Stranger

  His face pressed my back, and his finger started moving again. It went on like that forever, his flesh sliding on mine and teasing me to the edge of climax before easing off. His cock throbbed inside me, my cunt so sensitive, my clit so engorged, that every shift of his breath, the subtle thickening of his penis inside me, was as obvious and arousing as if he’d started to slam in and out of me.

  “Are you still watching?” His voice, low and slow, tugged my ear.

  “Yes.”

  I couldn’t look away. My cheeks had paled, but the red flush now crept up my chest and along the column of my throat. I couldn’t see the motion of Jack’s hand, but I could feel it, just as I could feel him throb inside me.

  Pleasure engulfed me as my muscles tensed. I had to force my hands to loosen their grip on Jack’s knees. My thighs ached with the strain of not moving. Under my butt, Jack’s thighs pushed upward, just slightly, and his cock thrust the teensiest bit harder into me. It was enough.

  I put my hand over his as I gasped, the small motion of his fingertip on me now too much as my clit beat and my cunt bore down on him. Still, he didn’t move or thrust, and still I did not close my eyes.

  It was hard, looking at my own face contort with ecstasy, and in the end though I managed to keep my eyes open, I did have to shift the focus of my gaze to a spot on the wall behind me rather than look into my own eyes. I bit down on my lower lip hard enough to break the skin, but miraculously didn’t.

  I came with a shudder but in silence. My orgasm was too vast for shouts or gasps. It sucked the breath from me and left me panting as the waves of ecstasy washed over me, one after the other. Even when those first few seconds of blinding pleasure had passed, my body didn’t subside into satedness. The second I let go of the hand still pressed against my clit, Jack began to fuck me. The motion of his thrusts pushed my still-sensitive clit onto the pad of his palm. I was coming again within moments, not in silence now but with a long, low cry that would have been louder if I’d had the breath to scream.

  From behind me, Jack grunted and leaned against the back of the chair, tilting his body and pelvis upward with each thrust. I leaned forward, no longer watching, but opening the passage of my body to take in as much of him as I could. There was no friction, just smooth, smooth strokes as he fucked into me harder and harder. We moved together. I wanted to come again, but a third climax eluded me, the pressure too much or too little and never quite enough.

  Jack put both hands on my hips and used his grip to move me as he thrust. It hurt, that slamming, his penis battering inside me, but I didn’t care. He shouted, his last thrust lifting my entire body.

  Jack’s grip loosened. I caught my breath. He softened inside me, and I got up on trembling legs to wobble to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. Jack followed me after a minute, and I stepped aside to give him room at the sink. He cupped one large hand beneath the water and scooped a drink, then looked up at me with lips glistening.

  And the smile.

  “Hey,” Jack said.

  “Hey.” I smiled, too.

  We had a reflection here also, in the harsh white fluorescent bathroom light, but it didn’t have quite the same effect on me. I pulled the cups of my bra around and hooked them, then started on my blouse buttons. The flush was already fading from my throat.

  Jack pulled up his briefs and jeans, the condom already gone. He left the belt open, though, his jeans low enough to expose the hint of hair on his belly below the hem of his T-shirt.

  “Jesus,” I said without thinking too hard about it. “You’re so pretty.”

  Jack, who’d bent to take another drink from the faucet, swallowed and turned off the water. He stood, facing the mirror one way, then the other, checking himself out. He looked at me.

  “Pretty?” he said at last, as if he meant to take it as a compliment but wasn’t quite sure how.

  “Oh, yes.” I washed my hands and dried them on the white hand towel folded so neatly on the rack. “Very.”

  He looked again at his reflection and ran a damp hand through his hair to push it off his forehead. “Huh.”

  “Nobody’s ever told you that before?” I nudged him with my elbow and left the bathroom.

  He followed me. “Nope.”

  I stretched, testing my muscles for soreness. My thighs hurt the most. “Well…you are.

  Absolutely lovely.”

  He laughed at this. “Okay. Thanks. You’re pretty, too.”

  It was my turn to laugh then. I found my discarded panties and slid them on. “Thanks.”

  “No,” Jack said. “I mean it.”

  I looked up then, to look at him. “Thanks, Jack.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  This time, the cell phone that rang was Jack’s, but I checked mine anyway while he looked at his. I had no messages, but I knew he had one. He didn’t answer it, though, just glanced at the number and flipped his phone closed.

  “I have to get going,” I told him. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

  He shrugged and shoved his phone down deep into his pocket.

  I leaned up to kiss his cheek soundly and grabbed his ass at the same time, then stepped back. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you.”

  Jack nodded. “All right.”

  At home, the dark house greeted me with the powerful odor of the detergent the cleaning crew had used to get rid of the mess in the basement. Jared would be back to work tomorrow, and I had an early appointment.

  My cell phone rang as I was halfway up the stairs, and I answered without checking the caller ID. I expected the answering service, but the caller greeted me with my first name only and not “Ms. Frawley.”

  “Grace.” Not a question.

  My answer was also not a question. “Sam.”

  Chapter 11

  “I bet you’re wondering how I got this number.”

  “I am, actually.” I pushed open the door to my apartment and flicked on the light switch. I toed off my shoes and left them scattered on the floor as I padded to the kitchen for a drink and a snack.

  “Your office manager took pity on me. I called so many times I convinced her to give me your number.”

  “How’d you manage to convince her you didn’t plan to strangle me and stuff my body in a Dumpster?” I asked without a trace of humor in my voice, even though I was smiling despite myself.

  “I don’t think I did. Maybe you should pay her better.”

  I bit down on the laugh, but a giggle escaped me anyway. “I’ll have a talk with her.”

  “Don’t be too hard on her. She was just worn down. I can be a real pain in the ass.”

  I opened the fridge and found a jug of orange juice and a bowl of washed grapes. “You don’t say.”

  “I don’t say, actually,” Sam replied. “But I’ve heard it said about me, so I guess it might be true.”

  I poured juice and tucked a grape between my lips. “It’s very late, Sam. I have to go to bed.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes. Alone.”

  “That’s sad.”

  I heard shuffling and imagined him stretched out in a bed of his own. “Where are you?”

  “In bed. Alone. It’s very sad, Grace. The bed has cowboy sheets on it.”

  This stopped me. “What?”

  “Cowboy sheets.”

  “Why are you in a bed with cowboy sheets?” I nibbled another grape and sipped juice as I headed for the bedroom, where my own bed awaited me with soft flannel sheets.

  “I’m at my mom’s.” More shuffling. “The sheets are actually my brother’s. Mine had dinosaurs on them, but I couldn’t find them in the linen closet. So I’m stuck with cowboys.”

  “That is sad.” I laughed.

  “Not as sad as being alone.”

  Adept at undressing with one hand holding the phone to my ear, I unzipped my skirt, then unbuttoned my blouse and tossed them in the laundry. “If you go to sleep, you won’t notice you’re alone.”

&nbsp
; “I’ll dream about being alone, though, and when I wake up, I’ll be sad.” Sam shuffled again and let out a small groan.

  A certain, sudden suspicion struck me. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” A pause, and I heard a smile in his voice. “What did you think I was doing?”

  I wasn’t about to tell him I’d imagined him, prick in fist, pumping away while we sallied back and forth with our wits. “You sounded funny.”

  “Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.”

  “You sounded odd,” I amended. I needed a shower before bed, but it was a toss-up as to whether or not I’d take one. I looked into the bathroom, then at the bed, then the phone in my hand. It was late, I was tired, and I had to be up early. “I’ve got to go.”

  Sam groaned again. “Odd? I liked funny, better.”

  I should’ve disconnected, but…I didn’t. I took my empty bowl and glass out to the sink, and once back in my bedroom pulled on pj bottoms and a T-shirt and climbed into bed. “It’s late, and I really need to go to sleep.”

  “Are you in bed now?”

  “Yes.”

  He made an indescribable noise that lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. “What are you wearing?”

  “Pajamas.”

  “Silk?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but, no. Flannel.”

  “I’m not disappointed,” Sam said. “I love flannel pajamas.”

  I laughed. “Good night, Sam.”

  Another slight groan and the creak of a mattress. “At least tell me I can call you again.”

  My smile faded. I listened to the sound of his breathing, interrupted in a moment by another shuffle and a sharp intake of breath. The vision of him jerking off to this conversation no longer seemed so implausible.

  “Sam, what the hell are you doing? Why do you keep groaning? What’s the matter with you?”

  “My brother,” he said, “beat the ever-loving shit out of me. I’m having a hard time getting comfortable. I’d blame the cowboy sheets except I know it’s the black eye and the sore ribs.”

  Shock dropped my jaw. “Your brother Dan?”

  “I only have the one.”

  “He…” I remembered the look on Dan’s face at the cemetery, and how his wife had pulled him away. “He really beat you up?”

  “Yeah, but I gave as good as I got, so don’t you fret about me, Grace. Unless—” his voice dipped low “—you want to come on over and nurse me back to health.”

  My mouth snapped shut. “I most certainly do not! Good night!”

  “So I can call you again?”

  “I don’t think so.” I switched off the light, half hoping he’d ask again. I couldn’t be blamed for giving in to such a pain in the ass, could I? If he simply wore me down?

  “That’s not a no.”

  There was a long silence. I looked up through darkness at the ceiling I knew was there, though I couldn’t see it. “No, I don’t suppose it is.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Do you like horror movies?”

  “That depends,” Sam said.

  “On?”

  “If you’re asking me to go see one.”

  I tucked my blankets beneath my chin. “More than one. Horrorfeast. I was going to go alone, but you can come with me. If you want.”

  “For you? Yes.”

  “Okay. Saturday, then?”

  We exchanged details of when and where, and I told him good-night.

  “Sleep tight,” Sam said, and to my surprise and some disappointment, he hung up, leaving me to stare at something I knew was there although I couldn’t see it.

  Jared came back to work only slightly worse for the wear, joking as much as usual and only walking a little slower. He surveyed the basement rooms and looked impressed. “Nice washer.”

  “It better be, for the price.” I’d replaced the washer and the drier with heavy-duty new ones that weren’t quite industrial-size, but close to it. “And what do you know, looky here, you can be the first to use it.”

  Jared looked at the full laundry cart and rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “No problem, big guy. How’s the ankle?”

  He shrugged and reached for the fresh box of latex gloves I’d put on the brand-new shelves by the washer. He saw regulations, I saw dollar signs flying up into the sky. I put it out of my mind. That was part of the risk of owning your own business. Expenses.

  “Hurts,” he told me. “But I’m okay.”

  “Uh-huh.” I watched him without offering to help. I had an appointment in twenty minutes, and digging into the soiled laundry while wearing my crisp, clean suit didn’t appeal.

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t whack your head.”

  Jared loaded the washer and studied the dials without looking at me. “Yeah.”

  A small sound from the doorway made us both turn toward Shelly, who’d caught our attention by demurely clearing her throat. She always dressed neatly, usually in knee-length skirts and buttoned blouses with cardigan sweaters if the weather called for it, but today she was even more buttoned up than usual. She’d skinned her hair back into an unflatteringly tight bun.

  Even her lipstick was paler than normal.

  “Phone for you, Grace,” she said.

  “Thanks.” I looked at Jared, who was studiously emptying the laundry cart, then back at Shelly, who was studying the handset in her palm like it was ringing out in Morse code. I took the phone from her, and she backed away, going upstairs as I followed.

  The call was from my dad, who wanted to know how the cleanup had gone. By the time I got upstairs to my office, he’d already run through the entire list of usual complaints and admonishments. I listened with half an ear while I checked through the stack of pink message slips on my desk. None from Sam.

  “Grace, are you listening to me?”

  “Sure, Dad. Of course.” I pushed aside the slips and reminded myself I didn’t care.

  “I said I thought I should come over, take another look at the books. See where you can tighten your belt.”

  I moved my mouse to wake my computer monitor from sleep, but it stayed black. I turned the mouse over to make sure the red light on the bottom was lit, and it was. The batteries hadn’t run low. “Dammit.”

  “Excuse me?” It wasn’t hard to hear the thunder in my dad’s voice.

  “Not you. The computer. Well, a little bit you, Dad.”

  He harrumphed. “I know you don’t want me noodling around in your business.”

  “That’s right. I don’t.” The computer screen finally, slowly, came to life, but almost immediately showed an error message telling me I had to restart. I pressed the button on the back of the hard drive.

  “Too bad,” my dad said.

  “Haven’t we had this argument before?”

  I sighed and waited for my computer to boot back up. It had been acting a little funny since the washer incident, and I was afraid the power surge had broken it. The desktop appeared, but none of my applications wanted to open. The icons bounced merrily in the dock, but that was all. Then the spinning wheel of death showed up, and I powered the machine down again.

  “It’s not an argument, Gracie. I just want to help.”

  I sighed again as my computer struggled vainly to boot up. “Dad, I have to go. I think my computer’s broken.”

  I was sure I didn’t imagine the small note of triumph in his voice when he said, “I never needed a computer to run my business.”

  “Yeah, okay, Mr. Quest for Fire, thanks.” I watched the screen go black, then the error screen came up again.

  “I don’t know what Quest for Fire means, but I don’t like your tone.” He didn’t quite say

  “young lady,” but it was implied.

  “Dad!” I cried, then lowered my voice. “You’re driving me up a wall! If you want to come to check out my books, fine, do it. But I’m telling you, it’s all fine! I’
m not going to starve, and I’m not going to lose the business, either!”

  Once more Shelly’s discreet cough alerted me to her presence in the doorway. She did some sort of nifty sign language to tell me my appointment had arrived. “Dad, I have to go.”

  “I’m just trying to help,” my dad said, tone affronted.

  I caved. “I know. Come on over this afternoon. If I can get the computer up and running, you can do whatever you want with the books, okay?”

  Placated but not appeased, my dad agreed and hung up as I stood to greet the couple who’d come to me to talk about arrangements for a maiden aunt. The rest of the day flew by in a haze of appointments, services and death calls. Feast or famine, my dad had always been fond of saying. The funeral business wasn’t predictable. By the time I pulled into the parking lot after our third service of the day, my feet hurt even though I’d worn sensible heels, and my stomach growled.

  Shelly had waited for me to come back, though I was much later than usual. She’d tidied her desk in sharp contrast to the mess I knew awaited me on mine. Jared hadn’t gone to the final service with me, and I hadn’t seen his car in the lot when I pulled in, which meant he wasn’t giving her a ride.

  “It’s late.” I hung the keys to the hearse back on their peg. “You should go on home.”

  “I know.” She smiled at me, just a little. “I wanted to make sure you got back all right.”

  Funny how Shelly’s mother-henning me didn’t annoy me as much as when it came from my family. “Go on. You don’t need to hang around here for me. Is Duane picking you up?”

  “No. I drove myself.”

  I watched her do an unneeded, last-minute tidy of her desk surface as she stood and grabbed her cardigan from the back of the chair. “I thought Jared usually drove you home.”

  Her swift fingers buttoned her sweater up to her neck, though the weather was mild. She grabbed her purse and began rustling inside it. “Not anymore.”