With or Without You (28 page)

‘Good girls are rewarded,’ Anthony whispered as he slid inside of me. ‘Sometimes the reward will be pain.’ His fingers sought out my nipples. Pinching them until I tossed back my head and cried. ‘Sometimes the pain will make you come.’

He was right. I came. I came and came, my body shaking, my voice lost against his skin, biting into his shoulder as he took me. God, I came. Squeezing him over and over, aching with the feeling of being overwhelmed.

He taught me lessons. I learned from him. All night long, I learned.

After, it was just like the journal. Outside, dawn was breaking over a quiet city. Inside, we lazed in bed, both of us naked, my skin flushed all over from his love and his heat. Anthony looked at the clock on the bedside table and said the numbers out loud. It was almost five in the morning. The hours had passed so quickly, they’d blurred together.

‘I still owe you dinner, you know.’ His voice was light, his tone cavalier. I wasn’t hungry. Wasn’t anything but happy. ‘But I guess it’s really breakfast time now.’

I sighed, feeling as warm as a pool of melted butter. I didn’t want to move at all. ‘I’m not hungry,’ I said.

Anthony began to kiss his way down my body once more. ‘Breakfast,’ he said softly, ‘is in the eye of the beholder.’

‘That’s beauty,’ I corrected him.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, looking down at me. ‘That is definitely beauty.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Don’t blush,’ he said, catching me almost on the brink. Blushing comes naturally to me. Like breathing. But I did my best to meet his gaze, to look straight into his eyes. ‘Of course, you meant it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And anyone who beheld this –’ he gestured to include my entire body ‘– would agree that I have beauty before me.’

Without another word, he began to lick his way even lower, finding the split between my legs and starting to dine. Only moments before, I’d thought that I would never move again. Now, I stared up at his ceiling, feeling awash in a range of emotions. The way Anthony touched me was unique. His hands were so firm on my body, yet his tongue was gentle, making the tiniest little lapping motions over and over on my clit. I started to breathe faster, and Anthony raised his head. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to leave you wanting more. You trust me. And I’ll make it happen.’

Trust him. That’s all he wanted from me.

This time, when I looked down at him, I kept my eyes open. I focused on him, on his dark hair, his strong hands. I watched him work, and I let the climax come to me, rather than chase after it. Anthony was right.

He didn’t let me down.

ThePinkFedora.blogspot.com

It’s happening, and it’s real.

Reality, that is.
You Can Leave Your Hat On
, each Saturday night on the Bijoux Network.

The show has started, the contestants are at the gate. We’ll be whittling them down, one by one, until only the best remains. And that lucky someone will be King or Queen of the bar at the Pink Fedora. Watch us at 10:00 if you’re a homebody. Or come see for yourselves if you live in La-La Land. We are waiting for you to order your drinks and place your votes. Do you want an Angel Kiss or a Denmark Orgasm? Are you longing for a Kiss in the Dark or a Long Hot Night?

Sexy drinks aside, let’s focus on the sexy bartenders!

Are you dreaming of Dameron or are you routing for Roan? Does Bella make you want to beg or does Bowen make you want to bend over?

You tell us.

And I’ll tell you – I’m caught in a conundrum myself. I don’t do relationships – most people know that about me. No judgment to you happily settled couples, but the grim badge of monogamy is simply not my thing. Yet, I’ve recently been bouncing back and forth between two handsome hunks: Travis and Dean. Dean and Travis. They each know about the other and so far, there has been no explosions. No jealousy. No guilt.

But I’m having my own personal, private reality show. One contestant has to go.

Follow along with me, and I’ll tell you all my secrets.

Kisses
,

Nora

Quote for the Day:
As Axl Rose said, ‘It’s not easy to be in a one-on-one relationship if the other person is not going to allow me to be with other people.’

‘So what happened with Anthony?’

I shrugged. ‘Nothing important.’

Nora’s enormous emerald eyes bored into mine. She knows when I’m lying to her. But I wasn’t lying now. I was teasing. There’s a difference. Yet because I was dying to tell her everything, I couldn’t hold out very long. I found myself the first to laugh, and I started speaking in a rush, wanting to tell her everything at once, and starting at the end rather than the beginning – ‘Well, nothing except that we’re going to Greece on Thursday. ARTSI will pay for the journey. We’re supposed to research to see if the journal can be backed up, if we can find other corroborating writings to lend it more credibility.’

‘You’re going where, Eli?’

‘To Greece. Athens, specifically. I wish I had the funds to take the Orient Express all throughout Europe with him, because we are both due to have a few weeks’ vacation. But money’s tight right now. So …’

Nora squinted her eyes at me, and I could tell that she was trying to figure out if I was joking with her. Traditionally, she’s been the jokester of our duo. Still, after silently regarding me for several moments, Nora seemed to realise that I wasn’t kidding.

‘I know this is all happening fast. But it’s not what you think. We’re going to the dig where my Aunt Rose found that pot. I want to know more about the lovers who wrote the manuscript. I need to know more. I don’t know why, but I do. Anthony is going with me because he can translate ancient Greek. And he has vacation time, and he just wants to.’

While I watched, Nora stood up from her desk and came to sit at my side on the sofa. She had a pack of cards in one hand and began to deal out a game of Solitaire, her favorite way to calm her nerves. Nora is as poker-faced as they come, and she cheats even when she plays herself, but I like to watch her fingers dance over the cards.

She didn’t have anything to say for several minutes, which was unusual for her. Or maybe she had too much to say, but she didn’t know where to start. Finally, she asked, ‘Did the Little Red Riding Hood costume make that big a hit?’

I burst out laughing. ‘Something like that. I thought you’d approve, you know. You’re always telling me that I’m going to grow dusty and old from sitting inside the museum. That I’ll grow crooked from bending over my computer typing all day. Now, I’m doing something exciting, for once. Something you’d do.’

Nora looked up at me again and she shot me a half-smile. ‘That’s it. That’s the problem. If you start doing the things that I would do, what am I going to do?’ She sounded as if she were only partly kidding.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Will I become you?’

I shook my head. That didn’t even seem possible. Nora could hardly stand dressing like me for a few hours. She’d never fall into the sort of rut I’d found myself in. ‘We’ll do the things together,’ I said. ‘Except, not this thing. This thing I’m going to do on my own … with Anthony.’

Nora’s cards found the correct places as if of their own accord. Red queens on black kings. Black jacks on red queens. I watched as she uncovered the ace of hearts and moved it to the top row above the rest of the cards. She said, ‘I probably ought to tell you that it’s too soon. That you’re on the rebound, but I somehow don’t think you are.’ I watched the ten of diamonds find a spot on the jack of clubs. ‘Besides, I’ve never been the one to tell you
what to do. You’ve always done a good job of that yourself.’

‘Not such a good job,’ I told her. ‘Look where I was for the past four years.’

‘You didn’t think you had a choice. Or, rather, you thought you’d made the best choice possible.’

I shrugged. I didn’t know. Why had I stayed so long with Byron? Had I decided that dreams were only for dreaming?

I stared from the cards to Nora again as she took a deep breath. ‘Fuck it, Eli. It’s great. Go to Greece and have an amazing time. Bring me back a souvenir. A Greek sailor or something.’

She set down the deck, stuck with her hand, and I picked up the stack and flipped through the cards for her. Nora watched as I drew the jack of spades. She seemed to be waiting for me to tell her more, to tell her something else. ‘Before I pack, I have to ask you a question,’ I said. Nora looked at me expectantly. ‘Have you decided?’

‘Decided?’

‘About Dean or Travis.’

‘You’ve been reading my blog!’ She looked exceptionally thrilled.

I grinned at her. ‘All right, so I do read it sometimes. Insomnia, you know.’ I winked at her, fully aware I was echoing her own statement. ‘And I’m curious. Are you going for a dom like Dean? Or is Travis more your speed? I know you’re writing to please your fans, but have you decided?’

She nodded, still focused on the cards.

‘Which one?’

‘Which one what?’

‘Nora –’

She laughed, pleased with herself. ‘You know me, Eli. I can never choose just one. But we’re working it out. Dean on weekdays, Travis on the weekends. Seems like a good plan for now.’

She stood suddenly and walked to the blood-red file cabinet in the corner of her office. I watched as she opened a drawer in the middle and rifled through the contents. Even from where I sat, I could see that her files were the opposite of mine – chaos has always controlled Nora’s world – but I held my tongue. After several moments, she seemed to have found what she was looking for, and she brought a folder to the table and set it on top of the cards

‘I was winning,’ I told her.

‘You’re right. You’re winning big time.’

‘What do you mean? What is this?’

Nora didn’t answer right away. She just ran her fingers down the list of names and dollar figures. When she got to my own name, I looked up at her. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You’re a partner.’

‘In what?’

‘The clubs.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘I always told you I’d pay you back.’

‘For what? Coffee?’

‘Everything. Over the years at school, you paid for me so often. I wouldn’t have eaten nearly as well without your help. I might not have eaten at all. I thought hair dye was more important than food.’

I shrugged. I’ve always been of the mentality that if I could help out a friend, I would. I knew Nora used to keep track of those expenses in her little notebook, but I never gave that much thought.

‘But what’s it mean?’

‘You’re a silent partner. You own a tenth of the empire. There’s an account in Switzerland with your name on it. Why not take the Orient Express, Eli? You deserve it.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I was saving it for a rainy day. Or a sunny day. For the right day to share it with you. And I didn’t want you to have to share it with Byron.’

‘Oh, my God,’ I said when I looked back down at the
numbers, when I understood what they meant. I felt tears in my eyes, but when I glanced up at Nora, she was looking down at the floor. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering her.

‘Nora –’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said, but I didn’t believe her.

‘Come on, Nora. What’s wrong? Everything’s going well now. Your show. Your club. Your perfume. Your men.’

‘You don’t really need me any more,’ she said softly.

‘I always need you,’ I told her. It was the truth. ‘Always. I couldn’t have come this far without you. Couldn’t have transformed this much. Couldn’t have gone after Anthony.’

‘You’d have done it, Eleanor. You would have – with or without me.’

Now, I shook my head. ‘Nora,’ I said, ‘you’re my best friend. There is no without you.’

‘Come here,’ Anthony whispered.

‘Where?’ I was in bed, wrapped in his blankets, feeling as if I’d never move again.

‘Here,’ he said, and he grasped my hand, and I followed, followed him outside where he made yet another one of my fantasies come true. The air was cold and clear, and even though we were in the heart of Los Angeles, home to ten million people, it felt as if we had the whole city to ourselves.

On the fire escape, Anthony took me from behind. He had me put my hands on the chilled iron railing, had me stare out at the lights of the city, twinkling like a fairy city before us. Yes, the situation felt similar to that in my daydreams. But this was better because it was real. Anthony lined his body up with mine, not fucking me, not kissing me, just letting me feel his warmth against my skin. I couldn’t have asked for a better sensation. Being so close to Anthony made me more aroused than anything I’d thought of – or nearly anything. Just his body pressed to mine. Because his body told me stories, made me promises:

If you trust yourself, then everything you want will come true. If you let yourself go and stop playing games, then I can make magic with you.

I thought for one quick flash of fucking Byron – our weekly routine, with everything in its place. U2 playing on the stereo during my weeks to choose. Some pompous jazzy combo playing if the choice of music selection was his. Who chooses Dave Brubeck as a background for sex?

With Anthony, there was no melody at all but the
sound of the traffic below. Distant and hollow. No routine, because all of this was uncharted territory. Yet, even though we were new to one another, I could sense his queries.

Did I trust him?

Would I give myself over to him?

I would. I agreed. My silence was all he needed. No questions, no preparation, no guessing what was to come. Anthony ran his hands along my arms and his touch sent a shiver through me. He cradled my breasts in his hands as gently as if he were holding two ripe pieces of fruit, then brushed my nipples with his thumbs. His touch created a yearning inside me. I could picture a fire in my mind, flames of orange and gold licking up and down beneath my skin. Still, I kept my tongue, didn’t beg, didn’t tell him what I wanted. This was Anthony’s time to teach me, and I played the good pupil and remained silent.