But then he pulls away.
Sits back on the couch and refills his glass, eyes on me, his erection a steel rod in his pants.
“Whiskey and pussy are two of my favorite things in the world,” he says.
I release my grip on the table, begin to close my knees, but he stops me.
“Stay. Just like this. Knees wide. I want to see.”
11
Melissa
The next hour is torture.
He drinks his whiskey and pushes buttons on his phone, and he could be playing a crossword puzzle for all I know while I lie here, whiskey sticky between my legs.
What he did, it was a tease. And I know he did it on purpose. Leaving me like that. And I want his mouth back on me, sucking my clit, dipping inside me. I want him to make me come.
He’s still hard, but he won’t touch me. Is this to prove some point? Because all it’s doing is pissing me off.
But I can’t admit that. I won’t.
Is that what he wants? For me to ask for it? Beg him for it? Because he seems perfectly content to just look at me every now and then between whatever’s got his attention on his phone.
It feels like an eternity when the thing finally rings and, after a quick glance at it, he stands, his expression darkening.
“Go have a shower,” he tells me, the phone still ringing in his hand. Without a backward glance, he walks into another room. I hear him talking just before he closes the door and I sit up, feeling ignored and annoyed.
Is this all I’m here for? For him to play with me?
But what do I expect? He owns me. He just paid me a deposit.
I shake the thought away, stand up, walk to the bedroom and when I switch on the lights, the windows tint. I’m glad because even though we’re on the top floor of the building, I feel like everyone can see me.
I have a shower and towel-dry my hair, then walk back to the living room but when I pass the door he disappeared into, I hear his raised voice. He’s pissed.
“What do you mean, small setback? This is going to cost me months!”
Silence, as I guess whoever is on the other end says something. When that silence is followed by the sound of a fist being slammed into a wall, I quickly retreat to the bedroom and climb into the bed.
I wonder who he’s talking to and why he’s so pissed off. I think I don’t ever want to see that side of him. Not directed at me, at least.
I consider switching out the lights and trying to sleep, but I won’t be able to. I’m too wound up. I get up, grab my phone out of my tote and check for messages. There aren’t any.
When I’m walking back to the bed, I notice a book lying open and face down on the dresser.
I pick it up, read the title. I don’t recognize it. I open it, meaning to flip through to read the first few pages when a photograph falls out.
I bend to pick it up. It’s a photo of an older man with his arm around a younger woman and beside them stands a man who resembles Hawk. He’s got a baby in his arms and the woman, I assume the baby’s mother, has her face turned to the baby. A little hand has got a fistful of her hair and she’s trying to loosen it.
I turn it over to look to see if it has a date, but there isn’t one and when I look at it again, I have to smile at the woman’s expression.
I’m so engrossed that I don’t hear him come in.
“Are you going through my private things?”
I’m so startled when he snatches the photo out of my hands that I almost don’t understand what he says. I don’t know if it’s the anger in his tone or something else that makes his accent suddenly so much heavier and his voice so much deeper. Like a roar. Like he sounded when he was talking on the phone.
“I wasn’t going through your things,” I quickly defend. Was I? No. It was right there. On top of the dresser.
He looks at the photo, his face darkening a little.
I stare up at him. When he shifts his gaze to me, glaring down at me, I find myself stepping backward, not realizing the bed is at my back until my knees it it.
“Did this just jump out of the drawer at you, then?”
I shake my head, confused, taken aback. And scared. “The book was on the dresser. It fell out. I wouldn’t—”
But before I can finish, he leans down, takes me by the throat and hauls me up to tip-toe.
“Hawk!” I grip his forearm but he’s too big. Too strong. And his fingers, they’re squeezing too tight.