Chapter Fifteen
Sitting in the roadside watering hole, Steve rapped his shot glass on the newly polished wooden bar. The bartender wasn’t amused.
“Again!” Steve held the dingy glass up, beckoning the man to fill the empty heart that he was trying to drown.
It was fully dark, and he’d wasted too many hours looking for Lissa. How she’d gotten to the garage he had no idea. But she had, because her car was gone. So much for not working without some damn thingamajig.
The doors were closed and locked, and he didn’t hold out much hope for anyone answering the phone on a Sunday. He was right. The call he’d placed from the nearest pay phone had gone unanswered.
He was miserable, lost and about as depressed as he’d ever been. He hurt, and even though he knew it wouldn’t help, the lights of the bar had beckoned. And the bartender was gonna hear all about it whether he wanted to or not.
“I had it all, man. She was fun, sexy, fucked like a goddamn unleashed nymphomaniac, was open to just hang out and goof off or show me her pussy if I wanted to see it… How could I manage to lose all that?” He downed his whiskey, and his face puckered like he’d sucked in an entire lemon.
Swaying in his chair, Steve continued to talk to the bartender—or at least to himself—trying to figure out where he screwed up. “The last thing she said to me was…well, she didn’t say much, it was more of a moan. A fucking incredible moan. One of those moans you fantasize about in your most incredible wet dream.” He blinked a few times and licked at the drool falling along his lips.
Lissa’s image floated through Steve’s mind. The times they shared, the kinky games they played, the way she could flick a bottle cap across the trailer and into the garbage can…
“You know she could do this thing with her tongue? Like a snake wrapping around a lollipop. Fuck, I’m getting wasted… Can I have one last shot?” He held up his glass and the bartender filled it to the top.
Steve stared through the glowing liquid. “I can’t figure out what I did wrong. She just reached into my chest and tore my heart out. She held the beating hunk of flesh in her hand and ate it.” The visual image made him pause and a churning began to rumble low in his stomach. Fuck.
He blinked as words sounded in his brain. Shit. Now I’m hearing voices. “Hey buddy, I’m gonna have to ask you for your keys. You’ve been talking about this woman for over an hour and drinking all the time. You’re in no shape to drive.” Blearily, Steve tried to focus on the bartender, but all he saw was a guy playing with his nuts.
He was filling the cups of peanuts on the bar.
Sipping at the booze once more, Steve tried to think. “I wonder why she never told me her name was really Melissa and not Lissa? What was it about me she didn’t trust?” As the drinks finally kicked in Steve morphed into a true drunk and began to sniffle as the tears filled in his eyes.
“What do you think…?” He leaned forward to try and read the bartender’s name on the small tag across his chest pocket. “Barb? What did I do wrong?”
“You know something, Steve? You’ve been sitting here babbling on about what you did wrong, what a great woman she is, driving me crazy by telling me all this hot, sexy shit she was into and you never once thought about the obvious.”
“And what’s that, Barb?” Steve took another sip and held onto the curve of the bar.
“That maybe this has nothing to do with what you did wrong. Maybe it was something she just needed to do. Wake up, asshole and realize what you had. No woman wants a crying drunk.” He turned away and took the bottle of whiskey with him.
Well, fuck it. Steve didn’t care at this point if it was him or Lissa who’d fucked up. He wanted her. He needed her. She’d gone and messed up his bed, turned his brains upside down and inside out and then split, leaving him lost and alone. And apparently drunk. He wasn’t crying, no matter what Barb said.
This whole thing fucking sucked ass, big time. He wanted his woman and he, Steve Mitchell, was gonna get her back, somehow. He was gonna make her see what they had. That it worked, dammit. Or if it didn’t, they could fix it so it did. Whatever.
Steve downed the last of the drink and set it calmly on the bar. He opened his eyes wide as if hit by an epiphany, and fell backwards with a thud onto the floor.
“Oh, shit.” The bartender walked around the bar and picked Steve up. With the ease of much practice, he tossed the limp body into the back storeroom where a well-used mattress lay on the floor.
“By the way Steve, the name is Bob. I’m Barb when I go out to the gay bars.”
~~~~~
Four weeks later…
“Do you have the Firth report ready, Ms. Henderson?”
Lissa looked up to see the corporate statistics manager standing officiously next to her desk. “Yes, sir.” She passed him a folder, neatly labeled.
“And the summation of the research information?”
“Yes, sir.” Another folder joined the first one.
He nodded. “Very good. I can see you’ll be an asset to Dickens and Barrow.” He glanced at her. “Settling in all right?”
Lissa blinked. Seeing as the allotted space into which she was supposed to settle measured approximately four feet square, it hadn’t been a huge undertaking. “Yes. Thank you, sir.”
“Good.” He turned. “I’ll be taking these along then. Oh, and we’ll need coffee for six in the conference room at 11:30 sharp. See to it, would you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lissa returned to her monitor and sighed. No, she wasn’t settling in okay. She was flat-out miserable and she knew it. Her world was encompassed by three-and-a-half gray cubicle walls, bare of anything but a blank calendar and a utilitarian clock. Her rented-by-the-month room was equally as dreary. She didn’t have a plant, a friend or much of anything except this job as a member of the statistics department.
In fact, she was so depressed she’d probably have committed suicide by now, splattering her blood all over the gray fabric of the cubicle partition, except that she couldn’t figure out how to successfully end her life with a half-inch stapler and an optical mouse.
The scissors were, apparently, rationed. She had to be there three months to qualify for sharp objects.
She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes and she’d have to play waitress, a task traditionally passed to the newest employee. Dickens and Barrow, Statisticians was an equal opportunity delegator, it seemed. At least it was a job. At least she had a place to live and food to eat. In two years she might be able to afford a goldfish.
And she had her damn car. Of course she didn’t use it. She walked to the office every day.
It had been parked ever since Lissa had moved in to the little apartment. Ever since she had fled the trailer—and him. She couldn’t look at it without remembering…
She’d awoken next to him and lain still for a while, just listening to him snore. She’d stared around the trailer, wondered if the drapes needed washing and a chill had begun to creep into her heart. Fear choked her, and she’d slipped from the bed, shaking, as she realized the implications of their lovemaking.
She, Lissa Henderson, poster child for the Sexually Free Generation, had done the unthinkable. She’d fallen in love with Steve Mitchell.
No question about it, she was head-over-heels for the guy and she’d never been so scared in her life. Blinded by visions of a future that led to mortgages, joint bank accounts, her parents and kids—God help them—Lissa shook even more as she dressed.
She had to get away. Put some space between them. Think…think about what she wanted from life. She grabbed on to her original goals. Freedom. Freedom to be herself without restrictions.
They were the only constant in her life, right now. The man snoring quietly in the bed was a major threat. Sure, she loved him now, but what about five years from now? Ten years? Supposing he didn’t love her?
It was all too scary, too frightening to deal with. And Lissa did what she’d done once before.
She ran.
It had seemed the right thing to do, especially when she met the mechanic on his way to the trailer with the news that the thingamajig was installed and she was good to go.
She was indeed good to go.
So she went.
And she’d regretted it every single minute of every single day since.
~~~~~
“May I help you, sir?”
The inquiry was polite and came from the small woman behind the hugely efficient-looking desk in the lobby of Dickens and Barrow, Statisticians. The rather elegant nameplate read “Susan”.
“I’m looking for Lissa Henderson.”
“Oh. One moment…” She typed keys and clicked her mouse. “I’m sorry, I’m not showing anyone by that name. Did you have an appointment?”
“No. But she works here. Try Melissa Henderson.”
More typing and clicking followed as hushed footsteps moved in and out of the lobby. “Ah, yes, here we are. Ms. Henderson is new. She’s in the corporate statistics division.”
“Where’s that?”
“Oh, well…I’m sorry. You can’t go in there. I’ll have to ring her supervisor to see if she can be spared for a few moments.”
Steve Mitchell ground his teeth. “Where is she?”
Susan’s eyes darted to a double glass door and then back to the man in front of her desk. “I told you, I’m not at liberty to say.”
Steve took a breath and bit down on his temper. It wasn’t this woman’s fault his collar was chafing his neck, and his tie felt like it was going to strangle him. He’d unwillingly slid back into the trappings of conventional business attire, but he didn’t have to like it.
If it got him Lissa, it was worth it.
“Over there, is it?” He nodded at the doors.
“No. Sir. I must insist…” Her chair scraped on the floor as she stood up, following Steve.
He was headed in the right direction, he just knew it. He could almost smell her, and the knowledge his hunt was nearing its end sent his pulse rate into overdrive.
“You can’t go in there, sir.” Susan pattered after him, heels clicking across the marble floor. “Sir. Sir, really…I must insist…”
She skidded to a halt, arms outstretched, barring his way and panting.
Steve sighed. He reached out, put his hands under her armpits and lifted her bodily off the floor, putting her down again on one side. “Fine. Insist away. Just do it from there, okay?”
He walked past her and into the large office.
Heads popped up over cubicle walls as he slammed into the room, rather like startled gophers emerging from their holes.
He ignored them. There was only one head he wanted to see…and there it was. All the way in the back of the room.
He frowned as he threaded his way through endless ranks of barren and boring walls. She’d done something dreadful to her hair. And what the hell was she wearing?
The woman who turned towards him holding a large tray full of coffee stuff sure didn’t look like the woman who’d fucked him blind.
This one had hair skinned back so tight his eyes watered just looking at it. A shirt buttoned up to her neck even tighter than his, and her skirt was a dull brown, ending just below her knees and hiding every single inch of those luscious thighs he knew so well.
For a split second he wondered if he’d made a mistake, that this was the wrong woman. But then he saw her eyes. It was Lissa.
She froze as she recognized him, halfway into a step forward. Just froze, standing there, staring at him like he was some kind of three-headed alien. The way the rest of the people in the room were looking at him, he wondered if it might be true.
Then she began to smile and everyone and everything else disappeared.
“Steve?”
It was a whisper, but damned if he didn’t hear it loud as could be. He strode towards her ignoring the muted chatter that had begun. “Where the hell did you go?”
He stopped inches from the tray she held protectively in front of her, heart pounding so loudly he could barely hear himself think. She didn’t answer him, just kept staring at him, lips parted, throat moving even though no sound came out.
“Why the hell did you leave me? How could you walk away from what we have?”
She shook her head, tearing her gaze from his face.
“Goddammit…” He grabbed the tray and looked around, seeing a woman staring openmouthed at them. “Here. Would you mind?” He passed her the tray. And she took it, too.
He stepped right up to Lissa, nose-to-nose, chest to breast. “Look at you. All buttoned up like somebody’s maiden aunt. This isn’t you. This is Melissa. I don’t want this. I want Lissa. I want the real you.”
“You do?” She raised her eyes. “Really?”
“Fucking Christ, woman. What the hell do you think our time together was all about? You think I go around spending endless days in bed screwing every single female with a broken-down car?” He ground his teeth together. “D’you think I let every single woman into my heart? That they all turn me into a crazy, crying drunk?”
“You’re not a crazy, crying drunk.” Lissa looked outraged.
“I was after you left. I called in so many favors from buddies at DMV trying to track you down I’ll never repay the debts. But being able to see you one more time has made it worth it.”
There was a sigh from two women who were leaning interestedly on the tops of their cubicles, watching.
Lissa ignored them. “I got scared, okay?” Her chin came up. “I got frightened.”
“Of what?” Steve held on to his control by the skin of his teeth, torn with relief at finally finding her and fury that she’d gone in the first place.
“Of us. Of what was happening between us. I didn’t know if I could handle it, or if you could, either.”
Steve took a big breath. “Well, don’t you think you owe it to both of us to find out?”
Lissa’s eyes were blurring as tears gathered. She gulped.
Steve couldn’t stop. “Don’t you think we deserve a chance to see if it works? If we’ve got something special? Something that goes beyond the wildest sex I’ve ever had in my entire life?”
“I don’t really know you, Steve. I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
Steve paused. “I’m a gynecologist.”
One cubicle wall toppled as three secretaries nearly fell over themselves listening. They hurriedly straightened it, but didn’t move an inch.
Clearing her throat Lisa commented, “Well, that does explain a few things.”
“Are you happy, Lissa?” Steve lifted his hand and gently touched her cheek.
Seven more women sighed.
He let his hand drift to her hair, pulling at the pins and freeing it. “Are you happy like this? Laced into the wrong clothes, doing the wrong job, being the wrong person?” His hand fell to his side once more. “Are you happy without me?”
The tears overflowed from the blue eyes and trickled down over Lissa’s cheeks. She shook her head. “No.” It was a sound of pure pain, and Steve did the only thing he could do under the circumstances.
He took her in his arms and kissed her. He kissed her with every ounce of passion, love, frustration and heat that he possessed. And when she moaned and kissed him back, his heart damn near stopped.
He didn’t hear the clatter of chairs being tipped over, or the sighs and cheers of the other office workers. He didn’t hear the buzzing of phones that were going unanswered while people stood up, stepped away from their desks and watched the big romance scene being played out just feet in front of them.
He didn’t even hear the mighty crash of the tray full of coffee cups as it fell from a woman’s hands onto the floor, shattering at her feet as she clapped and cheered in the middle of the debris.
He did hear Lissa’s heart racing. He heard her breath, and the sound of her hair as it flowed over his hand.
Her lips were soft, parting readily to welcome his hungry tongue. Steve damn near devoured her on the spot, desperate to taste her once more, to know that she was really in his embrace, breasts squashed against his shirt, writhing as he plundered her mouth.
His arms tightened and he lifted her clean off her feet, tearing his lips from hers. “Well, Lissa?”
She was still crying, but she was laughing, too. “Put me down, you bastard. Yes, I’ve missed you beyond words. Missed your smile. Missed your teasing.” She leaned to his ear. “And missed a very important part of you.”
He grinned. “It missed you, too. Been moping around for weeks. Couldn’t get interested in anything, even the cat.”
“You don’t have a cat.”
He squeezed her. “I do now. And an apartment, and an interview for a new job close by.”
She laughed again then looked around, realizing they were the focus of the entire room. “Steve, put me down.” She wriggled.
“Uh-uh.”
“Steve…”
He shifted her weight, but kept her feet off the floor. “I’m not risking it. You’ll run away again and I’m gonna have to spend more miserable hours digging around trying to trace you.” He cupped her ass as he held her. “I have better things in mind for our future.”
“I…” She opened her mouth to argue, but he stopped her with another savage kiss.
Finally, she pulled back. “Okay.”
Steve wondered if his face would split from the width of his smile. He walked the length of the room, past blurred faces, some laughing, a couple wiping their eyes and most everybody applauding enthusiastically.
One older woman was unashamedly sobbing. “It’s just like my favorite movie.” She blew her nose loudly.
Steve just kept smiling and heading for the exit. At the end, Susan stood, grinning from ear to ear and holding open the heavy glass door. “You found her, then.”
He grinned back. “Yep.” He stopped and turned. “And in case there’s any question…” He raised his voice. “Ms. Henderson just called in sick.”
The room erupted into chaos, and the noise of cheering, whistling and thunderous applause followed Steve as he carried Lissa out of Dickens and Barrow, Statisticians, away from the constraints of the “normal” world, and into the elevator.
“So are you really a gynecologist?” Lissa asked.
“Just practicing. I’m actually a newspaper writer.”
He set Lissa on her feet in front of him. “Well, where do we go from here? Up or down?”
More faces stared in at them from the foyer as the doors began to close. Lissa giggled, that sexy giggle that made his balls ache. She dropped to her knees, lowering his zipper. “We’re going down.”
The End