Riptide Affair, page 5
“Remind me,” Jared says as he pulls away to breathe. “Why is this a bad idea?”
I shake my head. “No idea.”
Teeth clamp down on the space where my neck meets shoulder and he sucks. Hard. So hard, I know he just marked me, and whereas twenty-four hours ago I would have found that thought appalling, right now it's sexy as all hell.
“Yes,” I say, urging him on, and one of his hands disappears between our bodies. A knuckle brushes against where I'm wet and he pulls my lace panties to the side before—
“Yes!”
“Shh!” Jared half-scolds, half-laughs, even as he sinks his middle finger in as deep as it'll go, making my eyes roll back in my head. “Someone might hear you.”
“Who cares?”
Definitely not me. Every cell inside my body is on fire. From my scalp all the way down to my toes, I'm electrified, shaking as millions of ecstasy-driven meteors shoot through me from every angle, building until I'm breathless, rolling my hips in time with the pump of his hand, until suddenly, the world explodes, and not in a good way.
Blinding light bursts from the ceiling and the floor beneath our feet begins to shift. We're moving.
The damn elevator is moving.
“Shit.” Jared moves to pull away, to remove his fingers from where they're currently working magic, but I grab hold of his wrist, stopping him. “Merrin,” he warns. “The doors.”
“Don't care,” I pant, crazed, frantic with need. “Do it. Please. Finish. I'm close, I swear.”
I'm well aware I sound like a lunatic, but Jared doesn't argue. His lips seal around a spot on my neck and he sucks again, this time so hard I cry out in pain as he slides his fingers deep, curling them until he hits a spot that has me seeing double. The feeling steals my breath even as the flat of his palm hits my over-sensitized clit, giving me the barest glimpse of friction, but that's all it takes to send me tumbling into oblivion.
I come hard, my entire body curling around his as my moans echo through the steel trap, but there's no time to come down from this elation. No time to revel in the afterglow.
“Hurry.” Jared smooths my dress down my legs and steps away, readjusting his hard length as he goes.
A hand flies to my mouth, fingertips inspecting my kiss-ravaged lips, and that's when it hits me.
That just happened.
He had his hands in...well, me.
This random delivery man.
In a stalled elevator.
Holy shit, I'm a porn trope.
Jared seems completely at ease as he slings his messenger bag over one shoulder and strategically positions it to hide the rather obvious wet spot near his zipper.
My cheeks flush red. I can't believe I just did that. I can't believe I almost did him. And the worst part is...I initiated it! I was the schemer, not him. I'm the one who lost her damn mind and went all sexual predator on him.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Oh my God! I can't believe we just did that.”
His sigh is a long, drawn out affair that makes me think he's just as conflicted about that as I am, but when he turns to face me, his eyes are soft, filled with understanding. “Merrin, I—”
He doesn't get to finish.
The bell dings, the doors slide open, and...I can't breathe.
A mob of people are waiting in the lobby, and whatever blood I'm not using to keep myself upright flows right to my face. Curious eyes peek in, and I know they see it. They smell it. They know what I just did. What we just did. And they're judging us. Lips curl into grimaces. Eyes widen. Incredulous murmurs fill the air. And they're all looking at me.
I have to get out of here.
“Excuse me.” I plow directly through the center of the crowd, power walking as fast as I can manage without full-on sprinting. People give me a wide berth, meaning I don't have to full-on shoulder check anyone in my way, although I wouldn't be above it.
“Merrin!” Jared's voice reaches out for me, but I don't stop. I don't look back.
That courage from before? Gone. Vanished. Evaporated into thin air.
“Merrin, wait!”
Tepid evening air envelopes me outside on the steps and the reality of what just happened sucker punches me in the gut.
What did I do?
What did I just DO?!
Bile touches my tongue and I breathe through my nose to keep from retching on the sidewalk. My phone is going crazy in my purse, but I ignore it as I race to my car. My brain is screaming at me to flee. To disappear. To hide.
Go.
Run.
Keep running.
Don't stop running.
“Please, Mimi. Please, please, please just start!”
My hands shake so hard it takes me three tries to turn the key, but when I do, Mimi starts right up and I put her in gear and slam a foot to the gas, propelling myself forward down the empty street.
“What the hell, Merrin? What in the actual HELL?! What were you thinking?” I screech. Tears burn my eyes, and there's not a damn thing I can do to stop them from spilling over. “I can't believe I just did that. I can't believe I...”
A single glance in my rear view brings on a fresh wave of remorse, because there he is. Bursting through the front doors. Searching high and low for pitch black hair and a blue dress.
But I'm gone.
I don't stop.
In fact, I speed the whole way home.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jared
“This is the creepiest thing I've ever seen you do. I love it.”
Brian balances atop the couch, celery stick in hand, and I try not to cringe every time he takes a bite and sprays the back of my head with juice. If he were anyone else, I would have already laid him out on his ass, but this is just one of those things you tolerate when your younger brother/roommate is a health nut.
The house we grew up in is huge—an open concept floor plan with high ceilings and enormous windows that overlook the rolling hills of Blackjack—and since our party-hungry parents retired to Florida and left it to our care, there's no reason for him to be all up in my space, but that's Brian. Always right there.
When I told him my morning plans, I waited for him to scoff, much like Rhett did, but my younger brother isn't anything like the demon spawn. Brian's the kind of guy you want with you when you've hit rock bottom and find yourself completely hopeless. He's everyone's favorite person and has an easy charisma the likes of which I've never seen, so it takes exactly two seconds for him to make new friends. Always smiling, always optimistic, always fighting for the rights of the marginalized, Brian's the best kind of person. And because of his admirable character, even though I'm being exceptionally creepy right now, he's still standing strong as my wingman, helping me brainstorm as we stare at the ten browser tabs I have open, all on different social media profiles. Yes. I'm cyber stalking. Sue me. But I don't even know where to begin, and there are exactly zero Merrin Takahashis on Facebook.
I should have asked more questions. I should have grabbed her phone number. We were stuck together for hours and I don't know a single thing about her, other than the fact that she's a waitress, uses strawberry shampoo, had a shitty senior year at Blackjack High, and looks like a raven-haired Aphrodite when she orgasms. None of those things are helping me in my quest for Facebook friendification right now.
“Where'd she go to school?” Brian asks.
I keep my eyes trained on the screen. “Blackjack.”
“Okay, well that helps. The old yearbooks are in Dad's office, I'll go grab one. How old is she?”
“Not sure.”
“Dude...” Brian lets out a low whistle, shaking his head. “That's dangerous.”
I snap my head around to face him, glare firmly in place. “She's legal, okay?”
“How do you know?”
“I just...I just know.”
I could tell him about the first time I laid eyes on her, but for some insane reason, that connection (or lack thereof) seems sacred in my mind, not for sharing. Not even with my baby brother.
But today, the past doesn't matter. Because I can still hear her moans echoing through my skull, still feel the way her body arched against mine, and I can still smell her on me even after showering. The physical encounter is haunting me, and if I don't find her, I'll lose my ever-lovin' mind.
Brian groans, the sound mirroring my current mood. “You need more to go on. Did she at least leave something behind? A card? A receipt? A glass slipper?”
I sigh and sink deeper into the couch. “You're not funny.”
“I really am.” He grabs my Coke off the side table and takes a sip, smiling. “Come on. Give me a little more to go on.”
I sigh heavily. “I don't know, she's about five-foot-three, long black hair, brown eyes, Asian.”
“Whoooa!” Brian holds up his hands, stopping me. “Asian?”
“Yes, Asian. Did the name Takahashi not tip you off in the beginning?”
“Dude...you're chasin' Chinky?”
I stand up so fast and whirl around on my brother, the laptop falls to the floor.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“Whoa! Whoa! Easy!” He lifts his hands in surrender. “I didn't coin the name, okay? It's just something the jocks called her in school. Pretty sure Coach Ryan started it. I never knew her name. She didn't talk much after her first day and she barely came to class.”
My anger subsides. Although not by much. “She was in your grade?”
“No. She was a year ahead of me but I don't think she graduated. Her and her dad got in a wreck on their way home right after they moved here and I think he died. She was one of Mrs. Erisen's foster kids for a while.”
I cling to all of this information like a lifeline. “Anything else you know about her?”
“My God, you're sad.” He rolls his eyes, but presses on. “She lives on her family's old farm on the outskirts of town. Her dad was some hotshot when he was a kid. She works at Woody's—”
“The restaurant or the bar?”
I don't know why I ask, but it's important. One side of Woody's is family friendly, and the other is a cave of sin and debauchery. She's either waiting tables or giving lap dances. I wouldn't know and I might never know since I haven't stepped foot inside the establishment in years, nor do I plan to, because it's owned by the devil incarnate, April Thatcher.
April and I went steady all throughout school, but when her parents gave her Woody's to manage, she went a little crazy and I had to distance myself before it rubbed off. They day they signed over the deed, she decided her shit didn't stink and she's been intolerable ever since. Most patrons would rather watch her drown in the massive fish tank she had installed than look at her.
“The restaurant.”
I blow out a sigh of relief. “Good.”
“Why is that good?” he asks. “If you're that hard up for this woman, wouldn't paying her for a quickie in the back be easier than cyber stalking her? Finish what you started in the elevator, yanno?”
He's joking, I know he is, but my fists still clench at my sides. “Go away. You're no longer helpful.”
“Fine,” he shrugs. “I'm going for a run. You can Magnum, P.I. this all by yourself.”
The front door clicks shut and I slump back down on the couch. Left alone to my own devices, I close my eyes and rub at the beginning of a tension headache. I'm well aware how ridiculous this is. How pathetic. Even more so since I tossed and turned all night long, plagued with memories of what went down in that elevator. Dick in hand, I rubbed one out (or two or three) to the image of her eyelids fluttering with the force of her orgasm.
God, she was amazing.
Ever since I watched Merrin run through the lobby, black hair flying, never looking back, she's all I can think about. Which is funny, considering just yesterday I was fielding off advances from delivery customers, thinking that there were no good women left in this world, and then...that damn elevator.
She touched me and our history, everything I thought I knew about this broken woman, failed to matter.
Her body came alive.
Hell, my body came alive.
There wasn't a damn thing I could do to diminish the chemistry brewing in that metal box, and believe me, I tried. Sort of...
As a man, I am many things, but a playboy isn't one of them. I don't fool around with women I'm not involved with. I don't entertain the idea of one night stands. Period. Doesn't matter how tempted I am at the time, that's just now how I was raised. My mother took her job of molding the tiny minds of future men seriously. I couldn't even begin to count how many times she sat all three of us down as teenagers and hammered the phrases 'respect women' and 'no means no' and 'pleasure is a two-way street lined with caution lights' into our adolescent brains.
But yesterday, I faltered. I couldn't keep my hands off Merrin, no matter how hard I resisted. I told her, over and over again, that it was a bad idea, and it was, because look at me now. Sitting on my couch in my boxers, staring at a slice of cold pizza I can't eat, scrolling through dozens of Facebook profiles, searching for the one that got away. Or, more precisely, the one that ran away.
When those elevator doors opened, Merrin was mortified. I get that, I do, but dammit. I'm not a bad guy! I didn't push her to do something she didn't want. If anything, it was the other way around. When she persisted...I relented. And I would have continued relenting if only that elevator hadn't—
Carry On My Wayward Son blasts from my phone and I turn it over on the couch, groaning when I see the name. Brian's been screwing with my phone again, because last I checked, that was not Demon Spawn's assigned ringtone.
I wedge the phone between my shoulder and ear so I can pick up the laptop and continue my investigation.
“What?”
“Would it kill you to answer the phone like a normal person?”
I don't bother rolling my eyes. It'd just be a waste of energy. “Little busy here, Rhett. What do you want?”
“You and Brian need to meet me for lunch.”
One brother asking another out for an innocent meal isn't completely outside the realm of possibilities, but for one, he's not asking, and two, I recognize his tone. He needs something.
“Why?” I ask, cutting to the chase.
“My car payment's due today.”
I pause, wondering why that's relevant.
“Yes...and?”
“And I'm working late. I'll give you a check so you can go to the dealership and pay it.”
“You can't pay it over the phone?”
“I don't want to pay it over the phone,” he says. “I want to write a check.”
“Then you should have bought the damn thing from a dealer in town instead of one ten minutes down the most dangerous road in the state.”
“Don't be a dick, Jared. I have six back-to-back meetings this afternoon.”
I do my best to suppress an annoyed growl. This is how Rhett operates. He expects everyone around him to answer his beck and call, twenty-four-hours a day, no questions asked. Me, his co-workers, our family, everyone. And yet, if you ask Rhett for something, he reacts as if you'd ordered him to cut off his right hand.
“Dude, c'mon. It's my day off.”
“Which is why you have time to drive out to the dealership and drop off the check and I don't.”
I'm just about to object when my stomach growls. The cold pizza on the coffee table isn't appealing in the least, but something warm and fresh might be.
“Fine. When and where?”
“How about...Woody's. Two o'clock.” He tries to hide a laugh, but I hear it.
He's pressing my buttons and thinks I'm about to initiate a fight. We don't go to Woody's. Ever. It's a rule I laid down the day I broke things off with April and in all those years we have yet to step foot inside. If we're hungry, we leave town. Easy as that. A thirty-minute drive to South Cedar gives dozens of options Blackjack doesn't possess, and those have always sufficed. But every so often, Rhett decides to get shifty and tries to drag us back.
Today, I'm allowing it. For obvious reasons.
“Fine. You paying?”
There's a brief pause before he answers. “Of course.”
“We'll meet you there.”
We both hang up at the same time, telephone etiquette forgotten.
CHAPTER FIVE
Merrin
“I think I'm sick.” Insert fake cough. “Can you find someone to cover for me?”
Kate deafens me with a laugh so loud I drop the phone. When I pick it back up, she's still laughing, but it's not cracking my eardrums like it was before. “You are so full of shit!”
“I know it's my turn to work a double, but—”
“But nothing,” she says, cutting me off. “You're hiding from the world. I get it and it's fine. I'll have Harper cover for you.”
At first, I was hesitant to fill my friends in on what happened after I left work, but when I pulled into my driveway, there they were. All three of them, sitting on my front porch with a stack of to-go boxes and two bottles of wine. They plied me with alcohol, and it all just came tumbling out. Every sordid detail. There were a few laughs on their part, a few screams of frustration on mine, but by midnight I didn't hate myself anymore, so there's that.
“You're the best manager ever. I love you. Tell her I'll take a Sunday dinner shift next time she feels like skipping out early.”
“She'll hold you to it,” Kate warns.
“I know. I just need a day to play hooky. Does that make me a terrible person?”
“Nah,” she answers, crunching on something. Probably Sonic ice—her one true love. “Just makes you human. I'll call you later to check in, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, Kate.”
“You betcha.”
I toss the phone to the couch, thankful I get a reprieve after yesterday's roller coaster ride of emotionally draining stupidity. If I said I didn't dream about Jared pinning me to the elevator wall and doing some very dirty things to me last night, I'd be lying. I hate that the thought of his sly grin makes me press my thighs together, but there's no denying it—my libido is alive and well, and it wants Jared...whatever his last name is.
