* * *
In the pause between customers, Eve gave in to temptation. She’d read the memos and knew the consequences, but now...she had to. She had to see if he’d commented since the last time she’d checked, just before leaving for work.
With an eye on her queue, she logged in quickly to her blog. She didn’t have access to her personal e-mail here and would have to be content with refreshing her browser. She opened her last entry and experienced the familiar roller-coaster drop of her stomach when she saw the number of comments had risen by a few, but she had to take the time to enter a new customer chat before she could check.
Back and forth she went, cutting and pasting responses to stupid questions that made her jaw ache and her head pound. Refreshing her browser. New comments but none from Tell_me.
Her stomach hurt.
She cursed herself. It was an online thing, nothing more. She had lots of comments from lots of people. What was so important about his? About him?
At long last his familiar icon appeared and she held her breath, almost too afraid to read what he’d written. The counter clicked on her queue, her response time to the current client too long. It would show up on her performance stats, but Eve didn’t care. Let the moron who couldn’t figure out how to hook up his printer wait a minute. Maybe he’d get a clue in the meantime.
What makes it magic?
Her fingers flew. Magic can’t be defined, can it? Or it loses what makes it magic.
Would knowing me make it more magical?
He was replying in her blog to the private instant message exchange they’d had the night before. Eve imagined a tone of dry sarcasm, but that was the problem with written words. Without the benefit of inflection or facial expressions, they could be so easily misinterpreted. He could be angry, not amused or curious.
Part of the magic is the mystery, don’t you think?
She expected him to agree. She wanted him to agree. After all, he’d always given her what she wanted.
No. I don’t.
Eve didn’t know how to respond. Her queue wasn’t getting any shorter, and she had to finish off her open chat. She stumbled on the keyboard, making too many typos. She inserted the wrong text into the chat and had to apologize. It wasn’t the first time she’d had a “no” from a client when she asked if she’d been helpful, but it was the first time she knew she deserved one.
I want it to be that way.
And it’s all about what you want. How could I forget?
There was no mistaking the tone this time.
If you don’t like it, she typed before she could stop herself, you don’t have to read this blog.
Eve closed her browser abruptly so she wouldn’t know if he replied, and told herself she didn’t care. She got back to work, but it was a long, long day.
* * *
She wouldn’t IM him. She just wouldn’t. Not if her house were on fire and he really was a fireman.
She was going to ignore the bouncing yellow smiley face of her instant message program. Absolutely. In fact, Eve was going to do something unheard of. She was going to get away from her computer and do something else tonight. Read a book. Take a bath. Watch bad TV.
Anything, anything, but talk to him.
She made herself some dinner that didn’t come from a box or a can. She threw in a few loads of laundry. She read a magazine, but restlessly, flipping past ads for “sexual intimacy” videos and articles on how to please her man.
When she got back to her desk, the yellow smiley chastised her. She clicked on it and read his message to her. He’d sent it hours ago. Surely he wouldn’t still be waiting?
You didn’t post tonight.
I didn’t have any inspiration.
Because of me?
Yes.
I’m sorry. I just want you to know me, that’s all. For real. Not just words on a screen.
I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Why not?
That was a good question. Too bad she didn’t have a good answer. He didn’t wait for one.
I can make you happy.
What makes you think that?
A minute passed.
Because I know what you want.
Reading a blog isn’t the same as real life.
You could let me try.
But she couldn’t, could she? She didn’t know his name, or where he lived, or what he looked like. And wasn’t that what she wanted, really? An anonymous, faceless lover who gave her what she wanted, all the time, without needing anything from her? As long as she didn’t know who he was, for sure, she could still have that.
Right?
Her mouse hovered over the small “X” in the corner of the chat window, preparing to close it without answering him, but she couldn’t do it.
I’m sorry. I can’t.
What are you afraid of?
Being disappointed, she typed. Being let down.
I won’t disappoint you.
You can’t know that. Nobody can.
I can be what you want.
Eve closed the window. He didn’t ping her again. She stared at the computer screen for a few minutes, then opened her blog and began to type.
* * *
This is what I want.
Far away there is the sound of machinery. A mower, or a tractor. But inside the barn the only sound I hear is the rustle of the hay as you thrust the pitchfork into the pile, the sweet chirp of nesting birds high in the rafters, the quiet snuffle of the horses pawing at the earth with sharp hooves. The occasional hitch of your breath as you work.
I spy on you from the doorway. I don’t want you to turn around yet. I like to watch the easy way you move. How strong you are. My eyes follow the bunch and curve of your muscles as you strain.
You wear low-slung denim, low on the hips I want to bite. Worn work gloves protect the hands that have moved so often over my body and brought me such pleasure. You grunt, teeth caught for a moment in your lower lip as you concentrate on your task. You haven’t seen me, and that’s all right.
For now.
Dust dances in the shafts of sunlight, golden, buttery, that have found their way through cracks and crevices in the walls. The barn is old, made of stone quarried a hundred years before you were born. A hundred and almost thirty before we ever met.
Yet here we are, inside it, in the sunlight. A horse neighs from a stall far down the aisle and you turn.
And smile.
You straighten, bare-chested and gleaming. I could reach forward and pluck the stray piece of straw clinging to the rim of your collarbone, but I leave it for now. For now, I don’t touch you.
You say my name and the pleasure in your voice is so rich I feel as though I can reach out to touch it. You’re glad to see me; I want you to be glad to see me.
You lean on the pitchfork to stare, and I can guess what you see. My dress is white, sheer, with thin straps of lace that will tear when you tug them. If I let you tug them. I haven’t yet decided.
You don’t ask me what I’m doing here, which would be a foolish question, indeed. You already know. You knew the moment you turned and saw me standing in the doorway; when your eyes caught the shape of my body, outlined beneath the white eyelet. When your gaze traced the curve of my hip, the place your hand fits so perfectly.
You knew.
The barn is silent but for the soft chirping of nested birds and the far off drone of the tractor, for the occasional stomp of a hoof...and now, for your breath as it catches in your throat and trips on the syllables of my name.
There is a room in the back, fragrant with the scent of leather and horses. Momentarily blinded, I blink against the shadows. I don’t need to see you to know where you are.
Inches apart we face one another. Now is the time for me to reach for single, lonely piece of straw stuck to your skin with the sweat of honest work, and I let my fingers skim up your side, over your belly. The straw bends between my fingerstips when I pull it off you, and it’s dropped, forgotten, to
the floor.
I like the smell of you. Sweat and effort. It reminds me of how you smell when I’m done fucking you, when you can’t stand, when you can only lay like a broken doll on the twisted sheets. When I’ve used you up and worn you out, that’s how I like to smell you.
“Put your hands on the wall.”
You hesitate, of course, not expecting this. The jingle of metal is like a melody to my ears as you press your palms flat to the wall between the hanging bits and bridles. You could have fisted your hands against the wood, but you spread your fingers wide. Your shoulders, those broad, muscled shoulders, hunch just a little.
Are you afraid I’m going to hurt you?
I won’t, love. Not too much. I just want to see you this way, giving me what I want without asking me why I want it. I am unaccountably pleased at how you move at once to obey my request.
And it is a request, because I don’t want it to be an order.
You must want this as much as I, else the point is lost. I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’re bigger than I am. Stronger. I know because you’ve pinned my hands above my head, bruised my flesh and soothed the hurts with kisses and the flat of your tongue, though in truth I didn’t mind the marks that served so well to remind me of how it felt to have you holding me down so tightly.
You wait for me to speak, and I hear the sound of your breath again as your shoulders rise and fall.
“Spread your legs. Wider.” Impatient, I nudge them apart with my foot, though my slipper-clad toes are no match for your thick leather boots. Boots made for work. Your legs move easily enough, though.
Your head dips, emphasizing the way your shoulder blades protrude. For a moment I imagine you as an angel shorn of your wings. An angel in dirty denim.
You are an angel to me.
Behind you, my hands find a place on each side of your belt. I hook my fingers in and pull your hips back until my crotch bumps your ass. I love the sound you make. Mingled surprise and arousal. I picture your eyes closing, those straight white teeth tugging at the softness of your lower lip again.
If I were a man I could fuck you. I could fill you with my cock, make you groan, reach to stroke your erection in my fist while I moved in and out of your body until we both came. But I’m not a man, I don’t have a cock to fuck you with, and I have to be satisfied with running my hands down your hips and around the front of your thighs.
You groan again when my hands find the front of your belt and undo the buckle. When I unzip you. When I ease the worn denim and the blue cotton of your boxer briefs over your thighs and down past your knees, my cheek presses the hot, damp flesh of your back, and I feel the muscles there quiver.
Yet you make no attempt to turn or move your hands from their place on the wall, and this makes me smile.
I pull my dress to my waist. I’m bare beneath. I have to go on tiptoe to press my bush against your ass, but a hand thrust between your thighs moves them apart just enough to bring our bodies together. My fingers dig deep into your hips at the places I want to put my teeth, but later. Later for that.
Now I rub myself against your ass, your back, your thighs. I rub your belly with the flat of my hand and pretend to ignore the tap of your cock on the back of it. When you push your hips forward I dig my nails deeper. The groan you make is one of mingled pleasure and pain, and my clit pulses at the sound of it.
Metal jingles again and leather swings as you lean forward. For a moment I think about putting you in a harness, a bridle. Leather crisscrossing your lean body, straps molding to the curve of your head. I could hook you to a carriage and make you pull me. I could snap the thin whip of braided leather against your thighs and ass to make you run faster.
I laugh when I tell you this, but your head turns and the look in your eye is not of pleasurable contemplation but alarm. Yet your cock taps again on the back of my hand, pressed flat to your rising and falling stomach, and your hips jerk, just a little.
“Would you like that?” I whisper. I can’t reach your ear. You’re too tall. But I have no doubt you hear me.
“Do you...want me to like that?”
It’s in me to say yes, that I would like to hook you to a carriage and make you my pony, but I don’t. I let my hand tell you what I really want. I cup your balls. I stroke your cock. I say nothing until you shudder and groan and duck your head again, and I know that you’ll do whatever I want...which is what I want, anyway.
“I want to fuck you.” It’s not the first time I’ve said it, and I doubt it will be the last.
I stroke harder and you push into my fist the way you’ll soon push into my cunt. I’m still behind you. I’m still rubbing myself against you. My breasts feel heavy. My cunt aches. I want you so much it’s like burning.
I slip into the small space between you and the wall. My arms go around your neck. I use the pressure of the wall behind my back to climb you like a tree. My legs go around your waist. My dress bunches on my hips.
Your cock, trapped between us, rubs my cunt. My clit. Delicious, but it’s not enough. I want you inside me.
“Fuck me,” I say, and you’re only too happy to oblige.
With one hand still flat against the wall, you slide the other beneath my ass. I’ve got my arms around your neck, my legs wrapped around you, your prick so deep inside me I feel it in my belly. And you move, not bothering to start slow.
You fuck me so hard we rattle the bridles and bits; we shake the wall. We shake the fucking mountains.
I watch your eyes flutter. It’s the look you get just before you come, and I come too. Hard. Like splintering. I kiss you when I come, your mouth beneath mine sweet and open, and I steal your breath.
I swallow your shout.
You thrust again. Your body quakes and shudders; so does mine. We come together with small, sharp cries that drown out the far away sound of the tractor and the soft, sweet chirpings of nested birds.
* * *
The first thing Eve saw when the elevator door opened on the fourth floor was Lane. Today he wore a sleek, chest-hugging black T-shirt and a pair of jeans that gave her palpitations. They wanted to ride low on his hips, those damned jeans, but Lane had belted them tight to his waist with a shiny buckled belt. He wore boots, too, scuffed and black and worn from hard work, but clean.
“Hey, cowboy.” Debbie gave Lane the slow, thorough, up-and-down appraisal Eve wished she could risk, but then Debbie was about as subtle as a wiener dog with a sock toy. “Nice buckle.”
Lane tipped an imaginary hat and gave them both a grin of such blinding brilliance Eve had to look away. “Well, thank you, ma’am.”
He looked at Eve, who felt the weight of his gaze even though she was unable to look at his face. “See you, Eve.”
Both women stared in silence after him as he strode down the center of the pod forest and disappeared around the corner.
Debbie nudged Eve with her elbow. “I would ride him like a pony.”
“I bet you would,” Eve said, but you couldn’t handle him is what she thought.
“Tell me you wouldn’t? Lane DeMarco is ten kinds of sexy.” Debbie followed Eve to her cubicle. “He has an ass that just won’t quit. Did you see those jeans? Jesus, Eve. Tell me you noticed the jeans. And the boots!”
She’d seen them, all right. She’d seen all of it. The only thing that would have made him look any better would have been a battered leather hat pulled low over his eyes, and not even Lane could get away with that at work. He had been waiting for her to get off the elevator, she was convinced of that. His look had convinced her.
It had been a challenge, but then so had what she’d written, hadn’t it?
She settled into her chair, her hands moving to her keyboard automatically, though they felt too numb to actually type.
“Thank god for the casual dress code, huh? Gawd,” Debbie said with another peek around the pod wall. “Do you think he does it on purpose?”
“Does what?”
“He’s a
cowboy, Eve. A cowboy!”
The last word ended with a squeak that made Eve look up. “I noticed.”
It would have been impossible not to.
“I don’t understand how you can be so immune to it, that’s all,” Debbie said, proving she really was clueless. “The man is a god, pure and simple. A sex god.”
He was more than that, Eve thought, her fingers tap-tapping on the keys. But someone like Debbie wouldn’t ever see that. “Don’t you have work to do?”
Debbie sighed. “Hell, yes. And dammit, nothing’s broken.” She gave a wicked chuckle. “Yet.”
Eve logged in, but her fingers fumbled too often on the keys and she made stupid typing errors. She messed up the simplest tasks, had to read the same customer replies two and three times to make sense of them and was, generally speaking, a mess.
How could she have not seen this before? He’d asked her about the monster marathon. He’d brought her coffee because he thought it was what she wanted. He a cowboy today for the same reason.
Lane DeMarco was Tell_me.
She couldn’t deny it any longer. The subtle clues she’d chosen to ignore had been cast aside. He was challenging her to admit she knew it was him.
Lane was her online lover. Tears, of anger or sorrow, she couldn’t tell which, clogged her throat and blurred the computer screen. How could she have been so blind? And how long had he known?
“Move over.” The grumble-growl of Lane’s voice took her by surprise, but he didn’t wait for her to obey. He pushed her chair gently so it rolled to the side. His fingers tapped her keyboard.
“What are you doing?” Eve kept her voice pitched low but couldn’t keep the anger from her tone. “Get out of here.”
Lane threw her a glance. “They’re doing an inspection today. Too many complaints about slow or poor service. They’re checking all Internet usage. People who’ve been going online for personal use are going to get written up, Eve. Or fired.”
Her jaw dropped. “Can they do that?”
He nodded, mouth set in a grim line. “Haven’t you been reading the memos?”
“Yes, but—”
He typed faster. Scrolling lines of files appeared and vanished just as fast. Delete. Delete. Delete. He worked swiftly, without hesitation.