Crossing the Lines (22 page)

Step one: Define the problem.

Horniness. Massive horniness and a huge fucking heap of loneliness.

Step two: Hypothesize a solution. Best-case scenario.

The key took her to Henry, and he gave her orgasms until she passed out.

Step three: Test the solution.

Fuck if she’d try that just yet.

Step four: Analyze the findings.

Potential for failure—laughably high. Likelihood Henry would be disgusted by a drunk and horny Alice in his bed—high. Likelihood he’d pour water down her throat and be a great caretaker for burdensome neighbor—high. Likelihood he’d reevaluate the status of their arrangement and end the contract—high.

All bad outcomes. Making herself a nuisance and losing Henry’s respect. Drunk and horny wasn’t an emergency situation or a friend situation. Henry didn’t owe her anything tonight. He was on his time, not hers.

Step five: Present answer.

Home. Alone. She’d get off by herself and leave Henry and Jay out of it.

She shoved the key in the lock and stumbled through bedtime rituals, not bothering with the lights in the main room and blinking at their harsh glare in the bathroom. She chugged a glass of water, hoping to stave off her looming hangover.

She burrowed under the covers. Her arousal had waited for her. Time to test the best-case scenario.

She fumbled in the nightstand drawer for her vibrator. The toy hadn’t gotten much use in the last eight months. Batteries still worked. Good.

She tried to keep her thoughts from straying to Henry and Jay. Tried hard. But no one else featured in her fantasies.

Desire sent her to their door. Using her key. Leaving her shoes by the door and a trail of clothes down the hall to Henry’s room.

The door would be partly open. She’d push it the rest of the way, and he’d be sleeping. Vulnerable. Lying on his back in the center of the big bed, his arms flung out to his sides, the sheets draped tantalizingly over his legs, outlining his body in a feast for her eyes.

She circled the vibe around her clitoris but not over it. Not yet. She’d take her time, let the fantasy play out.

Fantasy-Alice ghosted across the floor and pulled the sheets back. Henry slept in the nude, as he did on his nights with her, those special nights when he allowed her to stay. When he wanted her there to fuck again in the morning.

The vibrator parted her lips as she squirmed. She’d been worked up since the third dance. This wouldn’t take long. Not nearly long enough.

So fantasy-Alice didn’t spend much time memorizing Henry’s body, though she loved being able to ogle him like this. His relaxed, sleeping face, his strong arms and broad chest with its dark hair and the narrow line directing her to his flaccid penis waiting for her touch.

She crawled onto the bed. Her advantage would be lost once his eyes opened. But she wasn’t about to deny herself. She knelt and lowered her face to his groin, inhaling his clean musk before she took him in. Even soft, he was a mouthful.

Working him with lips and tongue wouldn’t be enough. She added her hand at the base as his interest grew, firming her grip and sliding her mouth along his length.

His cock stood fully erect and beautiful. Her mouth left him wet and shining in the stray bits of moonlight dancing across the room. His color deepened along the thick, textured ridge from base to tip and in the flared head. An organ designed to give her pleasure, attached to a man who wielded it with skill.

He pounced.

Fast, faster than she’d have expected, he toppled her back to the bed and pinned her beneath him. With her hands alongside her head and her legs spread wide, he pushed her open for him with his thighs and parted her lips with his naked cock.

He didn’t ask what she intended in his bed. He didn’t ask permission. He thrust rough and deep. He drove into her, and she matched his force with her own.

Fantasy-Henry growled at her, a low rumble. “You’re going to come for me, Alice. Your pleasure belongs to me, and I want to see you come while I fuck you. Your pleasure is mine, and your body is mine, and
you
are mine.
Mine
, Alice. Come for me. Give me what’s mine to take.”

They did.

Fantasy-Alice and real-Alice both called his name in a single breathless gasp that became a quiet cry. But fantasy-Alice still had fantasy-Henry inside her, and his arms around her, and the comfort of his bed.

Real-Alice had a purring vibrator, sticky thighs and an empty bed. One even emptier when she silenced the vibe and set it aside. The shudders racking her body weren’t the pleasant aftershocks of orgasm but the beginning of sobs.

* * * *

She slept late Friday, stumbling out of bed several times to use the bathroom and drink another glass of water but always crashing again. Even no longer tired, she drooped from fatigue. Mentally and emotionally drained. Getting out of bed seemed an insurmountable obstacle.

For the first time, as the hours ticked away toward evening, anticipation didn’t gather in her gut at the promise of herself in Henry’s hands for the night. Uneasiness blossomed. Fear. Dread.

He would know. Somehow, he’d intuit what she’d almost done, how she’d nearly crept into his bed like a thief and stolen the affection that belonged to Jay.

She curled her body in a tight ball around her pillow. The clock on her nightstand read five PM. Two hours. If she wanted to be on time, she ought to get up and shower.

She hadn’t eaten all day, and the suggestion nauseated her. Her puffy, swollen face suffered from the dehydration caused by alcohol and tears. Henry wouldn’t fail to notice, no matter how many ice packs she piled on her eyes now.

He might declare her an unfit companion for the evening. Or tell her he’d been wrong, that she was too immature to handle their arrangement if this was the result. Break things off for her own good.

He’d be nice about it, too, and that would make it worse. The reason she always ended things first, before emotional shit got attached. She’d given up way too much control here.

She spent an hour or more standing in the shower beneath the hot spray, until the water ran cold and her body shivered and her numb fingers turned off the tap. The towel became a weapon in her hands, rough and chafing, drying her with fierce intensity. She yanked the comb through her hair and blow-dried it. Brushed her teeth. Ignored her makeup options. Pointless. Henry would see through any mask.

All she wanted was to get in the door, get naked and get fucked until she couldn’t hold a thought in her head. Henry could do that. As long as he did
that
, she wouldn’t worry about
this
. Easy as pie. Problem, meet solution.

But at one minute to seven, her mind a jumble of contradictory advice and ominous warnings, her hand poised to knock, she battled the urge to pass out instead. Her knuckles thudded against the wood twice. A firing squad waited on the far side, and she’d given the signal for her own execution.

Jay opened the door with a stutter in his smooth pull. Wide-eyed, he gave a soft whistle. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

Fuck no, she wasn’t okay. But she wanted them too much to admit that now. Needed them too much.

Despite the terror of presenting herself to Henry like this, she hadn’t been able to make herself stay home. She wanted to be in Henry’s bed, cuddled between him and Jay as she’d been the night the heat had failed. When it hadn’t been a contract night and they’d sought her out anyway, invited her into their bed and let things happen without any trappings, as if they had a real relationship, all three of them, instead of her being added spice in theirs.

She stepped past Jay with a nod, not answering in words because she doubted he’d been instructed to ask. When Henry wanted her to speak, he’d tell her.

Jay took a long moment to close the door, only jumping into motion as Henry crossed the room to them.

Henry grasped her chin and tipped her head up. “What’s happened, Alice?”

Was that real concern for her in his tone or irritation that she’d appear in front of him with bloodshot eyes and puffy cheeks? She wearied of trying to guess. Couldn’t he just give her this? Tell her, instruct her, and not ask questions of her?

“I drank too much.” Truth.

“Mmm.” He prodded her cheeks with his thumbs. His fingers rested along her temples and across her ears. He stared into her eyes. “And why did you do that?”

“Work. We were celebrating at a club.” Still true. Still not lying to Henry. Still ignoring the nagging voice in her head that accused her of adhering to the letter of their contract rather than its spirit.

“Is that all that happened? An excess of celebratory behavior?” His voice dug at her. Closed, clipped, suspicious, and she didn’t blame him for it. “You’re certain there’s nothing else?”

The truth too much to speak, a lie unthinkable, she tugged free of his grip. Jay gawked at her with drawn brows and parted lips.

Henry frowned. Deliberately, formally, he asked a familiar question. “Are you ready to play, Alice?”

“Yes, Henry.”
Please. Give me this, these hours when I’m yours. Make me forget all the hours when I’m not.

“Sit on the couch, Alice.”

She went to the couch and sat, nerves jumping faster by the minute. She still had her clothes on. He hadn’t sent her to the bedroom. Heaviness tightened her chest. Made breathing a chore. Did a panic attack feel like this?

“Tell me your safeword.”

Good. A command she could follow. “Pistachio.”

“Good girl.” But still he frowned. “Would you like to use your safeword now, Alice?”

“No, Henry.”

“Do you understand you may use your safeword for any reason? That you needn’t explain, and you are free to exercise your right to stop at any time?”

“Yes, Henry.”
Please stop asking me.

“All right, Alice. Then tell me what else happened last night.”

The fuck? This wasn’t sex. It wasn’t even foreplay.

“Anything I demand, unless expressly forbidden in your contract, Alice.” Henry chided her with kindness, his voice soft. “Even if it’s simply sleeping on the sofa for the night while I watch over you, remember? Either provide the answers to my questions or use your safeword, my dear.”

His voice hardened. “Now, tell me. What else happened last night, Alice?”

“I…met a man.”

“Did you fuck this man?”

“No.”

“Did you want to fuck this man?”

“No. Not him.”

“But you wanted to fuck.”

“…yes.”

“This desire, it was overwhelming?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you didn’t come to me.”

“No.” Shame overtook her. The reasons she hadn’t lost meaning when Henry beheld her with such disappointment.

“You felt I wouldn’t understand?”

“It was late, and I was drunk, and things were…I was…”

If he didn’t stop asking these questions, she’d cry. Not the delicate, girly, manipulative sniffles suggested by women’s magazines and terrible advice books, but bone-racking sobs because it hurt so damn bad.

She’d disappointed him by not coming to him, but she’d have horrified him with her drunken neediness. She’d wanted him inside her, nothing less, and her disengaged babble filter would’ve had her spilling clingy demands for a relationship he wasn’t interested in providing.

She couldn’t win. This game she’d agreed to play had no winning move, not for her.

“You were drunk, and vulnerable, and aroused.”

It wasn’t a question, but she nodded in obedient agreement. The silence stretched. The coffee table’s surface accused her with its clean perfection.

“You feared I would take advantage of you in that state?” His voice held a sharp edge. “That I could not care for you properly?”

“No!” God, she’d explained everything all wrong. Now he thought she considered him a letch or user or…or rapist. Way to go. How many ways could she fuck up the best relationship she’d ever had?

She wanted to stand, to move, but he’d ordered her to sit, and she wouldn’t disobey him. She rocked with fierce denial, hands gripping the couch and knees bouncing from the motion of her feet.