SEVEN
Lea
I had a bag slung over my arm and a coffee cup in my hand when I rounded the bend toward the back door, saying a quick hi and bye to Barney before I skidded to a stop.
“Ah, is that a new door?” I asked, turning back to Barney who was nodding at me.
“That’s a good man looking out for you like that.”
My brows drew together at that. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Shane Mallick. He came in here earlier and put in that new security door. That one costs a mint too. Just to make sure you’re safe.”
“More like he was afraid I would report him for the poor living conditions,” I contradicted him.
“He also put up a new fence out there to protect you from those dogs.”
“Barney, what are you talking about? I’m not dating Shane.”
“No?” he asked, brows raising in mock surprise. “Then maybe you should seeing as he’s going all out of his way for your safety.”
I shook my head, giving him a tired smile, knowing there was no use arguing with his ass. If there was one thing people generally became as they got older, it was set in their opinions. “Anyway. Did he leave the keys for us somewhere?”
To that, Barney looked almost mischievous. “Under our doors, darlin’.”
“There was no key under my door,” I said, shaking my head. “Great. Now I am going to have to call his ass to make him leave me one somewhere. I don’t have time for this,” I said, going to the door, surprised when it was about ten times heavier than a normal door. “I’ll talk to you later, Barney,” I called over my shoulder as I went outside.
I looked around wearily as the dogs started their usual fit throwing. But Barney was right, the flimsy chainlink with the crappy green stuff was gone, replaced with a sturdy, unbending steel one. Granted, now I could see the evil little beasts, but at least I knew there was no way in hell they were going to get to me.
For the first time since I moved in, I didn’t run to my car. And I owed Shane freaking Mallick for that small bit of peace of mind.
I drove to work trying (and obviously failing) to not consider if what Barney said was true, if Shane had put the new door in because it was safer for me. But that made no sense. It made a hell of a lot more sense that he put it up to protect his ass from a possible lawsuit if someone eventually did just sneak in the back door and break down my apartment door to beat or rape me. Or if the dogs finally burst through the fence to maul me half to death.
For A Good Time, Call… Inc. Seemed like any other office building during the day. But at night, all the bodies gone, all the noises quieted, it was pretty eerie. Even having worked there for a bit, it never got any less creepy. So as soon as I stepped fully inside, I locked the door. Then I systematically walked the entire place and put on all the lights, even the ones for Fee’s office and the storage room. Then I went over and made a pot of coffee; the one I brought with me always half gone by the time I got there. Night shifts could be gotten used to in a way, making it possible to sleep when the sun was coming up even though your body naturally rebelled against such a thing. But I don’t think it mattered if I did it for a decade, you never really felt quite right, relying heavily on coffee or energy drinks to keep you going.
Coffee in hand, I put whatever I brought with me that night on the desk. Some nights, it was as simple as a crossword puzzle or a book. Other nights, it was nail files and polish. That night was a deck of cards. Sure, I could play solitaire on the computer, but I was old school when it came to card games.
There really was no telling how busy you were going to be. There was no set of rules that said Saturday night was hopping and Tuesdays were slow. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to when the masses would be horny apparently. So I always made sure I brought something to do in case it was a slow night. The last thing I wanted was to fall asleep out of pure boredom. Fee may have been a pretty lenient boss, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t pay me to catch up on my beauty rest.
As it turned out, though, it was a medium volume night. I would get a call then have between fifteen and thirty minutes between the next, sometimes longer. While a part of me might have wished to have nights where I got paid purely to paint my nails, the smarter, slightly greedy part of me knew that while I got paid a decent hourly salary, I also got commission on the actual calls. So the more I got, and the longer I could make them last, the more I made. So while, with my salary, I could afford my bills, it was definitely worth a few more “oohs” and “ahhhs” and “fuck me harders” to get some extra lining for my pockets.
Not that I spent it on stuff; I made sure I buried my urge to shop when I left my old life behind. I needed the money to sock away. Just in case. It actually shocked me how much money it had taken me to get to Navesink Bank and set up shop. You thought of the big things: the gas, the first month of rent, the deposits for the water and electric and gas. But you forgot the incidentals like the connection fees and the fact that some landlords required not only first and security, but last month too. Also, food. Food was where I really screwed it up this time around. I was close to going hungry by the time I started making money, having not factored in the fact that even if I landed a job the same day I moved somewhere new, a paycheck was usually two weeks away.
So when I made way more money than I needed for basic needs, I put the rest away into a hole I burrowed into the mattress on my bed. It wasn’t the most inventive place to hide money, but it wasn’t the obvious places like the freezer or toilet tank either.
I had a fair amount, but not nearly enough.
Fact of the matter was, there was always a chance of needing to get the hell out of dodge again. I wasn’t going to even pretend that I was a pro at starting over, at hiding out, at flying under the radar. I wasn’t. I had been as careful as I knew how to be, but I had no idea if that was careful enough. If it wasn’t, then I would need as big a nest egg as possible to get me from Navesink Bank to wherever I needed to head next.
So I was happy to be busy.
I had just hung up a call from one of the furries freaks, having to meow like a kitten when he jerked off, making mewling noises, around midnight when I heard the back door slam close.
And let’s just say that I wasn’t so far removed from my past to not jump to conclusions. My hand went automatically for the heavy fabric scissors that were in the holder with the pens. They were fabric scissors because the older woman who had my desk during the day actually sewed clothing for her grand babies while she worked.
I slipped my fingers into the handles, taking comfort in the weight and length of the shears, as I raised my arm and stood to face the back of the building.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I snapped, hand falling down by my side, but my heart not quite getting the memo that someone wasn’t coming in to drag me back to hell. “Are you stalking me?” I asked, looking at Shane as he walked in casually, tucking the keys to the building into his back pocket.
Of course he had keys.
“Cocky much?” he asked with a smirk, reaching into another pocket and pulling out a different key.
“Yeah, I noticed the new door. I also noticed I was the only person in the building who didn’t get a key under their door,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. Then something rushed out before I could contain it. “Why’d you change the door?”
“It was broken.”
“A fact you haven’t seemed overly concerned about before,” I said, reaching for the key and rolling my eyes when he snatched it back. “Seriously? What are you, five?”
“I changed my mind,” he said with a shrug. “And you can have the new key with one condition.”
Of course.
“What?”
He smiled at the surliness in my tone. “You go out with me Saturday night. And don’t try to tell me you’re working because I know you’re not. I checked with Fee.”
I felt myself jerk back at the demand, surprised, not quite sure I was on the same page as him. “What?”
“Me. You. Nice clothes. Dinner. In exchange for the key,” he said, obviously enjoying my disbelief.
“Why do you want to have dinner with me? I clearly want nothing to do with you.”
“Sure you don’t,” he said with a smile, knowing I was lying. “Maybe I just like to look at something pretty in restaurants.”
“So look at the decor. Or swipe through a classic art gallery on your phone and leave me alone.”
“Lea, Jesus, what is so hard about going to dinner with me?”
“Maybe I don’t like being blackmailed into doing something I don’t want to do.”
“Or maybe you don’t trust yourself around me,” he said, hitting the nail on the head and he knew it.
“I trust myself just fine around you.”
“Good. Then this won’t be a problem. I’ll be picking you up at eight. Better get that,” he said, making me suddenly aware that the phone was ringing. He put the key down on my desk and moved away as I tried to shake off the encounter and the idea of a date with Shane. I sat down, clicking the computer on to see that the credit card info was entered and making sure there were no notes giving me specific directions for the call. Finding none, I grabbed the obnoxious hot pink phone.
I barely had it to my ear when he spoke.
“Get on your knees.”
Oh, great. Freaking wonderful.
Fee’s comments were a self-fulfilling prophesy.
And despite more than a couple sessions with the vibrator Fee and I had picked out at the sex shop, there was still the overwhelming need for release. I was pretty sure that vibrators were just like putting a band-aid on an open wound. Sure, it helped in a minor way, but it didn’t fix the underlying issue. I needed sex. I needed to feel a man’s hands sliding over my body. I needed his voice saying dirty things in my ear. I needed to feel a real, live person moving inside me.
Everything else was going to fall short.
Damn it.
“Yes, sir,” I said immediately, taking a deep breath to convince myself to keep my professional walls in place.
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting with my elbows on my desk, my head in my hands, undeniably turned on. There was an insistent throbbing between my legs and a shortness in my breathing. Before I could even take more than a deep breath or two, trying to calm down my desire, the damn phone was ringing again.
Checking the computer, I prayed like hell that whoever it was was maybe one of the feet guys or the subs. They did nothing for me. It would be an immediate turn-off.
“Baby,” the voice said, sending a shiver through my body.
“Hey, darling,” I cooed, as I always did. Sweet nothings for horny no ones. “How are you?”
“Hard as fuck after listening to you moan through that last call,” he said and it was immediately clear that it wasn’t some random call. It damn sure wasn’t a foot guy or a sub. And like some stupid as hell horror movie, the call was coming from inside the building.
“Shane, this is work,” I said, trying to sound firm.
“Check the computer again, Lea. I’m a paying customer.”
Damn if he wasn’t.
“I can’t do this with you,” I said honestly, my voice a needy urge for him to understand.
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Because you want me,” he said into the phone, but also right behind me. I could literally feel his presence behind me before I saw his arm reach out and put his cell down on the desk beside my arm, the call still connected. “Admit it.” His hand pulled back and moved out to gather all the hair on the right side of my face and moved it all to the left side. His fingers brushed my neck in the process, making my sex clench hard. Oh, yeah. I wanted him alright. But I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. “Stubborn,” he said, leaning down and placing a kiss beneath my ear.
“Shane, there are cameras,” I snapped, pulling my chair forward, trying to hold onto at least a small amount of professional integrity. He said nothing for a long second before I felt his hand close around my wrist, pulling me upward.
“Not in the storage room,” he said, obviously knowing more about that than I did.
“We can’t…”
“Sure we can,” he said, turning away and pulling me behind him.
Honestly, I didn’t even try to resist. I knew I should have, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I was beyond turned on and it had everything to do with trying to resist him. I just didn’t have any defenses left.
Shane went inside the storage room, pulling me in, then somehow simultaneously slamming the door and shoving me back against it. I didn’t even have time to register the impact of my body on the solid door before his lips crushed into mine. His arms went onto the door at the sides of my head, caging me in. My arms went around his center, pulling him flush against me, moaning against his lips when I realized he wasn’t lying about being hard; his cock was pressing urgently into my lower stomach.
His tongue moved in to toy with mine as his hands slid down the door until they planted beside my hips, sinking in hard there for a second before sliding around and grabbing my ass hard. Before I realized his intention, he was pulling me off my feet by my ass, making me wrap my legs around his center instinctively. His hands stayed planted there as my arms went around his neck as he turned us. It was a novelty to be carried. I wasn’t a big girl by any stretch of the word, but I was tall and a healthy weight for my height, not the kind of girl a guy ever wanted to haul around. But Shane, being the giant wall of muscle he was, didn’t seem to be bothered in the least as he easily moved us across the room, turned us again, and then we were going down, Shane sitting with me straddling him.
I pulled up, brows drawn together. “Why is there a couch in the stock room?” I asked with a confused smile.
“Fee redecorates a lot,” Shane said, voice sex-rough. “Convenient for us,” he said, hands moving around from my back and up my stomach, slipping under the hem of my shirt and stroking over the skin that seemed to come alive under his touch. His fingers toyed with the lower edge of my bra for an excruciating moment before moving upward and cupping over my breasts, squeezing hard, making me let out a low moan as my hips jerked against him, begging for relief. His fingers grabbed the cups and yanked them down, his palms covering my exposed breasts, his fingers rolling my nipples into hardened points.
Then, well, there was no going back.
I leaned forward, arching my back so he could continue his sweet torment to my breasts as I took his lips in mine and let my hips lower down and grind against him, his hard cock gliding over my greedy pussy, slowly driving me upward.
The thick material of both our jeans, though, was preventing any kind of completion, just building to the painful need for release. Shane’s hands left my breasts for a moment, but only because he was snagging the material of my shirt and yanking it upward and off me. There wasn’t even a hint of hesitation as his hands went around my back and released the clasps of my bra, baring me to him completely.
“Fuck,” he said, shaking his head with a small smile. Then his hands went to my ribs and pulled me forward by them, his lips closing around one of my nipples, making my sex clench hard and a rush of wet to soak my panties. Then his teeth nipped into it, making my head fall back on a loud moan. I pushed my hips forward again, trying to ease the ache, and letting out a grumble that made Shane’s chest rumble as he chuckled. He moved across my chest for a moment, lavishing over the other nipple, before raising his head and watching me for a second with heavy eyes. “Had about enough?” he asked oddly, making my brows draw together before his hands moved over to the fly of my jeans, freeing the button and zip. “Ready to stop playing around?” he clarified just a second before his hand slipped inside my pants and panties, wasting no time with more teasing. Thank God, because I was pretty sure I would combust if he did. “Fucking soaked,” he groaned, sliding his finger up my pussy and finding my clit easily.
“No, don’t,” I whimpered when his finger left my clit and slid lower.
“Shh,” he demanded softly, his fingers stroking up my lips, all my nerve endings feeling more sensitive than they ever had before.
“You said you were going to stop playing around,” I said, my hands digging so hard into his shoulders that I was sure there would be crescent-shaped bruises there from my nails for days.
“No. I asked if you were ready to stop playing around,” he clarified. “I didn’t say I was. I’m enjoying the fuck out of this.”
“You’re a…” I started, getting annoyed. But then two of his fingers slid inside me unexpectedly, pinching just the slightest bit from my dry spell. But his fingers crooked immediately, raking over my G-spot with expert precision. “Fuck,” I hissed, exhaling hard.
“Now I’m done playing around,” he said, voice deep and full of promise.
“About time,” I said, needing to have the last word.
His fingers kept moving over my G-spot as his thumb moved up and started stroking side to side over my clit, making my pussy clench tight as my breathing got more ragged.
Shane’s gaze rose to my face, watching me intently, his eyelids heavy. “You gonna come for me, baby?” he asked, moving his fingers faster as I buried my face in his neck, trying to suck in air through the tightness in my chest. “Tell me.”
“I’m going to come for you,” I told him, feeling the pre-orgasm clenching.
“Good girl,” he said, low, sexy.
And just like that, I came.
My orgasm slammed through me- an intense, deep, rapid pulsation of pleasure that had my voice catching as I cried out his name.
“Oh my God,” I gasped as the orgasm subsided, one strong aftershock shaking my body almost violently as his fingers stopped moving. He kept them inside of me though, just a casual, familiar kind of intimacy I hadn’t expected from him.
“You shaved,” he said a minute later, making me push up and look down at him.
“Ah, yeah,” I said, inwardly cringing that he had ever felt me any other way.
“Shame. It was cool to have something different. Most women wax that shit bare.”
“Including this one,” I said with a small smile, telling him things he already knew seeing as his hand was still in my panties. “That was a fluke.”
His fingers slid out of me, then slowly out of my panties, and finally out of my pants, landing on my thigh and giving it a squeeze as I dropped my hips down and became intimately aware of the fact that he was still as hard as a rock.
He must have seen the realization in my eyes because he shrugged a little. “Don’t worry about…”
“See, I’m not one of those women who gives as good as she gets,” I said, pausing for a bit of dramatic effect. “I give better,” I said with a smile as I slowly slid off his lap, going down on my knees in front of the couch. I looked up as my hands slid up his thighs, taking a certain thrill in the look of desire in his eyes.
I wasn’t one of those women who only gave head begrudgingly. It wasn’t a special events and on my period pity thing. I genuinely enjoyed the power that came from knowing a man you loved, cared about, or just found irresistible was fully at your mercy, that their pleasure was owned by you.
I liked that.
I got off on that in a way.
Besides, why the fuck even bother doing it if you didn’t give it your all, you know? I heard once that enthusiasm over technique made for the best head. It was something I put to test at a very tender age and found incredibly accurate. Over the years, my technique grew to match my enthusiasm so I had no doubts that Shane was about to get the blowjob of a lifetime. And I was more than a little eager to see what kind of reaction I would get from that.
My hands found his button and zip, making short work of them, not even pausing before I reached inside his boxers and freed his cock.
And, see, sometimes what you feel through layers of clothing, yeah, it doesn’t do the real deal justice. This was one of those instances. Shane’s cock, well, suited the rest of his oversized body. I closed my hand around him, maybe a little bit amazed when my fingers didn’t quite meet my thumb. See, I’d had a fairly active sex life and I’d seen a few shapes and sizes and lengths. I’d never had a cock that I couldn’t close my hand around.
Maybe a bit turned on again, thighs clenching together to try to ease that ache, I stroked him to the base with my right hand and held him there, moving inward to trace my tongue over the head. I licked up the bead of precum and lubed up the head for a minute before closing my lips around him. I paused for the barest of seconds before pushing down, taking him fast and deep, choking hard once. I tucked my left thumb into my fist and squeezed hard, an old trick I learned from a girl in high school to suppress the gag reflex, and looked up at him. If there was even a tiny shred of reality to be found in porn, it was that guys liked to look at your face when their cock was down your throat.
Crass? Sure.
Dirty in all the right ways? Abso-fucking-lutely.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Lea,” he growled, looking down at me. His hand landed at the base of my skull, gathering all the hair there into a fist, watching me intensely as I started sucking him fast, unrelenting, not giving him a second to have his orgasm ebb.
His ragged breathing, his hard exhales, his moments of holding his breath completely, and his occasional grunts spurred me on, letting me focus past the discomfort in my jaw and neck. “Lea, fuck, if you don’t want…” he started to warn.
But I did want.
So I moved faster, twisting my head as I sucked him until his fist pulled my hair hard enough for me to see white as he cursed out my name and I tasted his release flood my mouth.
I released him a minute later, pulling his boxers back into place and moving up to straddle him again, feeling just a bit victorious.
“Well you aren’t a liar.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“You give better than you get. Fuck if you don’t give better than I’ve ever gotten.” I smiled, huffing onto my fingers then rubbing them against my shoulder, making him chuckle. “Why the fuck have you been fighting this so hard?”
I sighed, sliding off his lap and taking my feet. I reached down and worked my zip and button back into place, fetched my bra and shirt, then slipped into them. “It’s complicated.”
“Oh, fuck off with that. There’s nothing complicated about wanting someone.”
Except when you have a track record of wanting the wrong kinds of guys who steal months or years of your life with their shit.
The problem was, I didn’t trust myself anymore. I didn’t believe I had what it took to make the right decision about who I should and shouldn’t avoid. I think when you’ve made the wrong decision more than a handful of times, it’s hard to believe you are even capable of making the right one, in telling the decent guys from the ones who will fuck you over.
I was kind of at the point where I figured if I wanted someone, then that was all the proof I needed that he was bad for me.
Such was my track record.
I’d never liked a nice guy.
I’d never fallen for someone who worshipped the ground I walked on.
Hell, if they did that shit, I would probably forget they were all down there worshipping the ground and accidentally trample them.
I would chew up and spit out a guy like that.
To put up with my personality, I needed someone with some spirit, with a willingness to call me on my bullshit. And guys like that, well, they were usually your typical alpha male types: bikers, dealers, hired muscle, mob guys, gang members. Maybe you could throw in your occasional mechanic, construction worker, or ex-military guy too. I’d know. I had dated them all.
“Lea…” Shane called and I caught myself staring at one of the shelves stacked with paper and toner, lost in my own thoughts.
“What?” I asked, hearing a mix of tiredness and defeat in my tone. If I wasn’t mistaken, he picked up on it too.
He watched me for a moment with those piercing blue eyes of his before nodding, standing, and zipping up. “Alright. I’ll drop it,” he said, brushing past me, his fingers touching my hip for the barest of seconds and it felt way too good for just a chaste contact, as he made his way to the door. “But I am holding you to Saturday night. I’d tell you to put on something sexy, but I think you could inspire a restaurant full of hard-ons by showing up in a fucking sack. So wear whatever. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
With that, he walked out, closing the door behind him.
I took a moment to pull myself together, to try to stop my mind from charging off in a thousand different directions at once. I gave it a good couple of minutes to let Shane leave the building before I walked back out to my desk, sitting down, and putting the phone back on the cradle. We had been in the back for almost an hour. Shane was going to have a hefty bill on his credit statement at the end of the month.
I brought my hands up, resting my face in them for a long moment, trying not to think about the date that weekend.
Tried.
Failed completely.
I wasn’t even sure the last time I had a real date. That just never seemed to be the way it went for me. Most of the time, I met a guy through someone or at a bar or whatever. If there was a strong enough connection, we just immediately started seeing each other. There was never any drawn out anxiety about the upcoming first date. I never had to worry if my dresses were fancy enough. I didn’t have a churning feeling inside, wondering what the hell we would have to talk about for hours over the course of a meal.
Especially because there wasn’t much I could talk about. My past, pretty much from birth until a couple weeks before I started at Fee’s place, was pretty much off-limits.
Maybe it was good that I had some time to freak out. That gave me the chance to come up with ways to tell the partial truth in a clever enough way that it wouldn’t come across as part false.
It wasn’t exactly a great way to approach a date, but it was the only option I had.
My past had to stay in my past.
If I tried to let even the story of it leak into my present, yeah, I figured it would come charging back in and would no longer be my past anymore.
That, well, it wasn’t an option.
Because if I lived through that happening, I would live to regret it.
Living, that is.
I’d be made to be really, really sorry that I still had breath in my lungs.
There wasn’t even a question about that.
So I had just under three days to figure out how to become a really good liar.