Flying (5 page)

Kissing him, Stella shivers at the press of his thumb on her clit, the push of his fingers inside. One, then another. He fucks into her, and her body responds at once. Muscles going tight, breath short. She writhes under his practiced touch, giving herself up to this pleasure for a minute or so before she opens her eyes and finds him staring at her.

“What?” She goes still.

“I want to watch you come.” Daryl licks his lips. “I get off on making a woman come for me.”

Stella pushes up on one elbow to reach his mouth with hers. “Sounds like a great idea to me.”

Daryl laughs then, relaxing. “Some women... They don’t like that.”

“They don’t like to have an orgasm?” It’s hard for her to talk with his fingers working their magic. Her voice is low, throaty, trailing into a moan.

“They like to come, sure, but they want to get right to the fucking. They want to rush things. They want my dick inside them too soon.”

Stella arches into his caress, putting her arms over her head to find the solid support of the headboard. She spreads her legs wider, rocking into Daryl’s thrusting touch. His thumb slides on her clit in perfectly rough and staggered circles, teasing her.

“I want to watch you come,” Daryl says again.

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Stella whispers. “And you will.”

Daryl pauses long enough to slide her panties down and off, then gets back between her legs to kiss the insides of her thighs. Stella tenses, thinking he’ll use his mouth on her and waiting for that new sensation, but Daryl takes her clit between his thumb and forefinger instead. He squeezes gently. Pleasure builds, and Stella rides it. Her orgasm is a column of rising flame, consuming her. Ecstasy floods her, taking away the world and everything else beyond this sensation.

Gasping, breathless, Stella cries out. When she quiets, the soft huff of Daryl’s breath caresses her inner thighs. She can’t move, doesn’t want to even shift to look at him. She is satisfied, replete. Until he begins to gently pinch her clit again. The pressure is soft and steady. It’s always harder for her to come a second time, but she’s willing to let him try. Stella breathes, relaxing into her desire. There’ve been times when she’s gotten anxious about her ability to have an orgasm, when it’s taken too long, when it has slipped away from her no matter how skilled or attentive her lover was being. There’ve been times when she’s had to push a partner aside and take over for herself, or sometimes even simply give up grasping at the elusiveness of her climax. But she’s never, ever faked it.

“Wanna see you come again,” Daryl murmurs.

Stella sighs. “I’m not sure...”

“Relax.”

She tries. When he moves his mouth onto her, Stella lifts herself to his tongue. Lips and teeth press her. His fingers move inside her. It’s taking too long, and the first was too strong. She’s not going to make it again....

“Shhh,” Daryl says against her cunt. “Just feel good.”

Stella’s flown with selfish men. Egotistical, arrogant men who haven’t cared if she’s come at all, much less more than once. Not often—it’s been her experience that most men, even the ones who pick up women in airport bars, like to be sure they can get the women off. But she’s never been with a man so insistent. So determined. And all she can do, really, is lie back and let Daryl try to get her to come.

After another few minutes, he moves up her body to kiss her mouth. “No?”

“Sorry,” Stella says, though she’s really not.

Daryl laughs a little. “Damn. I tried.”

“You did.” She rolls to straddle him. He’s not completely hard, but that changes after a minute of stroking. “Your turn.”

“Let me just grab something.” In another minute he’s back, shucking out of his briefs and tearing the wrapper on the condom to sheathe himself.

Stella watches him, her breath catching at his look of careful concentration as he smooths the condom onto his cock. How he grips himself at the base. How beautiful men are with their hard pricks in their fists, when their bodies have become tuned toward nothing but pleasure. She loves these moments maybe even more than the actual fucking, these moments when she watches her partner getting ready for her.

Daryl fits himself inside her, keeping his weight balanced on one hand as he uses the other to guide himself. His cock is thicker than she’s expecting. Longer too. It makes her gasp when he seats himself all the way. He pauses for a few seconds, looking down at her.

“You feel so good,” he says. “I want to fuck you so hard.”

He starts moving. Slow at first. Then faster. Harder. He tucks a hand beneath the back of her neck, pulling her closer to his mouth for a bruising kiss. Daryl fucks her hard, his pelvis grinding her clit, and it’s this pounding pressure that starts to tip her over the edge again.

He sees it on her face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Stella manages to say as she gives herself up again to desire. She comes with a short, sharp jolt of pleasure that cuts off as abruptly as it has arrived, but it’s enough to buck her hips. It’s all good. So good.

Daryl shudders, grimacing. He bends to bury his face in the side of her neck as he thrusts, then shouts out with his own climax.

A minute or so after that, he rolls off her to stare up at the ceiling. He’s put some distance between them, but not enough to make this awkward. She’ll be able to get up in a few minutes and get dressed. Head back to her own room.

Before she can move, Daryl looks at her. “Was that okay for you?”

Stella sits, scanning the bed for her discarded panties. Spotting them on the floor, she moves to get off the bed. “It was great.”

Daryl’s hand on her wrist stops her. “Lavinia.”

She twists to look at him, seeing his concern. Thanking him for his performance would feel a little over-the-top, not to mention contrived. “It was great, Daryl. Really.”

He doesn’t let her go for so long she starts to think he won’t. Gently, Stella extricates herself from his grip and gets off the bed to step into her panties. Behind her Daryl takes care of the condom, then heads into the bathroom. He closes the door behind him.

Stella gets dressed quickly. Not lingering. The night has worn on almost to morning, and her plane leaves in only a few hours. She’ll have just enough time to get back to her room, shower and change and head for the airport in time to get through security. In the days when she was a flight attendant, a million years ago, traveling by air used to be fun. Now, even with the free trips she still gets as part of the divorce settlement from Jeff, the CEO of an airline, the process of the airplane travel itself is something rather less than enjoyable.

She doesn’t want to leave without saying goodbye—Daryl has been a fun flight. But it’s late and she’s tired and not in the mood for cuddling or, worse, conversation. The bathroom door opens just as she’s slipping into her shoes and straightening her stockings.

Daryl looks surprised. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I have an early plane.” She goes to him, offering a kiss because it seems like the thing to do.

Daryl kisses her but looks confused. “You don’t want to stay? Have another go-round in the morning?”

“It’s already morning.” Stella stifles a yawn. “And I’m really tired. This was great, though. I had a good time.”

“Not good enough, I guess.” Stepping back, Daryl frowns. “Should I even ask for your number?”

“I can give you my number, but that’s not what this is. Is it?” She gives him a small smile, trying hard not to sound annoyed, though by this point she’s ready to head out the door. “You’re not really going to call me, are you?”

This gives him pause. “I guess not. It’s just...everyone else always wants to exchange numbers.”

Stella laughs. “And how many times do you ever get in touch?”

“You never know. I might call you up, see if you want to be my Lady Luck again sometime when you’re out this way.” Daryl smiles, but Stella shakes her head.

“I don’t think I’ll be out this way again for a long time.”

“Oh. So it’s like that.”

“Yes,” she says. “It’s like that.”

She’s hurt his feelings. She didn’t mean to, but of course that won’t make him feel any better. Now this is becoming awkward.

“You won’t even give me your number? C’mon.” He flashes her a smile meant to be charming, but the desperation in it leaves her cold.

“I don’t give my phone number to strangers,” Stella says without apologizing.

Daryl scowls. “But you’ll fuck one.”

Stella doesn’t give that the dignity of an answer.

“Was it good for you?” he cries after her as the door shuts, and Stella understands that none of this was really about her, at all.

For a moment she considers grabbing the door before it can close all the way and telling him yes, the sex was good. Fine. She came, twice as a matter of fact. She considers, briefly, soothing his ego.

But then she remembers that none of this was really about him in the first place.

CHAPTER SIX

Mondays. Universally despised, always hectic. This morning Stella had already slept through her alarm, waking up instead to the thunder of Tristan’s feet up and down the stairs as he hollered back and forth with his buddy Steven, who’d come to give him a ride. Since Stella had already told Tristan she wasn’t sure she wanted him riding with Steven, even if the older boy had been driving for almost two years, this was not the best way to wake up.

“Dad lets me.”

Yeah, and then there was that. Too tired to argue with him, especially since he’d missed the bus, Stella waved Tristan into Steven’s car and watched them pull out of the driveway with her heart lodged firmly in her throat. She was sure Jeff did let Tristan ride with Steven or whoever else he wanted to, so long as it meant Jeff didn’t have to take him to school. Whatever made Jeff’s life easier. But Stella wasn’t going to dwell on that right now.

Halfway through her shower, the water ran cold. “Son of a bitch.”

She twisted the faucet handle, jiggling it, which sometimes worked. Not today. She finished rinsing her hair, shivering, entire body covered in goose pimples, and didn’t even bother to shave her legs.

There’d been a time when it was like asking Tristan to cut off his arms and legs in order to get him in the shower, and now he took forever. That was part of the reason why Stella had started setting her alarm for later, to give the aging hot water heater time to replenish the supply.

Downstairs, when she pulled open the dishwasher to get a clean coffee cup, she found another surprise. Nothing was clean. Muttering curses under her breath, Stella stabbed open the soap dispenser...only to discover it encrusted with half-dissolved soap. She checked the dishes. Wet. Just not clean.

“Dammit.” She went to the sink to run the hot water. Barely lukewarm, even twenty minutes after her shower. “Shit. Double shit.”

Already running late for work, she took the time to run downstairs to the basement to make sure that the water heater hadn’t exploded or something equally dire. Staring at it, wishing she knew what to look for, Stella knew better than to fiddle with any of the settings. She did notice the small light by the temperature gauge wasn’t lit, but maybe it never was. She couldn’t remember ever really looking at the hot water heater before.

No time to deal with it now. She had to get to work. And, adding to the joy that had begun her Monday, the trip that normally took forty minutes took an hour and a half because of an accident.

A car had hit and flipped over the guardrails along the deep, V-shaped gully that separated the east-and westbound sections of the rural highway. It had caught halfway down the steep embankment, the front end a crumpled horror. It had caught on fire. There’d been no way to see if anyone was stuck inside, though the ambulance and fire trucks had given her hope that even if there had been, there wasn’t anymore. Traffic had backed up for a couple miles, moving slow, rubbernecking. Stella had been stuck inching along the accident site for a good ten minutes before reaching the opposite side and being able to speed up.

Ten minutes wasn’t so long, but by the end of it, she’d been sweating. Her hands shaking. Her breath catching hard in her throat, like needles in her lungs. In the rearview mirror, her eyes were wide and dark, the pupils dilated to cover her irises.

At work, she sat in the parking lot for another five minutes longer than necessary in order to get herself under control. In the office, she went directly to the restroom so she could splash her face with cold water, which had her remembering the frigid shower from the morning.

Frustration, at least, was better than fear.

Despite the morning’s rough start, the day itself went smoothly. It almost always did. Sitting for hours in front of a computer, editing out zits and wrinkles, listening to music or audiobooks on her iPod... It certainly wasn’t the sort of job Stella had ever imagined herself doing, but it suited her. Her manager was nice and accommodating, and you couldn’t beat the hours. Four ten-hour days a week. Jeff had liked to snark at her for that... But again, Stella put that memory aside. It no longer mattered what Jeff thought and hadn’t for a long time.

Today’s queue of photos was the easiest she’d had for weeks. The customers were all dressed appropriately, nobody had any weird requests and the packages they wanted to order were all standard. Stella worked her way steadily through the jobs, one after another. She worked so efficiently that, despite arriving late, she finished her queue early, and rather than stay and fuck around waiting for more jobs to show up, she decided to leave early.

She called Tristan on her way home, but typically he didn’t answer. Nor to her text, which did annoy her, though it was possible he was out running, not just ignoring her.
Benefit of the doubt,
Stella told herself.
Give him the benefit of the doubt.
She called Jeff next, already wincing at the sound of his voice.

“What?” Jeff said.

She shouldn’t be offended—it was how he always answered the phone, for anyone but his boss. Even his mother had been subject to his lack of phone etiquette. Stella had never heard him answer a call from Cynthia, though. Maybe she got the princess treatment. God knew she did with everything else.

“Is Tristan with you? I can swing by and pick him up on my way home. I’m getting out now.”

“Why are you getting out now?”

She owed him no explanations, Stella reminded herself, but that didn’t mean she had to be a total douche canoe to him about everything as a matter of course either. “I finished early. Is he there?”

“Cynthia took him shopping.”

“Oh.” Stella paused. “Well, I have some errands to run. I can swing by and get him when I’m finished, if she doesn’t want to bring him all the way to my place on her way home.”

“I’ll have her text you.”

Stella sighed. They disconnected without saying much of anything else and for a moment, melancholy, Stella tried to remember when they’d loved each other. She couldn’t, really. Everything that had happened since colored all the good memories in shades of black.

Her errands didn’t take as long as she’d expected, which was why she was surprised to pull into the drive to the blaze of lights in the house and the front door half-open. Irritated, Stella yanked it shut behind her. “Tristan!”

“He’s upstairs,” Jeff said from the kitchen, where he sat at her table with one of her diet sodas and a pile of her mail, along with her latest issue of
Entertainment Weekly.

She hadn’t seen his car, dammit, forgetting he preferred to park along the opposite side of the street so he didn’t have to back out of the driveway. She hated the sight of Jeff in her kitchen—which had once been his kitchen, that was true enough. But by the end she’d hated the sight of him in it then too.

“Did he eat?”

“Yeah. Cynthia made pot roast.” Jeff drained the last of the soda and put the empty can back on the table, then tossed the magazine onto the pile of mail.

Of course she did. Stella gave him a tight smile. “Great. Thanks for bringing him home.”

Jeff pulled something from his back pocket—a piece of paper he’d folded into thirds. He flattened it on the table and pushed it in her direction. “Here.”

“What’s that?” Stella asked warily, not taking it.

“I brought over a spreadsheet.”

“Of what?” She crossed her arms, keeping her expression carefully neutral. Jeff had always been fond of spreadsheets.

“Of expenses.”

Stella’s eyebrows rose. “Expenses? For what?”

“Tristan,” Jeff said, and Stella’s jaw dropped. “I’ve been keeping track.”

Now she took the paper and looked over it. True to form, Jeff had made columns for medical expenses, sports equipment, orthodontia, clothes, school supplies...and gifts. Stella looked at him. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”

Jeff looked pained. “Stella.”

“You kept track of how much you spent on gifts. For your son.” Her lip curled.

They’d hammered out a lot of details in the divorce settlement. Argued over who got to keep the china and how long Stella would remain on his account with Pegasus Airlines so she could get free travel. She’d fought hard for that one. But they hadn’t set up anything specific regarding child support for Tristan, mostly because the original plan had been that each of them would be responsible for whatever expenses arose while he was with each of them, and they’d share major expenses. Stella simply tried to take care of whatever Tristan needed, only going to Jeff for stuff like the braces that had come off last year. Like the ski club trip Tristan had wanted to take last Christmas break that had turned out to be twice as expensive as she’d planned for.

Jeff gave her a look. “Of course. I just wanted to show you...”

Stella crumpled the paper in her hands, then thought better of it. She smoothed it. Folded it. Handed it back to him. “What’s your point, Jeff?”

“I just dropped a couple hundred bucks on him for gear. New shoes. He needed clothes too.” Jeff paused. “Cynthia made sure he had everything he needed.”

Cynthia, who matched her shoes to her belts to her purses. Who got her nails done every week. Hair too.

“Please tell Cynthia I said thanks.”

Jeff blinked. “I estimated your expenses too.”

Stella set her jaw at that, willing herself not to totally lose her shit all over him, but already knowing she was about to blow. “And?”

“Just wanted to share with you, that’s all.”

“Because you want to show me up.”

Jeff frowned. “That’s not what I want.”

“No?” Stella waved a dismissive hand. “Really? Then what’s this spreadsheet about, Jeff?”

But she knew what it was about, without him even having to respond. Jeff was trying to prove to her in his underhanded way that he was as much a parent to Tristan as she was. That just because she did the majority of the day-to-day stuff didn’t mean he didn’t do his share too—the money he’d spent evidence of his parenting. Typical Jeff.

Before he could answer, and she could see his desire to reply in every line of his face, Tristan, wrapped in a towel, hair wet, expression stormy, came into the kitchen. Stella’s eyebrows rose.

“There’s no hot water.”

“Shit,” she said with a sigh. “I’d hoped it was just temporary.”

“Something wrong with your hot water heater?” Jeff asked.

“Maybe.” To Tristan, she said, “Just do a pits and privates until I can take a look at it, okay?”

Jeff was already getting up. Never mind that he hadn’t lived here in eight years, and that when he had, he’d been gone so often on business that Stella had been the one to take care of everything around the house anyway. “I’ll take a look at it.”

“You don’t have to—”

But he was already heading into the basement while Tristan stomped back upstairs. Stella gritted her teeth and followed her ex-husband down the stairs to the small utility room that enclosed the furnace and hot water heater. As soon as he opened the door, Jeff recoiled, lifting his feet as though he’d stepped in dog shit. But it was water. Stella heard the squish of it from where she stood, and she almost laughed at the look on Jeff’s face when he turned to look at her.

“You have a leak,” he said as though it were a personal affront.

“That would explain why we didn’t have any hot water.”

Jeff squished his way to the hot water heater and bent to study it. “Grab me a flashlight, would you?”

“I said I could take care of it.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Obviously you can’t.”

There was a time when he’d been able to read her. When he’d
known
her. Stella couldn’t recall exactly when that had changed, but it was never more obvious than in this moment when she was almost ready to punch him in the junk, and all he could do was give her a condescending sneer.

“Get out,” she said. “I’ll call a plumber. I have a wet vac. I will handle this.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.” Stella crossed her arms and stepped back to let him pass. “I can handle it, whether you think so or not.”

“Don’t get all bent out of shape. I’m just trying to help you—”

“We’re not married anymore, Jeff.” Stella could no longer keep her voice steady and even, and she knew it was only going to give him more ammunition to accuse her of being overemotional—something he’d done a whole hell of a lot of during their last days. “This isn’t your responsibility, and I wouldn’t want you to throw it in my face later. Really, I can handle it.”

“Fine.” Jeff dusted off his hands and pushed past her, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “stubborn bitch” under his breath.

She’d been called worse.

Stella followed him up the stairs and into the kitchen, leaving him in there and not bothering to look back when he called after her. Halfway up the stairs she heard the front door open and close. She knocked lightly on Tristan’s door, waiting until he answered before she opened it. She had to shove the door against a pile of dirty laundry, but ignored it for now.

“Hey.”

Tristan’s desk overflowed with miscellaneous junk, but he sat at it anyway. Bent over a sketch pad he closed when she came in, he shoved it under a pile of other things and twisted to look at her. He resembled Jeff more than ever when he scowled.

“I can take all the stuff back,” he said. “Cynthia’s the one who wanted to buy it all.”

“I figured.” Stella looked around the room, then leaned against the bedpost. “You don’t have to. Your dad can afford it.”

Tristan nodded, his mouth still turned down. “Okay.”

She wasn’t making it much better. “I’m sorry you heard us fighting about it. It’s not about you, Tristan. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” He turned back to his desk, but didn’t pull out the sketchbook or anything else. He just sat. Dismissing her.

“Tristan.”

He didn’t turn. Stella sighed. She moved closer to put her hand on his unyielding shoulder. She squeezed gently but said nothing else. Tristan sighed heavily.

A few years ago, their dog, Mr. Chips, had died of old age, at home with his head on Tristan’s lap. That had been the last time she could remember her son crying or allowing her to hug him close—he’d grown taller than her in the interim years. And distant. He was becoming more of a stranger to her every day, and she didn’t quite know how to stop it.