7
Tom was absolutely right about how sore I would be the next morning. When the sunlight came streaming through the window, I stretched in his arms and woke us both up with my sudden shout of surprise. My whole body hurt, but especially my ass. The kinky abuse it had taken was just a bit too much.
Tom climbed out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. He came back with a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water.
‘This makes me hate you a little less,’ I growled. I downed four of them while Tom watched me with sleepy eyes.
‘Better be careful how many of those you’re taking.’
‘I need the whole bottle.’
Tom crawled back into bed. ‘You can’t hate me. You wanted it.’
Indeed I did. I wanted things now that I hadn’t dreamed of asking for in the past, things I hadn’t even considered sharing with anyone. I reveled in knowing Tom would accept whatever thoughts were in my head.
I thought about the way he had fucked me on my bed, the rollercoaster of emotion that came along with it, and the fact that my safe word had been right there on the tip of my tongue, but had never been voiced. I knew he would have stopped instantly if that word had ever fallen from my lips. I had let Tom do things to me that I never thought I would allow a man to do and, though my fears had caused me some hesitation, I hadn’t once tried to stop him.
How had I come to trust him so much?
The phone from the living room. I considered ignoring it, but I had been away from home for days, and friends were probably starting to wonder exactly what had happened to me. My publishers might be wondering the same thing. I carefully climbed out of bed and grabbed my robe. Tom chuckled as he watched me walk out of the bedroom.
‘You’re walking funny,’ he hollered.
‘It’s your fault,’ I hollered back from the hallway. I got to the phone just as it stopped ringing. The touch of one button showed me the caller ID, and my heart started to pound when I saw the name.
Michael.
All the strength went out of me and I sank down into the nearest chair.
‘Honey?’ Tom’s voice came from the bedroom.
‘It was a wrong number,’ I called to him. The lie tripped out of my lips without a moment’s hesitation. I picked up the phone and erased the listing, then listened to the message Michael had left on my voice mail.
‘Hey, I was just wondering how you were doing. I wanted to check on you. But you’re busy or out or something. I’m on my way to tan and thought I would give you a call. I hope you are OK and having a good day. Bye.’
Busy. Or out. Or something.
I pictured Michael behind the wheel of that truck, his deep tan showing off the colors of the tattoo on his arm, the way his eyes always hid behind sunglasses while he drove. I tried to picture him in a tanning bed, his whole body bathed in light.
Did he ever think of me like I thought of him?
Tom came out of the bedroom and looked at me. His body was naked, stocky and muscular. I reached for him and he took the phone from my hand. My head rested perfectly on the softness of his belly.
‘I lied to you,’ I admitted.
‘I know.’
‘Sometimes it still hurts so bad,’ I said. ‘Then I get so angry. I wish he knew what it was like to hurt in the same way he hurt me.’
‘You don’t really mean that, Kelley.’
I dried my tears on his skin. ‘I think I do.’
Tom tipped my head up with a finger under my chin. ‘I’m going to go pick up some lunch so neither of us has to cook,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you give him a call while I’m gone?’
‘No –’
‘Yes. I trust you, Kelley. I know there are things you still need to do.’
Tom walked down the hallway. I watched his ass as he walked away and, despite my best intentions, I started comparing his body to Michael’s. I caught myself wondering which one had the tighter ass and chastised myself for it. I listened to Tom get dressed and, when he came out, he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, plus a confident smile. He dropped a kiss on my forehead.
‘I’m going to get a change of clothes and come back here. Tonight we’re going out to dinner. Think you will feel up to it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Make that call, Kelley. Then let’s forget about him for a while. OK?’
A minute later Tom was gone, the door closing softly behind him.
I stared at the phone. I could call Michael. I could tell him that there were things we needed to talk about, and then I could blurt out what I had been doing these last few days. I could tell him that he got what he wanted, he got rid of me, and now I had done the same thing concerning him.
But that wasn’t the truth. I wasn’t free of him. If I had been, I wouldn’t be hesitant to make that call. What stopped me, more than the fact that I wasn’t quite over him, was the fear of what he would say. I wasn’t afraid of his anger, or even of his sadness. I was really afraid that he just wouldn’t give a damn. I could handle any reaction except one of indifference. If he didn’t care that I was moving on, that would leave a hole in my heart that might never heal.
I had told Tom I would call. And so I did, dialing the number from memory, the same one I had dialed every day for so long I could remember it in my sleep. My heart pounded until the answering machine picked up, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My message was short and sweet, to the point, and I didn’t ask him to call me back. I simply wished him a good day and hung up.
Michael probably wouldn’t call me back. He had become notorious for calling when he had a brief moment, then being unreachable until late at night, right before he fell asleep. I often felt as though he was avoiding me, though he swore up and down he wasn’t. How ironic that now I was the one doing the avoiding.
I slowly dressed in my bedroom, looking around at the things I had always known. They seemed to have changed, to have taken on subtle nuances, just as I had. I remembered the way Michael moved there on that bed, and then I remembered the things Tom had done to me on it. I remembered wrapping myself in the sheets long after Michael had gone, steeping myself in the scent of him, and now I did that very same thing, lay down on the bed that was rumpled with sleep and still smelled of sex. I breathed deep and closed my eyes and again imagined Michael lying in that tanning bed, his cellular phone in the console of the truck, his eyes closed while the lights baked his body and the light on the little phone blinked, announcing my message.
It was all the same as it had been days before, but it was all different.
I was different. I touched the headboard where Michael’s hands had been. I touched the quilt, the one I had bitten down on hard while Tom took me from behind. I thought about their voices, both deep and melodic, but so different when taken over by orgasm. Michael was always loud, almost had no idea how to be quiet. Tom, well, it depended on his mood.
‘You really need to stop this,’ I said out loud to the ceiling.
I wondered if Tom made any comparisons like that. I wondered if he compared me to other women. How did I measure up?
That was a whole new concept, and one that made me forget all about Michael for a while. I rose from the bed and looked in the closet. I had been wearing leggings or jeans for days, but now I pulled out a sundress. Deep blue with white checks throughout, it was a pretty and demure outfit, but my body filled it out well. I took off the clothes I had planned on wearing – a simple T-shirt and shorts – and slipped the dress over my head. I turned to the mirror and looked at myself with a critical eye. Were my breasts too big? Were my hips too wide? I knew I turned Tom on, but what did he prefer? Was I the kind of woman he would have stopped on the street, or had he only noticed me because of the unusual circumstances of our meeting?
‘Just because Michael didn’t want you doesn’t mean Tom doesn’t,’ I murmured to the reflection in the mirror. A pretty redhead looked back at me, her eyes somber yet alive, her body filled with urgency. I watched the blush rise higher on my cheeks and thought: that was Tom’s fault. Entirely his. Him and his passion for me.
‘For me,’ I whispered to the mirror.
Suddenly I spun around on my toes, suffused with the joy of the new person I was finding, and thrilled at the fact that the man I wanted most would be coming home very soon.
Michael didn’t cross my mind for the rest of the day.
Tom came in with a massive spread from Kentucky Fried Chicken. I took one look at the food he was setting out on the table and laughed out loud. ‘That’s going to put five pounds on each of us, you know that, don’t you?’
Tom looked up at me and froze with his hands full of Styrofoam containers. His eyes trailed all the way down my body and then back up.
‘Wow,’ he breathed, and the heat of another blush stole across my cheeks.
‘Do you like it?’
Tom looked me up and down again, the food completely forgotten. ‘Baby, you’re gorgeous.’
I looked down at the floor, uncertain of where to rest my eyes. I was a little puzzled by how much his approval meant. I had always been the kind who could accept compliments gracefully, but, when it came to Tom, the need to please him was greater than it had ever been for anyone else.
‘Thank you,’ I said softly.
Tom set the food on the table and walked over to me. His hands were cool on my face. He guided me to look right into his eyes.
‘You are perfect,’ he whispered.
I blushed harder.
‘I want to be good for you,’ I said, but Tom wasn’t paying much attention. His lips had found that tiny mark on my throat, the one that looked so much like his teeth, and he was licking and kissing and sucking there for all he was worth. I giggled when he hit that ticklish spot right underneath my ear. Tom’s hands were scoping out the back of my dress, searching for a zipper.
‘There isn’t one,’ I whispered.
Tom responded by running his hands down my thighs and finding the hem of the dress. He pulled it up over my hips. I tried to push the dress down, to slow things a bit, but he growled low against my throat.
‘Don’t.’
He took me right there. Against the wall. He pulled my silk panties aside while I wrapped my legs around his hips. One long thrust and he was deep, moving hard and fast. There was no foreplay, no discussion, no playfulness. He fucked me with utter abandon.
I reached down between us to play with my clit. If he was going to get there that fast, I was going to need some help. He growled in approval and angled his thrusts to give both of us the most out of my stroking fingers. I thought again how good he was, how experienced, how he knew just what to do and when to do it. Right as my orgasm hit and my pussy spasmed hard around him, Tom thrust deep and came.
The tumult was over as quickly as it had begun. We were left breathing hard, wet and sticky from the passing storm of passion. Tom pulled out of me. The wetness seeped out of me and soaked my panties instantly.
‘Leave them on,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Yes.’
‘Sit down and eat lunch.’
I looked at him through a daze of stunned pleasure. How did that happen so fast?
Tom finished putting the food on the table. He put straws in the sodas. His hands shook while he did it.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
I watched as he picked a piece of chicken out of the box and slowly pulled the breading off. He ate in slow bites. We didn’t speak while we dug into the chicken, but I was certainly hungrier than he was. Finally Tom dropped the chicken to his plate and put his head in his hands.
‘I saw David today.’
I reached across the table to touch his arm.
‘Where?’
‘He was on that Harley. I saw him at the intersection of Main and Wood. He didn’t recognize me at first, since I was in your truck. But I could tell when it dawned on him. He looked right at me until traffic started, and when he passed me he spit at the truck.’
The flash of anger was surprising in its force. I pictured in my mind slamming on the brakes of the truck, hearing tires squeal, hearing that rumble cut down until it was a low hum under the simmering of my own fury. I could imagine climbing out of the truck, right there in traffic, and giving that boy what-for after what he did to his father. I imagined him removing the helmet and, as soon as he did, slapping his face so hard it rocked back on his shoulders.
One look at Tom’s eyes said he had the exact same thoughts.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
He shrugged and looked out the window.
‘What did you do?’
‘What could I do? I stopped but he kept on going. I couldn’t have chased him down. And, even if I had, what would have happened?’
‘It would have come to blows,’ I said, remembering the dent in Tom’s office door.
‘I have a temper,’ he said. I was surprised at his candor.
‘Is that how your office door got damaged?’
Tom nodded and pushed his plate away from him with a disgusted air. ‘I was angry with her.’
‘Does she have a name?’
‘Melissa.’
‘Why don’t you say it?’
‘Would you want to?’
I shrugged and started to eat again. The mashed potatoes were too thick. The gravy was just right. I dipped a piece of chicken into it and watched Tom as I ate. He picked at his food and his eyes wandered all over the kitchen, taking everything in. I knew he was trying to think of other things, anything other than David.
‘Tell me what we are going to do today,’ I said, changing the subject.
‘Do you need to work?’
I thought about my deadlines. I was fortunate in that I had always worked ahead of schedule, in case an emergency came around and I needed to be away for a few weeks. But, after spending several days with Tom, I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable about keeping that safety cushion of time in my professional life.
‘I should get some things done,’ I said. ‘Are there things you need to do?’
Tom smiled. ‘I need to go to the firing range. You keep me sharp in the bedroom, but I still have to take care of skills everywhere else.’
I laughed and watched the life slowly come back into his eyes. The incident with David was moving to the back of his mind like a bad dream, and I was glad for that.
‘You go do that, and I’ll write, and then we’ll go out to dinner.’
Tom reached over and took my hand. He licked crumbs from my fingertips. ‘You choose where we go. But make sure it is the kind of place where you would be expected to wear a dress.’
‘This one?’
‘No. Something much more formal than that.’
I raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave me a wide-eyed look of innocence. ‘Hey – I can clean up real good. I can also behave myself to some extent. You’ll see.’
‘Seven,’ I said.
‘You’re on.’