Chapter Ten
Flick didn’t exactly know when Tom would be home. They didn’t have a “synchronize calendars, message each other” relationship. It was unclear what kind of relationship they had. Tormenter and victim, maybe.
She expected him Sunday night, but he never showed and that left her flat. Monday night, long after he was normally home, she wandered about the place, in the satin slip she’d worn under her white coatdress, bored and tense and wondering if she’d misunderstood his travel plans.
Elsie had left a message and wanted to talk. It would likely end up costing Flick money unless she didn’t act like such a pushover.
She played Tom’s weird old music, ate a box of mac and cheese and ran property searches on apartments for rent in Washington. And still he didn’t come home.
And she called Elsie. “It’s me.”
“’Bout time.”
For someone who wanted something, Elsie was infuriatingly surly. “What do you want?”
“The girls need new bikes.”
“They’ve got bikes.” New last year. Or was she forgetting and it was the year before?
“And they grew. Not that you’d understand that.”
The fact Kendall and Krystal grew was the reason they always needed new shoes. Shoes, clothes, books, dentists kids needed, but new bikes?
“I bought decent bikes. How can they have outgrown them already?”
“You’re trying to tell me I don’t know if my kids have grown?”
“No, I’m querying the need for new bikes.”
“Oh, you’re querying.”
Ah, that you’d-be-dead-to-me-if-I-didn’t-need-you tone. “I’m asking.”
“I understand what querying means. You’re not the only person who reads, you know.”
Moving on. “Can’t Krystal use Kendall’s bike?”
“You want Krys to have the hand-me-down while her sister gets the new bike?”
“We grew up with hand-me-downs.”
“It’s different now.”
“Why is it different?”
“Look, I didn’t call to get judged and queried. The girls need new bikes.”
The rest of the unspoken sentence was and Aunty Flick would buy them. It was only a few years and Aunty Flick would be buying Kendall a car, or a boob job. “Let me think about it.”
“Think about it? What, like you think I’m making this up? You think I want to call you and beg for things my girls, your nieces, need?”
Now they were her nieces, not just kids whose growth she wouldn’t understand. “One bike.”
“You’re moving to Washington, big fancy job, and you can’t spring for two bikes. You know, that milkshake machine was shit. It’s already broken.”
What’s the bet someone dropped it? “I’m not a bank. You can’t press me and money comes out.”
“No? After all this family sacrificed for you. Everything we gave up so you had more opportunity. To think we thought you’d lift us up.”
She would’ve pitched her phone at Tom’s wall if she didn’t know he’d hate the mess that would make. “Go ahead, Elsie. Rewrite history as much as you want. It doesn’t make it true.”
Elsie started in on a new round of guilt-tripping, and Flick disconnected and turned her phone off. Elsie could talk to her voice mail, could text till her fingers bled, Flick didn’t have to know about it.
She checked the time. Tom wasn’t coming home. Then she made a new playlist full of angry, raging songs she played at make-your-ears-bleed while she danced barefoot first on the carpet, and when that failed to ease the tightness in her chest, she stepped up on Tom’s indestructible slab of a coffee table and rocked out.
It was better than fighting old arguments in her head, better than going to bed and dreaming about being homeless like she had for the last few nights, triggered no doubt by the lack of Washington apartments available in a price range she could afford.
She sang along with Three Days Grace’s “I Hate Everything About You” and that’s what she was doing when Tom came in, head banging to the line about roommates being kept awake.
He stood there with the handle of his airline wheelie bag in his hand and his mouth open. He looked big and tired and safe and wonderful. Arms that were shelter and legs that were balance, and a chest that, if snuggled against, might ward off the nightmares.
Thirty Seconds to Mars started singing “The Kill” and she stood there swaying, staring at him, wanting him and certain, twelve thousand percent certain, that if she threw herself at him he’d drop her, because at every turn she was too much for him in the wrong kind of way.
“Hi!” she shouted. She didn’t know how to be any other way, so he’d have to deal. Being this way had served her well and it would again. She wasn’t changing for anyone.
Tom let his bag go. He took his suit coat off. He stood at the end of the room and she couldn’t read his expression and this was not what she’d wished for and everything was broken between them like the cheap milkshake-maker, because she’d been arrogant enough to think she could start a game with him and he’d want to keep playing.
He got rid of his tie and undid a few buttons on his shirt, took his time, checked his phone, and still he didn’t say anything. He was faking her out, but she didn’t get off the table because the damage was done now. She’d wanted to seduce him, not piss him off.
He came close and reached for the music controller as Evanescence sang “Bring Me to Life” with the lyric about being woken up inside. That’s what Tom had done to her, roused the part of her that was tired of being alone, that craved someone who had her back, who understood her and loved her for who she was now, not who she was at fifteen, at twenty, not who she could be, or what she could buy for them.
He looked at her like he was calculating the cost of the damage she was doing, stern-eyed, his whole body clenched. He would walk away and that would be worse than one more fight with Elsie.
She kept dancing, watching, waiting for him to say something insulting, to make her hate him. She put how much she didn’t care about that into every stomp, head toss and hip shake. She put her hands to her thighs and pulled at her slip, showing him more leg. She didn’t need Tom. She didn’t need anyone. Life wasn’t about being liked, it was about getting things done. She knew how to get things done.
“You’re the most irritating person I’ve ever known,” he said, over the lowered volume.
She put her hands in the air and spun around so she couldn’t see the disappointment that was sure to cloud his face. His hands clamping down on her hips made her start. He was on the table behind her, barefoot and moving with her.
“Stubborn.” He breathed the word over her hair. “Careless.” One hand went from her hip to her ass, and he squeezed. “Infuriating.”
She stopped moving and turned to him, wound her arms around his neck. He wasn’t disappointed, he was excited and trying to hide it.
“I missed you.” She hadn’t meant to say that, the words surprised her, and she bit her tongue too late to call them back.
He trailed a palm from her wrist down her bent arm to her elbow and over her shoulder to her waist. “You’re not allowed to miss me.”
She went to her toes and pressed closer to him. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“You’re leaving.” It was an accusation and it came out glittering in emotion she couldn’t read. There was never any question she was leaving or that he wanted her to.
“Not for two months. I’m here now.”
He’d widened his stance. They were moving again against each other’s bodies, their own rhythm, independent of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
“I can’t do this with you.”
She got the words “I think you’re doing it” out before his lips crashed down on hers.
They stayed on top of the table, bodies melding, angry guitar chords and thick beats thrashing past their frantic grasps and tugging kisses.
The table didn’t break. Tom wasn’t walking away. Nothing bad happened because she’d been too much. Good feelings lit Flick up, shimmered through her. She didn’t need Tom, but she wanted him. She pulled his shirt from his suit pants, unbuttoned it and peeled it away from his torso. Her lips on his skin made him twitch. He pulled the fork from her hair and it fell everywhere, made her focus narrow to the rippled edges of him, the secret wood-chip scent of his skin and the rumbling breath-hitching sounds he made.
She’d have stumbled when he stepped off the table, but he steadied her and now they were a more equal height so kisses weren’t snatched and severed and chased, they were deep and whipped-cream smooth, addictively plump and so bad, so good.
“I thought about you, about doing this all weekend,” he said, hands spread over her back, lips at her jaw, her neck.
“I’m glad.” Outside. Inside. From the tips of her chipped toenails to the flutter in the base of her throat.
“It’s a problem.” Nothing that couldn’t be solved by opening his pants and making him grunt like he’d lifted something too heavy. He touched her cheek. “We need a bed.”
“Such limited thinking.” She pushed his pants off his hips and while he was tangled in them, shoved him backward, making him sit hard on the sectional.
“What are you doing?”
Thoroughly enjoying herself. Forgetting Elsie and the tension at work and being homeless. She stepped off the table and went to her knees between Tom’s legs. “Showing you I’m glad to see you.”
“You don’t have to.”
Still, he lifted his hips and let her pull his suit pants off, leaving him in skin-slick briefs that only just contained his erection. Oh my. “I want to.” Making him say mercy would be delicious.
“I might not... Flick.”
“What?” She checked his eyes. Wary. And said it softer because his face was creased with the wrong kind of stress. “What are you worried about?”
“It’s been a long time since anyone did that to me.”
Seriously. No. “You don’t like it?” In the history of men, was there such a thing as one who didn’t like someone on their knees with their mouth on his cock? No way did she want this to be the historic record-breaking moment.
“I like it too much.”
“You’ve stopped letting women give you head.” It was a Tom O’Connell thing to do. “Why?”
“It’s better that way. I can’t control—” He swept a hand down his body to finish the sentence.
“Better that you don’t have something you like?”
“It’s a small thing for me.”
“It’s denial, and if you get off on it it’s a valid choice, but that’s not it with you.” She put her hands on his knees and slid them up his thighs, watched his eyes for revulsion and got his mouth to drop open, his lids to go heavy. “You sacrifice because you don’t trust yourself. You want me on my knees.”
“God help me, yes.”
“You want to wreck my mouth. You want me gagging and teary.”
He covered his face with his arm. “Yes.” His mouth was a tight line of anguish.
“Then you get it.”
“Oh fuck, Flick. No.”
She sat back on her heels. If he really meant no, then it was no. This was different to egging him on. She wasn’t that kind of tormenter and Tom was his own victim.
He still wore his shirt because the cuffs were buttoned; it was pushed open so the tension in his body was easy to read, bunched muscles, a quiver in his stomach. She reached across him and unbuttoned one cuff, the one on the wrist he had jammed into the sectional seat. It was more of a housekeeping movement to make him comfortable than to strip him. He lowered the other arm and looked at her, his expression crumpled with dismay while she undid that cuff too.
“I like making you feel good. I want to give you what you like. But not if it’s not what you want. There are lots of ways for us to enjoy each other.” No one needed to volunteer for bad sex—it was all too easy to achieve.
She shuffled back on her knees and came to stand, put her hands up her slip and wriggled out of her panties, taking it slowly, drawing his eyes. Her heart was swollen and stuttering in her chest, nerves, anticipation, desire for a man who was tentative to act on his own lust.
“You choose, Tom. What do you want to feel?”
Hailee Steinfeld sang “At My Best” with Machine Gun Kelly. The song had that line in it from Tinder profiles about taking a woman at her worst to deserve her best. She said it to Tom on the first night she’d tried to seduce him. She quirked a shoulder and he smiled for the first time since he’d come in. A smile on Tom—oh, a smile that took away all the hard lines of his face, all the anxious disapproval and the self-contained loss.
He held a hand out. “You. I want to feel you. Take my hand. You let go if it gets too much.”
They touched fingertips, palms, entwined fingers. She went to her knees, rested her head on his thigh, his quad jumping under her cheek.
The fingers of Tom’s other hand played in her hair. “Trust you,” he said.
She said, “Trust you right back,” and then commenced taking him apart, using her hand and teeth on his briefs, until he relented and helped, until she could lick him thick root to blood-flushed tip and back again, getting him slick with his own pre-come and her spit.
When she licked over his cock head, the sight, the salt warmth of him, her own excitement got the better of her and she moaned. He squeezed her hand and she stopped and lifted her face. “Okay?”
“Better than okay. You like this.”
That hitch of surprise in his voice made her sad. “You weren’t listening when I told you I did.”
He shook his head. “Brain freeze.”
She licked again. “Stand by for brain damage.”
Good Catholic boy, he called on the help of multiple iconic religious figures when she lowered her mouth over his crown. She pulled off and did it again with a slight graze of her teeth that squeaked on his skin, making his hips shift, his head drop back on the sectional cushion. He didn’t say stop and his grip on her hand was light when everything else about him was drawn tight and vibrating with tension.
Every subtle movement of her hand, lips, tongue, her hollowed cheeks made him less and less able to be passive, to sit still and stay quiet. And all of this, his helpless acquiescence, his want and faith, was doing wondrously agonizing things to her. Her nipples were so hard the silky fabric of her bra felt like a rough cement surface. She was sticky between her legs and achingly empty.
“God, Flick. God, that’s good.”
Ah, his voice was so deep it sounded smoked, like he’d been shouting and drinking and partying till dawn. She wanted more of that sound, of the knowledge she made these alterations to him, took his stoic heroic act and gave him a chance to be human.
Deep breaths and an excellent gag reflex on her side, she took him to the back of her throat, only just avoiding his knee as it flew up, alerted to the effect on him by a spurt of semen and the loud clack of his teeth. He might’ve broken her shoulder, bitten his own tongue off.
She pulled back and words jammed in her throat, making her cough. Tom’s chest heaved, a rivulet of sweat tricked down his face and neck. He was slumped into the cushion but coiled forward, so on-edge it came off him in waves of tension she could almost smell like sulfur from a sub-active volcano.
All that and the hand that held hers was almost slack.
“Too much?”
He brought their hands up, kissed the back of hers. “I didn’t think you’d do that. So deep.”
“I can take everything you can give me.”
He blinked. “Don’t want to make you sorry you said that.”
Seeing him slowly coming undone made her feel invincible. “You couldn’t.” She’d show him stars and weightlessness before she finished with him.
This time when she took him down, she flattened her tongue as she sheathed her teeth. His hand went to the back of her head and held her there. This was the part where panic might come if the man was too greedy, if his taste was too strong or the mood shifted to mindlessly brutal, if she didn’t trust. But this was Tom, and no matter how much he let go, he wouldn’t deliberately hurt her. He didn’t know how.
Tears did form in her eyes, her hair stuck to her face, her jaw ached, her throat burned and she drooled over her hand and onto her lap as he took control, pulled back and pushed in, did it again. There was almost as much joy in giving over to him as there was in bringing him to the point where he had no choice but to get selfish and take, even as she choked and her ears rang.
He came with a raw sob, distress melded to pleasure, shocking in its harshness. She swallowed and swallowed and the contact with his hand broke as he pulled out and she was hoisted off her knees and into his lap.
If giving him head didn’t smother her, breathing through his bear hug, her face smooshed into his neck might. It took long moments before he stopped trembling and his grip on her loosened. He lifted her chin, his eyes wild, scouring over her, and used the front side of his shirt to wipe her face tenderly.
“Are you okay?” They said it together, but her throat was so beaten her voice came out like a growl.
“Oh, dear God, Flick.”
She coughed. “I’m fine.”
“You’re incredible.” He rested his forehead on hers. “I’m not sure if I’ll walk again. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I will, with appropriate worship, as soon as I recover.” She coughed, cleared her throat, and he said, “I’ve recovered,” and deposited her on the sectional. In minutes, she had warm water with lemon and honey in her hand and Tom’s arm around her.
“I was rough with you.”
“The whole deep-throating thing isn’t necessarily gentle. It comes with gagging, ramming, choking. Totally worth it to see the effect on you.” He closed one eye, screwed up one side of his face and his cheeks colored. “Spectacular. Got me so hot.”
Got her kissed so passionately her temperature leapfrogged cooldown and went straight to boiling point. It also got her a piggyback ride to Tom’s bedroom, a chance to whisper in his ear as they ducked under the doorway.
“You have a sensational ass, Tom O’Connell.”
She didn’t see his blush, but his step faltered. “You’re a rodeo, Flick Dalgetty. Always trying to throw me off.”
At least he didn’t call her a clown. “Round two. Ding, ding.”
He sat on the bed to release her. “Any requests?”
Pulling him back into her lap and looking at his upside-down face, she said, “Make me beg for mercy.”
“I didn’t see you showing me any mercy.”
“Exactly.”
They tried to kiss that way, and when it wasn’t enough Tom flipped over and commenced Operation Beg for Mercy. That had to be it because he was relentless, going after all her most sensitive spots, treating her body like a playground to investigate, to master. He returned favors she’d not thought to ask for, in a way that signaled his own enjoyment and was murmured into her skin in half-intelligible groans and hums.
He took his time and Flick got lost in his attention to detail. The featherlight kisses on her eyelids, the just-right pressure of his lips sucking on her nipple, combined with the good kind of uneasy stroking of her clit.
“Love your body, Flick. Love what it does to mine.”
Love. The twisty nervous fluttering, the sharp quick shafts of pleasure, the taste of languid, lush enticement. His hands and lips, the smell of his skin, the expression of concentration she’d first taken as performance anxiety and now knew was his way of devouring her.
She let him eat her whole and turn her into mush. And he was in the same state, both of them well flushed with all the good hormones and all the magical sex-soothed feels. They lay entangled, close to sleep but fighting it.
“What was with the angry music and the dancing on the table?”
Shit, what was she thinking doing that? “If I damaged it...”
“You didn’t. It was horrifically expensive and bought to last forever.”
“I didn’t know when you were coming home.” Oh, she had to stop saying things that made her sound like this thing with Tom was more important than it really was.
“You were worried?”
“No.” She passed a hand down his body and flirted with taking hold of his dick, making him flinch. “You’re a big boy. You can take care of yourself. I...” She nearly repeated missed you. “Had an argument with my sister about more stuff I’m supposed to buy. She pisses me off.”
“Ah.”
“And I’m having trouble finding a place to rent. It looks like I’ll have to start off in an extended-stay apartment. I was hoping to avoid that expense.”
“Have you had the nightmare?”
Embarrassed to admit it, she nodded into his bicep. “It’s just a dream. How was your conference?”
His groan had a stabbed and dying quality to it. “I wasn’t trying to get you into bed by telling you I thought about you all weekend. I made a mess of a panel because I was thinking about you. Harry Hardiman was in the room. He’s still dodging me and then he witnessed me acting like a space cadet in front of five hundred people.” He groaned again and palmed his face. “It wasn’t good.”
The grinning was inappropriate given Tom had confessed to a screwup that was inadvertently her fault, but she couldn’t force her face into a more acceptable expression. He’d missed her too. They were something else other than roommates now and it would be smart to enjoy it.
The grin got her kissed. “Is there any doubt you’re going to get this promotion?”
“If you were a Rendel person, I’d say none at all. I’ve been next in line for a while, informally anointed for the position, but I don’t like the way Harry has been acting. He’s definitely avoiding me. We were at the same conference for three days and he never sought me out. That’s not nothing. I just don’t know what it is.”
“And you want this job. It’s important to you.”
“It’s my equivalent to your Washington move. I’ve been working for this for years. Josh got his shot. It’s my turn.”
Flick knew Harry and most of the senior partners of Rendel. Tom was the obvious new Chicago office leader, and after he’d done his time there, he could name his price at a larger global firm. “I’m sure it will work out.”
“We need to talk about that.” Tom propped himself up on his elbow and his expression made Flick shiver. He played with a curl of her hair. “You are an obvious distraction.”
“Me?” She wasn’t the only one with kiss-swollen lips.
“Us.” He gestured to the wrecked bed. “This.”
Uh-oh.
“I need to be focused. And you’re passing through.”
“What are you saying? We’re having fun. At least I thought you were having fun.”
“I was. I am.” He leaned down and kissed her temple. “I am. But our timing is off.”
There was that.
“I didn’t handle this well before. I tried to shut you out and you were right to be angry with me. I’m trying to say I need to cool it. I need all my energy focused on work. I can’t let this job slip through my fingers because I’m thinking with my dick.”
“I make you think with your dick? I think your dick likes it.” You dick.
He tugged on the curl. He was desperately earnest, meeting her eyes, laying it out. It was difficult to be annoyed with him.
“Flick, being with you is the best thing that’s happened to me personally for a while. But you’re leaving and we’re only hooking up because we’re here together. It’s not like we sought each other out.”
Also true. She’d known Tom from afar for a few years, but never considered him hookup material. They mostly avoided each other in public. Smack upside her own head for being so short-sighted. All that rigid, well-behaved, polite corporate professional roughed up something beautiful.
“And there’s a consequence for me,” he said.
The saddest part of this discussion was she understood. “The last thing I want is to get in your way.” That wasn’t something she’d ever intended. It would’ve been fantastic to keep the sex with the roommate, but it wasn’t meant to be. There was a moment where she might’ve argued for that, why shouldn’t they enjoy each other while they had the chance, but the relief that flooded Tom’s face was game over.
“I hope we can be friends,” he said.
There was such a cringe in his voice that she laughed, and he did too. She presented her knuckles, and because they were slicked up against each other’s bodies and smelling of sex and this was the oddest breakup, he didn’t immediately react.
“Friend zone forever.”
Recognition dawned. He touched his knuckles to hers. “Friend zone forever.”
Her shin was still tucked into his flank. His hand went back to her hip. This would’ve been easier to do if they didn’t like each other. If they weren’t comfortably naked.
She went with trying to keep it light. “We could get matching tattoos.”
He gave her his arch you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. “I’d settle for no trip hazards in the hall or frog-stomping on the table to headbanger music.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, at least let me make you a new playlist that’s not ancient.”
“If you never bring that tragic boxed mac and cheese home again.”
“If that means I get to eat your comfort food, I can live with that.”
“And they say the art of negotiation is dead.”
Negotiation, compromise, respecting people you cared about. Those were attributes that made the world go around. It was a shame they meant that from here on in she’d be sleeping in her own borrowed bed.