Lovers and Other Strangers Box Set: The Boston Stories (32 page)

"That bad?" She heard him let out a deep sigh. "No, maybe that is one of the thing that is bothering me. All the girls I meet now want to bed Rik Toil, badass CEO of Rik Toil Boards. None of them know or care about Eric Tolland, dweeby artist. You think you're in love with this guy?"

"Yeah, I think maybe I am. He confuses the hell out of me, but I want to spend every minute with him."

"Sounds like you just want to jump his bones."

"We haven't... We haven't had sex. I mean he wants to but I, I wanted to wait till I was sure."

"Sure about what? Whether you love him or whether or not you want to fuck his brains out."

"Nice, you kiss Mom with that mouth?"

"Evie, for God's sake, get some, seriously, I mean you have never said anything but you are only one year older than me and I am willing to bet you've never gotten laid." She choked on her next breath and he started laughing.

"Knew it! Look the dream date guy was fine when you were in high school, maybe even college but you are all grown up and sex can be a hell of a lot of fun if you find the right person to do it with. I'm not saying go out and bang every guy you meet but you're a little old to go to sleep every night still kissing your pillow."

"You're a jerk."

"You always say that when you think I'm right."

"Come out here. I miss seeing you."

"Maybe in a couple a weeks, I've got quarterly projections to worry about. Shit, did you ever think you'd hear me say something like that? I have got to do something to shake up my life. Bye sis.

"Bye pest." She needed to remember to call Eric more often. He sounded lonely, even if he was surrounded by people all the time. They had always been so close growing up especially because Eden was so much younger. She threw on sweats and went downstairs to find something to eat for dinner.

She was staring into the abyss of her fridge when her phone rang again. When she looked at the caller ID she squealed and then had to take a deep breath to sound relaxed as she answered the phone. "Hey."

"Hey to you to. What did you do all day?"

"Nothing much, just caught up on stuff, sorted mail, boring stuff. What did you do?

"Missed you mostly." Her face split into a giant grin.

"I missed you too."

"What are you doing now?"

"I just got out of the tub." She heard an audible groan on the other end of the call.

"Tease."

"You asked! Right now I am wearing sweats and standing in front of my empty refrigerator. Sounds sexy huh?"

"Are your sweats rolled down your hips and your shirt is letting just a peek of your waist show?" They weren't but he didn't need to know that.

"Mmmhmm, and my hair is pulled back in a ponytail just waiting for you to kiss the back of my neck." She could hear his breathing deepen.

"Aw, you're killing me. What would I find if I slid those sweats off?"

"What do you mean?" Shit, she didn't want to break the illusion.

"Would I find those crazy sexy cotton bikinis of yours?"

"Um, no, I'm commando." She couldn't help it but the word made her giggle even if it was the truth. She could hear him on the other end struggle to keep calm.

"You don't have a bra on either do you?"

"No." She heard him swear under his breath.

"Evie, I want you to slide your hand under your sweats. I want you to touch yourself. Tell me if you're wet." It was ridiculous standing in the kitchen doing this but she was as turned on by the phone call as he was. She closed the refrigerator door and slid her hand along her abdomen under the waistband of the sweats. As her fingers slipped through the curls a thought occurred to her.

"Joseph, would you like my pussy bare?"

"Fuck. Evie, hearing you talk like that... your sweet voice, saying shit like that. Damn. Yeah, maybe you could surprise me some time. So? Are you wet?"

"Joseph, I was wet as soon as you called." For a while there was just breathing on the other end of the phone. "Are you still there?"

"Barely. Slide your fingers in, I want you to get your clit good and wet."

"Mmmm, I wish you were here doing this to me."

"Oh God, so do I. Only I'd be using my tongue. I'd be feasting on your sweet vanilla cream right now." Evie slumped back against the counter. A whimper bubbled up out of her and she almost dropped the phone.

"You still there babe?"

"Yes." It came out as a whisper

"I really want to hear you get off for me. Can you do that sweetheart? For me?"

"Oh God yes." His voice stroked along her nerve endings as if it were a physical touch. She spun around and leaned over the counter to hold herself up. Her fingers played over her clit, like his tongue had. "Oh, Joseph, Oh, God Please, say something!"

"Oh baby! Yes, sweetheart like I'm touching you, tasting you, teasing that sweet pussy of yours." She let the vortex his words created take her as she keened into the phone, panting, crying out her release. She thought she heard him moan also. After a couple of minutes she realized the line was dead. She washed her hands in the sink and collapsed on to the couch. Shit, should she call him back? Was he just toying with her? What the hell was she supposed to do now, not that she could do anything but stare off into space in a post-coital daze. Then her phone rang, it was him of course.

"Drop your phone Joseph?"

"Do you have any idea what you do to me?"

"About the same as you do to me, I imagine."

"Well I won't be taking a cold shower tonight at least." His laugh felt like warm caramel sauce pouring down her body.

"I love your laugh."

"I love the way you sound when you come."

"You have sex on the brain!"

"No, I have sex with you on the brain, that is something else entirely. Hey don't make any plans for Wednesday or after for the rest of the week. Can you swing that?"

"Joseph, I don't know..."

"I do, just trust me. Do you trust me Evie?"

"Yes, completely."

"Good, I love you and I'll see you Wednesday." The line went dead again. He hung up and didn't even give her a chance to say I love you back. What was he up to? All she could do was lay there grinning like an idiot. Wednesday that man was going to make love to her or she was going to die trying.

Joseph let himself into her loft with his key and was surprised to hear Evie shouting at someone.

"I told you yesterday, I will not marry you! I don't care how wonderful it would be for my career."

"Evie, listen to reason. Its made for television. The bad boy and the goody two shoes, I've talked with some friends down in New York. A couple of the cable channels are interested. It would send prices of your work through the roof."

"And yours. Maybe someone would even be crazy enough to buy that crap."

"What the hell happened to you? You used to be so sweet and nice."

"Don't you mean a nice quiet doormat? I've grown a back bone the last couple of weeks. Getting my place broken into will do that."

"I know, I know, that is why I was so happy when I found your chisels in the dumpster. I figured you would be grateful but you're just being a complete bitch."

"I'm a complete bitch because I suspect you are the one that took them all along."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because the old Evie would have kissed your feet for helping her. The old Evie thought that because you've been written up a bunch of times that you knew more than I did. But I realized that the things you've had articles written about you had nothing to do with your art and everything to do with your personality. The new Evie is a hell of a lot less in awe of you. Actually the new Evie would like you to get the hell out of my loft."

"You don't mean that. You need me. Who else is going to have a mouse like you? My God, you're barely sexual. I could win an Emmy for the acting I'd have to do to make the audience believe I want to sleep with you. Actually, it would be prefect, the audience would know I was sleeping around and you could just be the cute docile little wifey that makes me breakfast."

"Bernie, do you even hear yourself? You are pitiful and ridiculous. I am not marrying you under any circumstances. And if you get any ideas about breaking in again, I warn you I spent the money to have a state of the art security system put in. If all it does is keep your loser ass out it will be money well spent. I wasn't kidding when I said I want you to leave. If you don't I will call the cops and you can explain to them how exactly you ended up with my stolen property. Am I making myself perfectly clear? I want nothing to do with you ever again. Go see if Rayna will bite, the dynamic isn't the same though is it. You wouldn't be the star and you'd be the doormat not her."

"This is all because of the loser in the wheelchair, isn't it?"

"Maybe, but not how you think. He just got me to see what I'm worth to myself and because of that, I am not falling for your bullshit mind games anymore. Get out now. I'm dialing the police and with your record of harassment and date rape, they might knock you around some first before they manage to get you to the station."

"Fuck it, I couldn't pretend to want to fuck you anyway." Cam put himself in the doorway. Evie's eyes went wide.

"Bernie, the lady asked you to leave, I would get going."

"And what the fuck are you going to do about it!" Bernard stalked over to him.

"First I need to tell you that I am a cop, yeah still, even in the wheelchair, so by all means take a swing. I'd love to pin an assault charge on you. And when my buddies arrive I can tell you they take a very dim view of assaulting an officer. The choice is yours but if you want to hit me by all means don't let me stop you."

"Asshole, you two deserve each other." Bernard stormed past him and out through the studio. Cam watched him slam the door on his way out.

"He's gone."

"I was perfectly capable of handling him on my own."

"I heard, and I agree. I just wanted to make sure he knew you weren't alone."

"Why are you here?"

"I told you I was coming by, remember, I asked you to block out today and the rest of the week for me."

"I'm not surprised you're here. I just want to know why you are here."

"I wanted to talk to you about something."

"For the next five days? That's some conversation."

"Can I at least get you to sit down. I kind of planned how I wanted to do this and I hadn't expected that there was going to be a line."

"What are you talking about?"

"Evie, sit down please." She still seemed suspicious, probably still keyed up from the run in with Bernie-boy.

"Are you going to break up with me?"

"No such luck. Evie, I want to marry you." He reached for her hand and put her mother's ring on her finger.

"But... I... We've... Hey, this ring looks just like my mother's."

"Because it is your mother's and evidently was your grandmother's before her. She insisted I ask you with it."

"You talked to my mother!"

"Yes, and your father. I wanted them to know what I planned and whether they were going to be okay with it."

"I can't believe you talked to my parents." She was grinning so wide her mouth looked like it would split. "Wait, okay with what?"

"I've set everything up so we can elope, leave tonight drive to Vermont and we can be married by tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh, no, that is not going to work?"

"Are you saying no to marrying me?" His heart was beating so hard in his chest he thought he might explode. He tried to take a breath but his body had stopped paying attention to his brain.

"Joseph, I don't have anything to wear to get married in."

"Damn, Evie, don't do that to me. I bought you something to get married in but if you don't like it we can go get something up there."

"Joseph, we've only known each other a short time and we haven't even..."

"Had sex. I've got a pretty good idea what I'm getting into and I just hope I'm man enough to take all you've got. You know I'm crazy about you and I wanted to do this the old fashioned way."

"You know we don't have to be married."

"I know. But, when you left the other day, it was like the home that I loved, that I worked my ass off to make just the way I wanted, suddenly became just a house. Everything that made it a home left with you. I may not be a rocket scientist but it didn't take me too long to figure out I would be miserable without you so I called your parents and we had a little talk about how they'd feel if I swept you off your feet and eloped with you."

"So they had never met you but were perfectly willing to give me away to a total stranger!"

"Not quite, Evidently, you were fairly vocal about your bordering on psychotic crush on me in high school. Your mom actually remembered you talking about me."

"Psychotic! We've only known each other like two and a half weeks! And you wouldn't even sleep with me when I wanted you to! What the hell are you grinning about?"

"You are so hot when you're pissed off." She smiled back at him but she was still ticked off.

"You are trying to change the subject and I won't let you! I don't think I want to marry you if we haven't had sex." She crossed her arms over her chest to put the 'so there' in for added emphasis.

"Fine, I won't have sex with you unless we're married and if you remember correctly it was just this kind of junk that led to a couple of torturous days for both of us. So who is going to give in. I think you should. Look, we could be married tomorrow, we spend a couple days up there, then we come back here and we take full advantage of the pleasure dome you've got upstairs. I don't have to be back at work for a week and a half. That should be long enough to satisfy all your needs." Now she was his favorite shade of pink.

"Everything, even the mirror?"

"Well not if its gonna freak you out?"

"Oh, no, actually I have been having wild fantasies about it ever since you mentioned it."

"Really?"

"MmmHmm, Joseph, I need to tell you something but I have a feeling you already know. I'm..."

"Yeah, I know. That's part of the reason I wanted to do this the old fashioned way. I was a little freaked out at first."