Chapter 23 Sexts and Stalkers #2
I nodded, took our glasses into the kitchen and dumped them in the sink. By the time I looked up again, Kat had disappeared.
Another pang of sadness tore through me. Lying to her had always been hard, but I’d justified it with the knowledge that it was better for her not to know the sordid details of my life.
Her remark about confiding in Dom had stung because I used to be the only one she confided in. I had no one to blame but myself—I’d been pushing her away all year. It was only natural she would find someone else she could talk to the way she had me.
It was only going to get worse, too, because there was no way I could keep my marriage a secret forever. And when she found out, she was going to resent me for all the lies. And I couldn’t even blame her, because if our roles were reversed, I’d be furious.
And then there was the added guilt that there was a part of me, a not small part, that didn’t want to be here, in this cold apartment, but back on the yacht, cuddling Abernathy and teasing Henry … and maybe practising more kisses …
And that part of me felt relieved that Kat had gone to bed so that I could retreat to my room and finish reading that message he’d sent me earlier.
What did he want to wrap his tongue around? My clit throbbed violently, as if it were screaming, ‘me, me, me!’ The curved bar through it grazed against my underwear, and I squirmed.
Pizd?, would it be wrong to sext him? To use the fact that we had to pretend to be intimate, and actually get off on it? Because if I read the end of that message, I wasn’t going to be able to help myself, I just knew it.
Scooping up my phone, I raced to my bedroom, shutting and locking the door. I opened Tickle.
M_Jay: What I’d really like for your mouth to be doing is making that pleading little moan that gets me so worked up I can’t think straight, while I kiss my way down your body, part those pretty thighs of yours, wrap my tongue around your sexy little piercing and suck on it until those moans turn to screams.
“Fuck me,” I muttered, tugging off my sleep shorts and panties and throwing myself onto the bed.
He had said he enjoyed dirty talk, but this was just unfair!
So insanely unfair. I was throbbing, and aching, and …
holy shit, I was soaked! I dipped my fingers inside myself, spreading that wetness over my ‘sexy little piercing’, and the sensitive flesh around it. My other hand tapped away.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: Now you’re making me wish I was at home with you! My fingers are talented, but they don’t even come close to your tongue
I bit my lip, circling my clit with featherlight strokes, tugging gently on my piercing, teasing myself as the three dots popped up again. If I did anything more, I was going to climax in less than thirty seconds, and I really wanted to see what he’d say next.
M_Jay: What about the other parts of me? Because I would only be getting started, with my mouth between your legs … tell me what you’d want me to do next, once you’d screamed out your orgasm on my tongue?
My fingers slid inside me, because oh God, what I wanted from him … I was already tightening around myself, and I spread my legs wider, pressing the heel of my palm against my piercing, grinding it against my clit as my fingers thrust. I bit my lip. Don’t come yet, Ri …
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: You lick me until I am a panting mess.
And only when I tug at those sexy curls of yours, and plead that I can’t take any more, will you look up at me, your grinning mouth glistening, and you slowly kiss your way back up my body, until you’re over me, wrapping me in your arms, and letting me taste myself on your tongue
With an effort, I stilled my hand. My pussy fluttered around my fingers, so close. I didn’t want this to end. I didn’t want to come until this fantasy we were sharing came to a close. Those three dots were going to kill me!
M_Jay: We’re both slick with sweat, and I’m so hard that I’m worried about fitting inside you
Oh, lord. I’d seen what he was packing in his swim trunks, and I’d felt him, hard and pulsing between my legs, with only two layers of lycra separating us, but holy damn! Had that been a problem for him with women before?
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: I reassure you that you’ve made me so wet and ready that it will feel amazing, no matter what. And then I grip you, and line you up right where I need you, and …
M_Jay: And I slowly slide into you, groaning because you feel perfect, Catnip
I loved his nickname for me. I loved that I could practically hear him growling it in my ear as he slid deep into me. Like he was barely holding himself back.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: You’re stretching me, but it feels fantastic, and I tug your mouth to mine as you move in me, perfect thrusts that hit every right spot inside me until I’m coming again, squeezing you and crying out against your lips
I rocked my hips, moving my hand to try and simulate the sensation of him. My walls tightened, achy heat building inside me, unfurling into pleasure so intense that when I closed my eyes, all I saw was stars as my orgasm crested.
Panting, my pussy still pulsing around my drenched hand, I looked down at my phone.
M_Jay: And thank God for that, because you feel so good, I was never lasting more than a minute or two, and I follow you, burying myself deep inside you as I climax
My eyes slid shut, and I could picture it, clear as day. His damp, warm body over mine, his eyes glassy, his cock still twitching inside me with the tail end of his orgasm. And I’d reach up, cupping those beautiful, flushed cheeks of his, my chest aching with the intensity of my feelings.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: I miss you
M_Jay: You know I miss you too
M_Jay: Hope you sleep well
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: After the orgasm I just had, I can guarantee it
He didn’t respond immediately, and I wondered if maybe I’d overstepped. Had I gone too far off the naughty newlywed script and to a place that blurred the lines too much for him?
I climbed out of bed, heading for the bathroom to clean myself up. He doesn’t know that I’d really been touching myself.
So why were butterflies rioting in my stomach? And why did I almost not want to check my phone when I got back in case there was nothing?
I wanted to hear from him. And not just for fake newlywed sexy times.
My phone screen was illuminated when I returned, but my heart sank when I checked to find messages from Stefan. Nothing from Henry.
Stefan: I just realised how stupid this all is! They want you home, but they’ve just taken away your means of booking a flight!
Stefan: Fuck I hate our family sometimes
Stefan: Tell me the date you complete your degree, and I’ll look up some flights. My treat
Ice flooded my veins, stealing away any lingering wellbeing I’d been feeling from my intense orgasm. I couldn’t afford to have a firm date set on my return yet—not before I knew that my visa was secured and they couldn’t get me deported.
Ri: I have no idea yet. Exam dates haven’t been announced. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I have more information
Stefan: You must have some idea of when the semester ends, though. Just give me the first date of the semester break, and I’ll look from that date onwards
I shoved my phone under my pillow, breathing hard.
Every message from him felt like a nail in my coffin.
I knew he thought he was helping, and he didn’t know that I had no intentions of returning to the fate I’d been forced into.
But lately, his questions had started to feel more and more like demands. Like suspicion.
How much could I really trust Stefan? I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him much in the four years I’d been in Australia, and who knew how far he’d been drawn into my uncle’s sordid web?
I couldn’t trust anyone from home.
On shaky legs I got up to close my curtains. The night was unseasonably arctic for April, and I pressed my cheek against the glass, hoping the cold would freeze out some of the worries cramming my head.
Something moved, down on the street, in the shadows just outside the glowing circle of the streetlight. I squinted into the dark, wondering if it was that feral cat that I’d caught digging in the communal garbage bins earlier in the year. The thing had looked pregnant, maybe it had babies now.
No … the shape in the shadows was too big to be a cat.
And when it shifted again, stepping slightly into the light, I realised that it was a man.
A thickset man wearing a baseball cap. I stepped back hurriedly, my heart in my throat, my mind instantly going back two weeks to that man at the bus stop on the morning of my wedding.
It can’t be him. It’s just a coincidence, I reasoned. Loads of men wore baseball caps. He was probably waiting for an Uber or something. That was the most rational explanation.
Still, I moved around my bed, turning off the lamp and dousing the room in darkness. Creeping back to the window, I peered out again. My view of the street was better without the light from my room reflecting on the glass.
He was still there, huddled in a thick parka. He wasn’t watching my window, but scanning the street, and as I spied on him, a car pulled up to the curb.
See? It’s just an Uber …
But I knew that car. And it wasn’t an Uber.
Not unless things had turned around so completely for Rumi in the last few weeks that she’d started offering ride shares in her Maserati.
Rumi was clearly still stalking my apartment.
She switched the headlights off, and the man opened the passenger door and climbed into the car. I barely breathed for interminable moments as they sat there, in the darkness, outside my apartment, doing God knew what.
I gripped the windowsill with clammy palms, waiting. And waiting. Finally, the guy climbed out of the car, and Rumi crawled off down the street, her headlights still off. My attention slid reluctantly back to the man as he tucked something inside his parka.
My stomach dropped. What had she given him—money? Was she paying some creep to watch my apartment? And if she was, would she be able to trace me back to Henry? And what would she do if—when—she found out about my marriage to him? She could ruin everything.
Nausea clawed its way up my throat, and I staggered to the bed and curled up on top of the covers, breathing through the rising urge to vomit.
I hadn’t really worried about Rumi much after she’d stopped sending text messages, but that had been stupid and na?ve …
and potentially ruinous. How had I managed to forget that she was a controlling psychopath?
Shivering, I tugged back the comforter enough to tuck myself under it, huddling down until it covered me up to my nose. This was the way I’d always slept as a child. And always facing the door so that no one could ever surprise me by coming into my room while my back was turned.
I needed to tell Henry that Rumi was more of an issue than we thought. That we might need to bump her up a few places on his risk-assessment spreadsheet.
I needed to talk to Henry, to have him use that logical brain of his to figure out a way we could fix this.
I just … I needed Henry.
My phone buzzed under my pillow. La naiba, I didn’t want to look.
But what if it was Henry?
Swallowing down a sudden surge of hope, I tugged the phone out. A Tickle notification showed on my lock screen. Thank fuck it wasn’t Stefan. Opening the app, I almost cried when I saw I had a new message from M_Jay.
M_Jay: What time will you be home tomorrow?
Forcing the spiralling thoughts from my head, I channelled my newlywed persona. No need to worry him about this now. I’d wait until we were face to face, which would also save him having to scrub all the evidence of it from our text chat.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: I think I’ll come home early. Kat has school tomorrow, so there’s nothing keeping me here
M_Jay: I have to go into the office tomorrow
M_Jay: I’m so sorry
I blinked against the prickling in my eyes.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: That’s ok! You’re allowed to have a job. You’re not JUST my husband, you know
M_Jay: Come into the office tomorrow, we’ll go to brunch. I don’t want to wait until after work to see you again
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: You really are missing me, aren’t you?
I stared at the dots, a smile forming, chasing away some of the haunted feelings. I could almost pretend this was real, and he actually missed me, and it wasn’t just an act.
M_Jay: More than you could possibly imagine.
M_Jay: Goodnight, Catnip xxx