Текст книги "The Plan"

Автор книги: Qwen Salsbury

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

“I’m…I’m…I…”

My plea’s heard. Hands go under me. Hold my ass. Rock against me that much harder, that much faster. My feet dig into the backs of his knees, lifting and meeting each thrust. Hot and damp, he plows against me, over and over again.

More passes and he meets me every time and mumbles half thoughts against my neck, and damn, I want him inside so much it snatches the very breath from my lungs. A hollow fire inside. I tell him this in a ragged whisper, and his breath catches and his arms wrap around my neck as he groans out, low and coarse.

I want to feel every change, swallow every sound, but coals inside me burn white hot, my ears close, and then I’m gone too, saying his name and trying to find air.

When clouded edges finally fade from my sight, I remember where we are. Scant Christmas lights manage to filter in through the back glass. Canon’s shed clothes barricade off ninety percent of it.

Maybe we need to buy some Dramamine. Bet that driver is hella dizzy from circling the block.

11:35 p.m.

*

Car

: Hands folded in my lap.

*

Elevator

: Hand in his.

*

Hall

: Other hand added over his.

*

Room

: Hands everywhere.

MY COAT SLIPS from the hanger and hits the floor. He looks at me as if to say it looks just fine there.

“You feel it, don’t you, Emma? What’s happening? You feel it.”

I nod. Yes. So much I can’t feel anything else.

Streetlights and shadows color the room. We’re near the bedroom. Near the door.

He’s waiting. For me. On me.

I loosen his tie. Feel him swallow below my fingers, breathe beneath my arms.

He’s not moving. Waiting. Baiting.

I look at him and then to my shoulders, tilt my head, silently suggest. Strongly suggest.

His hands slowly roam me. Tentative. I step forward, and his arms go round to meet at the small of my back.

“You wanted me to wear this,” I say as his fingers play at a dress seam. “So…take it off.”

He holds his breath. I can tell because I’m holding mine.

The slow rustle of fabric fills the room. He pulls the zipper, looking down, watching me while each tooth pulls free. His hands slide under and graze my torso, along my sides. He slides it over my shoulders.

I wouldn’t think this would be such a surprise. It was darn cold in that theater. And he was all but wearing my dress right along with me during our fun out in the limo.

But his breath hitches. Silk splashes on the floor.

I’m down to sheer, black thigh-highs and heels.

Okay, the man might pass out.

A panty-less warning might have been prudent. Noted.

His arms wrap around my shoulders. Thumb at the joint, palm around, fingers reach and press my back.

His hands travel down my arms, unhurried, drag. My wrists. Shoulders. Pale flesh inside my arms, almost tickling. Slower at the curve and swell.

I can feel him looking at me. Hard. Hands continue their trek. Soft.

Deliberate, measured, I bring my arms to him, to his shirt. His button’s a puzzle. Hesitant and unfocused, I curse my nerves.

He doesn’t seem to notice.

I don’t remember the buttons being this difficult before. Probably because I tore them free.

Which seems like a genius idea, and I contemplate that method again while I push a fingertip under the rounded edge and thread it through. It’s slow going. Maybe that’s okay.

It is going to take forever at this rate.

I’m still in my heels, closer to his level. He barely bends to watch me, continues to feel me. Warm at my ribs. Heated fingers on my back.

Another button finally gives. Yeah, taking forever.

He breathes, shuddering, watches my progress. Roams me. Waits.

Waiting.

I take on another.

He follows my waist, my hip. The top of my stockings. Fingers dance. At the rim. Palms my ass, traces where thigh meets cheek. Dip and explore. Ready.

And I’m not holding my breath anymore. Not at all. I’m panting. Pants.

Pants. Oh, yeah…his pants. I start pulling at his pants and yanking, and I guess I will be going to the store to buy clothes for him after all because there is a rip that should be sickening, but instead I hear my laugh, a laugh like the sound you make when you see a car wreck and it is the exact opposite of how you feel. I’m frantic, desperate to not let on how very real, really real I’m finding all this.

Because I’m going to make love to him in a moment.

I just sorta realized that.

I start to step out of my shoes, but the change in height from the first movement makes me feel even smaller. I leave them on. He watches as I kick away the dress with my shoes still on.

I step into him. Run my hands down around his open shirt and start it over his shoulders and down.

He watches my chest rise and fall.

“You like?”

Corner of his mouth turns up. He might laugh now.

That will never do.

“Show me.”

And I guess “show me” equates to “prove it” in his book because before I know what’s happening he’s pulled me by my butt and lifted me against him, bent himself to bury his face in my neck, arms encircling and cock—some hard proof right there—running near roughly between my legs. Somehow we get to the bed, and he is backed up against it and still moving and holding and oh-wow-that-is-pretty-fucking-amazing between my legs.

I finish pulling his sleeves down his arms and discover they won’t come off as they’re bunched up at his wrists where I have failed to unbutton the damned cuffs. Ah, screw it. Or him.

I give a shove, and he falls back onto the mattress, shirt under his ass, hands trapped at his sides. Eyes wide, not scared, something else. Something…I don’t know.

I put my thumbs under the edge of my stockings and look down at him to ask if he would like them to stay. His head is raised off the mattress, watching me, gauging me, because this may seem more of a tease than a question—maybe he thinks I will take them off or not as I choose. He’s wrong…I’m watching him for a reaction, to see what he wants. I trace the lace hem. He eyes the shoes, and I’m pretty sure he likes them.

Guess that’s a yes.

Forcing myself to go slowly, counting to ten as I go, I bend at the waist and crawl up the bed. Slow and straight, trying for calm, trying for unruffled.

His eyes on me. Fidgets within his sleeves.

Fidgets until I start to hover over him. Then he stills. Then watches. Then breathes.

Kiss his thighs. Lips to hips. Tongue on shaft, base to tip. His turn to writhe. His fingers dig into the bed at his sides.

His chest raises in short gasps, and I want to touch it, to feel his heat on me. Knees astride and hands at his face, in his hair, I bend and slide the whole of myself against him.

Warm and welcome and…home.

So good it is bad.

Shift and bring my chest to his mouth. He watches me, and I’m not sure what I’m showing him when his lips press and his tongue slips along my breast, seeks and teases. Licks and nips and pulls me in, nearly biting.

He starts to object when I slide away, but my sliding stops. Abruptly. Because I’m there.

There, there.

Oddly enough, right about now I’m wondering about the mechanics of having sex with shoes on. How does that work in practical application? How do you keep from gouging someone with pointy heels, keep from scraping them? I’m already straddled over the expanse of his hips plus the hands that I have managed to trap there, and now there is the distinct possibility that I’m going to hurt him. Taking them off is going to be clumsy and awkward and not at all in-charge-looking, but it turns out all my concern is unwarranted as I feel his hands wrap around my ankles, fingers anchoring me, almost like I have anchored him.

And I feel secure.

I wrap my fingers behind his neck, thumbs circling below his ears. I slide down onto him. Just the head. Up again. Off again. And back. Angle, catch the ridge. And he’s watching me. And I’m watching him.

Another pass and I’m going for broke, all the way as it were, this time, and he must sense it so he leans up and presses his lips to mine. Kisses me in a way I have never been kissed before. Kissed to my soul.

I sit up and slide him in to the hilt, until there is no more, until I have run out of me and he’s run out of him.

Eyes locked and faces facing. It’s intense and burrowing and connected, and I want to look away and but not as much as I want to feel this ribbon unspool between him, me, us, and see. Really see.

Forearms on his shoulders, hands behind his head, and feet held down at his sides. I move. He moves.

Tandem. Tense. Together.

Noise flows from him, the cadence alters when I do. Shift, he hums. Rock, he moans.

Full and hot and perfect and show me what you want, what you like.

Slick skin. Breath rasps.

Seems another shirt is ruined. His hand clamps down on me, splays across my back, pulling me down to him, and I keep moving, and he tastes my shoulders, my neck, holds me there, saying something. Low. I can’t hear.

God, I want to hear.

I want to taste his secrets and feel his sounds and listen to his mouth on me.

Lick his jawline. Sweat and sweet.

Break away and sit up straight and he arches back as he thrusts up into my down. I bend back, my hands flat along his chest. I can feel his thighs tense under me, he is straining and feeling and hitting inside me and rubbing against me in the best oh-please-don’t-let-this-end-too-soon-but-maybe-it-should-because-I’m-exhausted way. Because I’m nearly there.

Hell, I would be there and back again if I weren’t over-thinking this whole thing, if I weren’t determined to see him undone, to do the undoing.

His free hand is at my hip, helping and holding. I have grown so accustomed to the light that every change in his face shows. The blinks. The lip bites. How he watches me, more than looks, like he is studying.

Alarm flickers in me. Then, an idea. I move off him, and his hand holds fast. God, he is breathing so hard; his chest crashes, nostrils flare.

“No…please.” He swallows. He snaps his hand away and looks at it likes it’s done something offensive.

I take his hand and press my lips to it, reassure him.

Nothing is wrong. So much is right.

I spin over him—pausing mentally for a moment to congratulate myself on clearing my three-inch heel over his torso while I’m a hair’s breadth from orgasm and teetering on a panic attack from the enormity of all the things I have not been letting myself think about, the thoughts scratching at the peripherals—keeping his hand in mine, to steady, to tether, together.

Backward, facing away, hiding somewhat, I can admit it, I reach between my legs with one hand and align him with me. It is wet, wetter than I anticipated, and I almost think I should be apologizing to him for some crazy reason—for what, him turning me on?—and I turn my head over my shoulder and watch him as he watches me sink back onto him. It’s sneaky. I don’t think he even knows I have observed. Pretty sure actually, because he didn’t look cool about it at all. Mouth open, eyes rolling back, might’ve bitten his tongue.

I’m still holding his hand, and I bring it to my waist as I roll back onto him. His fingers entwine with mine, and he moves to meet me again and again, and I run my nails up his thigh while he moans and rocks, and then my hand smooths down to below where we join and cups him, plays at his base…and he is frozen.

“Oh…goddamn…” he breathes. My dear, has no one done this for you before?

Well, not that I have done this for anyone before…but I’m me and you are you and, well, I would think people would tend to roll out the red carpet and pull out all the stops…

I keep moving, his breathing changes and suddenly he’s pressed against me, breathing into my hair, my ear, warm on my back I hadn’t even realized was cold. His hand leaves mine and snakes down to touch me so near where I touch him, and then I hear myself, hoarse and breathy and burning, and I’m over the edge, complete. Our rhythm finally falters.

He swells. Curses. Drives into me at least as hard as I have pressed onto him and then throbs and pulses and pushes. Murmurs against my back. Whispers into my spine one of those secrets I want to know.

Time passes. I don’t know how much. Our breathing slows. Finally, eventually, matches.

And I need to move. For many reasons.

I’m boneless, and my knees are numb. If I shift wrongly, I will tear into his skin with my heels. Wiggling, test my strength. It is lacking.

Then I feel him pull away a shoe and run a thumb up my arch. He leans and shifts and uses what was his trapped hand to remove the other. He rubs that foot too.

He pulls me up the bed. I’m spent, and it seems perfectly okay when he’s wrapped around me. I’m tucked into him, and his arm is my pillow, and the shirt still hanging from his wrist is our blanket.

Day of Employment:

384

10:00 a.m.

*

Rudolph

: Changing the old nose bulb. Christmas Eve.

*

Little White Box

: Haunting me.

*

Business

: Not mine.

THIS BOX IS MY Plight Before Christmas. I want to throw back the sash and chuck it out the window. Right after I accidentally back over it with a forklift three times.

It’s not the box that has offended me really. It was just sitting there on her desk.

No, no. It’s the tag on the little white box.

The little box that I have seen once before. The one that came yesterday with my dress, but left with the delivery person.

I lift the flap again, ever so carefully, as if I might trigger a remote spy cam installed to catch nosy assistants.

And, yes, again. I have already looked. I just want it to be different. To say something different.

But there, in perfect, pointed script was the source of my problems.

To: Diana Fralin

No “From.” Just her name.

Not blank, but no signature. Do the same rules apply to her? He doesn’t know what sort of sentiment to use when signing a card for her either?

I know what he said. I really believe him. I do. But the gift…Why?

The card is staring back at me. Mocking me. Making me want to take that damn box and wing it at her so it falls down into her abyss-cup bra and possibly aligns with Aslan in the battle for Narnia.

I can hear Ms. Fralin make her way toward her office. I picture her sauntering and laughing and adjusting and touching up her lipstick all at the same time.

I jump up and away from the box…but not before moving it a fraction of an inch, trying to imitate its exact position pre-nosy fingers.

“Oh, hello, Emma,” she says, stepping into her office. “I had nearly forgotten about our little meeting.”

I gathered as much since you’re nearly thirty minute late for it.

“Do tell. What sort of illicit dealings are you here to meticulously detail for me today? A dinner meeting in Portugal? Free Post-its in Luxembourg?”

My jaw clenches. “Actually, I have generated reports of several now-questionable practices and cross-referenced them with companies who have been on the line for doing similar activities. The results are everything from heavy fines to disgorgement of profits. Some also result in jail time.”

“For steak dinners with officials and palm money to set up phone lines? Please. You make it sound positively salacious.” She rolls her eyes back so far I would expect she might have hit gray matter. Seeing as how eye rolling is about the fastest way to torque me off, I may crack a bicuspid. “We are hardly arms dealers, Emma.”

I didn’t really expect her to be receptive, but it was necessary to at least attempt to talk to her before saying she wouldn’t listen. “I am not saying or even implying that you are deliberately breaking the law. It’s just that the global business climate is quite different in the wake of the Wall Street failings. The SEC and the Department of Justice are now far more aggressive and far less lenient than in the past. You cou—”

“I will look it over,” she says and snatches the papers from my hand. “Now, you will need to leave. I have to get ready for a party tonight.”

She slings her bag over her shoulder. It’s huge. I recognize the brand.

“Ms. Fralin, what a beautiful bag. Is that a Dooney & Bourke?”

She glances back at it dismissively. “Yes, it is.”

I continue toward the door, then stop just before I exit. “I would hang onto that bag, if I were you. It’s a potential collector’s item. That Bourke guy thought what he was doing was no big deal, too.”

There is no chance she’s even going to bother to bend back the pages of that report. There is even less chance that she will Google Bourke and find out a whole team of high-powered attorneys couldn’t keep him out of jail on bribery charges during this new crackdown.

Turning on my heel, I make for the door rather than waste more time on her.

“Emma,” she calls out behind me. “Do tell Alaric how much I love his gift.”

Oh, I’m sure he would much rather hear it from you.

7:25 p.m.

“IT’S A REPLACEMENT MORE THAN A GIFT.” The steering wheel turns fluidly under his palms. “And she is a shrew to imply otherwise.”

I stare out the window. Christmas lights dot the landscape.

This is not a feeling I like. Jealousy. Especially since I think it’s unwarranted. I remain quiet.

“I’m not used to explaining myself,” he says.

I shrug softly.

“The other day when I left with her, we worked for a few hours. Then I left.” He coughs and grabs the steering wheel a little tighter. “In an unusually optimistic move, I left to pick out your dress.” He looks flushed, maybe a little embarrassed.

“I went back to collect things from her office, and she, once again, thought I was making an excuse to see her. That is when you called and between talking to you and thinking about changing hotels and Diana stalking me around her office, I knocked her business card holder off her desk. A hideous crystal thing. I replaced it. I am merely trying to keep the peace.”

I nod a few times and glance over at him. He watches me nearly as much the road.

“Why did you put her name on the card? My card was blank.”

“I had no desire to be with her when it was delivered or at any other time.”

We twist a few miles further toward the hotel.

“How ‘fun’ were you on other trips?”

“Pardon me? ‘Fun’?”

“She said you used to be ‘fun.’”

“I’m the same life of the party I have always been. Though I didn’t avoid her so much initially, before I knew what she was like. Emma, I have told you I don’t want anything to do with her.”

Big girl panty time. “I know you did. I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you. It was just so hard to understand.”

He pulls the car into a space outside the hotel. “You can ask me anything, Emma. I’m never going to lie to you.”

This knowledge doesn’t make me feel better like I had expected it to. Of course he won’t…but I feel like I have been play-acting so much.

I am not the least bit consoled. All I am is one big lie with him.

9:25 p.m.

*

Location

: Hotel ballroom.

*

Dress

: Last one. Blue silk.

CHRISTMAS EVE OFFICE PARTY.

I’m at least one “party” over quota for the year. I’ve begun to think no one at this company has children. Then Lance Rowe sidles up to a tipsy woman. He is a prime argument for asexual reproduction.

Dinner was hours ago, and now almost everyone is pretending they still want to talk to the other people here. As if everyone doesn’t get enough of their co-workers during the week.

On the way here, I tried to talk more with Canon about the report I had made. His phone kept ringing. Then he needed to make a call. Then another. When we arrived, we were late and had to rush in.

Alaric went missing shortly after we arrived. I took up residence in the corner, holding up the wall, as that seems to be all I do lately.

After well over an hour, maybe two, I have actually begun to partake of the open bar. I have made a sizeable dent. If one considers the Grand Canyon a dent.

Blessedly, the occasions for small talk have diminished as the night wears on.

Now my primary companionship is in the form of a white poinsettia pyramid.

They actually are better conversationalists than Lawrence Peters. Plus, as an added bonus: poinsettias do not have prostates.

I weave through the masses but cannot find him.

Eyeing the crowd, I catch Mitchell’s attention. He seems to understand who I’m looking for and nods toward a set of side doors near a champagne glass tower.

I smile in thanks and head that way.

1:15 a.m.

CANON, DIANA, AND THE OWNER, Mr. Samuel Dowry, stand huddled in the hallway outside the ballroom.

Hold back and wait. Do not draw attention. That is the name of the game. My role.

“Congratulations, Alaric,” Diana purrs, placing her hand on his arm. He stiffens, moves, but continues to speak with Dowry until they shake hands.

“Closing this deal early is the ideal Christmas gift, don’t you think?” Dowry booms as he leaves.

Wait, what? No. Not yet, this is too soon.

I didn’t tell him. I didn’t convince him.

I have been so busy worrying about my plans and my hormones and my concern with what it is about me that he likes, that I have ultimately failed. I have failed him.

I did not do my job.

“Closed? We’re already done?” I steady my voice. Eyes turn to me.

“Oh, you didn’t tell Emma our good news yet?” Diana giggles and rolls her eyes.

Alaric smiles at me and beckons me over, obviously counting on me to save him from her clutches.

I step forward.

“I’m out of champagne.” Diana pouts toward her glass. The stem dangles and sways between her fingers.

“There’s more inside,” I say.

She rolls her eyes and walks past.

“Thank you for saving me.” He pulls me to him once we’re alone. “It is becoming increasingly hard to keep her at bay without resorting to tossing her off the roof.” He punctuates his joke with a kiss to my temple.

I start to push away, refusing to let myself enjoy it. I need to tell him how thoroughly I have fucked up all that he has worked so hard for.

History repeats itself. He may not be married, and I may not be the other woman, but I have most likely just cost him everything.

Before I can form the words, glass shatters in a small explosion near our feet.

My legs are splattered in champagne. The broken pieces of a bottle lay swirled around our feet. Foam glugs from the broken neck like a thick, white tongue.

“What the hell, Diana?” Alaric glares at her.

I looked up to see him just as soaked as I am.

“Toss me off the roof?” Diana fumes and spins to march away. “Don’t think I will be waiting be around for you when you finally get tired of screwing the help.”

Yeah, that’s how I like my bitches: Angry and butt-hurt.

Alaric starts after her to, I assume, confront her.

“Wait.” I stop him. He turns and looks at me. Surprised.

“I need to leave.” Liquid has already soaked through my shoes. My feet feel slippery, sticky.

Brow knitted, he returns with me to the ballroom. Diana is there. Livid.

There are so many things I want to say to her. Things I want to do. Things like punch her right in her Mary Poppins’ bags.

Instead, I slide right by her and grab a final champagne glass from the tower. Liquid courage.

Alaric stops beside me. “Are you okay, Emma? You’re not acting like yourself.”

Too true.

Until now.

Diana appears. “You know, Emma, it is truly pathet—”

Her words are cut off when I suddenly toss the remainder of my drink in her face. All eyes on us.

“Let’s go,” Alaric says through clenched teeth.

Well, there now. I have embarrassed him. Nicely done, Emma. Jeopardized an entire company, his career, and embarrassed him in a single evening. Stellar job.

By the time I return the empty glass to the table, Diana has found her bearings. She grabs a full glass and starts to toss it at me. Everything is a blur, but it seems Alaric knocks her hand away as I duck to avoid it and irony descends in full force. My slippery feet give just enough that, instead of avoiding the splash of one glass, I bump the tower and everything rains down on us.

Covered. Soaked. To the bone.

Humiliation. Shock. Regret.

“I’m so sorry.” I sniffle and look up at him.

Champagne runs in rivulets down his face. “It’s okay. We just need to go.”

That is just it. There is no “we.”

There is him and me and someone who doesn’t even exist. Someone who does his bidding and gets his drinks.

Someone nobody takes seriously enough to read a report that she’s written. This mouse that I have become. This mouse that roars at night.

I am the other woman in my own relationship.

“I…I can’t do this. I can’t be with you. You don’t really want me, and I have jeopardized everything you have worked for.” My voice shakes as nerves and cool liquid wrack my body. “I will get a ride from Mitchell and pack up. I quit.”

He tries to hold my arm, but I snatch it away.

“I won’t always chase after you, Emma.”

You won’t have to. This is different. This is me leaving for you, not for myself.

The ride is quiet. Mitchell pulls up next to the hotel lobby door and nods twice in silent understanding that there are no words.

In the room, pale petals are strewn about the bed, the carpet. A bouquet of mixed, pastel colored roses sits on the dresser.

A single word written on the card: Everything.