No matter which angle I come in from, Tuija's just tits and ass and painted lips and bottled hair. Capped teeth. A pop-culture perfect body sprayed with honey and rolled in bank notes. I could throw a match at her and she'd catch light in a second. Frankenklein.
"Run the damn story, firecracker."
She lowers her gaze. Folds her arms. "I don't like you like this. I'm worried. You're not yourself."
"You heard me."
She brings balled fists to her mouth and bleats into them, exasperated. "Well don't say I didn't warn you."
I roll back on my office couch to stretch my bunched-up muscles. "I don't need your warnings, Tuij. I just need you to do what you're told."
She goes to leave, but then turns. "Oh. That software company, The Appening? They sent over some design proofs for a new website. You want to see?"
"No." I don't want to look at anything, or approve anything, or veto anything. I just want to be left the fuck alone. "You keep them. Tell them I need a few days."
She sighs. "Right. Okay."
"Now get the twink file off my desk and take it down to the news room. Stop wasting time."
Tuija runway-walks over to scoop up the brown folder, and then shakes it in my direction. Her made-up eyebrows dip in. "The trail of batshit tragedy this is about to leave in its wake? I will not be held responsible."
I wave her away. "Whatever. Fine."
"I guess I'll go order you a new cell, too," she huffs.
"Go on, then. Get lost."
At some point today, I actually have to do some work.
How the hell am I going to manage that?
***
When the phone rings for the third time, I peel myself off the couch and swagger over to answer it. I've been asleep for God knows how long—I needed it. The world is just easier with my eyes closed.
"Uh, Mr Lore?"
Finn. My absolute fucking favourite person to speak to. Not. "What?" I bark down the receiver.
"It's Leo. I think you ought to come get her."
"I'm sorry—what?"
"She's not well. In our lab. She's...she's asking for you."
"I'll be there in a moment."
I shouldn't have let her come in. She was an hour late just because of the press, and there's no way she's recovered from what she saw yesterday. Me, I can block it out—the whole thing is eclipsed by its potential impact on my reputation—but Leo and Rachel were close.
Too close for my liking, but I can hardly fix that now.
When I burst into the SilentWitn3ss main office and rush down to the lab area at the back, there are several people kneeling behind a design bench, and Leo's bare legs stretch out from between them. They see me and most of them scatter. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife—and oh, I want to. A blunt one. Make a real mess.
My little lion isn't herself. No makeup—not that she needs it, but she's nearly always in it—and scraped back hair. She's clad in a denim skirt and a football shirt from some English team. She sniffles quietly, though her eyes flare when she notices me.
I bend down beside her, warning the others off with a scowl.
Finn is reluctant to leave. "You gonna be okay?" he whispers to Leo, his beefy hand squeezing her knee.
I want to drive a pencil through his stupid hand.
"Get off her," I say in a low voice.
"But I'm just—"
"I said, get off her. Stop groping her like some shameless retard and leave us the fuck alone."
Leo recoils, pulling her knees into her chest, and Finn stomps off to sulk, or masturbate. Probably.
"Sweetheart." I press a kiss to her cool, damp forehead. "We're going home."
Leo says nothing, but she lets me scoop her up. I carry her down the hall toward the elevator.
"Take messages," I tell Fliss as I pass her. "I'll be back in tomorrow."
***
Today, I don't complain about a security team escort. They get us back to Leo's safely, depositing us near a staff entrance at the back, and I put Leo over my shoulder while I fiddle about in my pocket for my key.
"Carrying me over the threshold?" she mumbles into my shirt.
"Something like that."
Inside, I scrape magazines off her couch and lay her down before switching her alarm off and grabbing a couple beers.
She hauls herself up to sitting and accepts a bottle. "It's a little early for this, isn't it?"
"It's past lunch."
"Oh. Well that makes it okay."
I arrange myself at the end of couch and beckon for her to come sit between my legs. She crawls over, resting against my chest, her hip digging in beside my stiffening cock. "You comfy?"
"Uhuh."
For a while, we lie in silence, drinking while I stroke her tied-up hair. I close my eyes, breathing in the mulled wine scent of her and the candle wax smell of her apartment. Luxuriate in the warm weight of her on my ribs. Like this, I can almost forget the macabre circus my life has become these past few days, and it's a relief like no other. Her stomach keeps gurgling and rumbling; I rub at it with a flat palm, chuckling to myself.
"You want to order takeout?"
"No." She puts her bottle down on the floor and comes up over me, her fingers pulling at the buttons of my shirt. She seems to tire of this quickly, then takes my bottle and deposits it with hers.
"What can I do for you?"
"Just this." Fingers on the fly of my pants, fetching me out.
My stiff cock falls into the smooth, silky warmth of her hand. I bite down a groan.
"Will you make love to me?" she murmurs. "Really slow. Be gentle with me." There's a far off, dilated look in her eyes; desire, but vacant and desperate. "Please."
I...can try.
The denim skirt is stiff, but I manage to get it up over her hips. There, I peel aside her black cotton panties and probe until I find the firm rise of her clit. She gasps, pants a little; she's not wet, but doesn't seem to care. I go to sit up—I'll lick her until she's ready, until I'm plastered in her scent and taste—but she keeps me down, pins me, and eases forward to sink on to my cock.
I don't remember the last time I fucked a woman like this. Oh, I can fuck without cutting—I'd be in jail now if that weren't the case—but it's never been slow or sensual. I'm not that guy. What I am, however, is deliberate, and I can deliberately keep a gradual, grinding pace for my Leo. Bottoming out in her narrow, unprepared pussy is...something else. Every time I thrust up, we both suck in half the room.
I splay my fingers across her bare thighs, my thumb caressing the band aid that covers her first cut. We're both rubbed by her shoved-aside panties, and the pressure has bite; I can't keep myself from playing with them, from tugging them so they pull on her clit, or brush my cock in a soft ridge every time I slip out of her. And she's wet now. Moaning and wet. Rolling herself over me so I hit all the right spots. Everything in me is pulled iron-tight, my blood hot and hammering in my ears, my mouth, my dick.
Through blurred vision, I watch her clutch at herself as she comes. She pulls my palm up, licks it with a tongue like slick velvet. Curses into my flesh in warm gusts of fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Will you do it for me?" she pants, squeezing my fingers. "Come for me, Aeron...do it hard, it's okay...oh...ow, God..."
I lose myself somewhere between her thighs, pieces of hell there, burning and bright.
Later, she lies draped over me again, our clothes still dishevelled while she leaks the evidence of my desire into her panties. I can smell it. Her. I don't ever want to be anywhere else.
"You want to talk about yesterday?" I ask.
"No." She sighs. "You know what I do want...?"
I shake my head.
"I want to cook you Sunday lunch this weekend. I haven't had anyone to cook for like that in ages." She climbs up my chest to play with my collar. A small smile pulls at her lips, sleepy and sated. "You ever had Yorkshire pudding?"
"What the fuck is Yorkshire pudding?"
"Oh God." She tuts. "I have work to do."
"Apparently so." I swirl my fingertips along her spine, and she shivers against me in pleasure. "Is it dessert?"