Chapter 25
Steven
“I understand your concerns, Mr. Edmund, and I am taking all of your feedback into account. If you can give me another forty-eight hours, I can assure you the problem will be under control,” I said into the phone.
Mr. Edmund, one of my high-end investors, sighed on the other end. “Make it right, Mr. Marx, or I’m pulling my funding. I can’t risk these hackers getting a hold of my personal information or that of my clients. I am not in the business of taking risks.”
“Neither am I,” I said firmly. “Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Mr. Edmund barked out a bitter laugh. “My boy, you asked me to trust you when you first asked me to open my wallet, and now look where we are. Four months into the project and you have a first-rate hacker on your hands. You’re lucky you caught the breach before he managed to get to anything important. Forty-eight hours, Mr. Marx. I will give you forty-eight hours. If the problem isn’t resolved, I expect my money wire transferred back to my account immediately. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose and squeezing my eyes closed. This was the third conversation since last night that had ended with the threat of pulling out of my app project. I ended the call and slumped forward on my desk.
The security breach had been intense. I was still working to find out where the hacker had got in—or if it was even a hacker in the first place. I suspected malware or a bot, but explaining that to some of the investors was like trying to explain the difference between data and WiFi to a ninety-six-year-old. Some things just didn’t compute.
I kept my cool during the calls, trusting that my team would resolve the issue before we lost any more funding. So far, only one client had pulled out. One out of fifteen wasn’t all that bad—so long as it stayed at that number.
My phone rang. I groaned, preparing to be yelled at by yet another client, and answered the call. I was surprised to hear Andrew’s voice.
“Hey, man,” my brother said cheerfully. “How’s it going? You still up for drinks later this week? I was thinking Thursday. How does that sound?”
“Hey, Andrew,” I said. “Maybe. I can’t commit to anything right now. Some shit went down at work, and I’m so screwed. Can I call you on Thursday afternoon and let you know?”
“Yeah, sure thing. Is everything alright?”
“It will be. Hopefully. I need to figure it all out fast.”
“Alright. Well, good luck buddy. Hey, while I have you on the phone, have you and Allie patched things up? Things looked like they were on the up and up for you two at the cocktail party.”
“Things are complicated right now,” I said.
“Complicated for a reason, or complicated because you’re making them that way?”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, my words coming out a little harsher than I intended.
“It means, are you making this a bigger deal than it needs to be? Have you forgiven her yet?”
“It’s not that simple,” I said. “I’m working on it.”
Andrew laughed on the other end. “Working on it? Bro, if you don’t get your shit together, you’re going to lose her for good.”
“To who? You?” I challenged.
“Steven, get your head out of your ass and get a grip. It was ten years ago.”
“Yeah, and all I can seem to think about is the two of you lying to my face for a whole decade. It’s fucked up, Andrew, and I’m not cool with it, alright?”
“Stop being such a baby. So what? She didn’t tell you. Things were harder on her side then than they are on yours now. She was sixteen and thought she was going to have a kid. She was scared as hell. Of course, she wanted to bury it when she made it through. What person wouldn’t want to? And now you’re all bent out of shape about it because you think she owed you total transparency? Look, someone’s gotta get real with you Steven. You’re being an asshole.”
“Yeah, well, I take after my older brother I guess.”
Andrew sighed into the phone. “I’m on your side, believe it or not. I want you to be happy. That girl makes you happy. Don’t screw it up.”
She did make me happy. She always had.
During the three months that I hadn’t spoken to Allie, I had gone to bed furious with myself more nights than not. I thought that I’d blown all of my chances with her for good. Then, when I saw her in that diner, and she looked up at me and smiled, a little sliver of hope emerged inside me. There was a chance that I could patch things up and make them right. There was a chance I could get her back in my life.
Was I really going to throw that all away again?
“I don’t know how to move past it Andrew,” I confessed, slumping backward in my chair. It creaked and groaned beneath me. I’d been sitting on it for nine straight hours dealing with clients. My bones felt as tired as its plastic pieces. “Every time I look at her all I can think about is what happened between the two of you. I don’t want to. I want to forget it—to move on. But I can’t seem to get a grip.”
Andrew sighed on the other end. I could picture him sitting at his own desk in his home office. He was probably fidgeting with something on hand like he usually did, a stapler or paperweight. “Listen, Steven. I get it, okay? If I could take any of it back, I would. I never wanted to be the reason you and Allie couldn’t make things work. If I could do anything to change things, I would. Do you believe me?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
“Then trust me when I tell you, Allie feels the same way. If you can’t forget about it, then you can’t forget about it. But maybe you can learn to live with it by focusing on other things. Like the fact that Allie is head over heels in love with you and has been for a decade. Isn’t that enough?”
I didn’t know if it was.
“I gotta go, man,” I said, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the table. “I’ll let you know about Thursday night later on in the week, alright? Have a good one.”
I hung up when Andrew was halfway through answering. I didn’t have the energy to carry on with the conversation. After everything that had happened at work with the hacker and the near app crash, I was drained.
I stood. My knees ached and my hips grated. I stretched, arching my back like a cat and reaching up to the ceiling. I put my suit coat on, and made my way out of the office, past the receptionist, down the elevator, and to my car. I drove home in silence. My head was pounding, my eyes were heavy, and all I wanted was to forget about everything.
At home, I had a hot shower. The water and the steam helped me feel refreshed and more myself. When I stepped out, I wrapped myself in my towel and busied myself with a couple mundane chores; wiping the kitchen counters down, picking up my laundry from the bedroom floor, and changing the garbage bag under the sink.
I knew I should have been returning Allie’s calls. She had called me several times during the disaster at work. I had never been available to answer her call. I felt a little guilty; I felt worse for not calling her now.
I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. It was easier to let it be right now; to push it from my mind and focus on other things.
The other things I focused on ended up being Allie-related anyway. Like the soft milkiness of the inside of her thighs, and the way she had spread her legs in the back seat of the limo on the way to the cocktail party.
I shook my head, trying to evict the image of her from my brain as I washed a few dishes in the kitchen sink. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep them at bay.
I thought of her panties and the way she had pulled them aside as if she was daring me to crawl over to her on my hands and knees. She wanted me between her legs. I thought of the black, lacy strap over her hips, the thickness of her thighs, and the curves of her calves.
I dropped the dish scrubby, turned off the water, and dried my hands on the towel around my waist. Fuck trying to think of other things. Allie was the only thing in my life worth thinking about.
I padded into the bedroom. The towel around my waist came off with a tug and fell to the carpet, where it would stay until morning. I fell onto my bed and shimmied up so that my head was resting on my pillows.
I was already hard. I had felt the blood rushing to my cock while I scrubbed the dishes. A single thought of Allie always did that to me. I was powerless to the burning need that was racing through me. It urged me to reach down and grip my shaft. I knew this wouldn’t last long. I was hot and heavy and already breathless.
I couldn’t handle how sexy Allie was. She didn’t even know it. Those bright pink lips of hers and how they were often parted, just a little bit, leaving a tiny opening between them that I wanted to run my thumb over, drove me wild with lust. Her slender neck and earlobes always begged for me to kiss them.
I ran my hand over my shaft as I considered reaching for my lotion. No. I didn’t need it. Not this time. I was ready to come apart any second.
I closed my eyes and remembered fucking Allie in the limo on the way home. My fingers had slipped inside her, and she had enveloped me with her warm, silky wetness. I remembered covering her mouth with my hand so she wouldn’t cry out as I made her cum all over my fingers. Slipping my cock deep inside her, and fucking her as hard as I could with her legs spread wide apart had been so hot. I remembered the swollen pinkness of her, the tightness of her, and the way she had watched me as I made her cum.
Then I thought of filling her with my cum, and how she had rubbed herself when we were done.
I came, fast and messy. Lines of cum dashed up my stomach, and I gasped for breath. I hadn’t realized I had been holding it in.
I lay back, feeling at ease for the first time in days, and found myself wishing Allie was lying beside me. Even though I had just finished myself, I knew if she were nearby, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands off or out of her. She was too sexy, too tempting, and perfect.
She always had been.