The Rental (17 page)

He wiped his forehead with a small towel and draped it over his shoulder. My lustful reaction to him had been obviously caught, right there, in his scheming grin. He squatted at my feet, thighs clenched tightly.

I plunged a hand into the welcome bag to grab a handful of merchandise to show off. “I certainly didn’t expect such a useful welcome pack,” I said, grabbing what felt like the edge of the plastic make-up bag. In my hands, however, was a condom. “Oh,” I said, dropping it back in.

“Subtle, Vee.” Rick steadied himself on the arms of the sofa. His closeness made my knees intuitively draw apart. I looked down at how his arms engulfed my space, loving how he intruded it.

I had to get one up on him after my embarrassing slip. So, I sniggered, combed my hair back out of my face, and pushed his buttons how I knew I could best. “You think it’s for you? How do you know I’m not planning to use it when I see Jimmy,
after
our first solo booking?”

The mood in Rick’s eyes darkened. His eyebrows stiffened into a harsh line, but when he spoke, his unexpected tone tripped me up. “Pursuing Jimmy again? In that case, if I can’t do anything but watch the both of you, I’m more than happy to do so, Vee, if you’ll allow me that pleasure to watch you do things to yourself.”

A kaleidoscope.

Rick’s expression was still but stirred something in me, something that felt like it reached in and spun my world, and so I latched onto him. The air whooshed from my lungs. With two fingers, I placed them on his lips. So soft. Like the smoothness of a mug and the softness of a teddy bear.

Kissable.

Rick stood, his arms still gripping the arms of my sofa. His figure loomed above, and he didn’t waver from undressing me with his eyes, watching my shallow breaths that made my chest rise and fall rapidly. He pinched my chin to hold me where he wanted.

I didn’t dare move as he lowered his lips. I watched him lick them and almost choked on my impatience, but managed to swallow instead.

Tightness in my body warned me I was being stupid. He was being stupid. We both were, playing with the trust of Amber like this. This wasn’t a place to break the rules, yet … I didn’t care in that moment.

When Rick met my lips with his, he was leant down, and I was upstretched to connect with his flesh. I probed inside his mouth and he groaned, the vibrations rocking all the way to the tips of my toes.

The things I wanted to do with him … the condom was wholeheartedly for him, and he knew it. We’d done everything but sex, and I felt ready with the empty yearning in my core to be filled. The thoughts filled me up like water in a bottle, higher and higher like the rising level, the liquid replacing the emptiness, the anticipation for the final spill.

“Please,” I begged, clutching my hands at his sweaty tank. My want for him confused the sensible part of me that told me to stop breaking the rules. I intended to push him back, but if I didn’t act soon, he’d mistake it for longing. “I need to go.”

“Vee?”

“Can we talk after?”

“Vee …” he repeated, reluctantly stepping back to allow me to pass him.

“After!” I called and rushed out, lungs heaving for air in my worked up state.

He knew what we were doing was wrong. He just stopped caring. Come to think of it, Rick never intended to be careful about hiding us. I’d wanted to, but he’d been keen for me not to work here with him.

I paused outside the door, resting my head against the wall. There, I took in my breaths slowly, and then pushed off, deciding it was best to go home for the day.

Rick was in the tapping of my foot at the red traffic lights, and along the long, cruising streets. I had to get a bit of space, just for the night.

I had to be careful I didn’t let him swallow me up as much as I had to be wary of The Rental.

• • •

R
ICK NOTICED THAT
I had backed off, and called me once that night, which I replied with a text, filled with some hugs and kisses.

The next day, I had a half-day shift at the leisure centre, but The Rental followed me there, first an email from Amber that Jimmy decided he wanted Nix to join in with our booking, and then some texts to Nix while I had a toilet break. I managed to fire off a couple until I told her I had to go, lest the staff thought I was constipated, which wasn’t ideal to have floating around the workplace, no matter my desire to leave.

I arrived home to Rick’s car parked outside my house pulled up by the kerb as he had so long ago now. I recalled it from a distance, seeing into that life.

And as I imagined, I saw peeking behind the curtain, an image of meek, naïve little me. I burst into laughter as I trotted up the steps and met him, followed by my mother approaching behind.

“I see you two are friends?”

“Oh, yes,” Mum called over his shoulder. She was a bit shorter than I was, and Rick was a giant next to her. I looked up to his broad shoulders and further to his gelled brown hair, realising I saw past all that, comfortable in every way that mattered with him. But it didn’t change the massive turn on of how big he was next to me.

The image of his beauty made me aware of my own state, stinking of chlorine and possibly sweaty. I ducked my head down into his chest as he enveloped me, and sniffed an off scent that was probably my post-work stench.

I excused myself, darted off to the shower, and leant my head back into the cleansing water. I lathered myself thickly with the shower gel, knowing he’d smell my fresh skin when I got out.

Mum popped her head in as I was drying my hair. I’d slipped on a knee-length robe and was tousling my darkened blonde locks over one shoulder. “Rick’s here to say hi,” she announced, eyebrows high. She was giving me a clear message I had better listen to. “Make yourselves comfortable. I’m
just
outside with a cuppa.”

“Thanks, Mum,” I mumbled, drying my hair again.

Rick saw me and sucked in a long breath.

We spoke about our date on the pier and the old days and things that flowed easily between our smiling mouths. But the things that weren’t so easy to say plagued me, and seeing Rick looking so perfectly stunning, lounging in jeans and a well-fitted T-shirt, on my bed, his big, long limbs fallen off the sides, I excused myself to change. I couldn’t be in this robe and naked underneath when he was in my room, body languid and relaxed, when mine was hyped up and wanting things I’d never done before. Mum was just outside. I reminded myself of that.

I came back in with a sloppy knit sweater that fell over my leggings and fluffy socks. My hair was drying over my shoulders, and I combed my fingers through it as I shut my door behind me, leaning my body into it.

He jumped off the bed and strode over. He kissed me there, holding my face up to his and pressing angel soft kisses. Everything about the way he wanted me was poetic like the wordless magic he invigorated between my lips to my mind. He was hard only in his strong muscles, the rest of him feathering down my length, comforting.

His eyes were warm like his kisses and his body against mine. Gazing down at me, he skimmed his fingers along my back and up to my shoulders. He massaged over my collarbones and caressed my neck with the pads of his thumbs.

I felt him stop, and I gazed to see him staring. “What?”

“What was it like when he touched you?”

I quaked. I didn’t expect that after our moment. “Jimmy never touched me.”

He looked to his thumbs on my neck. “No, Justin. What was it like for you when he touched your body?”

“I know what it was like for him: exciting. His hands were everywhere, but they left no impression on me.”
Not like yours do.

“Do I remind you of him?”

I wrestled a chuckle to remain silent. “Absolutely not.”

“Do you think of him when I touch you?” At his words, he caressed his fingers from my neck to my breasts. He waved his thumbs over where my nipple was beneath my clothing and thumbed the spot, pressing circular motions over and over, making
my
head spin. At that point, Rick was my angel. I never felt deserving of the exponential joy and toe-curling pleasure he brought.

“No. Rick,” I whispered, voice stolen amongst the heralds of joy in my head as I wrapped my arms over his shoulders, “you remind me of you. I don’t think of Justin like that anymore. That part of my life is gone. Over.”

“
Like that anymore
,” Rick mimicked.

So there was a reason behind his questioning
, I thought.

He dropped his hands to my waist and curled his fingers around the sides. “In what way do you think about him?”

“Let’s go to the bed.” I sidestepped him, not looking until I sat down on the duvet. He had his hands crossed over his chest, tall but unsure. His eyes scattered all over the bed, the path I took to leave, and me. He came up after some silent seconds, easing onto his elbow, and he let his legs hang off the end.

“What is it?” he asked, brushing my cheek.

“Don’t you think of Justin?” I said, removing his hand from my cheek so I could hold mine in it. We entwined our fingers over and through like moving vines as I spoke. “He’s holding a sentence over you. And I wonder … about the guys you owe. Will they come collect if you can’t pay? When will they be satisfied?”

He dropped his gaze and rolled onto his back, hands on my pillows. He wrestled two under his head but continued to clutch just as tight when he stopped moving. I grabbed the other decorative pillow and laid my hand under it for the right lift. We were there together on our backs, staring up at my ceiling, and my pulse sped up as the time diminished of which we’d be as innocent as we were—as we were now.

“It’s handled, Vee,” he hissed.

“Why are you—”

“I’m not,” he interrupted, jolting right into my light, and stealing it with a blinding kiss. It ran through me and left me with tingles. “I’m sorry. I have about 20K now. The same as a car loan,” he said, adding on the comparison.

“Hmm,” I mumbled, understanding. Didn’t mean I wanted to agree. “Rick, I want to ask something.”

“Yeah?”

“If things don’t work out at The Rental … like if we get caught …”

Amber said any more shit like that from us wouldn’t be forgiven again. I should have been scared. Exploring more of that world awakened my sexuality. I likened Rick’s and my positions there like a flame. Getting caught would burn us. Pain, goodbye, the end. But
not
getting caught? That was like swiping my hand through a flame, and that—well, that was utterly exhilarating.

Playing with fire was addictive. I knew the consequences but didn’t fear them enough to care as I should.

Rick answered with his body, leaping on top. His chest crushed my own, and I revelled in the breathless feeling he created right there physically. It matched how I felt for him.

Mum and Dad had been married for two decades when he passed, and they never stopped eye-fucking each other. It made me dry heave when I caught one of those glances. Cara never believed me when I told her; her parents didn’t even look at each other period, she said. But the way I felt about Rick was so consuming, so strong like he was my religion. I had faith if Rick could do something for me, he would.

He magnetised to every part of me—forehead rested on mine, nose sidled close, lips breathing in my air, and his hands, oh, how they latched onto me, up my back and straight and firm up to my shoulders, where they hooked over the sockets. He held me so closely, and with so much need, I had an inexplicable urge to weep.

“I love you, Vee. And I know what you’re worried about. If they fire me, I’m never going back to Sydney; I’m never dealing his stuff. I’ll find another way. If I had the power, I’d shift the earth so you always faced the sun and you’d never feel darkness. I’ll. Make. This. Work.” He grasped one side of my face with his big hand, making me feel safe inside.

A tight breath flew out, releasing my heart for him. I melted my lips into his neck. With soft hands over his chest while he caged me, I replied, “I love you, too, Rick.”

“I’ve loved you for so long. I swear, I’m trying to be happy for you working there, but I can’t seem to when I want to own you, every beat of your heart, every touch, every kiss. I need to fit into your plans so badly it hurts.” He thrust his chest deeper into my hands, squeezing a moan from my lips, especially made for him. “So possessively it’s like seeping poison inside.”

“Baby,” I hummed. “I
love
you, and nothing will change that. I’m not theirs, those clients. They’re renting me for everything but not for what matters. I’m not touching them how I do you exclusively.”

“You know what I mean.” His voice was low, not angry, but sad, like all the hope had been drained from him and this was what was left.

I knew what he must have been going through.

I couldn’t suck another guy like I did him, and they couldn’t have sex with me, but they could touch me through my pants, make me expose myself, tie me up, spill themselves on me, rub themselves on certain parts of me. Kiss me. The possibilities made me taste something sour at the back of my throat.

I dreamed of the day I could be the girlfriend Rick needed me to be, but I had hardly started the marathon. I had stamina, but was it enough? There wasn’t anything else for us that provided the same way The Rental did.

I didn’t want to be a prostitute and feel dirty. I didn’t want to be a stripper and feel like just another girl. I wanted to be the student and let The Rental show me how to quench my cravings with Rick there by my side.

He must have sensed something because he pushed himself up and looked down into my eyes. “What?”

“I won’t feel a damn thing for them when I’m rented. I can promise you that. My heart belongs to you, Rick Delaney, and it’s a gift no one can buy, borrow, or steal.”

He grabbed my thighs and pulled me close to him. I wrapped my legs around his. He pressed the pads of his thumbs into my neck, settling his chin against my shoulder, kissing, sucking, and licking the skin there. “What I needed to know,” he said, finally. “Can I come over tonight when your mum is asleep?”