Chapter 8 #2
A councilman named James adjusts his cufflinks and tells me he's heard a lot about the store but hasn't made it in yet.
"You should," Callum says. "Her family's owned it for twenty-nine years."
Then he looks at me and waits.
The councilman turns back toward me too.
I answer questions about the move, the pop-up traffic, the coffee bar. Callum stands beside me with one hand in his pocket, listening. I catch myself leaning into his side by half an inch and don't correct it. Strategic, I think. I don't entirely believe it.
Then Marvin Stein crosses near the silent auction tables.
Callum stills beside me. Not enough for anyone else to notice. Just enough that his hand stops moving against the stem of his glass.
I follow his line of sight.
Silver hair. Perfect smile. Expensive suit tailored within an inch of its life.
Stein reaches us with his hand already extended. "Avery Laramie. I've heard wonderful things about your store. Port Hueneme has such charming, resilient little businesses."
Something old and tired rises in my chest and finds its way to my mouth before I've made a conscious decision about it. "We prefer solvent."
Callum's hand finds my waist and presses once. Firm and brief, saying nothing.
Stein laughs his polished laugh and says something gracious about the foundation's work, then moves on toward a city councilmember who looks considerably more grateful for the attention.
As he moves away, I notice three separate conversations stall long enough to track where he's going before picking back up again.
Nobody stares, and they don't have to. The room seems to know where he is at all times.
He says nothing useful about Harbor View Drive. He never quite reaches it. I watch him for an hour and come away with nothing except a detailed familiarity with the shrimp situation.
During the live auction I stand in the back with no interest in the bidding and think about the waist press and the fact that Callum decided to hold me back without asking me first, which I noticed. I also think about the way he introduced me to everyone.
His hand was warm at my elbow. The same hand that pulled my records before I asked. The pressure lingers, and so does the fact he moved first. I hold both at once and neither lets go. The fact that I haven't stepped away from him feels like an answer I don't trust yet.
Someone laughs too loudly near the auction stage.
A server nearly clips my shoulder with a tray of champagne flutes and I step aside automatically, straight into another conversation about redevelopment permits and coastal zoning.
Stein's laugh carries across the ballroom again, smooth and practiced.
My champagne suddenly tastes flat.
I set the glass on a passing tray before I can change my mind.
I've written Marvin Stein. Not him specifically, but the type.
The man who uses warmth as real estate and makes every room feel like an opportunity he's generously letting you participate in.
Lara Vaine would have her protagonist see through it in the first scene.
I've been watching him work this ballroom for two hours and I still can't find the seam.
I'm starting to think there's a reason I write fiction.
"Excuse me," I mutter to nobody in particular.
The ballroom closes in on me and I spot the side door near the coat check, push through it without thinking and up two flights of stairs. I don't exactly plan to go up to the rooftop, but the ballroom is loud and I need air. I push through the door and the Pacific comes at me cold and salt-sharp.
The rooftop door clicks shut behind me.
I grip the cold parapet stone and stare out at the darkness for a second too long before a voice cuts through the wind.
"You've been trying to get close to Stein all night."
I turn so fast my heel catches against the concrete.
Callum stands near the door with his hands in his pockets like he belongs there.
And for one irrational second, all I can think is why the hell did he follow me up here.
“You watched him cross the room and looked at him the same way you looked at the wiring in my store.” I fold my arms against the cold. “Do you have more information than you've given me?”
He watches me for a second before answering. “Yes.”
The answer should have made me furious. Instead it feels strangely better than another carefully edited half-truth.
At least now I know where we're standing.
“That’s annoying.” I let out a quiet breath through my nose.
His mouth shifts just enough to count as amusement. “I know,” he says, stepping closer and looking back toward the skyline.
For a second neither of us says anything.
The wind tugs at my hair and sends the sound of the ocean up from somewhere below. "I should probably be angrier about that."
His eyes find mine. "Probably."
"Instead I spent the last five minutes hoping you'd follow me up here." I let out a laugh that doesn't sound much like one.
Something shifts in his expression. Not surprise, something quieter.
I look back toward the dark water. "That's not a thing I usually do."
"No," he says.
"No?"
"You don't usually let people see what you're thinking."
The observation lands because he's right. It’s such a plain thing to say and somehow that does something to my chest I don’t entirely have language for.
“You make finding things out seem competitive.”
“I’ve spent the last two hours introducing you as a business associate.” His eyes stay on mine. “I’m done doing that.”
He steps forward and puts both hands on either side of my face against the parapet stone.
I close the remaining distance myself. Not because I lost the argument, but because I stopped having it.
One second his jacket's draped over his shoulders, the next it's a dark pool at our feet. The cold bites harder without the barrier between us, but I don't care. His hands find my hips, fingers digging in with the kind of pressure that says mine and I've been thinking about this.
His mouth is on my throat before I can breathe, his lips hot against my skin, his teeth grazing just enough to make me gasp.
"I've been thinking about this since the storeroom," he murmurs against my pulse, his voice a rough edge of need.
My hands fly to his shoulders, nails biting through the fabric of his shirt. "I know. Me too."
And God, I have. But this isn't the same.
The storeroom was pure combustion. Unplanned, explosive, the kind of thing that happens when you've been staring at someone's mouth for too long and finally snap.
This is a decision. My eyes are open and his are too.
The rooftop air is cold, but his hands are fire, sliding up my thighs, bunching my dress around my waist. The wall is cold against my back when he lifts me, his grip unyielding, his body pressing me into it until there's nowhere else to go.
"I've been holding this all night," he says, his forehead dropping to mine. His breath is ragged, his control already fraying at the edges.
I arch into him, my legs wrapping around his waist, my heels digging in. "Then do something about it."
His laugh is a low, filthy sound, his hips rolling against me, hard enough that I feel him through his slacks, thick and desperate.
His mouth crashes onto mine, his tongue sweeping in like he means it.
One hand grips my thigh, the other tangles in my hair, yanking just enough to make my scalp sting.
The kiss is brutal, all teeth and hunger, and I meet him stroke for stroke, my fingers twisting in his shirt, my body aching for more.
He breaks away just long enough to say, "Hold on to me," before his hands are under me, lifting me higher against the wall.
"I don't have a condom," he says. He doesn't move. His eyes find mine in the dark and stay there.
He's not asking permission, he already has that. He's asking if I want this to be what it is.
I know what I'm choosing. I've known since the parapet stone, since I closed the remaining distance myself.
"I know," I say. "I want you anyway."
Something moves across his face. Not relief. Something more careful than that, like he's filing it somewhere he plans to keep it.
His fingers hook into my panties, pulling them aside, and then he's there, thick and hot, the head of his cock dragging through my folds.
I whimper, my nails raking down his back, my body trembling with the need.
Then he's pushing inside, one thick inch at a time.
We both groan, the sound swallowed by the night air. He feels bigger this way, stretching me open, filling me so completely I can't think straight. My head falls back, my breath coming in sharp gasps as he bottoms out, his hips flush with mine.
"Oh my god," he breathes, his voice strained. "You feel—"
I don't let him finish. I rock against him, my body already tightening around him, my climax building like a storm. "Move."
His thrusts are hard, punishing, the impact echoing in the quiet of the rooftop.
I don't care if the whole damn city hears us.
I don't care about anything except the way he's moving, the way his fingers dig into my flesh, the way his mouth finds mine again, swallowing my moans like he's starving for them.
"Look at me," he says against my lips.
I'm already there, my orgasm crashing over me, my body clenching around him so tightly I see stars, my nails scoring his shoulders.
His rhythm turns erratic, his thrusts deeper, more desperate, and then he's coming with a groan, his body shuddering against mine, his release pulsing inside me.
I can feel him everywhere. His breath at my neck, his hands steadying me, him deep inside.
After, he smooths my dress back down and checks my hair with the hands of someone thinking practically. I stand still and let him.
The choice I made is still there, lodged somewhere under my sternum, clear-eyed and unregretted and heavier than I expected. I don't try to name what that means yet, I just hold it.