you. We all saw what you had to deal with in college with Schilling, and I just don’t want even a shade of that to happen again,” she said earnestly, offering a sad little smile as I nodded in understanding. Then she turned back to Georgia. “Help me out here, GiGi.”

  “He’s hot as fuck, I say go for it,” Georgia said, barely finished with her sentence before Emily had her hand covering her face. “What?” Georgia frowned. “I mean I can acknowledge that it’s risky what AJ’s doing, but I also know someone as measured and careful as she is wouldn’t be doing it if her body wasn’t calling for it.”

  Emily cackled. “I love how you have a way of framing impulsive decisions as something healthy and holistic.”

  “You know me, I’m all about listening to your body. I can’t even begin to tell you how much better life got for me when I stopped counting calories and just eating intuitively.”

  “Are we really comparing Adam to food?” I snorted.

  “We should, considering I’d lick him all over,” Georgia smiled brightly at me. “Can we get confirmation, by the way, on how big it is?”

  I gave her a look that said not now, but then I saw Emily arch a curious eyebrow at me. “Wait—what the hell? You don’t get to disapprove of my choices and then ask me how big Adam’s dick is!” I practically yelled.

  But I was also thankful for a reason to laugh, because I knew we needed it—in particular Emily and me. Georgia had been very much there for me during the whole thing that went down in college, but as my sister, Emily shared half my heart, and had hurt for me on a whole other level than my friends when Schilling did what he did.

  So as much as everything she’d just said sucked to hear, I gave her a pass. Because I knew it came from a place of love.

  Tough love, for sure. But love nonetheless.

  18

  AJ

  After an overall good brunch with the girls, we’d gone shopping for a bit, taking a walk through the mall then a quick stroll on the beach before I had to go home to finish a report on Knox that I hadn’t quite wrapped up yesterday at the office, thanks to my intermittent fuming over Caspar’s shitty texts.

  “And... bye-bye,” I murmured to myself as I officially blocked his number and deleted him in my messages. It took a second after the initial swipe left, because there was something so final about hitting delete on literally years and years’ worth of texts.

  But as soon as I did it I smiled, feeling actually lighter. I felt so good, in fact, that I managed to finish my work in half the time I’d expected, which was perfect since I needed to get this jump drive full of Knox highlights back to Adam tonight—just for some extra reviewing ahead of our second meeting with Knox on Thursday.

  Peering at the clock, I wiggled my pursed lips.

  For work purposes, I’d let myself into Adam’s all the time. The protocol was just to text him a heads up, which I usually did when I was ten minutes away.

  But it was seven-fifteen right now and his date was at eight, and since the restaurant was a thirty minute drive from his house, he was probably getting ready right now. Most likely showering or getting dressed.

  Ugh.

  Emily’s words came back to haunt me as I sat at my kitchen counter.

  So, how would you feel if Adam slept with her tonight?

  I stewed for three seconds before I heaved a sigh. “Not great, Emily, okay?” I confessed aloud, irrationally annoyed at both her and me and Adam as well, because now my stupid brain was digging through every memory in the past five years that I had of Adam’s smile as he talked on the phone with Naomi, and that low, sexy chuckle he gave whenever the girl on the other line said something presumably very dirty. “Ughhh,” I said with exaggerated irritation just to get it all out of my system.

  Then I pulled up my big girl panties, told myself to stop thinking about this and played Words With Friends in the kitchen till it was a quarter to eight and a safe time to go.

  By the time I got to Adam’s house, it was a hair before 8PM, which explained why Morris’s car wasn’t here yet. He was the home cook who came every Sunday evening to meal prep for the week, since I swore Adam ate more meals a day than any human I knew.

  Then again he was six feet and four inches of pure lean muscle, so maybe it was normal.

  Aside from his daily breakfast at Gizzy’s, lunch somewhere near the office and a dinner meeting at some ritzy restaurant, he also had first breakfast in the early morning and second dinner at night, since he generally stayed up late to work.

  I was wondering what Morris had on the menu for tonight as I was letting myself in, but as soon as I was in, I was wondering something else entirely—namely why Adam left the TV on. He never did that, but as I made my way through the foyer I could hear the distinct sounds of March Madness playing from the living room.

  My intention was to turn it off until I got to where the living room met the dining room and kitchen—and saw Adam sitting at his dining table, wearing a white T-shirt and sweats. The sun set on him as he, surprisingly, wrote a letter on stationery. By hand. There was even a first draft balled up next to him, as well as an envelope already stamped and addressed.

  I could’ve watched him for longer, but it felt like a big, weird invasion of privacy, so as gently as I could, I said, “Adam.”

  Still, he startled, looking instinctively pissed the way he did whenever he was interrupted. But then his eyes found me, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel warm all over from the way he instantly calmed.

  “Oh. Hey.”

  Heading over to him, I cocked my head to the side. “Why aren’t you dressed? Or at dinner?”

  Adam blinked for a second, as if forgetting what dinner was. “Oh. I got held up by a phone call and I decided to just… cancel altogether. Didn’t really f
eel like going.”

  “Huh.” Do not rejoice that he didn’t go. He’s clearly bummed about something, I scolded myself. “Everything okay?” I asked as we met each other halfway in the kitchen. “Was it work?”

  “No,” Adam answered.

  And since he left it at that, I nodded, doing my typical silent cursing of Jeannie. Thanks a lot, lady. Can you chill with your shit for just one day? I thought before glancing over at the clock on the top oven.

  “You know Morris is going to be here any second, right?” I reminded him, instinctively sorting the pile of mail on his pristine white counter as he took the seat right by me on one of the kitchen stools.

  “Nah, I canceled. I needed a quiet house.”

  I frowned. “Well, he’s booked till next Sunday and now you’ve got a fridge full of groceries you’re going to waste, because you can’t cook to save your life.”

  Adam laughed a little but didn’t hit back. Okay. My frown deepened. Something is very wrong.

  I looked around, trying to find any sort of hint as to why he was so somber. But as soon as my eyes returned to his letter in the dining room, he said something about cleaning up his shit before getting up and collecting the stationery and envelope off the table.

  Curiously, I watched him.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Adam in a mood so shortly after another mood. They were usually spaced farther apart, but I also didn’t doubt his mom was raising increasing amounts of hell every day. The one time I met her, she was cold and frosty and spent most of the lunch talking only to Holland, and in low mutters that were not for the rest of us to hear. Possessive didn’t even begin to describe Jeannie Maxwell, so I could only imagine what she was like these days given she still hadn’t gotten in contact with Holland.

  “Jump drive for you,” I said when Adam got back, and once I set it in his palm, I made the announcement that I had just decided on two seconds ago. “I’m going to meal prep for you tonight.”