Friends with Benefits(30)

"Yeah, and all I can seem to think about is the two of you lying to my  face for a whole decade. It's fucked up, Andrew, and I'm not cool with  it, alright?"


"Stop being such a baby. So what? She didn't tell you. Things were  harder on her side then than they are on yours now. She was sixteen and  thought she was going to have a kid. She was scared as hell. Of course,  she wanted to bury it when she made it through. What person wouldn't  want to? And now you're all bent out of shape about it because you think  she owed you total transparency? Look, someone's gotta get real with  you Steven. You're being an asshole."


"Yeah, well, I take after my older brother I guess."


Andrew sighed into the phone. "I'm on your side, believe it or not. I  want you to be happy. That girl makes you happy. Don't screw it up."





She did make me happy. She always had.


During the three months that I hadn't spoken to Allie, I had gone to bed  furious with myself more nights than not. I thought that I'd blown all  of my chances with her for good. Then, when I saw her in that diner, and  she looked up at me and smiled, a little sliver of hope emerged inside  me. There was a chance that I could patch things up and make them right.  There was a chance I could get her back in my life.


Was I really going to throw that all away again?


"I don't know how to move past it Andrew," I confessed, slumping  backward in my chair. It creaked and groaned beneath me. I'd been  sitting on it for nine straight hours dealing with clients. My bones  felt as tired as its plastic pieces. "Every time I look at her all I can  think about is what happened between the two of you. I don't want to. I  want to forget it-to move on. But I can't seem to get a grip."


Andrew sighed on the other end. I could picture him sitting at his own  desk in his home office. He was probably fidgeting with something on  hand like he usually did, a stapler or paperweight. "Listen, Steven. I  get it, okay? If I could take any of it back, I would. I never wanted to  be the reason you and Allie couldn't make things work. If I could do  anything to change things, I would. Do you believe me?"


"Yeah," I said. "I do."


"Then trust me when I tell you, Allie feels the same way. If you can't  forget about it, then you can't forget about it. But maybe you can learn  to live with it by focusing on other things. Like the fact that Allie  is head over heels in love with you and has been for a decade. Isn't  that enough?"


I didn't know if it was.


"I gotta go, man," I said, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the  table. "I'll let you know about Thursday night later on in the week,  alright? Have a good one."


I hung up when Andrew was halfway through answering. I didn't have the  energy to carry on with the conversation. After everything that had  happened at work with the hacker and the near app crash, I was drained.


I stood. My knees ached and my hips grated. I stretched, arching my back  like a cat and reaching up to the ceiling. I put my suit coat on, and  made my way out of the office, past the receptionist, down the elevator,  and to my car. I drove home in silence. My head was pounding, my eyes  were heavy, and all I wanted was to forget about everything.         

     



 





At home, I had a hot shower. The water and the steam helped me feel  refreshed and more myself. When I stepped out, I wrapped myself in my  towel and busied myself with a couple mundane chores; wiping the kitchen  counters down, picking up my laundry from the bedroom floor, and  changing the garbage bag under the sink.


I knew I should have been returning Allie's calls. She had called me  several times during the disaster at work. I had never been available to  answer her call. I felt a little guilty; I felt worse for not calling  her now.


I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. It was easier to let it be right now; to push it from my mind and focus on other things.


The other things I focused on ended up being Allie-related anyway. Like  the soft milkiness of the inside of her thighs, and the way she had  spread her legs in the back seat of the limo on the way to the cocktail  party.


I shook my head, trying to evict the image of her from my brain as I  washed a few dishes in the kitchen sink. Try as I might, I couldn't keep  them at bay.


I thought of her panties and the way she had pulled them aside as if she  was daring me to crawl over to her on my hands and knees. She wanted me  between her legs. I thought of the black, lacy strap over her hips, the  thickness of her thighs, and the curves of her calves.


I dropped the dish scrubby, turned off the water, and dried my hands on  the towel around my waist. Fuck trying to think of other things. Allie  was the only thing in my life worth thinking about.


I padded into the bedroom. The towel around my waist came off with a tug  and fell to the carpet, where it would stay until morning. I fell onto  my bed and shimmied up so that my head was resting on my pillows.


I was already hard. I had felt the blood rushing to my cock while I  scrubbed the dishes. A single thought of Allie always did that to me. I  was powerless to the burning need that was racing through me. It urged  me to reach down and grip my shaft. I knew this wouldn't last long. I  was hot and heavy and already breathless.


I couldn't handle how sexy Allie was. She didn't even know it. Those  bright pink lips of hers and how they were often parted, just a little  bit, leaving a tiny opening between them that I wanted to run my thumb  over, drove me wild with lust. Her slender neck and earlobes always  begged for me to kiss them.


I ran my hand over my shaft as I considered reaching for my lotion. No. I  didn't need it. Not this time. I was ready to come apart any second.


I closed my eyes and remembered fucking Allie in the limo on the way  home. My fingers had slipped inside her, and she had enveloped me with  her warm, silky wetness. I remembered covering her mouth with my hand so  she wouldn't cry out as I made her cum all over my fingers. Slipping my  cock deep inside her, and fucking her as hard as I could with her legs  spread wide apart had been so hot. I remembered the swollen pinkness of  her, the tightness of her, and the way she had watched me as I made her  cum.


Then I thought of filling her with my cum, and how she had rubbed herself when we were done.


I came, fast and messy. Lines of cum dashed up my stomach, and I gasped for breath. I hadn't realized I had been holding it in.


I lay back, feeling at ease for the first time in days, and found myself  wishing Allie was lying beside me. Even though I had just finished  myself, I knew if she were nearby, I wouldn't have been able to keep my  hands off or out of her. She was too sexy, too tempting, and perfect.


She always had been.





Chapter 26

Allie





James Lipton was pacing back and forth in his office. He had been on the  phone for nearly two hours dealing with some sort of escalation with an  author whose publishing date for their newest novel had been pushed  back another three months. Through the windows, I could hear James  raising his voice every now and then before he would sigh and look at  the ceiling in an attempt to relax. Then the conversation would start,  heat up again, and the cycle would repeat itself.


He wouldn't notice if I made a personal call at work, I was sure of it.  He was so tied up with his own issues that he would be oblivious to it. I  chewed my bottom lip and watched as James went to the windows of his  office and pressed his forehead against them. It looked like he was  fighting a battle he was not going to win. I wanted to call the author  back after and thank them for giving James a taste of his own medicine.


I reached for the phone, my heart hammering in my chest. I needed  answers. Steven still hadn't called me back. I didn't know where we  stood or why he was so upset with me. The night of the cocktail party  had gone so well, and the sex in the limo had been too good for him to  have been angry with me then. I wondered if something had happened when  he went home after. Maybe he had changed his mind. Or decided I wasn't  worth all the drama.         

     



 


Regardless of what had happened, I needed to know. I couldn't keep going  feeling like my head was buried in the sand. I needed closure, one way  or another, and I didn't much care who was going to give it to me at  this point.


So I called Steven's brother.


The phone rang four times before Andrew answered in his professional  voice, probably not recognizing the phone number of my office. "Good  afternoon, this is Andrew Marx."


"Andrew," I said softly so no one in the office could hear me. "Hey, it's Allie."


"Allie?" Andrew said happily into the phone. "Hey, good to hear from you. Why are you whispering?"


"I'm at work. Not really allowed to make personal phone calls on company time, you know how it is. How are you?"


"I'm good. You caught me at the perfect time. I finally have a second to breathe," he said.