The Sandstone Affair (An Erotic Romance Novel) (4 page)

I don’t have a ponytail anymore, but
sometimes I still check behind me, to catch the boy who thinks that I’m an easy
target.
The empty parking lot seems larger, though
nothing has changed. Mark and I walk back towards his Escalade.
“So, um, when do we start?” I ask as we reach
his car.
“Now,” there is something hard in his gaze
that sends a twinge of pleasure between my thighs. “Kneel.”
Why did I even ask? I take a deep breath. I
had agreed to his proposal just moments ago, but I’m not sure that I’m ready. I
look around the empty parking lot, the fluorescent lights creating shadows of
the thick concrete support columns. What if someone sees us here? What will
Mark think of me if I submit to his will so easily? Maybe I should have put up
more of a fight. Maybe I should have run away. But where would that leave me?
Mark watches me, his bright eyes piercing into
me as if he can see my doubt. One look at his face and I know that it had not
been a request. Bending down in my heels, I awkwardly lower myself to the dirty
concrete. There is something comforting about it. Just giving in to his demands
and letting him lead for the moment. My heartbeat pounds in my ears and my
thighs feel slippery.
“Beautiful,” he says and reaches out to brush
my cheek with his hand. His other hand slowly unzips his pants and brings out
his erect cock for me to see clearly for the first time. His hand leaves my
cheek and grips the back of my neck pulling my face toward his member.
I stall as he brings me forward. Is this what
I just agreed to? I’ve got my job to recover, my dad’s hospital bills, my sense
of dignity and pride to think about and I’m going to achieve these things by
sucking Mark’s beautiful, rigid, cock? My mouth waters in anticipation, the
tingling of my clit undeniable and yet it is so hard to bend to his will.
“One minute in and you’re already resisting,”
Mark says solemnly. “I see we have a lot of work to do. And, we only have
thirty days to do it. So let’s get started.”
“Mark, I want to, it’s just—”
“Open your mouth,” he says firmly, his hand
once again guiding my face forward. I open my mouth and take his cock into it;
first kissing the top then moving my head so my tongue can run along the bottom
of his shaft. I open wider to take more of his cock in me, shielding my teeth
with my lips and bobbing my head up and back as the ridges and bumps of his
cock glide over my tongue. My tongue flicks at the base of his shaft as I reach
farther. His hips begin a slight movement and he leans his head back clearly
enjoying the sensation.
I try to move my head to guide his cock to my
cheek and not down my throat but he will have none of that, instead guiding my
head with his hands. He starts to push farther and I gag on his cock. He
withdraws it just enough to let me breathe then gags me with it again. Tears
form in the corners of my eyes. I desperately try to move my head to keep up
with him, but the gagging and retching continues until he withdraws. His wet,
red cock is now swollen and pulsing.
He pulls on my arm and guides me out of the
car, leaving the passenger door open. I stand before him and he kisses me
deeply.
“You have a beautiful mouth,” he coos. “Mine.”
Before I can respond he turns me around facing
the seat and pushes my back down with his hand. Instinctively, I realize he
wants to bend me over the car seat the way he had me on his desk that very
first night. My brain buzzes with excitement when I feel him lifting my skirt
and lowering my underpants. How I long for him to fill me again.
Smack! He slaps my naked cheek causing a sharp,
warm pain then he slaps the other, my bottom tensing under this onslaught. Over
and over he smacks my quivering globes as the heat builds between them.
“Mine,” he murmurs. I feel his fingers insert
themselves into my pussy, moving back and forth. “And this is mine.”
He lines himself up and with a solid full
thrust, impales me on his cock. I cry out at the sudden stretching of my
channel and my voice echoes all around the garage. Between the stinging of my
ass cheeks and the rough pounding of my insides I am lost in a flurry of
pleasure and pain. He grabs my hips and pumps his cock into me, his balls
making slapping noises against my backside as I lay bent over the seat.
I still taste his pre-cum in my mouth and my
breasts are rubbing against the harsh fabric of the vehicle sending my entire
body into the chasm. Occasionally he withdraws almost all the way out, then
slaps my ass cheek again before pushing himself entirely back in. My body is
now raw from his hard cock delving into me over and over. I feel his stretching
and pulsing inside of me and I start squeezing him, encouraging his lust. He
grabs me harder, pulling my hips and pushing them to force himself even deeper
inside me. Short stabs punctuated by long, slow withdrawals take me off
balance.
“Please,” I whisper, unable to take much more
of the rough pounding. I hear him growl in a guttural moan as I feel his seed
squirt deep inside me. My bottom is still stinging from his slaps as he removes
his cock, then rubs the head over my slit.
“Mine,” he says in a breathless whisper and
somewhere I feel that word lock around my brain too. Holding me down by the
back still, I feel the head of his cock go up and down my crack then stop right
on top of my anus. The small puckered opening quivers at the stimulus.
“Also mine.” He chuckles as I lurch forward,
stung by the implication. He pats me gently on the backside. “But not tonight.”
Allowing me to stand for a moment, he turns me
to face him and kisses me again. I long to embrace him, but as my arms reach
out, he is pushing my shoulders down directing me to my knees, my head once more
in front of his now dripping, spent cock.
“Clean me,” he says softly and I open my mouth
to obey, using my pursed lips to wipe and dry his cock, as the taste of both of
us mingles on my tongue. “Good, good.”
He reaches down and picks me up, his arm muscles
showing their strength. Placing me back in the SUV, he closes the door. I’m too
shell shocked to do much of anything. He lowers the tailgate just long enough
to get a blanket from the back, and then climbs inside. I notice his pants have
been re-zipped and his smile is broad and peaceful.
Mark places the blanket over my shoulders
while kissing my cheek and nuzzling my ears; he gently brushes his fingers
through my hair.
“You’re so beautiful, Julia. I’ve wanted you
for so long, you beautiful brilliant star.” He kisses me gently on the forehead
then wraps his arms around me holding my body as I cry, releasing all my
confusion and tension. We rest nestled like tender lovers for a time.

Eventually he taps me on the shoulder and
tells me it is time for us to go.
“I don’t understand something, Mark,” I say
when I have energy enough to talk. The truth is at this moment I really don’t
understand anything. “I know by taking this risk and trusting you I will get my
job back, but what are you getting from all this? It surely isn’t about the
sex.”
“I am getting a chance to shine light in the
darkness and recover the Holy Grail from its ancestral hiding place so it
belongs to me alone,” he replies with a wry smile.
“What?”
“Don’t worry about what I’m getting, Julia. I
promise that it’s worth it.” Mark opens the car door and helps me to my own
car. Guiding me gently by the arm, he places me in the front seat of my
vehicle. When the seat hits my sore bottom, I yelp and a little smile escapes
his lips. He promises to call me and steals away as quickly as he appeared.
I drive home in a haze, lucky the hour is late
and the traffic is low. The stretch of lifting myself out of the car and
walking into my apartment is almost more than I can bear. My body is empty of
all its strength, and my mind is full of questions.
What did he mean “Holy Grail”? How can someone
fuck me so hard then kiss me so gently? Am I a toy or am I his lover? Is he my
savior or is he my friend with benefits? Where do we go from here?

~~~

I drop into bed after a shower and although
I’m sore and swollen, I feel so full and wonderful inside. Never in my life
could I imagine myself allowing a man to speak to me as Mark did, and I
certainly have never offered anyone the kind of service I willingly gave him.
It’s all a puzzle to me.
Right as I’m drifting to sleep, I hear the
annoying undeniable ringtone of my cell phone telling me there’s a text
message. That doesn’t make any sense. It’s nearly midnight and since I’ve lost
my job my texts have gone from forty a day to zero. I get up and cross the
room, every step reminding me of the rough rear-entry pounding my pussy just
endured. When I look at the phone, the cover is supposed to show me the number it
comes from.
The number is 555-555-5555.
It’s an old reporter trick, of course. Pretty
much anyone in publishing, news, or secret keeping knows how to set their phone
up to register the 555 number as a way of masking their identity. I was taught
the trick in college as were most of my staff and friends. So, whoever sent me
this message wants to be anonymous. Let’s see what they have to say.
Flicking the screen with my thumb, I choose
the little text icon and the spinning circle appears for just a second before
the message shows up on my phone. A chill goes down my spine and I am suddenly
wide awake. There are four words on my screen.
“Do not trust him.”

I stare at the phone in disbelief. You’ve got
to be kidding me. Don’t trust him? I’ve not only given him my trust but also my
hope and my body! My world spins as I realize how little I really know about
Mark Stone. He and his brother Blake co-manage Sandstone industries but they
are more like business partners than brothers. He handles active accounts. He
believes in Lynx. He believes in me. He is the good guy and Blake is the snake.
Wait. That last one is not knowledge. It’s
assumption. I’m assuming he’s the good guy because he hasn’t done anything
openly bad. But that doesn’t make him good. He is certainly profiting off my
situation for his carnal pleasure. And yet, it’s my pleasure too. He didn’t
have to try to help me. He could have thrown me out of his office that very
first night. As far as the sex goes, a man like Mark could have any woman in
town, it’s not like he needed to coerce me into having sex with him. In
journalism school, we would call this all conjecture. No proof. No proof he’s
good. No proof he’s bad.
I don’t even know who the “him” in the text
refers too. It could be Mark, or Blake, or Paul Freis, my lawyer, or Dr. Vatel,
or any random man on the street. Hell, it could be Sanjay from yoga. It might
not even be for me. Some cheated-on spouse trying to warn another who got the
wrong number. I don’t know where it came from and I don’t know what it says. All
I know is I promised to give my body and trust to a man I barely know in
exchange for some kind of help I don’t understand with no guarantee of success.
The only person I can really count on is myself.

~~~

Three days fall off the calendar like overripe
fruit thudding to the ground and still no word from Mark. First he tells me I
only have thirty days to file this rejoinder then he blows three off like they
are nothing. What does he expect me to do, just sit around on my hands waiting
for the 29th day so he can call me and say “Sorry can’t help you”?
I spent the first two days milling around,
sharpening my resume, and visiting Dad. I called Janice for lunch but she’s so
paranoid about Sandstone Ventures she wants to wait another week. Finally this
morning, Paul sent the packet over with his analysis of the firing documents.
Sitting at the kitchen table with his notes as
a map, I finally find my way through most of the small print. Things were going
pretty well until I see a notation Paul made about Termination Reason
1A. I had seen the part where they say my position is redundant because
Ladies World has Valerie James as an editor and doesn’t need me. What I hadn’t
seen, until Paul’s paralegal highlighted it, was the part directly afterward.
Reason for Termination:
Redundant position.
Rationale for Decision:
The controlling property already has someone in the
position of editor. Evidence has surfaced that Ms. Sharp has been guilty of
negligence and incompetence in her own position and is not suitable to replace
the current editor of the controlling property.
Negligence? Incompetence? I can’t believe my
eyes. How dare they suggest I was either of those things? I ran a tight ship at
Lynx and no one could deny that. We were doing just fine without Sandstone
Ventures until the economy crashed, and that was not my fault. But even after
Sandstone, I was doing so well it pressured Ladies World. They couldn’t handle
the competition so they decided to fight dirty.
My hands ball into fists and I pound
helplessly on the table. Someone has to answer for these lies.
Looking around for my purse and keys, I pause
just long enough to scan the rest of my lawyer’s notes about the termination
papers. The conclusion, of course, is that without evidence of wrongdoing on
their part, there is no way to file a rejoinder. I pause for a moment. I should
let Paul Freis confront Blake about the accusations. Maybe I could use libel as
evidence. I know that having my lawyer get a statement is the smartest way to
go about this.
Screw smart. I’m done with that. Grabbing my
keys, I storm out the door and on my way to Sandstone Ventures.