Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Hallie
I arrive at the pool house, and I’m agitated. Agitated with a side of pent-up sexual frustration. The night is warm, as is my body from the effects of both alcohol and Marcus’s lips.
I replay in my head for the second time today how close we had come to being together. How desperate our kiss had been and how I’d grasped at his shirt as if I could wish away both it and the people who’d been so close by.
Julian and Erica’s arrival had only added to the tension between me and Marcus as they ordered food and drinks, setting themselves up for a night of being social. We laughed and drank and snarked, and all the while, Marcus looked on, no longer drinking, instead keeping watch as we enjoyed one another’s company. It’d felt nice to not be on the outside looking in. Three servings of truffle fries and one too many red wines later, I was still aware enough to notice him pouring me a glass of water, only to top off everyone else as a secondary thought. I’d raised my brows at him in response and had received a text moments later simply stating, “You’re no good to me drunk or hungover.”
Stripping off my clothes, I move to my bed, promising myself the release I’ve yet to find this evening. There’s no possible way I can sleep without it. It’s as I’m lying here, thinking about the events of the night—for more personally productive reasons—that my phone flashes on my nightstand. I tilt my head back into my pillow, groaning at the universe’s inability to let me get off without interruption.
However, when I see it’s Marcus, I answer without a second thought.
“Hey.” The words feel awkward after all that’d been alluded to earlier in the night.
“Hey yourself,” he replies steadily, no sound in the background to indicate where he is.
“Did you get them home okay?” I ask, my brain skipping ahead to wonder if he’s perhaps just across the small, dark garden from me or if maybe he’s still sitting in his car, unsure of whether to head to his own bed or to try and slip into mine.
“Yeah, I did, but I’m going to crash the night here in the spare room to make sure they’re okay.” His response answers my previous thoughts, and I feel the dip of disappointment in my chest.
“You’re a better person than I am.”
“Oh, I’m really not. I had other plans for my night.” His voice is still steady but with an undeniable gruffness, which only helps to turn me on further.
“Really, and what plans were they?” I inquire with false innocence.
I shuffle under the covers and put my phone on speaker so I can trail one hand down my torso.
“I had plans with you, Hallie.”
There’s a rustling in the background, and I close my eyes, imagining he, too, is in bed, although I won’t ask it to confirm.
“What type of plans, Marcus?” I’m tipsy enough that the suggestion in my voice amplifies.
“Plans I’m upset we’ve had to put off,” he says.
While there’s nothing overly sexy about the words, just his voice is enough to help get me where I want to go tonight.
And it won’t be the first time.
Slipping my fingers down to the waistband of my panties, I trace along the seams before using my nails to graze over the barely there fabric covering my pussy. I bite my lip, moving my fingers away and onto the skin of my inner thighs, teasing myself, and I smile, wondering how long it’ll take him to figure out just what I’m doing on the other end of this call.
“Tell me more about these plans, Marcus.”
I hear a gentle groan before, “Hallie, are you in bed?”
He’s more astute than I’d thought.
I stroke my fingers back over the fabric of my panties, alternating between the soft touch and the drag of nails.
“Yes, I am.”
I trace small circles with my fingertips over the most delicate of skin, that which lives in the crease between my thigh and the lace of my thong. I relish the way the tiny hairs on my body rise in their wake.
“Do you wish I was there too?” he asks with a genuineness I wasn’t expecting.
A genuineness that lets me know, regardless of our animosity, he wishes to be here in this bed.
And so I answer him with absolute, undeniable honesty. “So much.”
Again, I hear a groan, and I can imagine him combing his fingers through his hair in frustration, pulling it just slightly.
“Hallie, are your hands above your waist?”
At this, I know I could laugh—the urge bubbles up inside of me—but I don’t because he’s so on point to have asked.
“Only the one, Marcus.”
“Fuck.” I hear his sheets rustle around again. “What are you wearing?”
“Underwear. Pretty, lacy ones, much nicer than the ones from earlier today,” I tease, keeping my fingers dancing along my skin.
“Are you touching yourself?” he asks, outright pain laced through his voice.
My free hand moves up to graze across the satiny skin of my breasts. I switch it up, gently scratching my nails, pressing hard enough to leave fine marks. If I’d thought I had goose bumps before, I was wrong.
“Not yet.”
But the honest truth is I’m starting to feel breathless with anticipation.
“Do you want to play, Hallie? Do you want me to make you come?”
A laugh slips out for real now. “It’s cute you think I need your help to make that happen.”
His laugh is deep. “Of course you don’t need my help. But do you want it? Do you want me to give you my sounds, to tell you how I’m dying to have you sit on my face before you sit on my cock, to help get you there?”
Now it’s my turn to groan. “Yes. Please.” The final word ends on a pant.
“Are you still wearing your panties, Hallie?” His tone is firm, and I can tell he’s trying not to be loud, aware that he’s staying in his brother’s house.
“Yes,” I say simply, more than eager for what comes next.
“I want you to touch yourself over the material, rub your fingertips back and forward for me. Make sure you brush over your clit, but don’t you dare linger. Are you doing that for me?”
I moan, acting out each word as he says it, running my fingernails over the waistband of my panties, along the edges near my thighs, and then inward and over the black lace, where it gives me the most sensation. Where I can feel the moisture that’s seeping through, I repeat my strokes, my nails gently grazing.
“Hallie, you don’t get to touch skin until the material is slick, until you’re seeping. Until you can feel it on your fingers. Can you feel yourself yet?”
My insides clench at his dirty words. “Yes,” I whimper.
“That was quick, beautiful.”
I flush, my body heating further as I continue to stroke within the moisture seeping through insubstantial lace.
“I just want you to tell me one more thing. One more thing, and then you can fuck yourself with those fingers properly, okay?”
“Okay,” I agree.
“You know I love how you smell, the spot behind your ear, the base of your neck, it puts me at ease—the air I want to breathe has you in it. But the scent of your pussy, Hallie? There’s nothing else like it for me. I’ve missed it. I’m hungry for it—my mouth waters for it. Tell me, beautiful, do you smell good?”
I am both breathless and embarrassed.
But Jesus Christ, why is this question so fucking hot?
I whisper my reply, desire crawling through me. “Yes.”
“Good girl.” Apparently, there are no bounds as to how turned on this man can make me. “Push your panties to the side for me, Hallie. Tell me how wet you are, how soft and slick you are for me.”
I nod, doing as he asks, and then remember he can’t see me. I need to speak. “I don’t want to describe it. I wish you could feel it. I want your fingers inside me, for you to press down on me as I come.”
“Run your fingertips up and down, Hallie. I bet it feels better now that you’re touching skin. I want you to feel how wet you are, how good this is going to be. If I were there, I’d make sure you were drenched, covering my fingers before I pushed them inside you slowly, so slowly.”
With my eyes closed, it’s all I can do to keep my pace slow, to continue the edging I’d started. And I hope he knows I’m listening because I can’t speak; I can only breathe. While I may have started this game, I’m so happy to have handed the control to him.
“I want you to slowly press one of your fingers inside. Just the tip to start, Hallie, and then slowly ease it in. Move it in and out gently. Just the one, babe.” He pauses, and I can only assume he knows I’m following his instructions closely. “I want you to pretend it’s me, that I’m pushing inside you, getting you ready for what’s next. I’d make sure your breasts weren’t neglected. Would you want me to touch them, Hal?”
It’s more of a moan than a fully formed word when I say, “Yesss.”
“Tell me how. I want to know, Hallie. I want you to use your other hand to touch your breasts while you fuck yourself.”
I could come from his words alone, my mind a haze as I start to speak. “They’re heavy, so soft and heavy. I want you to touch them and squeeze them.”
I do as he says, using my hands to bring myself closer to climax, a mix of his voice and his instructions making my breath come in short gasps.
“Are you close, Hallie? I want you to add another finger and play with your clit. Can you do that for me? You’re so fucking sexy, more beautiful than I could’ve ever remembered.” Through the fog of my own desire-addled brain, I can hear him, the sound of skin on skin, of the stroking of his large hand up and down. I push two fingers inside myself, using my thumb to rub my clit, and still, if he’d give me more, I’d take it. “I’m hard just thinking about you touching yourself and getting yourself off. I want to hear you come for me. I want to hear you now so next time I can focus completely on your face, even as you scream your release.”
It’s these final words he releases in a growl that push me over the edge. I arch back into my pillow as my body peaks. I can no longer hear; all I can do is feel as sensation rushes me, heat threading through my limbs. And I let go.
My skin’s hot, heartbeat racing as I come down from my high, and I return to my senses, becoming aware of Marcus’s breathing on the other end of the line. I’m not embarrassed, not by a mile, but I also have no idea what to say in this situation. Somehow, “Thank you?” doesn’t seem quite right.
My head still not fully screwed on postorgasm, I open my mouth and let the words tumble out, hoping for the best. “Well…that’s so much better with outside involvement.”
The laugh I get from Marcus is choked. “Was that the first time you’ve had phone sex?”
I stare up at my ceiling, sated and playful. “Hmm, not exactly. It’s just the first time the other person’s known about it.”
“What do you mean?”
There isn’t jealousy in his tone, but there’s a definite edge to his curiosity. I decide to forgo thinking about the consequences.
“Well, it’s just you never noticed when we were younger.”
I stretch under my sheets before curling on my side.
“What?” he asks, not understanding what I’m hinting at.
It thrills me that this dirty little secret of mine has remained unknown for so long—until the time of my choosing, of course.
I smile to myself. “It means you never noticed I was touching myself while I was on the phone with you when we were younger. That when we were on the phone for hours at a time, I’d use your voice to get myself off.”
Silence greets me on the other end of the line. “Are you fucking with me?”
“Not in the slightest,” I respond, thinking back on all the times I’d lain in bed on the phone with him, letting a hand slip slowly down beneath my pajama bottoms. Or to the first time I’d improvised and purchased a hairbrush for the shape of the handle alone, just to sneak it under the covers with me.
“So when I was a teenager, horny as hell, dying to be inside of you, you were on the phone to me, making yourself come?” he asks on a groan, voice slightly muffled.
I can only imagine that he’s just dragged a hand down his face in disbelief.
I laugh. “Well, when you put it like that, it just makes me sound selfish.”
“Hal, there is not a selfish bone in you, and you just topped your own spot on my favorite wet dream list.”
I implore my tired mind to hold on to this fact for me to think about tomorrow, that I had a place on this list at all.
I pull my sheets up higher on my chest, tired but forever curious. “Does it turn you on knowing I’d use you to get myself off?”
“I’ve been rock solid since you answered. Just the thought of you in bed tonight was enough, but the knowledge of you touching yourself, of using me to get yourself off…I think I’m going to take that into the shower with me.”
I’ve closed my eyes now, barriers down, after my confession. “Mmm, well, you have fun with that.”
“I will, Hallie. Good night.”
“Night, Marcus.”
With my lids still shut, I let my mind wander once more to the bar this evening and find myself back in the low lighting, weaving my way through the space until I spot him.
My body is attuned to his in some indescribable way.
He’s seated at the bar, chatting with the bartender, a charcoal suit jacket thrown over the back of his stool, his white shirtsleeves rolled up, exposing firm forearms.
My heart flutters, and instead of replaying this evening, I let myself picture what it would’ve been like in another life—me finishing up with work for the day and meeting Marcus for drinks before heading home together.
He, always early, would’ve already ordered me a glass of red wine, and I, not wanting to miss a second of us being together, wouldn’t ever be late. Maybe it would be a Friday thing, sometimes just us and sometimes with Erica and Julian.
Everything a younger and more hopeful version of myself could have ever wanted. My chest constricts, my throat tight and dry at the thought.
But then I think about how his eyes met mine tonight, about how his lips spread into the most stunning of smiles. I think of this ridiculous set of rules we’re most likely going to break.
Really, what we have now might not be so bad.