The Other Woman (31 page)

****

RIVAL

When I hear the doorbell, I sit upright. More cops? I open the sliding doors of my bedroom and step onto the balcony where I peer into the dark. I smile when I see Ritchie’s Jeep in my driveway. He’s come to say hello. To see how I’m doing in this big house? Couldn’t stay away, could he?

Although I thought of him a lot and missed him terribly, I had too much on my mind to worry about his inner conflict, so I’ve kept away, avoided him.

That day at his house when he apologized for his behavior, what I really wanted to say was,
I have been rejected by my husband, so you rejecting me simply compounds the hurt and makes me feel pretty unwanted.

But I didn’t. I asked myself, what would Scarlett say? And that’s when I came up with that line about dragging him into the bedroom and fucking his brains out. It was a great line, and I was thrilled with the way his jaw dropped.
Scarlett, you are a smart bitch.

But now, he’s at my door, and I’m in an amazing mood. Dressed in my black robe and a lacy lack panty, I run downstairs and throw open the door. “Hey, Rit…” I stop when I see his granite eyes.

“You hid a stolen BMW in my
garage
?” he hisses, eyes bulging, nostrils flaring, face flushed. I’ve never seen Ritchie this angry, and I get a little scared.

“Um…I…eh…”

“Don’t you fucking deny it!”

I open my mouth to do just that, to tell him that it wasn’t the same BMW, but I lose my nerve and panic –I slam the door shut on him and lock it. As I said, I panicked.

“Rival, open this fucking door!” he hisses from behind the locked door.

I stare at the locked door, waiting for him to knock at it, to bang on it, but he doesn’t. For about five minutes, I wait, ear cocked, but I hear nothing. When I hear his Jeep start and drive off, I breathe a sigh of relief.

Tomorrow I will fess up, explain, apologize for using his garage, apologize for slamming the door on his face, and just apologize for…
everything
.

He’s understanding, he’s kind, he bought me a laptop, he took me to dinner, he bought me a bow and arrow, he rescued me when I wanted to die – he
will
understand. And in the end I’m sure it’ll be okay.

As I turn around to go upstairs, I slam into Ritchie’s broad chest. My scream is muffled when he shoves me against the wall, clamps one huge hand over my mouth and the other around my throat.

“Shut up!” he hisses, glancing upstairs. “Just shut up.”

I nod and stare into his blue eyes, now dark and hard. How the hell did he get into the house? I checked all the windows and doors.

The upstairs balcony. I opened the sliding doors to see who was outside. Ritchie must have scaled it.

With his hand around my throat and his face in mine, his says. “You parked a stolen car in my fucking garage? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

My eyes drop to his chest.

He shakes me. “Look at me.”

I raise my eyes to look at his.

“I could have gone to prison for that?”

I say nothing; I just look at him.

Again, he shakes me. “Speak!”

I motion to his hand on my mouth.

Reluctantly, he moves his hand from my mouth to my shoulder.

I rub my mouth, tender from his clamping. “How did you—”

“Bradley called me. Asked me for help to find this person who framed them.”

“He did?”
Shit
!

“Yes!”

“And…?”

“It didn’t take me long to discover you were behind it. You think you’re such a smart thief, Rival? Really?”

My eyes fall to the floor.

For a while he stares at me and I struggle to meet his eyes. “What is wrong with you? Who
are
you? I trusted you, I was good to you. I thought we were friends, Rival? Who are you?”

Excuses flit through my brain, and I mull over the most appropriate one to dish.

It wasn’t like that.

I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.

It’s all a misunderstanding.

It was stolen? You’re kidding me!

Who, me?

I say none of them. Instead, I just look at him and smile. My smile appears to throw him – his shoulders drop a little, and his grip around my neck slackens.

Maybe I am on a high after all that happened, but I find his nearness and the heat from his body quite intoxicating. In an unusually bold move, and taking a page from Scarlett’s book (or should I say
my
book), my eyes lower to his lips.

Wonder what it feels like to be fucked by you?

He gawks at me. “What did you just say?!”

I have thought out loud.
Shit!
My palm slaps against my forehead.

He shakes his head slowly. “Who are you?”

He keeps asking me that question. Wish I knew how to answer it.

Still smiling, my eyes dart between his lips and his eyes.

“You have a lot of self-restraint,” I whisper.

“And?” he glares at me. “That’s a bad thing?”

“Yeah,” I whisper, my smile turning cheeky.

He blinks rapidly, his mouth slightly open. “I dunno know what to do with you. What to make of you.”

My hand creeps to rest lightly on his muscular waist. “Awesome aftershave,” I whisper as I squeeze his waist hard enough to leave an impression, my desire to mark him suddenly strong.

“Rival stop!” he whispers.

“Or you’ll do…what?” I ask as my arms move to circle his waist.

He shakes his head, yet his eyes dip to my mouth and linger there, while his hand moves from around my neck to cup my face. As if he is about to kiss me. “Bradley is my friend,” he continues, shaking his head, and as he does, his breathing becomes raspy.

“I know you want me,” I whisper, as one of my hands travel down to graze his upper thigh.

“Don’t!” he begs in hoarse voice. “Please don’t! Please…”

“Okay,” I whisper as my hands move slowly over his butt. “Nice." In my most daring move ever, one that Scarlett would commend me for, I draw his hips to mine. When I feel his erection, delicious and hard against me, lust flares throughout my body.

“Don’t fight it, baby,” I urge.

He licks his lips. “S…stop…”

“Every time you lick your lips, you draw my eyes to them and I want to suck them,” I whisper.

“I want you, Ritchie. Badly.”

His eyes linger on my lips as he stumbles around the precipice he’s on. “Rival…Riv…”

“When you say my name like that, I want to touch you,” I whisper, my hand moving along his inner thigh.

Suddenly, he kisses me. It’s what I have been waiting for, and I kiss back. Our kisses are wild, out of sync, teeth knocking against teeth, but we’re too overpowered by need to care. Like the last time, he is deliciously consuming, a veritable mountain of testosterone. With each kiss, we sink lower, until we’re on the carpet.

His hands slip inside my flimsy silk gown and cup my bare breasts, and for a while in the dark living room, the only sounds you can hear is the muted moans of lust as I furiously make out in my ex-husband’s house with his best friend.

When his lips trail a blaze to an erect nipple, I gasp and cradle his head. Spurred on by my actions, he sucks harder, licks longer, his mouth darting greedily between both of my erect nipples as if he can’t get enough of them.

I feel everything between my thighs and I throb with need. I want Ritchie MacMillan. Badly. Desperately. Now.

My brain has gone AWOL, my thoughts are no longer coherent, and my body arches toward his mouth, threatening to become a boneless mass of need. How can I blame it? When was the last time it was touched by a man? Touched like
this
?

A car door slams and breaks our pleasurable trance. Ritchie stiffens before he pulls away from me, his eyes scudding.

No, no, no!

He jumps to his feet and rushes to the window. As he peers outside, his shoulders slowly drop from around his ears.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

He turns to look at me, both hands over his head. “I owe him. This is so wrong.”

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Silently, my eyes follow his every anguished move.

“I have to tell him everything, Rival. He needs to know the truth. I’m sorry, I just have to tell him the truth.”

With my lips clamped together, I cover my breasts and adjust my panties.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

I look up at him. “Then I would have to tell him the truth, Ritchie.”

He squints at me. “What truth?’

“That we fucked and—”

“We did not fuck, Rival.”

“—that I liked it.” My look is one of defiance.

For a few moments, he just stares at me.

“A lot.” I get to my feet, walk over to him, and stand in his personal space.

He shakes his head from side to side and opens his mouth to speak, but no words are emitted.

I run my hand slowly over his hard-on. “I want you. You want me. The only way to handle temptation is to give into it. Who said that?”

A low growl escapes him as his head falls back.

“I will tell Bradley that we’ve been fucking for yonks.”

With his eyes closed, he whispers, “He…he…won’t believe…”

I snatch away my hand.

His eyes open wide.

I take a step away from him. “That I liked it. That you—”

“That would be a lie,” he says, shaking his index finger at me.

“—were awesome in the sack. That you—”

“Aw, c’mon!” He throws down his arms. “That would ruin things—”

“—were the best fuck I ever had, and—”

“—between …” He clams up and stares at me, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“—that I was the best lay you’ve had in a long time.” As I speak, I back away toward the stairs leading to our bedrooms.

I think I’ve shocked all argument out of Ritchie; he just stares at me with his mouth open.

“Shut the door behind you,” I say as I take the stairs. It feels good to be bad, I have to say. Empowering. Aunt Esme would frown if she heard me just now.

Suddenly I’m airborne. Ritchie grabs me by the waist and swings me off the stairs and roughly places me against a wall, taking my breath away. For a few moments I stare into his molten eyes.

“Rival,” he whispers, his face in mine, his voice choppy. “Why are you doing this to me? I’m not that strong and…and I don’t know how to play this…this game.”

Before I can respond, he hoists me up, and with my thighs wrapped around his waist, he runs up the stairs.

“To the left,” I say as I wrap my arms around his neck, my body tingling with excitement at our physical contact. I have never wanted anyone the way I want Ritchie. I never thought it was possible to physically ache for a man, yet I do. I am ripe and ready for him.

With me in his arms he stumbles into the room, places me on the make-shift bed on the floor and lowers his body over mine. “I was awesome, you say?”

I chuckle, then nod, my hands slipping under his shirt and stroking his back, my thighs wrapping around his waist.

He leans in, frames my face with his forearms, and kisses me.

“In that case, fasten your seats, miss, cause I’m on a mission to be awesome.” With one sweeping motion, he grabs a fistful of my panties and rips them off me.
Rips
them! I gasp.

“Told ya!” he says. Using one of those thick, muscular thighs, he nudges apart my thighs and positions himself between them.

My silk robe is already off, but his clothes are another story. A mad scramble ensues to get him out of them, and soon he is naked with just a veiny, angry erection between us.

Head to toe, Ritchie is beautiful. All his running, his weight lifting, and endless hours of swimming has paid off – I am presented with a body that is solid, sinewy, and sun kissed – everything I imagined and more.

“Beautiful,” I whisper as I grab a fistful of his hair and drag his lips down to mine. When he tries to kiss me, I jerk back his head. “You’re a sexy, sexy boy, and I want you,” I say, tugging at his hair.

He tries to kiss me again, and again, I hold him back.

“I wanna feel
every
inch of you.”

“Yeah?” he says in a hoarse voice, the blunt edge of his erection nudging the opening of my swollen slit, causing my hips to involuntarily thrust toward his.

“Yeah,” I whisper in a voice laced with need.

“’Kay then,” he says, and in one sweeping move, he slips his tongue deep into my mouth, at the same time plunging his hard-on deep into me. And just like that, Ritchie and I are fucking. There’s no making love whatsoever – it’s uncoordinated, feral sex between a man and a woman who are madly in lust.