The Other Other Woman (21 page)

“I know, babe, but we have to…”

He kept going for a few short minutes. “Ahhh… I better get something…”

He was right. I knew he was right. God knows I had absolutely zero desire to get pregnant again, ever. And certainly not under these circumstances. Stupid necessary evil.

We stopped for a minute so he could reach a condom off the nightstand. He stood and rolled it on. In a flash, he grabbed my legs, dragging me down to the edge of the bed. He lifted them there, and holding me under my knees, quickly entered me again. This time, skipping the formalities and slow build up, he just fucked me. Hard, fast, and properly. Normally I preferred a slightly slower pace, but the desperate look in his eyes and urgency with which he needed to thrust served me well, and I soon found myself spinning into an intense climax. He immediately followed within seconds, his body glistening with sweat again and knees buckling against the bed, as he cried out an exuberant, “YEEEEEEEES!”

He crawled up beside me on the bed, wrapping his arms around me, his body physically drained and his skin still burning up as he snuggled against me. I found it fascinating that a man who could get completely soaked with sweat could still smell so damn good. After a few minutes he smiled and gave me a kiss. “That. Was. Awesome.”

“Yes, it was,” I agreed. “But I am going to be absolutely useless tonight. I’m exhausted, can’t we just lay here forever?”

“Why are you so tired? I did all the work!” he laughed.

“I bet your legs are going to be on fire later,” I said, running my fingers through his hair, and kissing his lips softly.

“I know. You really should be more careful with me,” he teased.

As I continued playing with his hair, I realized the afternoon would soon be over.

“You aren’t coming with us later, huh?” I asked sadly.

“No, sweetie, you know I would love to, but I can’t. I’ve gotta get home after Lobby. There’s just no way to explain what I’d be doing out with four women on a Friday night.”

“No, I know. I understand. I figured you wouldn’t be able to,” I sighed. “But if you come to Miami with us, you won’t have to explain…”

“That’s very true. Sounds like a plan we could work on,” he suggested as he brushed his lips across mine.

“What time is it, baby?” I asked, grabbing at his arm.

“It’s about 4:20.”

“Oh crap, I have to get dressed!”

“Lobby is right across the street, so you’ve got time,” he said, as we both climbed out of bed to get cleaned up.

Clearly, he didn’t know what it was like to be a woman. I had to rinse off, re-do my hair, and probably my entire face now. I needed to figure out what I was wearing. Did I need to wear the same thing that I was going to wear to dinner now? What about dancing? And most importantly, what shoes!? I only brought four pairs.

He looked down at the floor of the closet in horror as I was running through everything I had to do. “Wait… how many nights are you here for again!?”

“Just the one.”

“Mallory!” he scolded loudly, “You need an intervention, honey. Overpackers Anonymous!”

“Hey, it’s Brooke’s fault. She wouldn’t tell me exactly where we were going to go tonight!”

He just shook his head at me.

“Don’t hate, Matt.”

I put on some Justin Timberlake while we both got cleaned up. He came around the corner just as I was singing and dancing around to “LoveStoned” after changing into yet another pair of new underwear. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his eyebrows fly up and a big smile spread across his face. He had his jeans on but no shirt yet. My God, that man could rock a pair of jeans. I had to reach out and grab a big chunk of his ass every time I went by him, which was purposely more often than necessary.

His phone started buzzing, and he came around the corner and said, “Sweetie, I have to run by the office for a quick sec. They need me to sign some papers before the end of the day and there’s no one else there that can do it.”

“Oh, come on, do you have to?” I whined.

“Well, yeah. I also realized I forgot to bring your birthday gift so I’ll grab that too,” he said, pulling on his blue polo shirt.

“Good God, you look hot,” I said, running my hands across the top of his shirt. “All right, but you’ll have to give me a goodbye kiss now because there will be people around later…”

“I figured I’d come by in the morning for a few minutes to say goodbye. You don’t check out until noon, right?”

“OH! Awesome! Okay, yeah.” I hadn’t even considered being able to see him on Saturday too.

“Okay, keep your phone on,” he instructed. “I’ll meet you over in the parking deck at 5:00. You literally go right out here, take the first left, and head straight across the street and it’s right there.”

“Okay, I’ll see you over there in a bit.”

I gave him a big long kiss anyway, just in case.

Chapter Eight

I texted Brooke to make sure there would be time for me to come back to the hotel and change between drinks and dinner. She said definitely, since she was planning on going home to get ready anyway, and dinner wasn’t going to be until at least eight p.m. She added that it should just be Matt and us and possibly Molly. Everyone else was out of town or already had plans. I threw on a black tank top and white denim skirt with black wedge sandals and texted him that I was heading over.

Once I crossed the street I found the place just fine, but I couldn’t figure out which of the two decks I was supposed to park in, and it was starting to rain. I called to ask Matt and just as he answered, I spotted his silver BMW driving in. I turned to follow him. We parked beside each other. As he got out of the car he very quickly said, “Here, here… take this,” and threw an envelope at me.

I glared at him like, “What the hell, Matt?” and he explained, “Your birthday present! Quick, put it in the car!”

“Oh, okay, gotcha!”
How romantic,
I thought,
being beaned upside the head by a birthday card.
I locked it up in my car and he gave a good look around the deck before grabbing an umbrella and standing in front of me.

“Hey, Mal. Good to see you again,” he joked. “How was your trip down?”

“Really uneventful,” I said, cutting my eyes at him sarcastically.

He noticed my blue bra strap peeking out from under my tank top and whispered, “Periwinkle, huh? I like it, very sexy,” and pushed it back into place. He placed his arm firmly around my back as we walked out into the rain.

Once outside, the rain became much heavier. He pulled me in very close to him, shielding me under his arms and the umbrella. Of course, I found this very chivalrous of him. Those sweet little touches made me love him so much. If anyone would have seen us, there would have been no mistaking that we were a couple. Especially as he started nuzzling my ear, whispering how gorgeous I looked and how crazy hot the afternoon had been. “That second time? That was just incredible. I can’t stop thinking about it,” he gushed. “Thinking about you…”

I’m sure I started blushing. I just smiled and nodded in agreement. Suddenly, I was feeling a little shy discussing it again. I was happy he seemed so pleased. But how was I supposed to pretend we barely knew each other with him talking like that?

When we got inside, we were the first ones there. We sat at a high top table, or I sat, anyway. He came up beside me while we shared the wine menu. He reached into his pocket and put on his little reading glasses. I can’t possibly explain why, but I found them so incredibly sexy on him. He just looked so… studious. He stood there next to me and started running his fingers slowly up and down my spine as we read the choices. I had no problem with him touching me, other than wanting to be able to reciprocate. But I was blown away by how brazen he was acting out in public with me. They went to this place all of the time, with clients, with co-workers. It seemed like someone there would know him.

He ordered us some very pricey wine and sat down close to me. Some woman walked in wearing a very loud, unflattering outfit. We each stared at her for a moment and nodded, “Interesting…” at the exact same time, which we both found hilarious. Naturally, that’s when Brooke came walking in. Just in time to see us laughing and looking way too comfortable together, his thigh still pressed up against me under the table.

I jumped up and ran to hug her, both of us screaming, “WHAT UP, GIRL?!”

She said hello to Matt and let us know that Molly was definitely coming and should be there any minute. I was looking forward to meeting her. She wasn’t hired yet at the time of my branch visit, but I had talked to her on the phone at work several times a week by that point.

Brooke and I started talking in the typical way we do. We have a lot of little code words, acronyms, and private jokes between us. Matt just sat there shaking his head and rolling his eyes watching us yammering on. “You guys aren’t going to do this all night, are you?”

We both laughed and answered, “Maaaybe,” which made us laugh even more.

After a few minutes with still no sign of Molly, he turned to Brooke. “Are you sure she knows where it is?” he asked. “Do you think I should go stand at the door and wave her in? It’s raining pretty hard out there…”

“Yeah, that’s probably not a bad idea. She was supposed to be following me out,” Brooke replied.

Just as he got out of earshot, Brooke turned to me and slapped my leg.

“Oh, hey, so remember that story I had to tell you?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay, so I’m sitting in my office today, right? And I was thinking about how we need to find you a new man tonight. And I know it’s a little far, but I was trying to think if I knew of anyone here. And then… omigosh… it was
SO
funny. A bunch of wheels started turning in my head, right? Thinking about what you said, you know, about the kind of guy you like, and just some little things that I had noticed lately, you know?”

*GULP*

“Uh huh…”

“You know, like how I think you are hysterical and I totally laugh my ass off whenever I talk to you? And like every day I notice that
Matt
will be in his office laughing
his
ass off, but then he’ll get up and shut the door. And how he goes on and on all the time about how great he thinks you are. In fact, just the other week, he said something about how smart and funny you are. And then he was all, ‘And she’s gorgeous to boot!’ and I thought,
What the fuck? Well, why don’t you just go ahead and suck on her titties then?!
”

I nearly fell off the stool. She always had such a way with words.

“It was just really weird, man,” she continued. “And then today, I just thought it was so strange that he was busting to get out the door but was really vague about where he was going. And then you didn’t answer your phone when I called. And then
HE
didn’t answer his phone…”

“Uh huh…”

“And so really, you can imagine how my little pea brain is working overtime by this point, right? I mean, the gears just turning all over the fucking place. So basically, I was just wondering… so… um… ARE YOU GUILTY, BITCH!?”

I put my head down on the table and started absolutely convulsing with laughter. I turned beet red and she knew the answer right away by the look on my face. She jumped off her chair and started pacing all over the bar area like she was on a talk show yelling, “I knew it!!! YOU ARE GUILTY!” Pointing at me and laughing, “YOU ARE GUILTY! OH MY GOD! I AM SO SMART!” She came back to the table and we were both laughing hysterically, and she was just shaking her head at me. She lowered her voice and asked, “So, how long you been fucking him?”

I saw Matt and Molly coming through the door so I just put my hand up to say, “Shhhh, we’ll talk later!” Of course, he took one look at us laughing and my beet red face and wanted to know what was so damn funny. We both answered simultaneously, “Nothing!”

Truth be told, I was so glad she knew. It had been really hard keeping it from her. I knew she wouldn’t judge me and I figured she would probably be pretty happy for us. She loved Matt like a brother; he was a friend and mentor to her, and she knew he had been unhappily married for a long time. I wasn’t sure how he would feel about her knowing though. That was hitting pretty close to home for him.

I stood up to greet Molly. She was a really cute girl. She was short like me with pretty shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair. She was a very trendy dresser. She used to work in the fashion industry before she came to work for Matt. She did seem very quiet and a little on the shy side. Then again, anybody would have compared to Brooke and me, because we were wide open. As Matt was ordering wine for them, I quickly sent him a text under the table.

She knows.

He had his phone in his shirt pocket and I could hear the beep go off but he wasn’t looking at it.
Trying to be polite at the table… sigh… just another reason I love him
. Brooke was kicking me under the table every few minutes on the right side. And Matt was pressing his leg into me or sneaking a quick run over my thigh with his hand on the left. Molly seemed completely unaware of the under the table hijinks.

We were all looking over the appetizer menu and once again he had to pull out his favorite line, “So Mal, are you a MEAT EATER!?”

Tears of laughter pooled in my eyes and Brooke started up too, kicking me and shaking her head again. But he didn’t seem to notice. Poor Molly must not have known what to think. I choked out, “Yes. Yes, I like meat. But just get whatever you guys want.”

He ordered three or four appetizers and then turned his attention toward me again, trying to pretend like we hadn’t just been screwing each other for the past four hours. He asked about my trip down and how “lunch with my friends” went.
Why, lunch was positively orgasmic, Matt. Thank you for asking
. Brooke kept giving me the stink eye, and I kept wondering just how long it was going to take him to check his phone.

Matt started telling us about the owner at Aja's, an Asian fusion place we were going to try for dinner. He told us who to ask for and that if we mentioned his name he was sure we could get free drinks or appetizers. We asked Molly if she wanted to come to dinner with us, but she had some family function to attend. She said she might join up with us later if we went clubbing. That shocked the heck out of me because she seemed so shy.