Together Apart: Change is Never Easy (13 page)

“No. Order a pizza.”
 

“I don’t mind.”
 

“I do.” She let some of her building stress die and feather to her feet like a discarded garment. She kissed him again. “You had a hard day, too. Order a pizza. Use the time to paint or something.”
 

Zach pulled her closer, scooting a pile of paperwork to the side. “I’d rather spend the time with you.”
 

She made a small but pained expression. “I need to get some work done.”
 

“How could you need to get work done?” He made a show of looking around the room. “Dammit, did I accidentally walk into the newspaper offices again?”
 

“It’s just a bit of research. Not much.”
 

“You shouldn’t work at home,” he said. “It’s not good for you.” He waved his hand in the air. “Home,” he declared. He patted the air in front of him, between them, inches from her chest. “Safe place,” he concluded.
 

“I just need to catch up. I’ll stop when the pizza comes, honest. And no more after that.”
 

He patted the air again. “Special space.”

“Zach … ”
 

He stopped patting the air and took Sam by her upper arms, earnest eyes grabbing hers and staying. “I don’t want to pull rank,” he said. “But you’re really not leaving me any choice. I’ve brought weapons.”
 

His face was so serious. She kept hers the same and said, “Weapons?”
 

“Weapons known to be effective against such as you.”
 

“Overworked journalists?”
 

“Women.”
 

She cocked her head. A light-brown clump of hair escaped her pinned-back coif and dangled at her vision’s periphery. “I see,” she said. “What kind of weapons?”
 

He held up a finger, then left the room. A moment later he returned with both hands behind his back. “Now I want you to understand,” he said, “you’re forcing me to do this.”
 

She felt the corner of her mouth rise, amused by Zach’s constant ability, even when still dressed for his loathed job, to surprise and delight her. “You had no choice,” she said, unsure just what in the hell they were talking about.
 

He pulled a hand from behind his back. In it was a bouquet of antiqued hydrangea and Leonidas roses, the same as she’d learned to love growing up with Fleurs de Lys.
 

“Bam!”
 

“You are so sweet,” Sam said, taking the bouquet and inhaling deeply. “A total cliché, but sweet nonetheless.” Again, she leaned in and kissed him. This time, the kiss lasted one beat longer.
 

“You’ve been calling me a cliché since the beginning, Samantha Jean Hollister,” he said. “The correct response is ‘Thank you.’”

“When did I call you a cliché?”
 

“Constantly! I gave you a rose the day we first … ”
 

“ … met?”

“Had sex,” Zach corrected. “Did you really forget? With the rose?”
 

“Of course not. I just wanted you to admit that you’re trying to get laid.” Sam said it as part of their usual banter, but in three years with Zach, she’d learned not to make allusions she didn’t plan to follow through with. She really did need to knock out a half hour of research. But her husband had brought her flowers, and she was quite in love with him right now.
 

“You didn’t say thank you.”

Sam cupped her hand over his crotch. “Thank you.”
 

“Wow. I could have stopped at the flowers?” And now,
he
was pretending to banter, but she could feel him stir and stiffen under her hand.
 

“What do you mean?”
 

“I haven’t even fired both barrels, here.”
 

She rubbed him more firmly. “Hell, I hope not.”
 

Sam realized that although he’d walked in with both hands behind his back, he’d only pulled one out. He moved his second hand to reveal a small gold box.
 

“You didn’t.”
 

“I totally did. The Godiva isn’t close anymore, either. By the way, did you know these are considered an old lady’s chocolate?”
 

Sam was already pulling at the gold, elastic bow, and shedding its gold-papered lid. Inside sat a row of cherry cordials, their smell rich and evocative somewhere deep in the animal part of her brain.
 

“This old lady is going to bang your brains out,” she said, picking one up, biting it in half, and inhaling the scent of its brandy-soaked center. She’d pierced the cherry with her teeth, effectively halving the candy, and chewed her half as endorphins flooded her senses. She looked up and held the other half toward Zach. He opened his mouth, and she slid it in.
 

“Now who’s the cliché?”
 

She rolled her eyes. “I know. I’m disgusted with myself. I’m a respected career woman with an important job and a ton on my plate, yet some spear-bearer just got me wet with chocolates and flowers.” As she said it, Sam realized how true it was. They hadn’t had sex in two weeks. There simply wasn’t the time — and when there
had
been, one or both hadn’t the energy. She couldn’t believed it was possible for Zach to not have energy for sex and was bothered that she believed it
was
possible for herself, but that’s how it had been. Both of their jobs seemed to have ramped up at the same time in the past month, leaving them sometimes passing like ships in the night.
 

Sex hadn’t occurred to Sam for a while … now that it had, she felt the pressure cooker between her legs.
 

“I was supposed to order a pizza.”
 

She put her arms around him. “I
am
hungry.”
 

“Luigi’s has that 30-minutes-or-less thing for deliveries. I’ll call. You can finish publishing your book, and I’ll paint. Small windows for creative endeavor.”
 

“I don’t want to mess around with computers right now.”
 

“Publishing, like you promised, the only option. You aren’t allowed to use the time for work if you expect this spear-bearer to bend you over the couch.”
 

“I didn’t say I wanted to work.” She touched his chest and started to rub it.

“So, you want to wait on the pizza?”
 

“No. Order the pizza.”
 

Zach looked her over with what was supposed to be a sexy, seductive expression.

“You would be so good with a fat guy. I’ve never heard a girl say, ‘Order the pizza’ in quite that way.”
 

Sam ran her hands down her front, into her pants, and writhed in a ridiculously over the top way, unpinning her hair and twisting her face into a movie seductress. “Order the pizza, baby.
Order it.”
 

Zach pulled out his cell and dialed.

“Oh yes,” Sam purred. “Just like that.”
 

“Shhh. Shut up while I’m ordering or I’m going to ask them for an erection by mistake.”
 

Zach started to order. Sam was still playing the vamp, doing possibly the stupidest, least sexy food-related seduction ever. But the stupider she got, the wetter she became. They hadn’t played like this in a while, and she hadn’t seen a cherry cordial in what felt like forever. Right now, between the two old stimuli, Sam felt like she was back in the days before
I do
— two stupid kids who didn’t know much other than that they felt lightheaded around each other and that their bodies fit so wonderfully together. It was hot.
 

She slipped a hand into her light-brown hair and used a flat palm to muss it over her face. She stuck her tits and ass out, leaning toward Zach. Sam whispered, “Tell them I want sausage.”

Zach spat on the phone in a burst of spontaneous laughter. Sam got to her knees and started unbuckling his pants. He stopped laughing as she unzipped him, pulled his already-stiff shaft from the folds of fabric, and dropped it into her mouth. Above her, Zach stopped laughing. She didn’t kiss around and toy with him. Sam took his cock all the way into her mouth, working her hand, coating his length with her saliva. Between her legs, pressure continued to build. How the hell had she managed to get so horny? Two weeks was an impossible length of time for Sam, and she hadn’t so much as masturbated. Every morning in the shower, the detachable shower massager stared her in the face as she readied herself for the day, and not once during that time had she taken it from its mount and put it where it would have done her so many wonderful worlds of good.
 

Zach responded in her mouth, throbbing. Above the waist, the larger of his two brains fought for control despite its loss of blood to its lower brother. He fumbled the order, his phone number, and their address. Sam smiled, liking what she was doing to him. Her lips firmly cupped his cock, tasting him like a Rocket Pop on a July day. Except this Rocket Pop was hot instead of cold, and its head was leaking salty drips of pre-cum. Sam took it from her mouth and licked the tip with a stiff tongue, looking upward, giggling as her husband told Luigi’s pizza “You’re welcome” after she heard the tinny voice say it would be $10.50 for the order.

“You have 20 minutes,” he announced, pocketing the phone. She cupped his balls and squeezed him. Zach moaned.
 

“Thirty.”
 

“Twenty. You really want to be fucking when the doorbell rings?”
 

“Yes.” Sam was wearing a white dress blouse. She unbuttoned it, putting Zach’s dick back in her mouth to fellate him without any hands. She lost her blouse and revealed a bra that seemed entirely too confining.
 

“I see. Maybe we could invite the delivery guy in, porno style.”
 

“If they ring and you’re not done, let’s answer the door standing doggy style. I’ll pay and take the pizza while you ram into me from behind.”
 

“You might drop the pizza.”
 

Sam made her voice insulted, idly rubbing his dick, almost meditatively, while she used her other hand to reach back and unclasp her bra. “You think I’ve never held a pizza while being fucked from behind?”
 

He said, “Come up here.”
 

Sam stood. Zach’s cock pressed into her leg. His hand went under her short dress skirt, then reversed course, and plunged down her panties. Sam moaned as the play left her body.
 

She put her head beside his, lips by his ear and whispered, “That feels good.”

“It does?”
 

Two fingers parted her pussy lips. Fingers slid down. One popped inside, making her flinch.
 

“Rub it. Oh, shit, Zach.”
 

He rubbed. Sam was so wet. There was no resistance. His entire palm grew slick as he rubbed it against her.
 

“You’re so smooth. Did you shave?”
 

“No.” Sam was embarrassed for some reason. She had always kept at least a landing strip, but had rushed last time, screwed it all up, and had to shave everything clean. What the hell; it’d grow back.

“Yes, you did.” Zach hooked a finger under each edge of Sam’s panties and pulled. He followed them down, falling on one knee in front of her. He lifted her skirt and examined her like a doctor. He smirked, and she felt suddenly too vulnerable. He ran a finger through her wetness, testing the feel. “Never lie to me about your pussy.”

“I made a mistake,” she said.

“The lying?”
 

“No, with my razor.”
 

Zach pulled her panties the rest of the way down, She stepped out of them, then braced herself on his shoulder and raised a foot behind her to unbuckle her shoe.
 

“Leave them on,” he said in a
faux
-lecherous voice that probably wasn’t very
faux
at all. “I’ve always wanted to screw a woman in high heels.” He stood, his mouth on hers.
 

“Oh,” she said. His cock was still out, and hard. But his pants weren’t down, and the end of his belt was running across her thigh’s interior. She pushed the slacks down, then took hold of his shaft and used the head to rub against her, making it wet.
 

“Your shirt is in the way,” she said in a pant.
 

“Yours isn’t,” he said, rubbing her tits. He looked down at one after the other, cupping them in his large palms. She loved how Zach looked at her — base though it was, the way he looked at her chest. Zach loved her tits, and the worship was apparent in his handling, touching her as if polishing delicate porcelain, soft and electric.
 

Sam unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way and pulled it off. Her hands palmed his chest. Zach had an excellent chest. It felt warm to her touch; she wanted it pressed against hers. Her palm moved down, both hands now on his dick. She kissed him, caresses frantic.
 

His hands went up under her skirt, cupped her bare ass. They seemed hungry, as urgent as hers.
 

“Baby, I’m going to fall over,” she said.
 

Zach backed her up, pressed Sam against the office wall.
 

“I want you inside me. Put me down on the floor.”
 

“I’ve always wanted to fuck a woman against a wall,” he said in a growl.
 

Sam was losing herself. Flat-out losing herself in sensation and lust and emotion and nostalgia and heat and need and love and desire and
Zach
.
 

She let him hook his hand under one of her legs and then the other, lifted her skirt, pushed her back against the wall and his body between her legs. Zach wasn’t inside her yet but the position spread Sam open, her hole gaping and begging for him. She felt cavernous and empty. The feeling was desperate and needful. Somehow sad.
 

“It’s been too long,” she said.