Текст книги "Shut In"
Автор книги: Cee Smith
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 7 страниц)
Chapter Five
The walk from the living room to the kitchen felt lighter than it had the past two days. Work always had a way of calming my frenzied mind. Everything in my line of work was based on logic, facts, things that are irrefutable. Truths that couldn’t be denied. Every case was like a puzzle waiting to be put together. So, as I carried my laptop back to the dining room, no thoughts clouded my mind. Nothing aside from a perfectly blank slate to help me pull together the facts of the case I was helping with. There was no storm or hot-as-sin one-night stand sitting in my living room like a walking hard-on. There was just me searching for a truth.
There were a couple of cases I’d been working on, but only one I had any desire to look at. When Henderson & Fitz first took the case, everyone in the office was elated with possibilities of what this could do for our firm. Ordinarily, it would be a simple case of our client suing for damages in a domestic abuse/battery case, but the defendant was the heir of the Trevaunt fortune, and from what I’d heard of the pictures of our client, Trevaunt did quite a number on her face. I tried not to pay too much attention to tabloid gossip, but I read somewhere that he went missing after it all happened. No one had seen him in weeks, and the only contact my firm had had with him had been seldom, and only via phone.
My job as an associate with a prestigious law firm was very fulfilling, but I wanted more. There was something about being in a courtroom and presenting that gave me a rush like nothing else. The adrenaline called to me. I wasn’t usually in the courtroom with Henderson or Fitz, but occasionally I was needed. And when that happened, it was like front-row tickets at a Yankees game. Of course, I kept my composure, not showing how excited I was to be picked to assist in a court case, but really I could fall at their feet thanking them for the honor. Don’t get me wrong, I like getting my hands dirty with the nitty-gritty work, too, but nothing compared to the courtroom.
Up until then, I hadn’t spent too much time looking into the defendant, EJ Trevaunt. I’d been trying to get background information on his ex-girlfriend, our client, Lara Farrows. There wasn’t much to find on her because she seemed to have a relatively humble life. She was born in Wisconsin, moved to Vegas to attend a university on scholarship, and dropped out of school a few months after meeting Mr. Trevaunt.
I spent the better part of the afternoon going over the medical records after the incident involving the two. Mr. Trevaunt claimed they broke up on May 12th and on May 15th, Ms. Farrows was admitted to the hospital with a fractured cheekbone, some lacerations, and bruising along her face and arms. Kerri was able to give me a copy of the medical report, but it didn’t have the photos included, making it harder to work from a written copy of what she looked like. It’s true what they say about a picture: it is worth a thousand words. I just wished I had the photo, so I could use my own words instead of those of the doctor’s.
My eyes felt dry after hours spent staring at my laptop screen. I pushed away from the desk, resting my elbows on the glass as I rubbed my fists into my strained eyes. I’d been looking through notes of past cases to use as guidance, yet still felt no closer than I was when I opened my laptop.
“Now looks like a good time for a break. I made lunch,” Joel said, standing within the doorframe of my office. I seemed to always find him hanging out in the doorways, his distance making me more uncomfortable than when he was standing right next to me. It felt like he was able to see more of me that way, but there was also something that drew me to him. Perhaps, it was the same thing that had me staring at him at the club, just like all the other onlookers. He had a certain magnetism that couldn’t be ignored.
I didn’t know how long I stayed looking at him like that, but it must have been minutes because he finally broke away from the door, each step slow and graceful with a calculated approach. I felt like I was being stalked as my eyes watched his feet move closer. By the time my eyes landed on his face, he was wearing that shit-eating grin of his. If I was speechless before, I was practically comatose now. His hand reached over the expanse of my desk, his palm facing up, willing me to place my hand in his. That hand promised to take me places, to do things that I’d only ever fantasized about.
That hand was dangerous.
He was still wearing a smile, but this one was endearing. My lips twitched at the corners just from looking at him. I didn’t take his hand though. I couldn’t. There was too much temptation in touching him. All of the thoughts of that morning came flooding back—seeing a half-naked Joel in nothing but his boxer-briefs, his hand casually brushing his chest as if to coax me into partaking of his flesh.
“Well?”
He questioned with his hand still outstretched, breaking me from my thoughts. I stumbled out of my chair and he simply watched, his eyes crinkling a bit at the corners as he looked back at the hand I bypassed. Apparently, he was amused by my blatant refusal at touching him. I didn’t really want to give him the impression that I had a problem with touching him; in fact, I didn’t want him to think about us touching at all, but it was too late. I tried not to dwell too much on it as he led me back to the dining room where lunch was already set for us.
***
“Sit on the couch while I grab something.”
While I continued to the couch, he hung a left to the kitchen. I took a seat uncertain of his intentions when I heard cupboards opening and closing in rapid succession as if he was looking for something in particular.
“You know, you really do have a way of making me feel like a guest in my own home,” I yelled over the clapping sound of the cabinets being shut. The clanking of glasses was my only response before he returned to the living room.
“Call it a talent of mine. I have a few other ones but you’ve already seen some of those.”
“Hardy-har-har. Now, why am I sitting here? The electricity is still out, so watching a movie is obviously out.”
He was still laughing to himself when I noticed the bottle in his hand. I couldn’t remember buying the bottle of whiskey or drinking it for that matter, but the way the liquid sloshed around the half-empty bottle like a lava lamp led me to believe that I bought it at some point in the past six months or so.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a survivalist or something?”
“Pfft. Ha! Now, who has jokes? Me, a survivalist? Why? Because I know a few things about food preservation?”
“Well, don’t they kind of go hand in hand?”
“I wouldn’t know. I saw this bottle when we were going through your kitchen. Figured we could use a little escape.”
“Isn’t that just going to leave us dehydrated? And we’re rationing water right now, so that doesn’t seem like the best idea.”
“It’ll be fine. Besides, if we run out of water, we can always recycle our piss.” My face soured at the thought. I hoped he was joking because there wasn’t a chance in hell that I would be drinking urine. Let’s hope this storm passes in a matter of days, not weeks, otherwise I don’t know how long I can hold out against that promise. “If drinking your own urine doesn’t seem to do it for you, I don’t mind sharing mine.”
He nearly choked himself with laughter at the suggestion, clutching the glass in his hand, holding it over his stomach as he keeled over. His whole body shook until he fell into the couch like a child. There was something admirable about how carefree he seemed to be, like he didn’t take things too seriously. That wasn’t the first time I’d wondered about his life outside of my house, but it was the first time I felt compelled to ask him. I knew I shouldn’t though. Nothing good would come from getting to know him. It was just supposed to be a one-night stand, and even though it turned out not to be, I was trying to treat it with the same premise.
No sex. No details.
“Blaire, you’re too stiff. Trust me. We’ll be fine. If it makes you feel better, I’ll make it an option. How does that sound?”
He sat across from me, one arm sprawled across the back of my couch and his ankle resting atop his opposite knee. His body, if not those eyes, tempted me to indulge in whatever he had in mind, regardless of his suggestion. I knew whatever words lingered on the tip of his tongue were ready to strike like poison, crippling me to whatever he desired. So far it’d been a struggle trying to resist him, but with alcohol entering the mix, I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to hold up my defenses.
“How does what sound? You still haven’t told me what I’m agreeing to.”
His eyes searched the room, roving over everything from the furniture to the little trinkets in the media console. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but when his eyes landed on mine again, he seemed to be satisfied by what he’d found there. I tried not to think of myself as one of those objects.
“Let’s play I Spy—”
“Aren’t we a little too old for that?”
“I wasn’t done. I was going to suggest we spice it up. What do you say? The loser has to either take a shot or remove an article of clothing.”
I looked down at my bare feet, for the first time wishing I didn’t like the feel of cool tiles beneath my toes. Maybe then I would have had more articles of clothing to part with. My disappointment must have been evident because he said, “And what you have on is what you play with. No changing.”
Something about him saying that made me wonder what exactly was beneath those shorts. He had said he liked to feel free. I might have a leg up after all.
There were so many things wrong about this I didn’t even know where to start, but time seemed to pass so slowly, and I convinced myself it wouldn’t hurt to look. I wasn’t acting on anything.
“Fine, but I go first.”
“Why, of course. I am a gentleman after all.”
“Hmm,” I grunted. He was a gentleman in some respects, but I wasn’t going to agree with him. He already seemed to have a big enough ego as it was. I would hate to contribute to it getting any bigger. Especially since I thought turning him down for sex had brought him down a peg or two. I would have hated to reverse any long-term good I’d done for women across Vegas. Although, I wasn’t so sure that all my hard work wouldn’t be evaporated at the first bimbo who bounced her cleavage his way.
Like a stranger, I looked at my house with fresh eyes. It was just a rental, so it wasn’t anything that I would want for myself, but seeing as how I was never really there, I hadn’t put much thought into the mostly sterile walls and dated tiles covering the living room floor.
Vegas homes are odd. The home was built in the 90s but was the equivalent of an 80s home anywhere else in the nation. A hexagonal light hung from the ceiling in faux crystal and gold above the front door. The fan above my head had blades of untreated pine covered with a light collection of dust bunnies, with a white dome of filtered light that usually shed little more light than a candelabra. On the wall behind the couch and just to the inside of the front door was a large painting I found at Homegoods that reminded me of the beach and summers spent at the lake with my family. The painting was abstract with swishes of blue and green, beige, and specks of red. If you looked hard enough, it almost looked like a creek surrounded by cattails and a field of poppies not far off in the distance.
I had already found my first “I Spy” object, but the purpose of the game was to not reveal the source. I’d spent one too many family road trips with an annoying little brother in the seat beside me. I found the only way to keep him busy was to play games—I Spy being the easiest one to play in a car going forty miles an hour and a small window to guess before the object could disappear into the rolling heat dancing above the paved road. Needless to say, I was a pro at this game.
“I spy something…brown.”
He spoke around a sly smile, containing the reason for his amusement, “I see how you want to play this.” Joel looked around the room, presumably taking in every piece of brown that could be found in over a dozen items littered about the room.
“Which one is your goal? To get me naked or get me drunk?”
His eyebrow lifted when he realized I wasn’t touching that question with a ten-foot pole. “A woman with secrets. I like my women with a bit of mystery.”
“Well I guess it doesn’t matter in my case because I’m not your woman.”
“That’s open to interpretation because there’s still a pair of panties in there that would disagree with that statement.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. Look, are you playing or not?”
“So eager, pretty bird.” He shook his head, laughingly.
“I’m going to guess…” he looked at the media table holding the TV. It’s the largest bit of brown in the room and the most obvious, “the chair in the dining room.”
I don’t know how he guessed right, especially since I purposely avoided looking at the chairs for any real length of time. There was no giveaway in how long I looked at it, and I made sure to spend an equal amount of attention on all the other furniture around me.
“How did you know?” I asked sincerely.
“Uh-uh. I’m not telling, and I believe you owe me something.”
He looked me up and down, his eyes already peeling off the clothes he wanted removed first. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me naked so quickly. Pace yourself.
“Bottle.”
I held my hand out to take the bottle resting against his thigh where he tossed it after he sat down. This is going to be a long game if I have to sit through what could be another hour of that smug smile. I’ll just have to use that as incentive not to lose. I could see he was the type of winner who liked to gloat, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
I took a swig from the bottle. The pungent liquid filled my mouth and splashed the outside of my lips, running down my chin while I threw back the contents burning my insides. My teeth couldn’t scratch off the bitter film still clinging to the top of my tongue, no matter how much I tried scraping the alcohol away. Holding the bottle by the neck, I set it down with a firm thud onto the wood of my coffee table, dead-center between where we both sat.
“My turn.”
In the darkness of the room, Joel’s eyes still sparkled like sun-soaked gems, filled with the excitement of a child. Five minutes before, I may not have wanted to play with him, but it wasn’t like there was anything better to do, and maybe in his real life he didn’t have anyone to play something as simple as I Spy with. Granted, we were both adults, and I couldn’t say that I’d played the game in fifteen years. If he wants to play, we’ll play.
“I spy something blue.” He stared into my eyes so intensely that if I had blue eyes I would be sure that he was referring to the color of my irises. Instead, I know there are only two things in the room that contain the color blue—the throw pillow to his left is a chevron pattern with varying shades of white, gray, and blue.
“The painting.” I gave Joel my poker-face as I took my best guess.
“Nope.” He gave a subtle shake of his head, the smug smile spreading wider—stretched so thin that it looked like the creases of his mouth would touch his ears if he kept that up.
“You’re lying.”
“I swear,” he said, holding up his hand like he was a good little Boy Scout. I wasn’t falling for it. That smile wasn’t made from being nice and honest; that smile didn’t come from good little boys. “It’s the movie case on the far right. In there.” He nodded his head to the media console with the glass panes showing a few cases of movies lined up.
“So, you’re not a liar. You’re a cheater. There’s no way you can see that small writing from where you’re sitting. Not with the lights out, you can’t.”
“I have 20/20 vision, the better to see you with, my dear. Now, what’ll it be? You finally taking something off? Or you taking the loser’s route again?”
The sight of me taking my top off shut him up like the sound of a gong ringing out into the silence. I thought he had choked on his tongue for how quiet he got. It was the first time since I’d met him that he had nothing to say—no off-handed remarks or witty one-liners—nothing. The silence was beautiful, and for the first time in a long time, I found a smug smile on my own face.
The game continued on, and at the first opportunity Joel got down to his jeans, while I was down to my bra and no underwear—for which I had to strategically cross my legs for coverage—and a fifth of the bottle taking up residence in my stomach.
I lost again and before I could pick up the bottle, Joel’s hands reached out to grab me, stilling the fingers still twined around the neck of the whiskey.
“I say we raise the stakes. I don’t want you getting piss-drunk, and chances are you’re too modest to completely strip down. Plus, that kind of means I won, right? How about we change the loser’s choice?”
“Wha-what new stakes?” I was sure I slurred a little, but I didn’t have time to sound out the way “stakes” sounded before Joel answered me.
“How about every time one of us wins, they can forfeit stripping and drinking for a kiss from the other player.”
“You’re saying this like…like there’re other people…other people playing. You’re just trying to kiss me. I see you.” My finger swayed, drawing what looked to be lazy figure eights in the air as I pointed to him now sitting only a couple feet from me.
“You’re close. When did you get so close?”
“You didn’t answer me.”
“About the kiss? You just want to taste me.”
“There are a million places on your body that I’d love to lay my lips on. Your mouth is only one of them. Are you scared?”
“Of you? Absolutely.”
I forgot what we were sparring about when he removed my hand from the glass, shifting me closer with a gentle pull of my wrist. With my hand still in his and him drawing closer with every huff of breath escaping my lips, I could feel the raw energy coursing through me with the nearness of him. The anticipation made me feel imprisoned in my own skin, completely beholden to wherever he wanted to lay those lush lips full of promises to tear through my resolve like a flesh-eating bacteria. I pulled my legs in tighter to my body, angling my body toward his. With the shift in position I could smell him better. He still had that masculine scent that seemed to be ingrained in every pore, but he also smelled like my soap, which offered me a type of comfort that I didn’t know I wanted from him. Its familiar and clean scent mixed with the addition of his natural smell made me want to spend the rest of the night cuddled up in bed playing little spoon to his big spoon.
The fingers wrapped around my wrists released, and my hands dropped to the couch like sunken anchors. I fought my knees from unwrapping to give him a full-on view of a panty-less Blaire. His hands moved to my shins, burning a path to my knees where my nerves fizzled like a carbonated soda. His body hovered over my legs, his breath sending blankets of heat billowing across my skin and up my legs to the place that beckoned him to come closer, breathe deeper, blow harder until my core wept for relief. Soft lips brushed the outside of my knee, igniting a fire beneath my skin that continued burning as he kissed his way between my knees. Temptation loomed through my slurred thoughts, and when I was sure that my body would surrender, Joel pulled away. A peek of his tongue escaped his mouth, licking along the lips that held the taste of my skin on the surface.
Did he just wink at me?
He pulled back, sinking back into the couch with a renewed smile. Something about the look made me want to smile, too.
The game continued and when he lost his next turn, I couldn’t decide whether it was intentional or if he genuinely lost, especially with the last piece of clothing being his jeans. Before the button of his pants even popped open I knew what to expect when his pants fell to the floor—he made it known his penchant for going commando. I watched with apprehensive yet curious eyes as he stood. Unblinking eyes watched me like I was a patron at a peep show, except I didn’t know which of us he was undressing with that look. Maybe it said more about me that I wanted to see him stripped bare, than it said about him that he felt comfortable completely naked. Not that he had flaws like us mere mortals. I couldn’t imagine him taking off his pants and becoming less than god-like. I imagined the opposite to happen as I watched his fingers unfasten the button and the raspy snick of his zipper being undone. His hands shifted on either side of his hips, pulling the fabric that fought his thighs on the way down to the floor.
His cock sprang free, and I can’t remember which happened first—the gasp that escaped my lungs or the hand that covered the gaping hole of my mouth, wide enough for him to fill with his impressive length, large enough to put someone’s eye out. At first glance, I looked away, intimidated by his size and also a bit in awe that I’d already mounted the steel-like rod that jutted out toward me. With reservation, my eyes found his, watching him watch my reaction. Joel still stood with his briefs lying at his feet. Proud of my determination, my eyes didn’t so much as steal a look at the one thing that eluded me since waking up to find a stranger in my house.
“You’re, you have…is that a piercing?”
“Would you like a closer look?”
I shot him a look that I hoped conveyed “not interested,” but after more shots than a fistful of fingers, I wasn’t so sure that was the message he received.
He shifted his body and the metal became more obvious in the darkness. I could see the shadow of a stud on the underside of his crown, not to be outdone by the stud pushing through the tip of his shaft like a crown. I didn’t know whether to cringe from the pain I knew that must have inflicted, or to wonder what it felt like to have that sliding against my walls. When did I become so horny? It seemed I couldn’t sit in the same room as him without my skin crawling with need for him to touch me. I just wanted relief. My skin was clammy and muscles knotted while everything inside me wound tight with desire.
Joel sat back on the couch with arms spread wide and legs open enough for me to gaze, undeterred, at him. It appeared he had no sense of modesty, and after the drinks I’d had, my decorum seemed to be swimming in the drunken pool right along with me. I won my next two turns—an occurrence that seemed like less than happenstance. There were only two options available to him—taking a shot or a kiss. His eyes lingered on me, and I nodded my head toward the bottle only to receive a smile.
“I’ll take a kiss.”
I shook my head trying to dislodge the rules that went along with his proposal, but I couldn’t quite remember, though it didn’t seem like it should have worked that way.
“That’s not the way it works. I don’t think? You shouldn’t be able to decide if I want to kiss you.”
“It didn’t hurt to try though, did it?”
“Take your drink.”
A couple losses later, Joel officially banned me from taking any more shots.
“You have to lose the bra sometime. Let’s have it.”
With Joel being so uninhibited, I felt a current of defiance run through me like a live-wire coursing from his end of the couch over to where I sat. How long would he be able to resist me while I sit merely two feet away with nothing between us but uncoordinated hands and legs and twisted limbs?
“I think this means I won,” I said as my fingers met in the middle of my back to unsnap my bra. The lace of my bra scratched against my bare arms, reminding me of every naked inch available to not only Joel’s eyes but his touch, his tongue. My eyes followed the fabric’s descent to the ground, unaware of Joel’s movements leading him so close that my arm brushed his when I moved to refold my hands over my breasts.
