Chapter Seventeen
The coupons were in the bowl on the coffee table. But Tom wasn’t sure he needed proof of purchase because Flick was more than willing, woke him with kisses so minty he knew she’d already been out of bed, and so purposeful he knew she had a plan.
He checked the clock on his side table. He couldn’t be late into the office this morning, so there wasn’t the time to thoroughly indulge.
“Quickie or head?” she said, between kisses across his chest.
If he didn’t think about it, and since he wasn’t yet upright or caffeinated, he might not worry so much about losing control and rutting into her mouth. And he had an idea about the quickie—it involved being almost fully dressed on the balcony where he thought Flick might get a thrill from the risk of being seen, at a time he chose, when he knew they wouldn’t be.
“Blow me,” he rasped, morning-husky on top of the invasion of lust, and she did. A raspberry on his neck.
“Funny girl.”
“Let’s see if you think I’m funny in about...five—” A kiss with a sweep of tongue into his mouth. “Four—” Wet licks down the middle of his chest. “Three—” Her hand around his thickened cock. “Two—” A slow pump, with a kiss to his crown.
“Ah, Flick.”
She mumbled, “One,” with her mouth around his tip.
Nothing amusing about this, everything was coursing want. He came up on his elbows to watch, taking a handful of her hair in his hand to keep it out of her face. He got her eyes then. They were full of glitter, sparks of light and shards of beauty. She liked doing this. She wasn’t going through the motions like other partners had, or worse, camouflaging reluctance. Or maybe that was him, too worried about how this played out, the potential dominance of it, the gagging, choking, eye-watering awkwardness of it with a partner he was unsure of.
Kneeling between his legs Flick worked him over, making everything wet quickly, his semen, her spit, using her hand and—how, God, how—taking him all the way to the back of her throat.
She swallowed on him and his brain flashed white and his body took over, and he moved her head and used her mouth, and she swallowed again and again and he emptied, long, shuddering streams of come that she took until she couldn’t and finished him with her hand.
He flopped to the pillows, dragging her up his side, and holding her close. They were both a mess and neither of them cared.
He felt like he’d crossed an artificial barrier of his own making. Giving head didn’t have to be a suffered-through experience for a woman, it didn’t have to be all about him being in control. With the right partner, he could let go, let her run the show.
“There was a girl in college. She’d taken one of those purity pledges. Wore the ring and everything. She wouldn’t have sex with me, but she’d blow me. She wouldn’t let me do more than kiss her. At first I didn’t complain—I liked her—but it didn’t take long to work out she hated giving head, only did it so I wouldn’t leave her.”
“What happened?”
“I stayed with her too long, because I didn’t know how to leave her and it went bad. We were torturing each other. One night I wasn’t careful. I hurt her. Wasn’t intentional, but it happened. I was young and horny and confused and wanted to be a good guy, but I was a jerk. She never spoke to me again. I’ve only now worked out that’s why I’m knotted up about getting blown.”
“I unknotted you?”
Miraculously. He kissed her forehead. “You did.”
“Well, you know there are a lot more coupon experiences that could include that particular activity.”
“But I have to wait a whole twenty-four hours until I can pick another one.”
“Speaking of waiting—I have my period. It’s probably why I was flayed by the bath last night. I’ll be crampy for two days and then ready to go, but you might not want to bother with that.”
“It wouldn’t bother me.” It would’ve; he’d avoided it before. But all the barriers were down now. Flick wasn’t with him because she had to be. “I believe I’m going to dress you for work tomorrow.”
She pulled away. “If I don’t get showered and dress myself now, I’m going to be late.” She scampered across the bed.
Before she left for her own room, he said, “I feel like cooking tonight, will you be around?”
He got a “yeehaw” as his answer.
That night, after they’d eaten, there was a new question. He’d stewed on the answer all day. “Can we talk about beds?” he asked.
Flick was web-surfing for an apartment, but put her tablet aside.
“I’d like us to use only one of them at a time for the rest of the month.”
“You mean you want to sleep together until I leave.”
“We don’t have to have sex every night, but I like having you in bed with me and I don’t know why I tried to be cool about it.”
She made a cartoon-character-like sigh, lots of rolling eyes and shoulder drama, and next thing he knew she was in his arms. “I cried myself to sleep Saturday night when I was alone.”
He lifted her chin. “You did?”
“I thought you were over me.”
He scowled at her. She’d just taken him to the top of the roller coaster and disabled the hand brake. “You did not.”
“I thought about raiding your room and jumping on you, instituting torture by vibrator, or breaking something in the living room. But you tired me out on the walk so I didn’t have it in me to be diabolical. I just missed you instead.”
There was no good damn reason for that to happen. They spent the night in her bed, cuddled close with an alarm set so there was extra time in the morning for him to dress Flick.
She grumbled when it went off. He made coffee and brought it back to bed, and while she sat propped on pillows sipping it, he explored her wardrobe. Never dressed a woman before. Helping her with a coat was about as far in that direction as he’d taken it.
He moved hangers along the rail, recognizing the clothes he’d seen her wear to work. “If you want to kick in with any advice, I’m all ears.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
“Check. I’m not sending you off in this.” He pulled out a dress that appeared to be missing lots of parts. It was black and hung oddly on the hanger and seemed to be mostly a tube of fabric. “I would like to see you in this.”
“I’ll wear it when we go out to dinner.” One of the tamer coupons suddenly got more interesting.
“Anything else I need to know?”
“I don’t have any more client meetings, so you can’t go wrong if you keep to the work clothes.”
“Does that mean you had to think about what you wore more carefully when you did?”
“To my continual annoyance, yes. Clothes say much more about a woman in a professional setting than a man. You can wear a good suit and a nice tie and be done with it. I have to think about the kind of person I’m meeting and what the job is. Will they want me to be conservative, or show some imagination?”
Ha, so that accounted for the riddle of Wren’s shoes. Sometimes they were playful and sometimes they were unremarkable. She chose her shoes depending on who might be looking at them. “That has to be annoying.”
“If you like clothes, it can be fun. I find it an added stress, getting it right. I have help to shop for what I need. Other women are more talented at knowing how to style themselves. Some of them are artists. It’s a skill and I’m still practicing. That’s why the dark suits and the good tailoring and the bright scarves. It lets me be a little bit of everything.”
He passed the hangers back the other way. “I need to do the whole outfit?”
“I’ll do the underwear, but otherwise if you don’t pick it, I don’t wear it.”
“I’m suddenly paralyzed by choice.”
She laughed. “And I don’t have that extensive a wardrobe.”
There was a dress he liked. He’d seen it once, in the early days. A dark wine color. It had sleeves to the elbows and a scooped neck, and that’s all he remembered about its style, what he remembered was what it looked like on her. Elegant. She’d had her hair up and the pearls that she often left lying around on, and oh heck, no idea what shoes. They were all in a jumble at the bottom of the wardrobe. He’d have to sort through them to come up with a pair of anything.
He looked for the color. Found it and held it up for her approval.
“I haven’t worn that one for a while.”
“Bad choice?”
“Not at all. It’s less formal than I sometimes need, but today is the perfect day for it.”
“You won’t need a jacket.”
“You’re getting the hang of it.”
“Beginner’s luck.” He went to his knees and rummaged. What went with plum wine? “Any hints here?”
“It’s all yours.”
Would she have shoes this color? Wren probably did. He found a black, shiny shoe—couldn’t go wrong with that, surely—but where was the other one? There was a gray shoe and that was smart-looking, the heel less killer than some. He wanted her to be comfortable. That was it, he’d go with the gray.
He put them outside the wardrobe. “Now what?”
“Anything else you think I need.”
He sat on the floor with his back against the wardrobe and sipped his coffee. What else did a woman wear? What else did this woman wear that he liked seeing her in?
“The pearls on the silver chain. The earrings like silver buttons. You have a pearl thing you sometimes put in your hair. You should put your hair up that way you do with it all neat in front and messy at the back. I like the perfume that smells of oranges and when you do whatever it is that makes your eyelashes look a thousand feet long and your eyes hold all the answers.”
“You think I have all the answers when my eyes are made up?”
“I think you have most of them when they’re not.”
“You have spent more time taking notice of me than I imagined, Mr. O’Connell.”
“You’re difficult to ignore.”
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
That was entirely true. “Have I given you everything you need not to embarrass yourself in public today?”
“No, I’m missing one thing.”
Dress, shoes, hair, makeup, jewelry. What else was there he’d missed?
“Let me get dressed and I’ll tell you.”
He went to shave and suit up himself and they arrived in the kitchen together. He checked her over. The dress was simple. Clean lines. Did that mean it was cheap or expensive? Women’s fashions were a mystery. The shoes went with it fine. She wore the pearls and the earrings he’d suggested and she’d done her hair and eyes the way he liked.
“Does it work for you?”
“I’ve never worn these shoes with this dress before, but they work.”
He ran a finger over his lips. Lip color was missing.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“I have to choose the lipstick?” All these choices before a woman was even out the door.
“After.”
“After what?”
She stepped in close and he smelled oranges. She had a million eyelashes to hide those rusty, knowing eyes behind. He knew the what when her arms looped over his shoulders. He didn’t have to dip his head so much when she wore heels. It was a soft, slow kiss that didn’t make any demands, but filled him with a buzz of happiness. He hadn’t screwed up dressing her and they both liked the effect.
He chose a lipstick she called neutral after failing to work out whether to match her dress or her skin, and deciding less color was more, and it was a whole day till he could enjoy another coupon.
He walked out of the condo and into a day of drama at the office with his head still full of how many decisions a woman had to make before she even got to work. One of their clients had been arrested in a DEA raid. So long, reputation; hello, lawsuit. It caused chaos, and threw everything else on his schedule out of the window.
The one thing he made time for was to call his headhunter. There was no reason why his open job brief couldn’t include other cities. New York, Washington. Nothing to do with Flick specifically, only that she’d opened his eyes to his own career complacency. He could afford to think bigger.
“You’re sure?” Denise Revero said. She had that are-you-really tone.
“You’re not.”
“You’re incredibly marketable, Tom. But even more so if you do a year or two as MD of Rendel. It’s the cost of waiting versus jumping into something new now. Unless I can get you into an MD role, you might get there quicker by waiting than you will by starting fresh somewhere else. Is there another reason for wanting to search outside Chicago? Because if there is, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble placing you in either city, but you could also think about San Francisco. I know, I know, living costs are higher, but for the right job, I’d get you the right money.”
There was a wine-colored dress with what he now knew were called three-quarter sleeves that would soon be seen on streets outside Chicago. “No, no other reason. I thought it made sense not to restrict the search.”
“In any case, you’re right to think about this before Rendel slap a restraint clause on you and you can’t move to a competitor without them suing you. I’ll nose around and see what I come up with,” Denise said.
Later in the day when he next saw Wren, he checked her feet. Navy with a white toecap, medium-height heels. “Those are no-nonsense,” he said, pointing at them.
She looked down. “Why are you taking notice of my shoes?”
“Everyone notices your shoes.” She didn’t buy them loud by accident.
“I repeat, why are you taking notice of my shoes? I know they’re fabulous, but they’re all about me, so you don’t get a say about them.”
“I don’t want a say about them. I just figured out there is a rule of law about your shoes.”
Both her brows shot up toward her hairline. “This’ll be good.”
“You choose your shoes based on what you think is going to happen during the day. That’s why sometimes you arrive in zebra or leopard and later I see you ditched the zoo for something plainer. I thought it had to do with comfort, but it’s not that.”
Wren narrowed her eyes at him. “How many years have I known you?”
“Since the grad program here.” They’d joined Rendel together, along with Josh.
“And now you have a theory about my shoes.”
“I always noticed them. I never understood them.”
“And what makes you think you do now?”
Half an hour spent on his hands and knees to make sure Flick was appropriately shod. “Women’s clothing is complex. I never thought about how there is a code. What you choose to wear is part of that. Oh sure, I know a dark suit is conservative, and you don’t wear a party dress to the office, but when you wear leopard or zebra shoes with your black skirt, you’re making a statement that you’re more than the suit.”
Her hands went to her hips. “Who are you and what did you do with old Tom?”
“Josh already knew all that stuff, didn’t he?”
“He did. And now I’m completely freaked out by you. Please go back to being the oblivious Tom I know and deeply resent for not needing to wear animal-print shoes to make a statement, or I’ll think you’re back on with Flick and start to worry you’ll do something rash, like quit and move to Washington with her.”
“When have I ever done anything rash?” It would be rash to throw up his job here to start again somewhere else. Denise Revero as much as said so.
It wasn’t rash to assume Flick would be home for dinner and hungry, so he went by the market first. She was home, standing on the balcony still wearing the clothes and shoes he’d laid out for her. It was perversely pleasing to know it was a one-off. If he tried suggesting what she wore outside for something like a hike, he’d be risking skin. Although he had every intention of seeing her in the black thing that looked odd on the hanger.
He joined her, smoothing both hands up her back, closing his fingers over the bunch of her hair and pulling her head back to his shoulder so he could see her face.
“How did the day’s wardrobe choice work out?”
“Very fine, thank you.”
The words and the expression didn’t match. Her voice was flat and there was no sunshiny smile. He moved Flick in his arms so they were face-to-face, a shot of fear zipping up his spine. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Flick?” If it was Drew, he had to know. If it was Drew, he needed to work out what she needed from him and be there with it.
She put her hand to his face. “Oh, Tom, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”
He’d read her wrongly. He’d taken her hiking and made her come in the bath and held her while she grieved, dressed her for work without screwing up. He’d made her scream with delight and howl in annoyance. How was it still possible he could get her moods wrong?
“Oh, hell. I had another fight with Elsie. It always makes me feel rotten.”
“A fight with your sister.” That’s all. He forced a stale breath out. He should be relieved.
“Yeah. I knew it would happen too. I’m such a patsy. The bikes she blackmailed me into buying, they’ve been stolen. I mean, I don’t know if they’ve truly been stolen or traded away. I only have Elsie’s word and she’s insisting I buy two more bikes, as it’s my fault these two got taken.”
“You’re upset about a bike.”
“Two bikes, and maybe it is my fault. I could’ve bought less expensive ones. They were probably a target. Thing is, I wouldn’t put it past my stupid brother-in-law to have pawned them.”
He shook his head and turned away. Dumping his suit coat and tie, undoing buttons and rolling up his sleeves. He’d gotten it so wrong. He didn’t know Flick at all. It was a good reminder they were only in this temporarily. It was coupons, not commitment. He was an idiot for letting himself get in so deep when this was only a distraction.
“Oh, Tom, you thought it was Drew.”
Now it was anger that fizzled in his head. Bikes. He went to the kitchen and started on dinner.
He bashed around, acutely aware she’d followed him inside and was sitting at the counter. “Hey, can you look at me, Tom?”
He fiddled about with the stove, keeping his back to her.
“I annoyed you. And I haven’t taken anything off and spread it around the room yet.”
“Let me get this started.”
“Which is your way of saying you don’t want to talk to me.”
He turned to face her. “What do you want me to say?” You’re leaving. I’m fucking invested in you and you’re leaving. It occurred to me there was nothing stopping me from following you.
“That you got upset because—”
“Thought you’d fixed things with your sister.”
“That’s what you thought?”
He couldn’t lie so outright to her. “I thought it was Drew.”
“And you didn’t like how that made you feel.”
How was it that she could read him so much better than he could read her? That was his problem. Feelings too intense for a relationship too temporary.
“I think we should put on loud music and dance till our legs give out,” she said.
“That’s not on a coupon.”
“An off-coupon special.”
He came around the counter. “Very loud music, from musicians I’ve never heard of.” He put a hand to her ear and worked an earring out. Did the other one, putting them both on the counter. Then he lifted the necklace over her head. She let her shoes drop to the floor one by one. He took the pearl slide from her hair and was surprised to find it didn’t fall everywhere.
“There are pins and a band. Artfully tousled hair like this doesn’t just happen.”
He found them. One by one, the pins went to the countertop, until Flick’s hair was free and his emotions had settled, soothed by the process of undressing her.
“I overreacted,” he said.
“Talking to Elsie makes me so mad and then it depresses me. Knowing you were worried like that makes me want to keep you forever, Tom.”
But that wasn’t on a coupon either, regular glitter pack or special off-coupon offer.
They both changed. He cooked and they watched the first episode of The Handmaid’s Tale instead of dancing. They went to bed on clean sheets in Tom’s room where it wasn’t dystopian societies or coupons or forever that mattered. It was skin and touch, reaction and smell and every emotion they were both capable of that counted.