Look Closer: No Safe Words Here 1-4 out of 5. Boxed Set (13 page)

So I sat down on the bench bolted to the floor right in front of my locker.  That’s when I saw Lana.  She was, as usual, deliciously beautiful…

Her long blond hair was pulled up into a not on top of her head.  Her skin was dewy soft looking, and every last inch of her was coated in a luminous sheen of moisture from the shower.

Lana’s maybe two inches taller than me, and has about fifty percent more curves to her fabulous body…so to be showing as much naked flesh as she was showing with a towel wrapped around her, she would have had to have them custom made for herself.

All that skin, those luscious breasts over flowing from the top, those perfectly toned, super long legs flowing out from underneath.  All that creamy smooth goodness, just sitting out there on display like…like an ooey, gooey chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven and left out on a table all alone and defenseless…

She was headed my way with her chic little carrying case for her shower supplies.  And those hips were swinging with their usual graceful confidence.

Good lord, she was spectacular…

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to look away as she opened her locker and started to pull on her panties under her towel.  Wanton lust or no, this was my oldest and dearest friend we were talking about here.  No matter how badly I wanted to lose my virginity to her—and her heart-stoppingly gorgeous boyfriend—and I so wanted to do just that, I was risking losing that friendship.

I gulped just thinking about what my life would be like without Lana…

I’d known that sooner or later we’d part ways: going to college, getting jobs anywhere that was far away from our home town of Tempe.  But what if by shoving sex into the equation of our long friendship, I somehow poisoned it, or made it go off balance, and then our friendship would just…fall apart?

I cringed at the thought…and where the hell had that horrible little analogy come from?  I was shit with math, and here I was trying to liken my relationship with Lana to a freaking math problem.

It was Natalie Wilkes fault.  I was paying her to keep me from flunking Algebra Two, which meant a C+…maybe a B-.  But no, little miss perfectionist was flooding my poor, usually under-stimulated brain with so much useful information that I was teetering on the edge of an A-.

Fortunately my little mental tangent had afforded Lana enough time to dress completely.  All she had to do was fix her hair and put on her shoes, and she’d be all set.

Lana’s makeup never seemed to get smudged; not by sweat, not by rain or showering.  And then one day I’d really looked at her skin.  It was flawless.  Her complexion had this perfect smoothness to it, not a zit or acne scar to be seen, and her eye lashes and lips were thick and naturally colored already. 

The lucky bitch didn’t even wear makeup usually.

I grimaced again just thinking about those full, nearly red, pouty lips.  I wondered what they would taste like.  I’d kissed some boys before, though I’d never let it go past the initial first grope.  And I’d liked it a lot. 

But girl’s lips had to be…well, sweeter, right?  Girls were made out of “sugar and spice” and all that crap.

Okay…no more Lana lips…no more Lana anything…

I took a deep breath and tried to get myself out of this mess.

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it tonight.”

Lana slipped her sketchers on and took her and her hair brush to the long mirror that practically stretched the entire span of the locker room.

I stood up and followed her, my feet skating around on the slippery tile floor as I tried to catch up with her.  My towel almost fell off, coming loose as I tried like hell not to fall on my ass.

When I finally caught up with Lana, she had her waterfall of blond hair free of its bonds, and was majestically sweeping the brush through it.

Damn…she had beautiful hair.

I shook the throbbing, hot pangs that looking at Lana was inundating me with and tried again.

“I said,” I said in a stage whisper, “I don’t think I can make it tonight!”

She stopped brushing her hair, her eyes closed and she smiled as if she was tasting a particularly delicious bite of chocolate.  The look was decadent, and utterly to die for. 

Her eyes opened and she looked at my reflection in the mirror.

“What are you talking about?  Of course you’ll be there…where else would you be?”

I gulped.  She was playing dumb…or maybe she was being her usual, confident self.

“I-I…” I suddenly didn’t have any more words to use in my defense.

She turned and playfully scoped out the locker room.  It had thinned out, and most of the girls were already heading for the doors.  We were practically alone.

Damn…

Lana sauntered closer to me, so close I could smell the scented soup on her skin, and feel her warm, minty sweet breath on my face.

Double damn…

She reached out her hand and slowly dipped a single finger in and grazed it over the outside of my ear.  I shivered.  Her gaze never left mine as that finger traveled down the side of my neck, over my collarbone, and then oh…so…slowly caressed lower, the silky soft, naughty little digit tracing down the slope of my left breast.  I trembled, and something rang out in me as if she’d plucked the strings of my very soul.

I felt something pull tight deep down in my lower body.

And then Lana pulled her finger way and smiled.  The sudden lack of contact made me dizzy, as if there had been an electric current running between us through that finger, and it had been the only thing keeping me animated and alive.

Now I felt shocky and drained, as if my life battery was fizzling out.

Maybe Lana’s touch was narcotic…and with just one touch I was addicted.

The thought was chilling, but somehow comforting.  All I had to do to feel that good again was to touch her…

When I could finally focus my eyes again, I found Lana still achingly close, and staring at me like she could see straight into my soul—which she’d just plucked like the strings of a harp, so why
wouldn’t
she be able to see it too.  She leaned in even closer, until our lips were so close I could feel them tickle against my own.  And then she changed her motion, swerving to the side until her lips where brushing against my earlobe.  I was shaking like I was suffering from hypothermia.

“Midnight, tomorrow…” she whispered into my ear.  “In my room…don’t be late.”

And just like that she turned on her heel, swept the fall of silky blond hair over her shoulder and stalked off to grab her purse from her locker; leaving me shaking and practically naked, all alone in the girl’s locker room.  And I was breathing like I’d run a hundred laps around the gymnasium.

My mouth was dry, and I gulped that dryness down my parched throat.  I needed a drink…maybe I’d hit my parents liquor cabinet when I got home…but that would be stupid.  I’d puked my guts out the one and only time I’d tried it, and had sworn off the shit ever since.  And anyways, with the choices I had looming ahead of me tonight, I needed all my wits about me.

I turned to return to my locker—and my clothes—when my feet slipped right out from under me, and I sprawled, spread eagle, on the stinking tile floor.

Luckily I didn’t hit my head, but my ass sure did hurt.  I lay there for a few defeated moments, staring at the ceiling and the shiny metal water sprinklers.  This day just seemed to get worse and worse.  There was no way that going to Lana’s bedroom tonight wasn’t going to be just as disastrous.

But then a thought squirmed pleasantly into my brain.  She’d said to show up at midnight.  So it would technically be tomorrow…

And tomorrow was another day.  Maybe it would be the best day of my life?

Chapter Nineteen

Tom

FRIDAY…

The next morning I woke to find the guest room vacant.  The bed had been made with Lila’s exact specifications…and I suddenly saw what I’d done wrong.  She was doing that fancy plumping shit with the duvet…

I took a deep breath.  Maybe she was just pissed because I messed up her bed.

Then I heard someone hammering on the roof.  I treaded downstairs and found Lila sitting in her bathrobe at the floating island, a cup of coffee to one side, the morning paper in her hands, reading.

“There’s someone hammering on the roof?”

“Yes there is,” she said flatly, without even looking up.

“But why?”

She lifted her hand without once taking her gaze from the paper and pointed to the far corner of the kitchen ceiling.

“There’s a leak,” She said laconically.

And that was it.  No elaboration, just “There’s a leak.”

I raked my hands through my tasseled hair and then took the garbage out.  The back yard looked alright at first…but then I smelled something…something had been burned.

I followed my nose to the charcoal grill I unfortunately hadn’t had time to use in years, and when I pulled the cover off I was confronted by the blackened, toxic smelling stench of burnt rayon, and singed cotton.

The duvet…and probably the rest of the bedding.

Holy fucking shit!  She
knew
…but she couldn’t.  I’d kept me and Marcus such a guarded secret.

But she’d freaking incinerated the duvet…

Then I remembered that when Marcus had shot his load it had pooled on my belly and sloshed over the sides and…and onto the fucking duvet.

She’d found the cum stain!

I was a dead man…

End of No Safe Words Here Part 3

Chapter Twenty

Lila

In the entirety of my twenty year marriage, I had never actually wanted my husband to leave.  But this morning, with the scent of burned duvet still in my nose, the sound of a hammer beating on the roof, and that lost, stupid, moronic expression on Tom’s handsome face, I frantically wanted him to get the fuck out!

I guess he’d found the smoldering remains of the cum stained duvet when he took the trash out, because he didn’t come back into the kitchen.  I heard the garage door open and then close.  And I felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

Tom was gone, not forever, but for a while…longer, I hoped.  But he hadn’t taken anything with him.  No change of clothes, no toothbrush…he hadn’t even had his briefcase.  I was probably still sitting by the front door.

He’d be back. 

I was suddenly angry that he hadn’t shown the least bit of forethought.  He should have at least taken his briefcase and a change of clothes.  These would be good excuses for coming back sooner than later.

But he could live a day without what was in the briefcase.  He wouldn’t get any work done…or maybe he would just task his bimbo secretary to make new copies for him of everything he’d left behind.

And we were “Upper Middle Class,” he could well afford to go shopping for some new clothes.  Hell, he’d probably assign the task to some hot young intern, either at the law firm or the Mayoral office.

Would it be a man?

I closed my eyes and listened to the labored beating of my own, tattered, broken heart.

My marriage was over…but in the eyes of the law, it didn’t know that.

I suddenly felt so completely alone.  If I wasn’t Tom’s wife, if I didn’t have his love, then who the hell was I?

Our only child had died, and that left us just each other.  But now I didn’t even have that…and Tom had at least one, young, eager to please him teenager to screw his brains out with. 

Maybe he had others?

The thought chilled me, and I got up and paced back and forth through the house.  I was right, the briefcase was by the door.  Ha!  Tom had been too much a coward to even face me!

Jake was rhythmically banging away on the roof.  Cripes there must have been a lot of loose shingles up there.  Then I remembered that he’d wanted to look up in the attic for water damage.  He said it would help him find the leak easier.

I went upstairs and took a quick shower, pulled my wet hair back in a ponytail, and pulled on a blouse and some caprice pants, throwing on some slip on sneakers.   

I didn’t even bother with makeup.  This wasn’t a makeup kind of day.

I ventured outside and found where he’d erected his ladder.  Boy it was a long ladder.  And just looking up to where it met up with the roof of the house made me feel vertigo.

I waited for about thirty seconds until he stopped hammering.  Then I called out his name.

“Good morning!” he called back.  Then, “I’ll be down in a second.”  And I heard him hammering again for about ten whacks before he stopped, and I heard the scrabble of his work boots over the shingles of the roof.

The sun was in my eyes as I back away to give him room on his descent, so I didn’t get a good look at him until he was about five feet off the ground.  He was wearing a near identical pair of jeans as yesterday.  But without the shirt, they seemed much tighter on his hips and across his…well, a really, really great looking behind.