Molly looked at him. “He wanted a son, he said. Real bad. He wanted to take him fishing, and to baseball games, and play catch in the backyard. All things his own dad hadn’t ever done with him. ‘Mol,’ he said. ‘I’m not gonna be a fuckup like my old man. I’m gonna be a good father.’”
Elliott grimaced, choking laughter. “Oh, please.”
“That’s what he said.” She gave him a small smile, one that seemed more like her old self. “We’d had it pretty good up until that point. Not great, but okay. We had money; your dad kept a job. Didn’t hit the booze the way he would later. After.”
Listening to her was like being in a natural disaster. He wanted to get away, but all he could do was let it sweep him along. Elliott got up to pace, his stomach twisting and a little sick. When he licked his mouth, he tasted salt.
“I lost the baby, and your dad kind of lost his mind. It was my … fault.…” Molly said on a sob.
Elliott turned. “Nothing that he ever did to you was your fault.”
“I didn’t want the baby. I didn’t take care of myself. I didn’t love it. I tried to, but all I could think about was how much work babies are, and how it would change everything, and I didn’t want it.” Tears streaked her cheeks, and she batted at the sheets with ineffective fists.
Elliott pulled a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand and wiped her face. “Shhh.”
“I won’t shhh. You need to hear this!” She grabbed one of his wrists with surprising force. Her fingers slipped, not quite able to grip, but he didn’t pull away. “I lost the baby, and your dad was so devastated, he lost himself in the booze and the other women.”
“He had a son,” Elliott said coldly. “He got the son he said he wanted, and he was still an addict who talked more with his fists than anything else. So don’t blame yourself for what you couldn’t control.”
Molly quieted. “He never loved you the way you deserved to be loved, Elliott. I’m sorry for that.”
It wasn’t news, but it still stung to hear it. He sat on the edge of her bed, wanting to get up and walk away. To leave this room and this conversation and everything else. Her small, weak hand on his stopped him.
“He didn’t have it in him, that’s all. Like he didn’t have it in him to love your mother enough to leave me for her. Or to love me enough not to have gone with her in the first place. Your dad’s a man with a lot of empty holes to fill, and he’s never been able to fill them.” She struggled upright, reaching for him.
“Calm down, Molly. Do you need me to ring for Betty?” He’d seen Molly get agitated before. She could hurt herself.
“No, no, no.” Molly shook her head. Fine tremors shook her entire body, not quite a seizure but heading in that direction.
“I’m calling Betty.”
Again, her hand shot out to stop him. “No!”
“Then you have to calm down,” he told her. “You can’t let yourself get so upset.”
“There are things you need to hear, Elliott!”
“Fine. Ok. Let me get you some water.” He poured some into a paper cup from one of the bottles he kept stocked in the minifridge he paid extra to keep in her room. He added a straw and held it for her.
Molly took a few greedy sips. “Be better to have a shot of vodka.”
“You never drank vodka.” Elliott managed a laugh.
Molly fixed him with a bleary look. “You have no idea what I was like when I was a much younger hellion.”
He didn’t have to. He’d known her as the woman who’d taken him in when his own mother had tossed him out and his father had disappeared. He’d always only known her as that woman, and there was still the glimmer of her now.
“You’re a lot like your father. I know you don’t want to hear that, Elliott, but you listen to me. You have more than his hair and eyes, you have a lot of him in you. Even if he wasn’t around you or there for you when you were growing up, part of him made you, and you can’t get away from that.”
He grimaced. “Thanks. That makes me feel great, Molly. Thanks a lot.”
“But you’re not your daddy. You know that, don’t you?” More tears shimmered in her eyes and she tried to squeeze his hand. She looked down at the uselessly curling fingers. “You think I don’t hate him for what he did to me? I do. Just the way I’m sure you hate him for never being there for you and leaving you with that woman who shouldn’t have been allowed to own a rat, much less a child. But you can’t hold on to hate.”
“That’s what they all say.” Elliott took her hand between both of his.
“Who’s they?” Molly demanded. “Preachers? Advice gurus?”
“People like that.”
“You listen to that bullshit?”
Elliott shook his head. “No.”
“Well, you listen to me, you hear me? You can’t hold on to hate. It will eat you up inside and leave you full of holes you can’t ever fill.” Molly sighed, closing her eyes and laying back on the pillows. “You’re a man all grown, now, and you still don’t have anyone. Nobody to love you, or for you to love.”
“I love you, Molly. And you love me.”
She cracked open an eye and frowned. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“What if I just got a dog?”
“Dogs are stinking, slobbering bags of unconditional love, but they are not a substitute for a person. Damn, I miss Harry.” She shifted around again with a grimace.
“Do you need some meds?”
“No. I’m fine. Just tired of being in this bed. Tired of feeling this way, though I guess on the days I don’t, I’m so out of my goddamned mind I’d have no idea about it, so why should I care?” Her smile was even smaller this time, quick as a flash of light in a shadowed pond.
They sat for a few minutes after that without saying much. She was fading, though not quite asleep. She wouldn’t let go of Elliott’s hand.
“How do you stop hating?” he asked quietly, finally, when he thought maybe she’d at last drifted into dreams.
She hadn’t. She didn’t open her eyes, but she did answer him. “You try really, really hard.”
“What if you can’t?”
“Find something to love,” she told him with a light squeeze of his fingers. “You won’t have time to do so much hating. You should find someone, Elliott.”
He thought of Simone, of course he did. “I’m seeing someone.”
He’d surprised her enough to open her eyes, though only for a second or so. “Since when?”
“Since … not long. It’s not very serious.”
Molly’s laugh turned hoarse. “The fact you even mention her at all means it’s at least a little serious, sonny. You still making your lists?”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
“Would she be on one?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Yes.”
“You think you found someone to love. That’s good for you. I’m happy.”
Simone had worked her way inside him, that was for sure. “How would I know?”
“If it scares the shit out of you, that’s probably a good way to tell. You scared?” Molly’s breathing slowed, and her head settled harder into the pillows. Her grip loosened and, finally, fell away.
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
She laughed, a little, though he was certain she’d at last fallen asleep. She’d held on to at least a tiny bit of consciousness, though, because when he got up to go, her lips moved. She spoke on a whisper, but he still heard every word.
“We might spend our whole lives dying,” Molly muttered, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth every single second.”
* * *
Elliott’s hands.
His mouth.
Oh, god, that belly. Those long, long legs. His jaw. His thighs.
Simone was in a fever of remembering every part of his body. It felt like a fever, literally, her body temperature a few degrees above normal as she tossed and turned in her bed and tried to convince herself not to get i
n a cab and go to his house.
He’d open the door for her, if she knocked. He would let her inside. He would let her put her mouth on him, all over him, and at the thought of that, another shivery series of shudders trembled through her. There’d been things in her life that Simone had desired more than she wanted to take Elliott’s cock in her mouth, but just then she couldn’t think of a single one.
She’d taken a cold shower, but all that had done was get her nipples erect and her clit pulsing. Now, flopping back against her pillows with the ceiling fan spinning lazily overhead to dry her off before she got dressed, all she could do was close her eyes and think about pushing him back onto his bed and climbing up his body to center her pussy over his eager, waiting mouth.
The air on her body felt so amazing, she didn’t want to put on clothes. Simone ran her hands over her breasts, tweaking the nipples even harder. It had been a month since the last time she and Elliott had fucked, a couple weeks since that first date when she’d lost her mind and said good night without fucking his brains out.
They had another date tonight.
“You did the right thing,” she told herself aloud as her hands roamed over her body. “You’re loco for this dude; you need to slow it down or you’re going to end up on his doorstep at three in the morning with mascara running down your cheeks, sobbing and asking him why he doesn’t love you.”
That had been one of Aidan’s ex-girlfriends, the one from just before he and Simone had started dating. The woman had shown up at his apartment without fail two Saturday nights out of the month, drunk and morose and a hot mess. Simone hadn’t been jealous or threatened by her, but damn, had she learned a lesson about self-esteem and the importance of maintaining it.
She’d vowed she would never be that girl. She knew for a straight-up fact that Elliott was an emotionally unavailable mess. She could fuck him until they were both raw. She could let him take her out to dinner and concerts. She could even spend hours with him on the phone, laughing so hard she thought she might pass out from lack of air.
But she could not, would not fall in love with him.
She hadn’t lied to him when she’d said she didn’t think fucking him meant she had to be his girlfriend, or even that she wanted to be. That had been true for almost every relationship she’d ever had after that first awful freshman year of college love affair that had burned her so deep and hard she’d thought she’d never get over it. She had, of course, and in far less time than she’d thought she could. But she’d learned a valuable lesson about herself and sex, and what was important to her in a relationship. It had never meant that she’d sworn off love or never had another boyfriend. It meant she’d learned to be careful about losing herself inside of someone else.
She was going to lose herself in Elliott Anderson if she wasn’t careful.
“You did the right thing,” she whispered as her hand slid between her legs, teasing her clit. The other one twisted a nipple until she let out a long, slow sigh. “You like him too much.…”
Ridiculous. Like him too much to fuck him? They’d already fucked, and spectacularly, she might add, and there was absolutely no reason for her to hold herself back from him. Why? Because he’d done a turnaround and decided that she was the one woman who could make him want to date more than a couple times? Because she’d changed his mind?
Because she was special?
Danger, danger, her mind said. Be careful, her heart said, but her hotsy-totsy pussy didn’t want to listen.
Simone groaned, herself close to a climax but easing off. Tonight, she and Elliott were going to the movies. They’d be in the dark. He’d probably hold her hand and do that insane thing with his thumb that would have her on the edge of her seat the entire time, unable to concentrate. By the time he brought her home, her panties would be soaked. She’d want to attack him, and why shouldn’t she, other than she was trying her best to keep herself from falling head over heels in love with him.
“Shit,” Simone said aloud.
If she came now, she might be able to resist her urges later. It seemed like a good plan. At least with her hand moving between her legs, fingers dipping deep inside for a moment before circling her clit, she could convince herself that this rapidly approaching orgasm wasn’t a luxury but a necessity. To keep herself on track. Not that they would never fuck again … oh, god, no. The idea of that was too horrible for her to bear.
She couldn’t possibly go much longer without riding Elliott’s thick, perfect cock. Or his mouth. Or his hand.
“Oh, fuck,” she breathed, edging again. Everything became the feeling of her hand between her legs, her fingers pinching her nipple, the soft sheets under her ass as she writhed. Imagining him. Wishing her hands were his. “Oh, fuck, I want him. I want him. I want him.”
So let him take you, whispered the voice in her mind that had nothing to do with reason, and everything to do with desire. How bad could it be? What’s the worst that could happen?
She was going up, up, and over, so close that all it would take was the tiniest tweak of her clit and she’d explode … and the phone rang. Simone startled, waiting for the orgasm to rip through her, but it didn’t. And it was her landline, which she kept only for one reason, since only one person ever used it.
Her mother.
“Mom. Hi.” Breathless, she grabbed the phone.
“Simone? Honey? What’s wrong with you, you sound all out of breath. Were you exercising? What?”
“No, Ma. I was … um, yeah, well I got a new fitness video.” Simone cringed. Thirty-six years old and she was still lying to her mother about masturbation.
“Don’t hurt yourself. And you know I think you’re way too skinny as it is.” Her mom sighed, and Simone pictured her shaking her head of silver blond permed hair. “Are you eating right? Taking care of yourself?”
“Yes, Ma.” Simone swung her legs over her bed, feeling the pounding of her heartbeat slow. She toed the line of the hardwood floor while she took a few deep breaths to steady herself. God forbid she should get up too fast and trip or something because her knees were still a little weak. She’d never hear the end of it.
“When am I going to see you again?”
“Ma.” Simone tried to keep calm, but her mother had a way of pushing her every button. “I was just home, what, two weeks ago? Three?”
“It’s been a month and a half.” Her mother sniffed. “Your brother and Marilyn were here just last weekend with the kids. It was such a nice family get-together.…”
“Gene never mentioned it. And you,” Simone said, “didn’t invite me.”
Her mother gave an affronted snuffle. “What, you need an invitation to come home on the weekends?”
Simone laughed as she went to her dresser to pull out a pair of lacy panties. Cradling the phone to her ear, she slipped into them, then stood in front of the full-length mirror to see how they looked. “Fantastic.”
“What?”
“Nothing, Ma. I’m just getting ready for a … to go out. How about I call you tomorrow?”
But there was no way her mother was going to settle for that nonsense. No way. “Going out? On a date? Simone, you have a date?”
“Yes. A date.” Simone sighed. “A real, actual, honest-to-goodness date. Okay?”
“What’s his name? It’s not with Aidan, is it? Oh, my, my, Simone, when are you going to forget about that boy? He’s not good for you.”
It was an old lament, and Simone did not point out that her mother had loved Aidan to the point that when Simone had broken up with him, she had almost disowned Simone in favor of him. Instead, she dug through her drawer for a matching bra. In doing so, she dropped her phone.
When she explained why, her mother laughed. “Go without.”
“Ma. Please. I’m wearing, you know, nice clothes and everything. It’s a date,” Simone emphasized, sitting on the edge of the bed still in just her panties. Suddenly sort of defeated. “I want to look nice.”
“You always l
ook nice, honey. Who is this guy, does he say you don’t look nice?”
“No. But he’s … “ Simone sighed, trying to think of how to describe Elliott without sounding like an overwrought schoolgirl. “He’s classy.”
“Rich?”
“He’s got money.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s rich,” her mother said knowingly. “But having money is good.”
“I mean, he’s got a good job—he’s a lawyer,” she added before her mother could ask. Too late, Simone wished she’d lied. Said he was a construction worker. Something other than a cliché.
Her mother tutted. “A lawyer! How nice. How’d you meet him?”
“We work in the same building.”
“Oh, an office romance? Sexy!”
“We don’t work for the same company, so, no, not exactly.” Simone sighed as she searched her closet for something to wear, finally settling on a floor-length dress of gauzy, sparkly dark blue fabric. “Ugh. I’m going to look like a princess.”
“You are a princess, dolly,” her mother said. “And don’t you let him treat you as anything less than that. Wait a minute, no. I take that back. You make him treat you like a queen.”
* * *
“I’m a little overdressed.” Simone looked down at what she was wearing with a rueful grin. “I thought we were going out.”
“I wanted to cook for you.” Elliott pulled out the chair at the kitchen table for her to sit in. “Can I get you a drink? I have red wine, white wine. I could make you a margarita. Whiskey sour?”
“Red’s fine. Can I help you with anything?”
He shook his head, pouring her a glass from the bottle he’d let breathe on the counter. “Nope. I have everything all ready to go. I hope you like pasta.”
It was about all he could make. Simone grinned. Something twisted inside his chest at the sight of it.
“I love pasta.” She paused. “Lots of garlic? Are you trying to tell me something?”
“That I’m not a vampire?”
“That you don’t want to kiss me?” Simone laughed.