Chapter 23
DUSTIN
“Can you drive a little faster, please?”
“Sorry Sir,” my Lyft driver said. “Lots of traffic for a concert this afternoon.”
I gritted my teeth and stared at my phone as we inched down the gridlock on Halsted Street. Why was my wife not answering my texts?
The last text from her might have had me worried if I’d been a cheating fuck, which I wasn’t. After we tied the knot, I summarily blocked all the girls who liked to text me late at night. Who would even be able to get into my house? Only a couple close friends even had the key.
My stomach coiled, and realization shot through me when I saw a billboard for The Jennifer Lopez concert tonight.
Jenny.
I thought I made it clear we were just friends. But she did like to do some odd stuff.
I checked my last text from her—which I hadn’t responded to because my mind had been on hockey all week.
Jenny: hey hotsauce, just wondering if your place is clean or if it could use a drop by?
I texted her back frantically. I thought I’d made things clear to Jenny that I was, you know, married now.
Dustin: The place is perfectly clean! No need. Thanks, though!
The read receipt did not come through to my phone.
Five minutes later, I was in front of my house.
I noted the lights were on from outside, and as I walked in, I heard multiple voices, male and female.
Leaving my things in the front room, I strolled past the kitchen to the source of the sound in the back living room.
I came upon a scene in the back of two frat boys, my good friend Jenny, and Cat squeezed together on a couch drinking wine. Not the scene I was expecting—or wanting—to come home to, after a ten-day west coast road trip.
“Oh hey, honey,” Cat said, getting up, glass of wine in hand. “Good to see you,” she whispered in my ear before kissing me on the cheek.
“Holy shit,” the guy who was next to her said. “You’re Dustin LeBlanc.”
“Very perceptive,” I gritted through my teeth, staring down the two men. “Hi, Jenny.” She was visibly drunk and clearly enjoying her flirting time.
“We just came back here after we were at the bar,” Cat explained.
“That’s good,” I nodded. “Nice to meet you guys. I’m going to have to ask you all to leave, though, as I need to have a chat with my wife.”
They didn’t protest, but stood up quickly, with Jenny.
“Thanks for the wine, bro,” one of them said, slapping me on the back as he walked toward the door. “I don’t care what the news says about you. You’re alright.”
One of the frat bros was ushering Jenny out the door with him, and I stopped her. “That’s alright,” I said. “I’ll call Jenny an Uber.”
He stood, dumbfounded, swaying a little bit in the doorframe.
“Bro,” I added, with a wink.
He sighed a little dejectedly and continued out the door.
I called Jenny a car home, and when we were finally alone, I turned to Cat. I clenched my jaw, looking at her as she stood coquettishly leaned back against the kitchen island. She held a glass of plum-colored wine in her hand and wore jeans and a blue blouse.
“What the fuck was that?” I said, stepping to the kitchen counter and pouring myself a glass of wine.
“What was what?” she replied innocently.
“Uh, you invited two guys over to my house without asking me.”
“This is our house. Not your house.”
I took a deep breath and gulped down some wine. “Arriving home after a long road trip to other random bros who I don’t know is not something I want to become a regular practice.”
“Just like I don’t want to come home to a naked woman cleaning your house?”
I tensed. “Well, looks like you two got along pretty well, anyway.” I stepped in closer to her.
“She told me about the girl,” Cat said.
I shrugged. “What girl?”
“The one you’re not over. From college.”
I felt my throat bob. Saying nothing, I took another sip of wine.
“So it’s true?” she added.
“Look, Cat, is it really necessary for us to know the ins and outs of every romantic detail from the past? This is an arrangement.” As soon as I said the word arrangement—even a millisecond before—I felt my gut twist. Arrangement wasn’t the right word to describe us. Far from it, actually.
“Right. I’m just your little convenient fucktoy so you can get your rocks off and not worry about the media for a while.”
“That came out wrong,” I admitted.
“Well, then what am I? What are we? Other than a good fuck, that is.”
I scrubbed my hand over my jaw and tried to sort through my thoughts rapidly.
“Where is this coming from?” I started. “I was really looking forward to coming back here and being with you today. I’m sorry that I have people from my past doing things like cleaning my house naked.
I can’t help it if that’s what women want to do for me. ”
She laughed, and it sounded a little maniacal. “Oh, well that’s perfect. Sorry I’m so awesome girls just drop their panties for me. I should have believed the first impression I had of you after our elevator encounter. You’re cocky, vain, and you’re never going to change, are you?”
I took a step toward her, putting my hand on the kitchen counter right next to her. I could feel the heat emanating from her body. I was about to speak, when she spoke first, her eyes glossed over.
“I feel like a fool,” she said. “A fool for getting into this whole thing with you, and now if we break up, It’s like, freaking fraud, which carries a five-year prison sentence.”
“What do you even see in me?” she added.
I rubbed my ten days of scruff. If there was any time for complete honesty, and transparency, it was now.
“Ever since the moment I saw you in the elevator, I was drawn to you like a magnet. I can’t tell you exactly why.
Although I do know that you intrigue me.
A lot. You’re sexy and smart. You’ve got something that I’ve never been able to pull off. ”
She cast her eyes down a moment, then brought them back up. “Do you really think that?”
I nodded.
“Look, Cat. Ever since I’ve played hockey, people don’t really think too much of me outside the sport.
To them, I’m a dumb jock type. But you’re the antithesis of that.
I know we were drunk—or high on life—or whatever, the day we got married.
But it doesn’t change the fact that something in my core is drawn to you in a way I’ve never been drawn to everyone else.
I told Jenny we’re an ‘arrangement,’ yes.
But I don’t think it’s any of her business what’s going on in my heart.
And, being totally honest, I don’t even get it myself.
I know I love spending time with you, soaking up all the seconds I have until the summer, or whenever we decide to end this crazy arrangement.
But arrangement’s a bad word. And I don’t want to think of the end right now. ”
She angled her face away from me. I could tell she was uncomfortable, and I wasn’t sure why. I stepped into her and pressed my hips against her body, then used my forefinger to point her chin at me. Her big brown eyes were wide.
“That’s what I see in you,” I reiterated, and I felt a rush of emotion flow through me.
The tension in the air grew thick. I swore I could hear her heart beating over the only noise in the house, the rumbling heater. Her head tilted just slightly, and her breath became audible and deep. I wondered if her body was throbbing from the inside out as much as mine was.
In the next blink of our eyes, our lips smashed together, and her arms wrapped tightly around my back. She moaned into my mouth, and my erection pressed up against her belly through my pants, aching to escape.
Her hand slipped under my shirt and she dragged it across my abs.
I tensed. “You’re cold,” I said.
Her eyes flickered up at me with intensity. “And you’re hot.”
I smirked.
“Your body, I mean.”
I smirked harder.
“I mean the temperature of your skin . . . you know what, I’m just going to stop talking now.”
I threw my head back in laughter before I lifted her up onto the kitchen counter and kissed her again.
The electricity between us was driving me insane.
She held her legs out and I helped her wiggle out of her jeans, while her hands unbuttoned and unzipped mine.
When she wrapped her legs around my midsection, my cock slipped out and rubbed her clit through the fabric of her panties.
She exhaled a hard breath. “Ohh, Dustin. Stop teasing me.”
“You mean like this?” I said, biting back my grin. I peeled her panties down and pushed the fleshy head of my cock into her so it just grazed her clit.
She leaned back on the counter, and her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
“Stop,” she moaned.
I pulled my cock away quickly.
“You okay?”
“No, I meant stop teasing and just fuck me, you dick.”
I paused and smiled. She smiled back.
It was a messy, beautiful hookup, and we were both loving it.
She didn’t even have her shirt off yet. With my eyes focused on her, I ran my hand slowly down the hot skin of her belly and landed a finger on her clit.
Her legs were spread apart, wide on the kitchen counter, and my flesh rested on her thigh while I lightly rubbed her.
She twisted gently into my finger, and I loved feeling how wet she was for me. When she let go of a hard breath, I kissed her again and ate up her moan.
“How wet are you right now?” I teased.
She bit her lower lip. “Too wet for you to keep teasing me like this,” she said with hooded eyes. Her hand moved to my wrist, and she pulled it away. “Just for this, I’m going to get you back.”
“Get me . . . back?”
She nodded, then pushed me away gently. “Go to your room,” she whispered.
“Um, what?” I said, looking at the giant erection that was sticking straight out from my body.
“You heard me,” she smiled. “Just wait there.” Her eyes told me this was something good, so I listened to her and headed to the master bedroom.
I took off my shirt, so I was stark naked and lay down on top of the covers, wondering what Cat’s devilish mind was going to come up with.