KingOfManhattan: There’s a guy sitting at the bar in a kilt.

SouthernBelle: Ha! Resist looking under it, perv.

KingOfManhattan: Thought you’d tell me to kidnap him for you.

SouthernBelle: Nah. All yours. ;-)

KingOfManhattan: …...

 

~*~*~

 

KingOfManhattan: What do you fancy eating? Try not to say pizza.

KingOfManhattan: Sena? I’m beginning to feel like that needy chick again. You haven’t answered all day. Don’t make me come and dig you out of bed.

SouthernBelle: Sorry, was working. No food for me, I have plans tonight.

 

~*~*~

 

KingOfManhattan: How were the plans last night?

KingOfManhattan: Can you hear me fucking sighing, Sena? Goddamn it, you have to get over this and quit fucking avoiding me like I have the plague. We fooled around, it’s not the end of the world. Talk to me.

SouthernBelle: ……

SouthernBelle: I’m not avoiding you, okay?

KingOfManhattan: The fact you won’t pick up when I call and you’re doing anything to avoid seeing me begs to differ.

SouthernBelle: I’m embarrassed, OKAY! I can’t brush things off like you can, Noah. Everything is fine.

KingOfManhattan: Come up and talk to me.

SouthernBelle: Can’t. I’m swamped with work right now. See you later. Xx

 

 

~*~*~

 

That’s how our week went, it was agony not to see him, not to talk to him, but until I was fully fine with it I had to keep to myself. I knew I was overreacting, but shit, it was a big deal to me.

He’s my favorite person in the world, but I no longer feel at complete ease with Noah. It’s frustrating and upsetting because I can’t seem to find the gear we were once in. That level of comfort was special to me, effortless, we worked on many levels, least of all not having to second guess what I would say and do every instant I was around him.

Now I just felt shitty.

Of all the luck I wasn’t having, he was striding through the foyer that morning as I stepped out of the elevator, chugging on a bottle of water, his neck muscles working rhythmically. Wearing black running shorts, a sweat-soaked t-shirt clung to his torso, an iPod strapped to his upper arm, his face flushed with perspiration and he looked fucking gorgeous.

Everything bottomed out of me. I’m so deliriously happy to see him that I forget how awkward I’ve felt around him for the last week.

When he saw me he smiled like always, but soon it dropped into a dark frown as I paused mid-step, unsure. I had a smile pasted on my face when we met in the middle.

“Hey. Hi! You’re running early. How far did you go?” Nice, normal dialog.

“Just a few miles around the park.” His brow folded in. “How are you, kitten? Have I given you enough space yet?”

My face flushed, and I fiddled with the strap of my bag.

I could hear it in his voice, how silly he thought I was, how patient he was being.

He was right. I was silly.

But silly emotions were not made to be reasonable. Had I known how I’d feel afterward about him giving me an almighty best-ever orgasm, the one I’d been dreaming of for years, I would have probably declined. There was no going back from mortification. I could barely meet his oceanic colored eyes for obsessing about what he was thinking about me and us.

Before I could give an answer, he stepped forward, cupped my cheek, the touch gentle as it was familiar, so is the way he traced his thumb down my down to my lips. “I thought we’d dealt with it, kitten? Was I wrong? Do we need to talk some more? We’re fucking drifting and I don’t like it.”

His voice sounded pained.

“Yeah. We did. I’ve just been busy, Noah.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, not to my face. I bought it on text and the voicemails you ignored.”

My eyes burned. “Fine. Ugh. Fine. How do we react to each other now, mister know-it-all? You have the answers, you tell me.”

“Like we always have.”

So simple for him. He wasn’t the one with feelings.

And the starvation to fuck him again, to taste, to wrap my fingers around his glorious cock and pump all the pleasure out of him. I was practically shaking from all the unspent want inside me.

“Jesus. If I’d known you’d turn into the invisible fucking woman I would have just not stopped fingering you, kitten.”

Oh. My. God. He did not just say that in public with people milling around the lobby. I smacked his chest and he laughed.

Only, the look in his eyes is committed yet almost unsure, like he’s struggled with a decision, and I’m not sure I want him to say whatever it is he’s going to say. I caught my breath when he cupped my cheek and smoothed his thumb against my jaw. It’s a caress he’s given hundreds of times, yet it felt brand new.

Nothing changed in his affable expression.

The syncopated rhythm of our breathing was deafening in the silence surrounding us, as if we’d walked into a bubble and locked the outside world out. His focus was complete, hard. As if he could reach right down into me and pull my heart out.

I smiled leaning into his body.

He smiled and gripped my waist. And winked to reassure me we were the exact same people we were before, that it didn’t matter how we reacted, we were the same.

“I missed you, lion.”

He hummed in his throat, drew me in, his hand on my hip burning me through my clothes.

And then just like that I found the right gear again.

This was Noah, he was the least judgmental person there was, but seeing the frown on his face when he first saw me I knew my absence had hurt him.

It had fucking destroyed me. Underneath all my feelings he’s my best friend, the person I talk to first and last with every worry and silly qualm.

I took a shuddering inhalation, letting it go slowly.

“So, I hooked up with this guy last week.” His brow hiked up at my confession. “I think I turned him … gay.” I stage whispered and then he smirked and rested his forehead to mine.

“I missed my silly kitten. Let me buy you a coffee, you can tell me all about this queer fucker.”

“How do you know he’s a fucker?”

“He’s made you sad, obviously he’s a bastard, kitten.”

He grabbed my hand and didn’t let go.

We had coffee and talked like our old selves.

 

~*~*~

 

When I started ‘tinkering with computers’ as my dad liked to tell it, I didn’t intend to make it my whole career. It started with fixing a few back in my home town around my senior year of high school, and then when I was home from college one holiday the local school contacted me for help with coding, having been their best student. And then local businesses contacted me to help fix their security systems, to streamline their accounting files, before I knew it I had a steady workload that was good to my bank account, but I was bored fixing people’s emails. I wanted something bigger and better and that’s how I boarded a bus one Wednesday afternoon with two suitcases of my favorite things I couldn’t live without and headed to New York.

So far, I hadn’t regretted it, my client list was growing, with some big influential people who gave me word of mouth recommendations.

It was how I met Gray.

He’d been given my name a couple of years ago when looking for a tech consultant.

He owned several online shopping stores for women’s clothing and shoes and every few months he contacted me for a tune up of his BIOS system and had me look for any cracks in his security system. Since I was the one to set his operation up for him I took pride in my work. I love hacking, I shouldn’t, because bad, bad, bad, but when I’m paid to do it, it’s my favorite kind of day poking my nose into things that were none of my business but wholly fun.

I’m at Gray’s building for the week and if I wasn’t mistaken the man had hit on me no less than three times.

He’s hot in that older, rugged man kind of way, with an athletic and lean body. He has a smattering of salt and pepper in his otherwise ink black hair, piercing gray eyes to go with the name and his build was nothing short of hot. All the women in his office swooned after him flagrantly. I had to wonder what flaw I wasn’t seeing in the sexy, confirmed bachelor in his early forties.

I took his flirting as friendly. He was a good client to have, never micromanaged me, paid on time, plus he talked me up to his other big-wig millionaire friends.

Besides which, I don’t really get any tingles from him. He’s a hot guy I can appreciate on an aesthetic level, truly women fawned over his looks, but for me there’s zero fireworks in my underwear, and that kind of sucked.

I enjoy his company, so I agreed to go to lunch with him.

I’m talking in generalizations when I say I love men and being around men. I have a lot of girlfriends, here and back at home I regularly keep in contact with thanks to the interwebz the good lord deemed us worthy to have, but there’s something about men (besides the obvious) that I enjoy. The deep timbered laugh, and the thick wrist bones, and the wholly gorgeous veiny arms, if that’s not a gift right from the devil himself I don’t know what is, because I’m staring at Gray’s muscular forearms, with a smattering of dark hair up to where he has his shirt sleeves folded back, the veins popped nicely under his tanned skin and my mind is elsewhere.

It’s on Noah and the funny meme he just messaged a minute ago.

“You’re smiling.”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, sorry. I’m listening.” I told him, shamefaced because I hadn’t heard a word.

“You’re seriously bad for my ego, Sena,” he snickered taking a sip of his espresso. “I’ve been flirting for an hour and you haven’t noticed.”

I flushed. “Oh? You have?” Shit. He’s right. I thought he was being friendly. He was a friendly guy.

“Who is he?”

“Who is who?”

He indicated to the phone sitting by my glass of lemonade.

We were sitting by a window in a cafe around the corner from his building. Nice place, I’d eaten a cheese on whole wheat.

“The guy that has you preoccupied you didn’t see my A-game flirting techniques, which by the way, you really missed out on. I don’t mean to be boastful, but women talk about my charm.” Flashing a smile, he showcased full white teeth.

He really was a handsome man. I studied him for a minute and realized, despite my space cadet moment I was enjoying myself.

“That was bad of me to check my phone. I’m putting it away.” I declared shoving it into my purse.

Gray smiled. “You don’t have to, we’re all attached to those things, more than I’d like, but such is life. I was just curious who had you smiling that way.”

“To make me miss your epic flirting?” I cringed amused.

He laughed in return. “Indeed. So?”

“It’s a friend.”

Gray rose his brow as if to say, yeah, right.

So, I went on. “We kinda crossed a line a while ago and now I’m finding it difficult to get back to that line of friendship again.”

“Ah. And he feels the same?”

“Nope.” Which sucked. I would have felt better in my awkwardness had Noah reacted the same damn way. “He’s a laid-back guy, nothing much swerves him from his chilled course.” Not even fingering his bestie one steamy night. Gah.

“Well. You know what I find works when you’re in these situations?” Gray inquired, sipping his coffee as he lounged back in the chair. Several other customers gawked blatantly eye-fucking the man.

I should have felt satisfied to be sitting there with him, that it was me who held his attention. If only I could force attraction to appear.

“Remind me to ask if you’ve been in this situation before.” I grinned. “But please do tell me what works, Mister. Gray Ellison.”

“The only thing to do is…” wickedness entered his eyes crinkling the skin around them, making him look younger, more playful. “Let an old guy flirt with you.”

I burst out laughing.

Instinct told me flirting with Gray wasn’t something to do lightly. That he took his relationships, even casual ones, very seriously. The way he watched me, unwavering and attentive told me he wanted to flirt with me in a serious way.

I wish I felt it.

My tastes deviated more towards the villain of the story.

Even now bringing Noah to mind my clit tightened.

“Something tells me by the way you’re trying not to hurt my feelings, that my charm would be wasted, am I wrong, Sena?”

“To be fair, I didn’t know you were flirting,” my contrite smile widened. “Go ahead, hit me with it all, Gray.”

He just laughed, eyes sparkling. “Ego killer.”

I think India would love this guy, if I could ever get them together.

Walking into the cafe was a couple, maybe in their thirties, hands locked together, he opened the door for her, ushered her in first, and then his hand went to the base of her spine as they stood at the counter to order their drinks. All the while I watched them they talked in hushed tones, heads together, the man gave his girl kisses to her forehead as if she was the most precious thing in the world and I felt my heart seize.

How must it feel? To be a part of someone else like that? And they a part of you? Someone to take your side no matter what? And to give forehead kisses for no other reason than they need to touch you always?

My heart restarted a second later, but I’m left wondering for the rest of the day of that same feeling.

It’s loneliness and I’d never acknowledged it until just then.