“Sorry, ma’am,” Collins responds.
I take a moment to regain my senses. I scoot off the seat and straighten my dress.
Collins clears his throat. “Mr. Hoffman would like to give this to you.”
I take the envelope and small wrapped box from his hands and turn to walk up the steps to the townhouse. “Thank you, Collins,” I yell back over my shoulder.
I dig for my key in my handbag and can’t find it. Squatting down on the doormat, I empty the contents out until the jingle sound alerts me to its whereabouts. I pack up my items and unlock the door. Once inside, I hear the sound of the car driving away.
I plop down on the couch and slip off the lid on the box to uncover a beautiful silver bracelet. This is my way of signifying my place in the agency. I then open the envelope and find a folded note. Behind the note is a perfectly crisp hundred-dollar bill, along with nine more stacked in a row.
My shaky hands flip through the pile to recount. Graham has paid me one thousand dollars to have dinner with him. Holy crap.
I unfold the note to find in perfect printed ink—Apparently money can buy everything. Thanks for giving me a taste and proving me right.
9
I stare at Graham’s message, as nausea bubbles in my throat. How dare he!
Needing to work and wanting to work are two different things. Since I started college, I have become accustomed to hard work without a quick payoff. Few things in life come easy. Nothing in life comes for free. There is always a price. Working at the bakery while studying for exams was tough to balance. Feeling like I was constantly competing for recognition for my writing or for a coveted internship placement gave me the feeling of being in a race that may be impossible to ever win. The agency job, however, is my easy ticket. I show up. I look pretty. I get paid.
And then I feel cheap.
Graham makes me feel cheap. Like he is lusting after me and disgusted by me all at once. His moods are unpredictable, and his sharp tongue can cut into my already fragile self-esteem. James always gave me confidence by cheering for me. When I met Claire, I instantly gravitated toward her spirit and natural ability to see me for me. I had my fresh start at River Valley to reinvent myself. No one knew me here as the girl from Baker City who had her face plastered on the front of every newspaper in a fifteen-mile radius for months. I was labeled as the girl who lost everything—including her will to live. No, I spent four years working hard at my studies. And it wasn’t until a failed final project my senior year that my world was shaken once again.
What Graham doesn’t realize about me is that I do not need a man. Men are distractions.
This job is simply that—just a job. It is a way to earn money fast enough so that I can focus on my long-term career goals.
I toss the note aside, determined not to let a bitter man ruin the rest of my night.
* * *
I wake with the sun bursting through the parted curtains, fourteen minutes before my alarm is set to go off. I sigh in rested bliss, loving the feeling of waking on my own. Thursday is better than Monday through Wednesday for the mere fact that my weekend starts at noon. I click off my dual alarm of the clock and the cell phone, stretching my arms and legs out across my full-sized bed. For being bought from Ikea, it is fairly comfortable. Thoughts of last night float through my mind as I roll onto my back and stare up at the textured ceiling. It was a night full of surprises.
I lean over and reach into the bottom drawer of my nightstand to retrieve the thoroughly abused paperback book that has captured my attention many mornings. Despite the cover portraying the typical cheesy lovers’ embrace, this particular novel is decent in the heat department. I find the dog-eared page that marks a particularly steamy scene that left me hot and bothered. I glance at the clock and see that I have time to try.
I fluff my pillow behind my neck and place another under my upper thighs to elevate my hips a few inches from the mattress. I read online a few weeks ago that this could help with the angles. I hike up the sheet that is fully coated with the warmth from the rays peeking through the windows. I chose this room for the morning sun.
As I reread the scene that involves pool table sex, I slip my left hand down my belly to cover over my panty-clad mound. I move my middle three fingers rhythmically, in sync with the beat of my heart. My eyes close from the pulsing surge of blood flowing rapidly through my body, pooling at the place directly beneath my fingers. I need friction. Something harder than what my fingers can produce. I need a knee to grind on.
Hmm…
My attention flutters back to the book where the badass guitar player is having his way with the innocent bartender in the back room of the bar. Her skirt is hiked up over her hips, and her butt is at the edge of the billiard table, begging for him to enter her. The thrill of getting caught in the act makes the scene even more electrifying.
My fingers increase pace on my pussy, using the lacy fabric to soak up my now leaking juices. I am in a trance—a deliriously hypnotic daze of gyrating my lower body and arching my upper half. My hand slides up to the lace trim and dips below the confining layer, making flesh contact sodden flesh. My pointer finds the bundle of nerves and presses the engorged clit, expelling the stale air from my lungs. The pleasure radiates through my limbs, down into my toes, and up to my ears. My finger scoops up the moisture from my inner labia lips and spreads it upwards, leaving a slick path along its way. I bounce my hips upward in an involuntary motion of pure bliss, a desire of wanting to be filled. My confidence builds with each word read internally from the page, each passing breath, and each stroke of my wanton pussy.
As the male from the story finds refuge in the confines of the hotness of the bartender’s saturated pussy, I make my finger find the same habitat within my folds. The tightness of my inner walls squeezes my soft digit to the point of desperate pain.
I need to get off.
I forgo the book, tossing it to the side of the bed, using my own imagination to finish the job. I slide my right hand down to the apex of my thighs and use two fingers to rub circles around my clit, while the other hand has a finger buried inside, two knuckles deep. I conjure up all my deftness to create a rhythm between the two separate hands, moving them in unison to create throb after throb of a slow-building tidal wave. My breathing turns staccato and frequent as I climb the wall to the top.
Almost there.
The victory line is nearly in view as I continue the rapid assault on my drenched flesh. More liquid seeps out of my slit, dripping down to the awaiting pillow. Still rising. Pulsating. And charging forward. Faster. Harder. My blood inside my lower region boils to a temperature that nearly makes it want to explode. I twist my trapped finger, hooking it upward. I circle my outer finger. Just a little more.
Almost there.