by B. B. Hamel
He chuckles again. “Damn right you are. But you were made for this, little Aria. Fucking hell. That pussy…” He shakes his head.
I smile and kiss him. He kisses me back, taking my chin, looking into my eyes. He holds me there for a moment before letting me go.
I smile to myself, head on his chest again. Slowly, I close my eyes, and I can feel myself start to drift.
I don’t know how long we’re like that. An hour, maybe two, maybe three, who knows. But eventually, I wake up, feeling a little cold from lying in bed with him naked.
He’s still asleep when I get up. I use the bathroom before getting dressed. And as I slip my clothes on, I spot my phone, lying on the floor.
I grab it, heart hammering suddenly.
There are dozens of missed calls and texts, all from Louis.
“Shit,” I whisper.
“Everything okay?”
I look over and Brady’s up on one elbow, watching me.
“Yeah, fine,” I say, smiling. “What time is it?”
He nods at my phone. “You tell me.”
“Oh, duh.” I check the phone and gasp. “Oh my god. It’s already after eight. We were asleep for hours.”
He grunts. “Damn. Day got away from us.”
“Listen, I should get going.”
He frowns a little. “I was thinking you should come stay at my place.”
My heart quickens a little. “Maybe tomorrow night.”
He watches me silently. I know that if he pushes, I’ll go with him. After all, I’m supposed to be all his this week.
But he finally nods. “Okay then. Get some sleep tonight. I have something planned for tomorrow.”
I nod and finish getting my stuff together. “Okay. Sounds good. Something fun?”
“Of course,” he says.
I smile and walk over to him. I hesitate, but I kiss him.
He smirks, kissing me back.
“See you then,” I say. “Stay here as long as you want.”
“I will.” He leans back and stretches.
I smile at him before hurrying from the apartment.
I listen to the messages on the way back to my real apartment. I make sure to take the long route this time, doubling back once out of sheer paranoia. I keep thinking I spot Louis following me.
His messages are bad. Very, very bad. He sounds awful, and I’m afraid of what he’ll do.
Fortunately, I have tonight to think. Maybe I’ll call him, or maybe I’ll even try to go see him. I’m not sure what to do.
But as I get closer to home, I start to realize something.
Louis is dangerous. Very dangerous. Possibly unhinged.
I need to be careful with him.
And of course, this is happening right when I decide to lose my virginity. Without Louis in the mix, whatever’s happening with Brady would be messed up and confusing on its own. With Louis, things are just insane.
I don’t know what to do. But either way, I know that the dull ache between my legs makes me smile, and I’ll hold on to that for now.
10
Brady
I pick Aria up at her work apartment early the next morning.
“Ready?” I ask her as she climbs into my car.
“Ready,” she says, yawning a little.
I nod at the cup holder. “Coffee,” I say.
She picks up the Starbucks cup gratefully. “Thanks.”
“Cream and a little sugar. Not sure how you normally take it.”
“This is perfect,” she says, sighing. “Coffee is the best thing in the world.”
“Damn right it is.” I grin, put the car into drive, and pull out into traffic.
We make small talk as we speed out of the city. We don’t talk about what happened yesterday, although it’s lingering in the air between us. I can still practically feel her tight virgin pussy wrapped around my cock.
It’s almost hard to believe that she was a virgin. She took my cock like it was made for her, like she’s been dreaming of it her whole life. She came so fucking hard, and it was the goddamn sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. There’s nothing better than a beautiful woman coming on my big dick, but somehow, she takes that to the next level.
It’s everything, the way she smiles, the way she moans, the way she talks dirty. She’s a filthy girl, deep down, underneath all that good girl bullshit. I can see her for what she is now. I see it so fucking clearly.
She’s a filthy girl. She just needs someone to show her exactly what she should be doing.
I’m that fucking man.
We drive out of the city, out into the nearest suburbs. The houses are older out here, big and stone, Victorian-era monsters. I take her down a bunch of back roads, up a tree-lined private driveway, and I park in front of an enormous old house with a peaked roof and a wraparound porch.
“Here we are,” I tell her.
She blinks and looks around. “What’s this?”
“My country house.”
She laughs a little bit. “Seriously? I thought you lived in the apartment.”
“That’s just one of my places,” I say. “I spend a lot of time out here, actually.”
“You know this isn’t really the country either, right?”
“Sure it is.” I open the door and step out. “Coming, or are you going to keep picking it apart?”
She grins at me and gets out. We head up the front steps and I open the front door.
“Martha?” I call out.
Suddenly, there are a couple barks and the scrambling of paws on hardwood floors. Two big dogs come bounding over, one a black lab, the other a yellow.
I grin and get down on one knee as the two dogs barrel into me. They’re so excited, jumping around, licking my face, wagging their tails. There’s nothing better at making you feel loved than two labs that haven’t seen you in a few days.
An older woman comes into the room after them.
“Oh, stop it, you two,” she scolds the dogs.
“It’s okay. I haven’t seen them in a bit.” I pet my dogs, grabbing them and pushing them back, making them jump even more with excitement.
“Aria, this is Davey,” I say, grabbing the black one. “He’s three. The yellow is Lady, she’s six.”
“I didn’t know you have dogs,” Aria says, petting Davey.
“I don’t keep them in the city. Lots more space out here to run around.” I stand up. “And this is Martha. She watches the house and the dogs while I’m away.”
“Pleasure,” she says, shaking Aria’s hand. “He’s normally only here on weekends, so I was a bit surprised when I saw the car pull up.”
“I wanted to introduce her to the dogs,” I say.
Aria grins at Lady and Davey and kneels down to play with them. Instantly, she has two new best friends.
“Come on, let’s see the house,” I say. “Martha, you can take the day off.”
“Well then, I’ll leave you to it,” she says. “Holler if you need me.” She waves and heads out the front door.
“You have someone over here to watch your dogs?” Aria asks.
“Sure,” I say. “I have to be in the city for work, but I stay out here most weekends. I’m going to move out here full-time sooner or later, though.”
“Where does Martha live?”
“Over there,” I gesture vaguely. “She’s a widower, lost her husband a few years back. She worked for Quanta for years before retiring, and we got to talking one day, and, well, we just sort of fell into this arrangement. I pay her old salary to watch the dogs during the week, make sure they get exercised and all that.”
“Pretty good job.”
“Yeah, it is. Works out for both of us, although eventually I’m taking the dogs on full-time.”
“How long has it been like this?” she asks.
I shrug. “About a year or so now. I had a bigger place in the city before, bigger yard, but I sold it when I moved into the new building, and that penthouse just isn’t good for these two. T
hey’re happier out here where they can run around all day, chase rabbits and all that crap.”
“Sounds like you really love these guys.” She scratches Lady’s ear absently.
“Come on,” I say, walking toward the back of the house. The dogs run around our legs, calming down but still happy to see me.
I show her the kitchen, the living room, the dining room. We do a quick tour of the upstairs, the guest rooms, the master bedroom. “I’ve had this place for a couple years now,” I say. “I’ve been slowly renovating it, updating it, but it’s not done yet.”
“What’s left to do?” she asks, laughing. “Looks pretty nice to me.”
“Lots of stuff. I need to do something about the floors, painting, remodeling the bathrooms, all that stuff. It’s just an old house, you know?”
She laughs a little. “Right, of course. Old house.”
I head back downstairs. “I guess it’s stupid. I mean, it’s a beautiful house.”
“Most people don’t have a country house, you know.”
I shrug a little. “Should I feel ashamed of my success?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Truth is, I wouldn’t have another place in the city, or anywhere else for that matter.”
“Really? You’d want to live here full-time?”
We stop downstairs and the dogs bustle around me, still excited, but starting to calm down. I give her a look for a long moment and nod to myself. “Come on, let me show you the grounds.”
We get the dogs harnessed up, although I don’t put leashes on them. They listen to me pretty good, and the harnesses are really just in case I have to pull them away from fighting a skunk or something like that.
We head outside and the dogs instantly go running ahead. We wander down the back lawn, cut close with some decent landscaping around a back patio and a firepit, down toward the woods and the stream
“I own most of this,” I say, gesturing ahead.
“The woods?” she asks.
“Yep. About six acres, actually.”
“Wow, really? This close to the city?”
“Not many forests left out here,” I say. “I bought the house and a couple months later, the rest of the land came up. I think they wanted to sell to developers, but I offered them twice what it was worth.”
“Just for some empty land?”
I look out at the trees, the birds nesting, the sound of the dogs running through the grass, and I take a deep breath.
“Maybe it’s stupid,” I say softly. “But what’s the point of money and working hard? I mean, it’s more comfortable, but what’s going to be left of me after all this is gone?”
I feel her shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t think about it that often, I guess.”
“You’re young. You don’t need to. Me though, I guess I hit my midlife crisis early. I want to preserve something for a long time, make sure it survives me, do some good.”
“So you bought this land?”
“Right. I’m going to turn it into a public park or something like that. Make sure they give my name to it. That way, when I’m gone, it’ll still be here. No strip mall, no bullshit housing. Just the land.”
We walk in silence for a bit. We follow a thin path through the trees. Ahead, there’s a small stream running away from the house, heading down to the main Schuylkill River a few miles away. The dogs run around, barking at animals, playing with each other, and I feel happy. I can’t help myself. I smile a little bit, breathe in the air, watch the dogs, and walk along beside Aria.
I don’t feel content very often. In the city, I spend all my time working, building toward something, amassing more and more money. I don’t get to slow down and enjoy myself at all very often, but out here, I feel like I’m finally free. I feel like I’m released from all that.
“You know, this isn’t what I expected,” Aria finally says, breaking the silence.
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs and leans up against a tree. She grabs a rock and skips it into the stream. “You don’t seem like the kind of man that’s worried about his legacy.”
I laugh softly. “Maybe not.”
“And you don’t seem like the type to want to leave a preserved forest behind.” She shakes her head a little bit. “Honestly, Brady. Who are you?”
I grin at her and step closer. “Since when is anyone so simple and easy to understand?” I ask her. “Come on, your whole job is working with people and trying to understand their complexities.”
“I guess I didn’t think you had any.” She gives me a teasing smirk.
“Oh, really?”
“Sure. You seem like you only want one thing.”
I step closer to her, pinning her back against the tree. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“You know what,” she whispers, still smiling.
“No, I don’t. Go ahead and say it.”
She shakes her head slightly. “No way.”
“Say it.” I reach up and grab her hair slightly, tipping her head back. “I want to hear your dirty little mouth say what you’re thinking.”
She takes a sharp breath. “All you want is sex,” she says.
“All I want is to fuck you,” I correct. “I don’t need just any pussy. I need your delicious, tight, pink little cunt.”
She bites her lip. “Same thing.”
“Not at all.” I lean closer and kiss her, slow and deep, hair tight in my fist.
But before I can go further, one of the dogs starts barking. The other joins in a second later and we’re forced to break apart. Davey and Lady are standing a few feet away, barking at the two of us.
“Oh, cut it out,” I grumble at them, letting Aria go. “They hate it when people get too close.”
“Dogs are weird,” she says, laughing.
We start walking away. She throws a stick for Lady, which means she’s stuck playing fetch basically for the rest of her life. She’s good with the dogs, at ease with them, and they seem to like her. That’s always an important test. If she didn’t like the dogs, or if the dogs didn’t like her… well, we’d have some problems.
We walk through my property and I spend the time asking her questions about her life. She tells me more details of how she got started with her job, about her family, about school, about how she wants to become a lawyer.
“Family law,” she specifies.
“Yeah? Why?”
“I want to help women that can’t help themselves,” she says. “You know, do some cheap work.”
“Funny. Most people become lawyers to make money.”
“I make money doing what I do now,” she points out. “I could just keep doing this.”
“Good point.”
“No, I want to do more. I’m helping the clients I have, at least I think I am, but I want to do more. I want to do bigger.”
“You want a legacy.”
She smiles a little at me. “I guess so.”
“Seems like we have that in common. Except instead of becoming a lawyer and helping people, I just bought a bunch of trees.”
She laughs and throws the stick again. Lady goes bounding off after it.
“Aren’t you happy with your job?” she asks me.
“It’s fine,” I admit. “I mean, it’s challenging, and it can be fun. But this wasn’t exactly what I always dreamed of.”
“You’re rich and you own your own successful business. Isn’t that pretty good?”
“It’s very good,” I admit, grinning.
“See, you’ve got it good.”
“Maybe.” My voice is a little distant. “Anyway, come on. Let’s head back. I’m starting to get hungry.”
I take her hand, almost absently, and we head back to the house. I call Martha and tell her that we’re leaving, so she’s back on doggie duty later today, and we get into the car to head back to the city.
“You know,” Aria says absently, “I could see myself living in a place like this.”
“Oh, yeah?”
>
“Sure. I’ve never been that big of a city girl, you know.”
I grin to myself. I don’t need to answer. If she wants to see herself living in my house… well, I won’t argue.
I put the car into drive, and we head back.
11
Aria
I keep looking at Brady as we drive back into the city and I swear, he looks totally different.
We were only at his house for a couple hours, but it profoundly changed the way I see this man. I mean, I’ve had my beliefs about him challenged over and over these past few days, but for some reason, seeing him at that house…
He’s just a man like anyone else. But he’s also so much more than that.
I thought he was just a rich asshole that wants to own me. Clearly, that original assumption was so stupidly wrong.
He wants to preserve a forest. He gives money to charity. He has two dogs that he clearly loves a lot. He had a hard life growing up, but he got past it and was still successful.
The more I learn, the more I’m impressed.
“Can we stop by my place?” I ask him as we move through the Philly streets.
“Sure,” he says.
“I have a change of clothes there. And I kind of want a shower.”
“I could take a shower,” he says, nodding.
“Sure, you can do that. I have extra towels.”
“Oh, we’ll probably only need one. I mean, since we’re sharing a shower.”
I laugh at him, “There it is.”
“There’s what?”
“The Brady I know. You were scaring me back there a little bit.”
He grins but doesn’t disagree.
We find a spot near my work apartment and park. He follows me up the stoop and inside, the key turning effortlessly in the lock.
Almost too effortlessly. Like it wasn’t actually locked at all.
I’m frowning as I step inside. Right away, something feels odd.
Brady seems to sense my discomfort. “What’s up?” he asks as I hesitate on the threshold.
I take a breath and walk further into the apartment.
The place is a wreck. Things are thrown on the floor, pillows scattered and torn, records snapped in half and carelessly thrown in the corner of the room.