She wrapped her hand around me and sucked, pumping me until I was about to come. With only a few precious minutes to spare, I lifted her up until her mouth was on mine. I slid my hand down her beautiful body to meet with her wet center. She was ready, and I moved her panties aside and took the plunge as we stood in her kitchen, pressed against the table.
I was so excited and time pressured, I forgot the condom. Damn, it felt good, but I quickly pulled out and rolled a new one on. She screamed as she orgasmed and I clung to her, following only moments later.
God, I was crazy about this woman. And from the look in her eyes, she was crazy about me.
When we were done, there was a knock at the door. Robert had arrived. We quickly straightened ourselves out and tried not to look like two people who’d just fucked in the kitchen. She and I had never done that, just went crazy on each other for a quickie. Our lovemaking had been sensual, slow, in the bedroom with lots of showers and sweet smelling lotions and oils. Never down and dirty on the kitchen table. It felt incredible to be fucking the woman you care for.
“Thanks, that was fun,” I said into her ear. “I won’t be able to enjoy anything this week, you can be sure.”
“Me either.” Her eyes cast downward, the sadness creeping in.
I kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, and finally her mouth. “I’ll call you when I get to New York. You start looking at cars you like, and I’ll do research on my end,” I said as I grabbed my bags and headed for the door.
She planted her fists on her hips. “You’re not buying me a car. I’m not budging on that.”
“We’ll see.” What she didn’t remember was that I did this for a living. I simple pestered people until they gave in to shut me up.
Holding Caitlyn’s hand, I headed to the car, Robert running ahead to open the door. “Good morning, Mr. Preston. Sorry to bother you, but we need to hurry and get you back to New York ASAP. If we go now, I can rush through traffic.”
“What’s going on?” God, I wasn’t ready to face work just yet.
“Apparently the office has been trying to reach you. They want you to attend a ten o’clock meeting. I’ll conference you in from the car if we don’t make it by then, but they want you in person as soon as you can get there, so that’ll be our first stop.”
I had turned off my phone last night for just this reason. “What movie?”
I’d worked from Caitlyn’s kitchen every day while she went to art class. I thought all the fires were out, so I didn’t understand the reason for any crisis. Maybe my staff just needed a little practice in holding down the fort.
“It’s the final casting for ‘Gamoroa Man.’”
“Shit. Okay, let’s hustle.” I turned to Caitlyn. “Sorry for the shitty goodbye. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
I gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, and that was it. As we drove off, I hoped she would be okay and that she could manage without me. No, I realized. What really worried me was if I could manage without her.
CHAPTER 13
Caitlyn
It was hard to see him go.
As I walked back into the empty house, a rush of sadness threatened to overwhelm me. It smelled like him, and there were lingering scents and memories of him all over the house. Gran was there too. I hadn’t been in her room since she died, but knew the hospice team had removed all of her medical stuff. But she was still there. Her scent was in there as well. My nose was experiencing all these smells that were sending my emotions all over the place. Missing Gran here, wanting KP there. I decided the best thing to do was to look to the future and make a grand attempt at avoiding everything.
A party.
Yes. A get-together with friends was exactly the balm I needed right now.
I’d already quit the restaurant, and would soon resign from the art center too. That added to my feelings of sadness, but I wanted to focus my attention on my school work. Since I’d been wanting this for so long, I planned to dedicate all my effort to becoming a better artist. I wasn’t exactly sure how my art would ever influence humanity, but I was sure I’d figure it all out.
I decided to go to the center and give them my resignation in person. I wanted to be with the kids and enjoy spending time with them before starting school the following month. As hard as it was, it was the best way to get my mind off stuff and move forward with my life.
An hour later, I told the director about my acceptance to Parson’s. He was thrilled for me, but also sad. As we planned for an end date for my last classes, I told him about an idea that had been brewing in my mind.
I wanted to use the kids’ art to help inspire public awareness for some of the issues they faced. Having a voice and educating the world to reality was something these kids needed. My idea was to create an animated series based on characters the kids and I created, but I wanted the main character to have some kind of mental illness. MI kids had it worse than most. I would draw the main characters for the story but would invite guest artists to draw guest characters who would only be in the series for an episode or two.
When I mentioned the idea to my students, they loved the concept and were eager to give their input. We decided that depression was the mental illness our lead character should have because most teens and many adults struggled with bouts of it. It was a good window to work through as I too struggled to fight off the clinging arms of depression. Since most of my students were girls, we went with Mathilda and drew her as a gorgeous woman of color. She had to be hot, the kids said, so that people would listen to her. That made me sad. People should listen to women who weren’t hot, but we had to start somewhere. We couldn’t tackle the whole world at one time.
I loved what we came up with, and I worked on it day and night. It kept my mind off losing Gran and missing KP. Although I had to admit, it wasn’t that hard to miss KP. While his physical body wasn’t beside me at all times, he sure was. He called me almost every hour on the first day and nearly every two hours on the second. I finally had to put my foot down and suggest twice a day was plenty of time to talk to one another.
There was no way I would have believed that KP, the creep from the restaurant, would end up being a man who called me every minute, trying to tell me he loved me in the cutest, dumbest ways.
Did you eat this morning? Um, yep, I’m not on any weird fasting diet.
Did you tell Parsons you want a single dorm room? Nope, just gonna take what they give me. That burned him up hard, so I got that question every day. The answer was still no. It wasn’t like I was going to let him on campus anyway.
I could see it now… Oh, hey, Caity. Your famous billionaire producer boyfriend is here in the hallway. Do you want us to buzz him in?
Nope, didn’t need that in my life. I’d be just your average, everyday art student without a famous boyfriend, thank you very much.