An Unknown Place (17 page)

Damn
she was gorgeous. Her face was flushed. Each minute I thought she became more beautiful than the last. There was a smile playing on her lips, as she had one hand tucked between her legs, and the other touching her mouth with the tips of her fingers. She still hadn’t looked up at me. I think if she did I would get hard all over again. I pulled my shorts up.

No doubt about it, the woman was made for me. Her mouth had all the right moves and my knees had almost given out. I had to fight not to close my eyes and hang on to her hair for dear life. I came faster than I ever had before. Of course, I hadn’t gotten any since my drugging friend Denise had come to Vegas with me, either.

I spotted my phone still sitting on the side table next to the bed. I picked it up and turned on
Lanterns
by Birds of Tokyo. She looked up at me, eyes filled with beauty, pain and a hunger for life stronger than in anyone I’d seen before, even me. I couldn’t help but want to kiss her.

I wondered if this was as big a deal for her as I suspected it was. I took her hand in mine and pulled her to her feet. When she stood at her full height, I wrapped her in my arms and swayed with her. She put her arms around my neck and studied my face. She was still naked, so I was still half hard, and that wouldn’t change.

“You’re…amazing,” I said.

“You’re just saying that because your baby batter went to your head and I’m naked.”

Wait, had she become me? She was making bad jokes to cover up feelings.

“I mean it.”

I kissed her with as much respect and thankfulness as I could stuff into something as small as a kiss. I was feeling so many things in that moment, I was caught off guard when she put her head on my shoulder and spoke.

“So how was it?” Her breath tickled my neck. I needed cold water; Margret Thatcher naked in January.

“Is that really a question? Could you not tell from the quick draw I just had?”

I called myself onto the rug to reassure her. If it was anyone else, I never would have brought it up.

“I just thought you might’ve had a dry spell recently.”

“Well, not dry…I was being patient. My hand is nothing in comparison to you.”

“That’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard all day.”

I laughed. I was glad she was fine with what had transpired between us. And she was all mine. I felt an overpowering need to make sure she stayed that way.

Mac

“You’ll be okay here while I go in to work?”

Kellan had asked me three times if I was going to be okay by myself while he ran out and got some things done at the brewery. I thought he’d been hinting at me going with him, but when I suggested it he got weird. For a moment, doubt encroached on my happiness. I had visuals of him meeting up with a random woman so he could get from her what he couldn’t get from me. I pushed that aside though. Those were my insecurities trying to control me. He had given me no reason to doubt him, so I would do my best and keep the self-doubt to myself.

I walked to where he stood in his dark jeans and white t-shirt, keys in hand and doubt held tight.

I put my arms around his neck, running my hands through the hair at his nape.

“I’ll be fine. I have some work to do. I need to get ahold of Lynn and make sure everything’s okay.”

He put his hand on my hip and squeezed. He leaned in, kissed me, which progressed into making out for a few minutes before he pulled back.

“I gotta go before I can’t leave.”

I laughed at him as he stepped to the stairs that would take him to the garage, where my dream car was resting. He was right though, I wanted to pull those jeans down and see the hardness that I was feeling there. He disappeared around the corner.

“Be careful with my baby!”

I heard his feet tromp back up the steps, his head coming around the corner.

“
Your
baby
?
”

“You know that car is forever going to be
my
baby.”

Kellan rolled his eyes and left. I heard the car rev, but out front of the house. He must’ve put his newer car in the garage.

I went to my computer and switched it on. Kellan had given me the password for his WiFi, so I entered it into my system under his network: Kellantheman0326.

I checked my email and saw two from Cam and three from Lynn. I picked my phone up and checked it. I had a smart phone but I hadn’t set up an email to be attached to my phone, I didn’t want to be that accessible. I did have a few missed calls from Cam and Lynn. Gee, I wondered what they wanted.

Cam wanted to know if I’d slept with Kellan yet, in both emails. Lynn had sent two questions about a couple of our hops suppliers and one asking how I was doing. I shot them all back emails. I told Cam to mind her own business and I’d call her later. Lynn I was a little nicer to, answering her questions with a professional cadence.

I got on my phone and put on
Like the Dawn
by The Oh Hellos. Kellan was my dawn. He had healed in me wounds I never thought would. He was the first man who’d seen me for something other than a piece of ass. He had given me so much, I couldn’t tell him in enough ways he’d helped me. So, I had to show him.

I took a deep breath, pulled up the web browser on my computer and typed in Victoria’s Secret. There were directions to the mall, which was where the closest VS was. It looked simple enough to get to, so I wrote the address down.

I hated the idea of a lingerie store in a mall. I guess nothing said sexy like an enclosed space packed with bodies trying to shop. Yuck. But I was willing to make the sacrifice for Kellan.

I realized I was going to have to take Kellan’s fancy car. I thought it would’ve been moved to the garage, but I realized we had left my classic dream car out front last night and the Jag was probably back in the garage. I was willing to lay money that Jake had put it in the garage. There wasn’t a ton of space left on the street last night.

I would make it back before Kellan, no doubt. I took the keys off the hook and made my way down to the shiny black car he’d picked me up from the airport in. I went to unlock the door with the key and there was no hole for the key, nor a key to put into the car door. I decided the next best step was the keyless entry. I pushed the unlock button. It beeped its horn and flashed its lights at me. I went to open the driver’s side door but it didn’t open. What the hell? There was a key pad on the door, but that would be a lost cause.

A button on the fab looked like, to me at least, a door opening. I figured I’d run out of options and it had to be the answer. I hit it and the trunk opened slowly, as though beckoning me into its depth. It was a dark and deep trunk, but it also seemed like my only option. I threw my purse in and crawled, head-first in. I pushed the back seats forward with the release that was in the trunk. Thank God I’d watched the special about car safety and how every car now had the trunk release for the back seats.

I crawled through the small opening, dragging my purse behind me. I lost my shoe as I climbed toward the front compartment of the car. The back seats, if that was what we were calling them in this car, were very shallow. I leaned back from the front seat, grabbed my shoe out of the crevice between the back seat and the trunk and got into the driver’s seat.

I looked back once more to see my purse laying on the down-turned back seats. Screw it. I would get it when I got to the mall.

What if I couldn’t get out of the car? I reached over and opened the door. Relief flooded me. The new high tech cars were not for me. I’d take a classic over a new car every time.

I went to put the key in the ignition. I tried to put the large plastic fob in the ignition, thinking it was the key but instead of entering a hole, I pushed a button with the plastic fob and the car started. There was no key to this car. I read the button I’d pushed and it said to hold the brake down to start the car.

I had mostly driven stick shifts and did that automatically. I patted myself on the back for going through this much effort to surprise Kellan. It was promising. Now I’d just have to figure out where his garage door opener was. Hopefully it wasn’t inside the house.

A half hour later I pulled up to the mall. Apparently, nothing with nice new cars was easy. It had taken me almost fifteen minutes of pushing buttons inside the car to finally find the one that was the garage door button. Of course, it was a built-in button. By the time I’d found the button I was a little nervous about being poisoned by carbon dioxide. Luckily, for whatever reason, Kellan had left the window in the garage open. I just hoped the inside of his house didn’t smell like car exhaust now.

I leaned back and got my purse out of the backseat. I double checked to make sure I had my wallet. All I needed was to walk into Victoria’s Secret to get lingerie and end up not being able to pay for it. How embarrassing would that’ve been?

I had decided to wear leggings and a pair of slouchy black boots with my red sweater dress. It was an easy outfit to take off and put back on. I stepped out of the car feeling anxiety about having to come back and get in it. I wished Kellan had left my baby to drive instead of this monstrosity.

I looked on the kiosk map they had in the center of the mall to figure out where Victoria’s Secret was actually located. I made it into the front door of the store a few minutes later. I had just started looking around when the vulture saleswomen pounced on me.

“Hi, finding everything alright?”

I looked up to find the face of an attractive blonde woman. She was slender and screamed sex. I felt like a Lego standing next to a Barbie.

“Uh, I think so.”

I’d found the matching pieces on a wall together. At least the store was organized and there was no question as to where the sexy lingerie pieces were. I found a red one that was perfect. It had straps that criss-crossed over the back area, all the way down over where my butt would be. I thought I would get freaked out when I’d made it to the store and saw some of the pieces. However, as I looked over more and more of the outfits, I pictured Kellan’s reaction and him taking them off me.

“Oh, my God!” I turned to the screeching behind me and saw Kellan’s assistant Bren standing with an armful of bras and underwear.

“Hi, Bren.” I wanted to see her again, but this was not how I pictured it. I wanted to hide and could feel the blush creeping up my face.

“Are you shopping for you, or Kellan?”

This was just what I needed, not only my two best friends, but Kellan’s assistant prying into my anemic sex life.

“I can see the look on your face, and I’ve known Kellan since I was twenty two, which I am now almost 30, and fresh out of college. He hired me and has done nothing but help and treat me like his sister. I just want him to be happy.”

I could respect that.

“I need an opinion.” I opened the door, maybe I would regret it, but if she had been a part of Kellan’s life for so long I didn’t think I would.

“Let me get rid of this stuff.” She moved her armful of underwear around, then beckoned over the saleswoman.

“Yes, Ms. Stills?” The saleswoman was using her last name?

“Can you take my stuff and put it behind the register?”

“Of course.” The woman took her load and moved to the register.

“Come here often?” I joked.

“It’s my retail therapy. I hate clothes shopping. My guilty pleasure is underwear and lingerie.”

“So, why the retail therapy today?”

“Just got done having my ass chewed by Kellan. He yelled at Logan and me for a good hour. It was
greeeeat.
”

“So, are you with Logan?”

“Kellan’s forbid it. Says he can’t afford to lose me or Logan, and if the relationship went bad,
he’s seen it fall apart before
.”

If it weren’t for the desolate look on Bren’s face, I would’ve laughed. Kellan was practicing exactly the same thing I’d preached to him. I hoped that Logan wasn’t idiot enough to walk away because of Kellan’s dictate.

“Did Logan say it was over?”

“He walked out of Kellan’s office without a backward glance.”

“Ouch. How long have ya’ll been…” I let it hang because I had no idea what they’d been up to.

“Screwing? Mmmm, about six months. But Logan brought up to me about getting serious last week. He wanted exclusivity and apparently that made us look guilty. I don’t know.”

“So you’d agreed to be his girlfriend and that is when Kellan picked up on it?”

“I hadn’t even agreed. We’d talked about it. I told him I’d think about it…Logan is
just
like Kellan. Well, the old Kellan that was a man whore. He said he hasn’t slept with anyone else since me, but… Jesus this is
not
a good first conversation for you and I to have.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know because I’m telling you Kellan is a whore and I don’t know if you knew that or not. I could tell you something he doesn’t want you to know yet.” Bren slapped her hand to her forehead.

I put my arm around her slumped shoulders as she was leaning on a table covered in lacy underwear.

“But that’s the beauty of it. I want the dirt.”

I wagged my eyebrows at her and she laughed. I enjoyed Bren and her openness. In fact, all of my friends were like that. They were open and honest with me. It was what I craved and appreciated in other people.

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of that.”

“Listen, if you really have feelings for Logan, you should go for it. Don’t let Kellan get in your way. He is a businessman and I understand where he’s coming from, but don’t let that guide a personal relationship. Kellan didn’t. I just hope Logan wasn’t swayed by it.”

“Well…”

“What?”

“Logan was already mad at me for not talking to him about being together again. I feel like he’s rushing me into it.”

“Ya’ll have been sleeping together for six months and you think that’s rushing?”

I dropped my arm so I could stand back and look her in the face. Her head was down but I could see a tear fall from her eyelashes. Damn! She was right, we should’ve stuck to safer subjects for our first conversation.

Bren wiped her eyes then looked at me.

“I’m scared.”

“Trust me, I know a thing or two about that. Just be honest with Logan. If he’s a good guy, he’ll understand.”

“Like Kellan did with you?”

Bren was smiling and I knew she was about to start the pump for information.

“Can we get some lingerie and then do lunch? I’m starving.”

“Alright, we can talk about you and Kellan at lunch.”

She immediately pointed to the same strappy piece that I’d picked out earlier.

“It’s perfect. What size are you?”

“A size eight, boobs thirty two double D.”

“Lucky bitch. I’m only a thirty two C.”

It was an odd conversation but with Bren, I wasn’t at all uncomfortable.

Kellan

I was working to distract myself for a little while. I wanted to go back and find solace in Mac. But I restrained myself. I wanted her to think about what’d happened between us. I wanted to give her some time to come to grips with it. I had come to grips with it. In fact, I had such a tight grip on it now, that I would never let it go.

As I was playing over what had happened with Mac, Logan strolled into my office looking pissed. I didn’t stand up, just signaled to the chairs in front of my desk, silently inviting him to have a seat. He just paced back and forth.