I wanted to come inside of her, right this instant, wanted it so bad my teeth ached, but I pulled away and put her hand on my revived dick instead.
“How many times can you… ?” she asked.
“Less than you but more than this. How about we find out? You count, I’ll do the rest.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE NEXT MORNING we couldn’t stop smiling at each other. Conspiratorial smiles like only we were in on the joke. Like we were naughty children that had just teamed up to get away with something impressive and disruptive.
Even my father and Ida couldn’t ruin my good mood.
In fact I saw them off cheerfully, so much so they were shooting me suspicious looks as they drove away.
“Fucking finally,” I said as the car left my drive.
“If I reach my word count early can we spend the rest of the day in bed?” I asked sometime later. I was working at my desk and Ro had come in to hand me an espresso.
“If you add an extra 1k to it we have a deal.”
“Power mad authoritarian!” I called to her back as she left my office.
“Lackadaisical hedonist,” she called back.
But sure enough I met the word count by four p.m. It was a little scary how well she knew how to both work me and make me work.
I used her next Sunday absence to move a bunch of her stuff into my room. I didn’t let myself think too much about it, didn’t let myself see it as a big step, let alone a necessary one. I just focused on the convenience of it and the way it would rile her and how that would amuse me.
Her reaction wasn’t what I was expecting, but as usual with Ro, it was better.
First of all, she didn’t notice right away. When she did, it was late at night and she couldn’t find her toothbrush.
It took a few trips through the house for her to figure it out and then she confronted me with a simple, “Why are you so obsessed with me?”
“Because you’re perfect,” I told her solemnly.
She wasn’t buying it. “Shut up. Whatever. I was already sleeping in here so I guess it doesn’t matter. Just don’t get used it. When I’m done with your body, I’ll go back to my own room and you won’t complain about it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I saluted her.
“Smartass.”
“Cute ass.”
“That’s not even an insult. It’s actually a compliment.”
“Cute pain in my ass.”
“That’s better.”
I grabbed her and dragged her into bed.
And days went by like that. Weeks. I wouldn’t have described them as blissful, not out loud at least, but I thought it more than once.
I was on the phone, arguing with an old college friend of mine when Ro walked into my office.
“Let me ask my boss what she thinks,” I told him.
“This is my friend Jason,” I told her, pointing at the phone. “I’m trying to tell him he needs to quit his job. He works for Vice, and I think they’re trying to kill him. Ask me why I think that.”
She played along. “Why do you think that?”
“He’s on location in the Congo right now. This man can’t wash his hands without applying lotion immediately after, and they make him live without indoor plumbing. This man couldn’t fight his way out of an internet café, and they send him to the worst bush wars in the world. Tell me that doesn’t sound like they’re trying to kill him.”
“When you put it that way, it does sound a bit suspicious,” she agreed.
“Your boss?” Jason was asking me, and I could tell everything going on on my end was cracking him up.
“Yeah, she was supposed to be my assistant, but now she’s running my life, so that seems like a more appropriate title, don’t you think?”
Ro was still standing in front of my desk, and I realized she was waiting for me.
“What do you need, cupcake?” I asked her, ignoring whatever Jason was saying now on the other end.
“I’m taking off for a few hours.”
I studied her, head to toe. She was wearing a pretty floral dress—that I had picked out for her, of course. Her hair was different, braided back from her face, but with a few teasing tendrils framing her face.
Uh uh. Not good.
She was even wearing a bit of makeup. Mascara and lip gloss, maybe a touch of blush, I thought.
I got a sick feeling in my gut.
“Why?” I asked sharply. “Where? It’s a Tuesday, you know.”
“I’m more aware of days of the week in general than you are, so yes I knew that. And it’s after five, and I’m allowed to come and go as I please, I think we’ll both agree. I’m not an actual hostage, and I’m allowed to have a social life.”
Everything she said was true, of course, but I really didn’t like the way she was saying it. That she was saying it at all.
“I’ve got to go,” I told my friend, “I’ll talk to you later. Please quit your job.”
“Catch you later, man. Invite me to the wedding.”
I paused. “I would, but she refuses to marry me,” I said and hung up. Boy, was that going to run around the rumor mill and come back to bite me in a hurry. I just didn’t care. In fact, it kind of tickled me.
I gave her my undivided attention. “Now, where are you going?”
She sighed, crossed her arms and looked like an adorable, bratty child as she did it. “I have a church… social thing.”
“What kind of social thing?”
“It’s like a dance, but we mostly stand around and talk. It’s a nice way to meet new people in the area.”
“A dance?” I asked her, voice cold.
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, don’t wait up.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Absolutely nothing. I’ll be home before nine. Bye.”
And then she just left. She didn’t even look back.
I was beside myself.
I spent an hour in my gym with a punching bag before I was willing to acknowledge what I was feeling.
If she was going to a dance, there would be men there. It was a church function, not an all girls club, so it was literally impossible that there wouldn’t be.
I was jealous. Jealous at even the thought of her talking to other men. Would they think she was single? Did she think she was single?
Was she single?
We didn’t talk about stuff like that, but I just figured she knew we were exclusive. I wouldn’t put my hands on her and then touch someone else, and I just assumed that she knew that’s how it was with us.
I should have gone with her. It would have been worth the risk of me catching on fire as soon as I walked in the door of a church to avoid the way I was feeling right now, which was helpless and shut out.
I started texting her at the two hour mark.
Me: Tell Mayhem and
Mischief I miss them.
When will you be home?
I waited and waited, and she didn’t respond. My mind was on how much more she’d have in common with men she met at church, how much more of what she was looking for that they’d have to offer. In my mind, I was not coming out ahead.