Unsuitable Men (7 page)

The undeniable implication behind her words was that he might be different. Thinking about that shit made Brendan’s head ache. Maybe in a couple months, he would revisit where he was with her. The monogamy thing would be a pill, but he could swallow it for the right woman. The question was whether Meghan was that woman.

Just then, as if conjured up by the Devil himself, Tracy walked by. She was scanning the room, searching the crowd. Leaning as he was on the bar, Brendan doubted she would spot him in the crowd, so he stood and headed toward her. Catching sight of him, she smiled.

“Hey,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “I won’t
be needing
that car after all.”

Of course she wouldn’t.

Brendan looked at her coolly for a moment. “Yeah?” he said. “Why not?”

Tracy hesitated for a moment.

He knew it!
She really
was
going home with that corny-looking, Men’s
Wearhouse
-suit-wearing, short-ass, grinning motherfucker. And here he thought she had some semblance of taste.

“I’m all set,” she said.

“I believe that’s what they call a non-responsive answer,” Brendan said.

Tracy folded her arms. “Actually, it’s very much responsive. You asked why I didn’t need the ride and I said I was all set.”

“Who with?” Brendan asked.

“That’s none of your business, Brendan,” she snapped.

“No need to turn into a raging bitch with me, Tracy. I told Shawn I’d see you safely home and that’s all I’m trying to do.”

And to his surprise, she bought his little righteous indignation act because she looked a little humbled and swallowed hard.

“Okay, well, you can tell Shawn I ran into an old friend. And anyway, I’ll probably talk to Riley tomorrow morning so he’ll get all the assurance he needs that I didn’t wind up in a ditch somewhere.”

Brendan smirked. Old friend his ass. A
new
friend was more like it.

“Okay, Tracy. Thanks for coming out. See you around.”

He turned his back on her and headed to the bar. Though he couldn’t see her, he sensed that it took her a moment to walk away.

She almost scalded herself getting into the damn shower. Tracy cursed under her breath and grabbed her
loofah
, working up a strong lather and scrubbing her skin until it burned. She let the water course through her hair even though it ruined the expensive salon job she’d gotten for the club opening. It took her a long time to feel clean again. At least he was getting dressed and would be gone by now, and she could sleep. Bringing him back to her house had been a lapse in judgment, but one she intended never to repeat.

She wasn’t even sure what brought the whole thing on. Who was she kidding?
Brendan
. That’s what brought it on. He was so . . . nice to her and so utterly uninterested in her all of a sudden. Sure, he’d walked her in, got her a drink and chatted with her a little. And then he toasted to her future husband and walked away to go survey his little party, not giving her a second thought. A little later on she’d seen him standing across the room with his arm about someone’s waist and when she squinted and looked closer, she realized it was Meghan.

Not
his girlfriend? Sure. Right. From where she stood, Tracy thought they looked like a very cozy little couple. Meghan was wearing a perfectly ordinary black cocktail dress and yet Brendan’s eyes as he looked at her couldn’t have been more bright and admiring had she been Miss Universe. Oh, but that was Brendan’s special talent; he knew how to make a girl feel special, she thought bitterly.

She grew even
more bitter
when she recalled that she shouldn’t still be thinking about him when he had never meant more to her than just a friend. And more than that, she’d allowed herself to bring home some guy she might never otherwise consider, just to salve her wounded ego. The moment when she unclothed herself to a new man was always the best moment—that instant when their eyes opened wide because they couldn’t believe their good fortune that a woman such as herself could want to be naked with them. Even the great-looking men reacted that way.

The problem was that it was almost always downhill from there. They went quickly from feeling lucky to having a lewd look on their faces, as though thinking about all the really nasty things they wanted to do to her. That was about where she generally lost interest in the proceedings. They touched her and she would drift off someplace far away in her mind, moving through the motions, moaning on cue, sometimes faking orgasm to get it over with. A few men were skilled lovers and brought her back
to the present and she participated actively, because at the end of the day, she really, truly did enjoy sex. If it was good sex. But those occasions were few and far between. Most of the time, sex made her feel empty unless she took total charge of it as she had done tonight.  But even forcing all her favorite positions hadn’t worked, because she was preoccupied.

Brendan, the one night they’d been together, hadn’t made her feel empty; and not only because he filled her up with his considerable,
er
. . . girth. He had treated her body not as a playground, the way most men did, but as a temple at which he wanted to worship. He’d looked at her and touched her face a lot, and sometimes when they’d kissed, she felt his smile against her lips. Charming, even in the middle of the act of lovemaking. And he’d done what none of the men ever
had,
no matter how awed they seemed by her: he told her she was beautiful. And not only when he was looking at her, but when he was inside her so it felt like he meant more than her physical appearance, like maybe he was referring to her very essence.

But what the hell was she thinking about that for?

It was just the one night and there was a good chance she was idealizing it. Besides, now he clearly had no interest in her whatsoever.

Tracy stepped out of the shower and toweled dry, pulling on the sweats and t-shirt hanging on the back of her bathroom door, and using a tie for her wet hair. She sighed, feeling a vague soreness between her legs. She hadn’t been ready when he entered her the first time but he didn’t care. He was half-drunk himself and clearly could not have cared less about her pleasure; which was probably fair since she didn’t give much of a shit about his.
Not that he hadn’t gotten any
; he seemed to enjoy himself just fine and she was the one left wanting and feeling like a human trash receptacle afterward.

She pushed open the bathroom door and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the form spread across her bed. He was partially dressed, wearing his undershirt, dress pants and socks, and looked to have fallen asleep. Tracy’s shoulders sagged.

Oh hell no.
She was not having this joker sleep in her bed. As it was, it was past four a.m. and if she let this go on, she would have to face him in the light of day. No. Way. In. Hell.

Tracy approached the bed and reached out, nudging him on the shoulder. He turned in his sleep and grunted but did not wake up, so she nudged harder. This time he opened his eyes, slowly, lazily.

“What?” His tone was immediately resentful.

“You were getting dressed,” she said. “I guess you drifted off.”

“I’ll be gone in a minute,” he said belligerently. And then he shut his eyes again.

“Hey!” she said sharply. “You
cannot
sleep here.”

This time his eyes stayed open. He looked her over with naked hostility, but said nothing. Tracy felt pinpricks of alarm on the back of her neck, considering for the first time that this was a man she did not really know, that she was alone with him in her locked townhouse, and that there was some pretty significant sound-proofing between her walls and those of her neighbors.

“I’m expecting a friend for brunch,” she lied, trying to keep her voice light. “I really need to get some rest.”

As she spoke, she walked over to her closet, she hoped casually, and slid her feet into her Keds. In her mind’s eye, she recalled that her keys were downstairs in the foyer.

“If you need to get some rest, why’re you putting your shoes on?” he challenged.

“I have to grab some things at the store,” she said.

Her voice sounded less steady now, less confident. She was afraid to look directly at him, apprehensive about what she might see.

“At this hour?”

He was standing now, sliding his own feet into his loafers. Tracy watched him out of her peripheral vision.

“The bakery opens in less than an hour.”

“Lying bitches, man,” he said, his voice cold.

Tracy froze. The fact that he said
bitches
, plural, somehow made it much creepier. She wasn’t even an individual to him, just a
type
of woman; a type he did not like very much, though he was willing enough to fuck that
type
of woman.

Thinking about his relentless charm at the lounge, it was apparent that his animus only reared its head once he was done with you in bed. It didn’t take a degree in psychology to know that men who equated sex with anger were not exactly poster children for good mental health.

A chill traveled down the Tracy’s spine.

“Look, Kevin . . .”

“
Kelvin
!” he snapped.

“Kelvin,” she said. “I just need to . . .”

He shrugged on his shirt and brushed by her and out of the bedroom. Then seeming to think of a better idea, he stopped and grabbed her face in his hand, squeezing her cheeks painfully.

“You’re a fucking whore,” he said between his teeth, his face inches away from hers. And then perversely, he planted one last, kiss on her lips, his sour tongue pressing into her mouth.

Tracy’s eyes were shut, and when he released her, she froze in place waiting for what might come next. Hearing him descend the wood stairs, she opened her eyes and turned to make sure that when he opened the inner and outer doors, he actually walked down the steps and into the street. When she was sure he had, she ran downstairs and bolted the doors with trembling fingers and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Damn it!
She couldn’t seem to stop shaking! Her first impulse was to call Riley, but it wasn’t even morning. She would be asleep and if Shawn answered he would be beyond angry that she called and woke his pregnant wife up. And she didn’t want to admit what had happened, not to him and maybe not even to Riley who she’d promised she wasn’t doing this anymore. The near-anonymous pick-ups and hook-ups had stopped, she’d promised her months ago. And they had, for awhile. Until tonight.

And when Riley had expressed concern about what —and who—she might be exposing herself to, Tracy had insisted,
I’m safe; of course I’m safe. I make sure of that.
But she’d been lying. What she was referring to was using condoms—which she always did—when she knew that Riley meant much more than that. She wanted to know that Tracy was physically safe, and this little episode proved once and for all that in that regard she was becoming somewhat reckless.

Tracy walked through her living and dining rooms, checking windows, drawing blinds. A man, whom she had let into her home, into her
body
, had called her a
fucking whore
. She crouched on the floor near her sofa as though hiding, but she couldn’t hide from herself. She
was
a fucking whore. She’d done this before, many more times than she cared to admit; picked up men who she didn’t care about, who
she knew didn’t care about her just to help her feel something,
anything
for a few hours. Except she never did feel anything. Just emptier than before.

And now, thanks to Kelvin, she felt empty
and
dirty.

The only reason she knew the sobbing must be her was because there was no one else here. She was alone. That realization was both painful and a relief. Kelvin was gone, but she was alone. She pulled herself up from the floor, talking to herself, telling herself she was being melodramatic, and that this was no big deal. Some men turned aggressive when they were rejected, every woman knew that. She had chosen poorly, that was all . . . Kelvin was a fluke. One bad apple . . .

But it didn’t work; she was still shaking uncontrollably even though her rational mind told her there was no danger. And she couldn’t face the idea of going back upstairs to her room and even looking at, let alone, sleeping on that bed. Instead, she went to the foyer and grabbed her purse, pulling out her cell phone. She didn’t consider
,
she just found the number and hit the call button, anxious for the sound of his voice.

Tracy seemed to have been waiting by her front door because she opened it as soon as he rang the buzzer. Brendan stepped into the foyer of the beautiful classic brownstone, the interior of which appeared to have been restored to the period in which it was built. But he didn’t have time to take in the period details of his surroundings; he was too focused on Tracy and the look on her face. He got the distinct impression that she wanted to hug him when he entered, but was barely managing to hold back. Instead she hugged herself, her arms tightly gripping her own shoulders. She had obviously been crying.

“What happened?” he asked, looking around.

Her voice on the phone had been so urgent, damn near incoherent, so he’d been expecting something dire, some imminent danger when he arrived. But she appeared to be alone.

“I . . . I just needed someone here,” she said.

Brendan narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Why? What happened, Tracy?”

She looked up at him and he saw a flash of something in her eyes. Shame. And loneliness. No, that wasn’t right. Not loneliness,
alone-
ness
. He advanced toward her, putting his hands on her shoulders, gently opening her arms and pulling her slowly into his chest. At that, Tracy seemed to collapse in on herself, loud sobs wracking her body as she cried. Stunned, Brendan held her tighter, not moving until she stopped.

When she’d calmed down a little and he tried to lead her upstairs, she pulled back, shaking her head.

“Is someone up there?” he asked, looking up the staircase.

“No, no,” she shook her head. “He left. He’s gone.”

Brendan felt his entire body grow tense with anger. “Tracy, did he . . ?”

“
Rape
me?” she said. She laughed harshly. “No, he didn’t rape me.”

The way she kept emphasizing the word puzzled him. She walked toward the back of the house and Brendan followed her into a kitchen with chrome and exposed red brick. It was neat, and
impeccably designed, as well put-together as he would expect from Tracy who was herself usually well put-together. She grabbed a sheet of paper towel and noisily blew her nose.

“Then what . . ?”

She looked at him, and there was the embarrassment again. “He just scared me,
that’s
all,” she shrugged. “I was scared and I had no one else to call who would . . .” she paused.

Brendan leaned in, waiting for her to finish.

“Who would make me feel safe,” she said finally.

“Who is he?” Brendan
asked,
his voice flat.