“I feel just fine.”
He closes his big hands around my elbows. “I don’t. I’ve got a headache. My balls hurt, and I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I can leave this job, you know. Have Weiss pull in another colleague.” He squeezes my arms lightly. “Is that what you want, Amelia? Is that what you need?”
“Since when do you care what I need?”
He shuts his eyes and leans his forehead toward mine. We aren’t touching, but I can feel the heat of his skin as he stands there, breathing deeply with his head bowed.
“I’ve always cared.” His gaze meets mine. “That doesn’t mean that I could give it to you.”
“Oh, so that’s it? You couldn’t give it to me?” My voice is sharp and taunting.
“No—I fucking couldn’t. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”
“Too scared?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No shit I don’t! How about you tell me?”
I take a few steps back. “I’m ready for it now. Just shoot. Why couldn’t you give me what I needed? How hard would it have been to stay around that day?”
His chest is heaving. I can see his shoulders pumping with his fast breaths in the shadows of the parking deck.
“You don’t want to know this shit.”
“Oh yes I do. If anything, you don’t want to tell me!”
I watch his hands curl into fists. He just stands there, shoulders rising and falling, looking at the ground. And then he reaches for the door handle. “You’re right—I don’t.”
I grab him by the wrist.
“You’re going to leave again? You could just talk to me!”
“I’m getting re-assigned. Go back to Burbank.” He tosses my hand off him. “I’m sorry this didn’t work out.”
“No you’re not! You don’t just get to run away, again!” I shove his pec, which feels hard under my hand. “I didn’t do anything to you! Why do you have to run away? I didn’t do anything.” Tears come out of nowhere. Then he’s pulling me against him, wrapping his big, heavy arms around me.
He lays his cheek atop my hair. “Fuck, Am, I’m so sorry.”
A tiny sob slips out. “You should be.”
He squeezes me. “I’m really, really fucking sorry.”
I feel his mouth along my jaw, his lips rubbing up toward my ear, kissing my temple…
“I’m sorry,” he whispers near my ear. His warm breath makes me shiver. “I’m so damn sorry, Ammy baby.”
His voice—saying my name like that… My legs forget they’re standing and I slump against him.
“Come here…” He pulls me against him, and I hear a beep and see his lights flash. He opens the back door, climbs in, and pulls me up too.
Dash sits in the middle, spreads his legs, and pulls me onto his lap, so my ass is between his spread knees. His arms are around me.
He kisses me deep and hard, demanding…
I groan. I’m trembling with adrenaline as his hands frame my face and our mouths meld, soft and hot and slick. His hand is on my chest, it’s gliding up. His hand is cupping my breast.
“Christ, Amelia…” He nips me through my blouse, and I cry out.
Then I’m fumbling at his abs. My hungry hands are working his pants button, tugging down his zipper.
Dash groans as I find him in his pants. He’s long and hard, jutting upward in the cotton prison of his boxer-briefs. So it’s easy to peel the elastic away and reach inside to find his smooth head. I reach both hands inside his boxer-briefs as he kisses my throat, and start to stroke him: up and down, just slow and steady up and down… Until he’s biting underneath my jaw and I can feel the precum slick on his tip.
“Fuck…Amelia.”
“Does it feel good?”
“Fuck yes…”
Our mouths meet, and we kiss so hard and deep I finally have to pull away, gasping for air as Dash thrusts against my palm and his hands delve into my skirt, his fingers reaching.
“Yes,” I gasp.
I feel him work the little wooden button, feel it pop off. Then he’s reaching past my thong. His fingers glide between my lips and find their mark. He rubs; I gasp. Then he’s pressing gently inside, stroking upward, curling slightly…and the pressure—“Ohh!”
For a long moment, my hands forget to stroke his dick. His panting reminds me.
Then it’s just our groans and heavy breaths, hands and heat and teeth and tongues. We come just like that: me halfway on Dash’s lap, our arms tangled like a game of Twister, my hands stroking his thick cock, Dash’s fingers driving me to high-pitched cries.
And then it’s over, and my arms are wrapped around his neck. His face is pressed into my shoulder, and it’s so tragic, because it feels absolutely right. I feel like we’re lovers. I feel like we’re old friends. Maybe we are both. But none of this is real.
Dash drives to our building and I sit beside him silently. He parks in the garage, then walks around and opens my door. Inside, we take the elevator together.
“What floor?” he asks quietly.
“Seven.”
He nods, pushing seven, then eleven. When the door opens, he skims the fabric over my shoulder with his fingertips, as if he’s trying to grab onto me but can’t.
I manage to smile anyway. “See you later, Dash.” I step off and turn before he replies.
In my apartment, I lie on my bed, half-curled like an injured animal, and let my hot tears flow.
Fourteen
Dash
We establish rhythms during work: the way we time our bathroom breaks and lunch and made-up meetings. In empty studios and hall closets, the cot room and even restrooms, we find a dozen ways to make each other come. If there’s only time for one of us to get off, I make sure it’s Ammy—every time.
I don’t know the rules for her, don’t know what’s making this work in her head, so I watch for cues and spend a lot of my days hard and waiting. She summons me into the hall by asking me for gum, then leads me by the dick into a supply closet and blows me while I sit on boxes of sketch paper.
She kicks the wheel of my office chair and says, “Do you want to go get coffee, and I’ll tell you about the one thing,” and leads me to the nearest bathroom, where we dry hump up against a locked door until I ruin my khakis. (She loves that). Mostly, though, we fumble at each other in my car, making it through the workday barely intact, pained and breathless by the time I click the unlock button.
I try my best to give her pleasure.
I find what she likes best: the way she likes my fingers and my tongue. I find she likes to torture me with blow jobs, teasing with occasional deep-throating till my legs are shaking and I can’t catch my fucking breath. I let her do that, even though it drives me crazy, makes me want to yank her by the hair and shove myself down her throat.