If he wouldn’t reach for me…
I wanted so badly to pounce, to feel my lips on his, to ease the ache between my legs. But besides having learned my lesson in Palm Springs, this game was always best played from the stance of indifference. I couldn’t show him how desperately I wanted him. I’d let him call the shots. I’d let him initiate the moves. I’d let him make the offers. I’d wait.
I didn’t have to be happy about it, though.
I picked up the glass of water from the counter and turned to the sink to pour it out. “I’m sure you like to think that you’re God’s gift to women, Reeve. But that’s not how it works with me. I need to be taken care of. Otherwise I can be perfectly happy with my vibrator, thank you very much.”
He was on me in half a second. Less, even. He spun me around, gripping me at the elbows. He searched my eyes, always searching. Always studying.
“I can’t figure you out, Emily.” His words were tight yet even. “I don’t know if I like you or if I just want to fuck you.”
He pressed me into the point where the counters met and one of his hands moved to palm the back of my head. Then – now – while he held me forcibly in place, he crushed his mouth against mine.
At first, I tried to reciprocate. As he nipped at my bottom lip, I attempted to suck on his upper. As his tongue thrust inside my mouth, I moved mine along his teeth. But everything I did felt awkward and out of rhythm, and eventually I stopped trying. I gave in. I surrendered.
And that’s when the kiss became earth-shattering.
He took me where he wanted me to go, showing my lips how to move with the slightest turn of his head, coaxing my tongue with the silky licks of his own. It was a kiss that took – took my desire, took my passion, took my will. It was selfish and singularly choreographed for Reeve and Reeve alone.
But as he took, he also gave. The way he held me still, the way he set the tempo and chose the dance, the way he pressed and pushed and sucked and stroked so that I wouldn’t have to decide any of it, so that I could simply be present and cared for – those were gifts that he gave without hesitation or restraint.
He presented me with a freedom that I’d once had and taken for granted. And, damn, how I’d missed it. So even though this kiss was for him, about him, I took and took and took.
My lips felt bruised and swollen by the time he pulled away. I was dizzy and disoriented. I wanted him to keep kissing me. I wanted him to slip a hand down my shorts and bury it in my cunt. Then I wanted him to follow with his cock.
But his kiss had returned me to a role I knew well. A role I enjoyed more than any other. A role of submission.
“You’ll come over to swim Sunday morning,” he said. “Nine o’clock. I’ll text you the directions.”
He kissed me again – shorter, but rougher. More demanding, pressing all of his body against me, grinding his thick erection against my abdomen.
Then, abruptly, it was over.
He stepped back from me, his eyes wild as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. With a satisfied nod, he said, “Consider that your personal invitation.”
And he left.
CHAPTER 10
The relationship Amber and I had with Rob lasted nine months, until his wife hired a private investigator and found out about his naughty weekends. He dumped us then, saying he wanted to make his marriage work, but left us each with a nice parting gift in the form of a check.
“Severance,” I’d called it.
But the next time we saw him he had a sixteen-year-old on his arm and a wedding ring still on his finger. That’s when I learned my first hard lesson: Men Never Change.
I was still too naïve to realize that the axiom didn’t apply just to men.
When he ended things, I took it as a sign. My mother was on my case about not having a job. It was time to grow up, get a job, get an apartment.
Amber had other ideas.
At first she cried, as she always did – I’d learn that later too. She claimed she was heartbroken and would never love again. After a week of this, she woke up confident and resolute. “Time to go hunting,” she’d said.
Less than a month later, we were living in a two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood with Liam, a thirty-year-old copyright lawyer we’d met at a coffee shop. Our arrangement with Liam was different than it had been with Rob. He was nice, decent. He didn’t give us presents because we were having sex with him, but he did take care of us.
And we took care of him. We did the grocery shopping and the laundry and lounged by his pool while he went to the office. When he came home, we fed him a home-cooked dinner and rubbed his shoulders. Then he’d take one of us to bed. He didn’t feed us drugs. He wasn’t married or rich in any sense of the word, but he made more than enough. He liked one-on-one sex as much, if not more, than threesomes, and he always chose Amber as his solo partner. Which was fine with me. She “loved him madly” – her words – and he seemed genuinely fond of her as well. They were an adorable couple. I was the best girlfriend with benefits.
Part of me thought our happy family could last forever. Another part was smarter than that. Not just smarter but itchy for something else, something I couldn’t name. Restless, I took some acting workshops and a couple of jobs modeling for stock photographers. Amber, on the other hand, gave all her attention to Liam and her assumed role of housewife, which included, in her mind, spending his money.
One Friday, Amber was out on an all-day shopping spree when Liam came home unexpectedly early from work. He’d been at court all morning and decided there wasn’t any point going into the office at that time of day, so he took the afternoon off. I fixed him a sandwich and set him up in front of the TV – what Amber would have done if she’d been there.