Keening and writhing on the desk, while he continued to fuck me.
He bent over me, lifted my head with his hand and kissed me again.
Yes. More kissing. I needed the kissing.
I reached for him, clutched at him, while he pushed inside me in an unsteady rhythm. Like he was desperate. He groaned his release into my mouth. And when he was done, I screamed as if I’d won the most important race of my life.
THIRTY-SEVEN
GRANT
He was lost. Like he’d been abandoned on an island called Earth. Again.
I stoodat the foot of my wife’s grave and hung my head. Then I lifted it, because if I was going to do this, I was going to be a man about it.
“I…”
How the hell did I do this?
“I met someone,” I confessed. “No, that sounds like it started out a certain way. I kissed someone. Which is probably what you care about. Not just some aimless fucking to let off steam. Although I did…fuck her too. Sorry, make love. I know you hate that word. Not that it was love. It wasn’t. It was just…something.”
Six weeks before, after I’d fucked Flowers on her desk, I’d left her there. Just walked out of the office and kept on walking until I knew she’d be gone for the day.
Eventually, when I got home that night, significantly less sober, there was a text from her.
Flowers: Call Tom Daniels.
I did.
Told him she was smart, efficient, utterly competent and very curious. All things that made for an exemplary employee. He’d thanked me and asked me when she could start.
I’d told him as soon as he needed her and he asked if she could start within the week.
I texted her back that I’d called him and I didn’t go into the office for the rest of the week.
Figured I was being noble by giving her a chance to pack up all her stuff and leave without my insufferable presence.
She’d been working forhimthese past few weeks.
Of course, I’d done my research on him. Went as far as hiring a private investigator to find out everything I could about Daniels.
I don’t know what I was hoping for, but the investigation was a disappointment.
He was a solid guy. No criminal background. No complaints from any employees, current or former. Never married, no kids. He was seeing a woman his age casually, but it appeared he was married to the job.
Would he fall under Flowers’ spell too? Would her mix of worldliness and innocence fascinate him?
Would he ache for her?
“Fuck!”
Quickly, I glanced around, but it was the middle of the morning and I was alone among the dead.
“Rebecca thinks I should move to Florida,” I told Allison’s headstone. “Be closer to her and my folks. It would mean leaving you behind, though. So I won’t do it. I won’t go.”
It would also mean leaving Flowers behind.
Even though she’d already left me.
