Chapter Thirty-Six #2
"You want to know how I figured it all out?
" I asked, watching as she gave me a tight little nod.
"When you were on the phone with your ex, you begged him for something. Please,” I repeated, sucking in a deep breath, exhaling it slowly.
"I knew that sound. You. Begging. Fuck, you begged on that phone and my cock was straining.
Every fucking time. Don't," I said when her mouth opened.
"I already told you I don't bullshit people.
I'm telling you the truth. You don't get to choose whether you want to accept it or not.
It's a fact. I get it flies in the face of all the ugly shit you’ve probably been telling yourself, but that is what happened.
And kept happening. And that's probably why I flew off the handle when I found out it was you all along.
Not someone untouchable, someone halfway across the country, married with kids.
No. You were right there. All that time. Right within reach."
"I... I don't know what to say to that," she admitted after a long silence that had her pulling at a loose thread in the seam of her jeans.
"You believe me?" I asked.
"I don't think you would lie to me," she hedged, letting me know she wasn’t fully there.
"Okay," I said, nodding, standing.
I moved over toward the front door, sliding the lock.
"What are you doing?" she asked, brows pinching as I moved back toward her side.
"Come on," I urged, reaching down to grab her hand, pulling her to her feet, getting a small grumble.
"Just a couple feet," I promised her, pulling her through the office, bringing her through the door to my office, pressing her down into my chair.
"You sit here," I suggested, swiveling her so that she looked at the back wall, facing away from the doorway.
"And when that phone rings in ten seconds, answer it," I suggested.
"I, ah, why?" she asked, voice getting squeaky.
"Answer it, baby," I said, moving out into the hall, closing the door, taking a deep breath as I reached for my cell, dialing.
She let it ring three times, likely looking for the nerve to pick up, before she finally answered.
"Rush?" she asked, tone high-pitched. Nervous.
"Hello, Katherine," I said to her, leaning back against the wall in the hallway.
I couldn’t see her, save for one of her arms on the rest of the chair.
Still.
She was there.
Close.
Reachable.
And, fuck, I wanted to reach out.
But I couldn't. Not that way. Not yet.
Instead, I let my voice dip low, the same smooth sound it always had on the phone with her all those long nights.
"Oh," she said, her breath rushing out. "This isn't..."
"How was your day?" I cut her off, not giving her room to feel weird about it. It wasn't weird. We'd done this dozens of other times. The only difference was, now we both knew who we were on the phone with.
"I, ah. It was okay," she said.
"Just okay?" I pressed.
"I think I made a new friend," she admitted.
"Yeah? What’d you two do?"
"She... she gave me a makeover."
"Yeah?" I asked.
"She said something about how it worked for Sandy," she added, snorting a little. "But that I could do better than Danny," she added, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"How do you feel about the makeover?"
"It's... it's different. And I don't think I could ever figure out how she did the makeup myself, but I like it. I mean the shoes are awful. But I like it. She told me that she was going to make me see in the mirror what other people saw when they looked at me."
I felt a pang at that, at realizing how hard she must have been on herself, how much those assholes she went to school with had worked to shape her perception of herself.
"You're beautiful, baby," I told her. "Even without all that shit on your face.
And the awful shoes," I added, getting a small giggle out of her.
"So, what are you wearing?" I asked, trying to ignore the cheesiness of that line.
Sometimes, you had to pull on the classics.
Clothing talk, well, it led to other things. Things were classics for a reason.
"Ah, jeans," she said immediately. "And a top."
"Yeah? What kind of top?" I asked, feeling my lips quirk up.
"It's kind of like a, well, a corset," she admitted after a short pause.
"Hmm," I said, letting the sound rumble through my chest. "The kind where your hand can just slip down the top?" I asked, hearing the little in-drawn breath as she finally started to catch on.
"Rush.."
"No, baby, we're not in a rush," I cut her off.
"We can go as slow as you want," I added.
"Or as fast," I told her, already feeling my cock stirring, not sure how I was going to muster the self-control to stay where I was when she had her hand down her pants, when she was not only moaning through the phone at me, but one room away.
"Back to that corset," I went on, knowing she needed the talking, the suggestions, that she never did any of the talking, any of the leading.
"Can your hand just slide right inside the top? " I asked.
"I don't know."
"Think you can try for me?" I asked, taking a slow breath as the arm in the room across from me moved off the rest.
"Yeah," she told me, voice small.
"It slides right in?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Do you have anything on under it?" I asked, already knowing the answer, but we were working with the fantasy here.
"N-no."
"So I could slide my hand right down and close my hand around your breast?" I asked, hearing her breath catch slightly. "I could slip my thumb over your nipple?" I asked, closing my eyes, looking for some control. "Baby?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"Are you doing that for me?" I asked, already knowing she was. Because, apparently, she had the same issue I did. When we were on the phone with each other, neither of us could control our reactions to each other.
"Yes."
"You like it better when they're rolled though, right?" I asked, realizing there was so much I already knew about her preferences, despite never having experienced them firsthand.
"Yes," she said, voice a little thicker, needier.
"Does that feel good? Thinking about my fingers rolling, squeezing?" I asked. "About my lips sucking, tongue teasing, teeth nipping?" I asked.
To that, I got a painful stab of need in my cock, the friction in my jeans making it hard to focus.
"Yes," she said in that soft, sweet little voice of hers that I knew from experience meant she was ready to move on, that she was lost enough in the moment that she was able to detach, that she was mindless to anything but the need of release from the clawing need inside.
"I want to slide my hand inside your pants," I told her, getting a whimpering sound from her, knowing she was following along.
"Into your panties," I added, "Run my finger up your wet pussy.
You're wet for me, aren't you?" I asked, already knowing.
I could hear it in her breathing, in the catches, in the shaky exhales.
"Yes," she whimpered.
"I bet your clit is throbbing," I told her.
"Begging to be touched. Nice and slow," I added, knowing that was how she liked it to start, slowly building the momentum.
"Touch it for me, baby,” I demanded, my hand slipping down to rub over the fly of my jeans, just the once, convincing myself it would help the throbbing need, but finding that it only made it worse.
I stood there for a long moment, hearing her work herself, making the little mewling noises I'd been hearing in my dreams lately fill my ear, familiar, even hotter than they had been in the past.
Because they were hers.
"You want to come, don't you? I asked, hearing the roughness in my voice.
"Please," she begged.
Whatever was left of my control snapped at that word, at the desperation in it.
"Please what?" I demanded. I didn't usually put her on the spot, but I had already made it across the hall.
My forehead was pressed against the door, telling myself I would stay on this side of it, that I just wanted to be closer, that I wanted to hear her come through the wall instead of the phone.
I didn't expect her to say it, to find the nerve. But I guess I underestimated how desperate she was for release, how much she needed for me to demand she do it.
But then her voice met my ear, small, barely audible, but I heard it.
"Please make me come," she whispered.
There was no staying on my side of the door.
My hand was reaching for the knob before she even finished speaking, pushing the door open, striding across the office, tossing my phone on the desk, grabbing the one from her ear with one hand as I leaned over the back of the chair, my hand slipping down her pants with the other, sliding under her hand, hearing the surprised yelp at the contact as my thumb started circling her clit, hard and fast like I knew she wanted when she was close.
"Rush..." she whimpered, voice catching.
"This is better than the phone, isn't it?" I asked, lips down by her ear, feeling the tremble as it moved through her body.
"Yes," she admitted, turning her head into my neck, taking a deep breath as her signature coconut and pineapple scent met my nostrils.
My fingers slipped down her cleft, pressing inside her.
A low, ragged sound escaped me as her walls closed around my fingers, hot, wet, making my cock ache.
"You're so tight," I told her as my fingers pressed deep, getting a strangled sound out of her at the invasion.
"More?" I asked, flicking my fingers inside her, feeling her hips wiggle in a circle, begging for more.
"Please," she moaned, thighs pressing tighter together, trapping me even if I had a mind to pull away.
My fingers started fucking her. There was nothing slow or sweet or explorative about it. The thrusts were fast and hard, driving her up, making her walls get tighter and tighter as her moans got louder, needier, her lips pressing into my neck.
My fingers curled inside her, raking over her top wall.