I'll Be Your Everything Page 22

  “That’s a nice image,” he says between bites. “You’re not a yo-yo.”

  “I’m under a lot of stress, Tom.”

  He smiles. “It’s good to know you can think on your feet.” “I’m sitting down now.” I take a bite. Not terrible. Pretty bland. Needs salt. I add some. Better.

  “You’ll be on your feet in a second,” he says.

  What?

  “Shari, um, you see, for my new ultimate plan to work, we first have to get, um, we have to get Corrine to come back.”

  I don’t jump up. “No,” I say calmly, wanting so badly to jump up! Wow! What’s Tom smoking?

  “Yes,” he says, finishing his last bite. “We need her back in the office on Monday morning.” He goes to the pot and spoons out another bowlful.

  “And why do we need her?” I ask.

  He smiles. “To do what she does best. We need her to mess things up.”

  Now I jump up. I wave my spoon at him. “That’s what I’ve been trying to avoid!”

  He slides into my seat and pulls me to his lap. I go willingly because I like his lap a lot. “Picture this: Corrine comes in after ten days away from the office, and you dump everything on her. Peterson, the deadline, the meeting. Everything. Can you picture it?”

  I close my eyes. “Let’s see, she’ll be left-breasted, she’ll be darker, she’ll still be pining for you, she’ll probably be wearing Jason Wu, poor man, and then I’ll say, ‘By the way, we have a finished product presentation to give tomorrow at two o’clock. Just came up. Didn’t want to bother you while you were in recovery. You ready to do some storming?’” Hey now. That might be fun.

  “And how will Corrine most likely react?”

  I open my eyes. “If she doesn’t immediately escape to an expensive restaurant for lobster Newburg, she’ll ... she’ll freak.” Oh my! I am beginning to love this plan. I take a huge bite and chew it loudly. “Then she’ll accuse me of withholding information. She’ll scream at me for ruining her. She’ll throw the ultimate wench fit, and everyone will finally see the wench she is.” I smile. “She’ll ... go ... off.”

  “And what will you do? I’m sure you’ve had this fantasy.”

  “Well, first of all, I will smile in her face the entire time. I’ll also do happy dances under my desk. And then, I’ll, um, I’ll tear up my notes into confetti. No. I’ll already have them shredded into confetti and just hand her a plastic bag. Then I’ll ... I’ll put fingerprints all over her Plexiglas shield.” I kiss his lips even though they’re cheesy. “Then I’ll tell her I’ve stolen you away from her, and then I’ll quit.”

  “Precisely.”

  That sounds ... wonderful, but ... there’s this problem called rent, utilities, food. “So ... I’m suddenly unemployed. That can’t be good.”

  Tom finishes his second helping, dropping his spoon into the bowl. “What’s the first thing Corrine will do after you leave?”

  Get something to eat? No. “She’ll panic.”

  “Okay. She panics. Then what will she do?”

  She’ll call the client. “She’ll call Mr. Peterson and ask for an extension.” That he’ll never give. Oh, man, this plan is the junk!

  “And when Mr. Peterson says something like, ‘No, Miss Ross, I guess I’ll just have to go with Hairy Ads if you can’t swing it ...’ ”

  “She’ll ... she’ll go to Mr. Dunn.”

  “Would she really go to Mr. Dunn?” he asks.

  No, she wouldn’t. She’d have so much to explain to him that she couldn’t possibly explain. “No. She avoids him all the time, especially when she has screwed up.” I’m beginning to see where he’s going with all this. “Then Corrine will call me. She’d try to get me to come back.” This plan is getting more and more delicious.

  “And what will you do?”

  “I get to tell her off again!” Joy! Sheer bliss!

  “One problem, Shari.”

  No joy? No sheer bliss?

  “How else are you going to get into the meeting with Mr. Peterson? You don’t work for MultiCorp anymore.”

  Oh yeah. Shoot. “So I’d have to go back to work for that wench?”

  He turns me around so that I’m straddling him. “Yes.” He starts massaging my lower back.

  “But ...” Oh, that’s nice. “But I’ll go back with what? My notes are confetti, though I’m sure I could remember everything. Corrine and I would have to do rush jobs on designs, some footage, but nothing finished or polished. We’d only have Monday afternoon, we’d have to do an all-nighter... . We’d get crushed.” Squashed. Flattened. Pancakes for everyone. “But I have more pride than that, Tom. I’d try to come up with something decent.”

  He pulls me even closer, working my shoulders. “I know you would, Shari. And your pride is what I like about you most. Okay, your booty is fine, too, but ... oh, and your thighs. Like vise-grips.”

  “Don’t change the subject.” But keep rubbing my shoulders while my legs wrap around your booty. “And while all this is going on, what will you be doing?”

  “Our stuff.”

  “But what Corrine and I would piece together would essentially be our stuff.”

  He pulls up my shirt and works his fingers into my lower back. “Would it?”

  Mmm. I have hot hands on my back. He’s pressing all the right buttons now. “It would have to be. That would be all we had.”

  He works me just under my shoulder blades. “Unless ...”

  I can’t think when he’s doing that. “Unless ...” Hey now. That’s certainly sneaky. “Unless I feed her the worst possible ideas and all the wrong facts and figures, the wrong demographics. . .” More lies. Man. “We could literally fill that conference room with poop.”

  “You’re so colorful.” He works his fingers lower.

  I start to squirm. “And then you would show them our stuff, win the account ...”

  He lifts me into the air and sets me on the table. “No.”

  “No?”

  He rubs on my thighs. “I would add more poop to your poop.”

  This table is cold! “Why? And why did you put me up here?”

  He looks away. “I was, um, I was ... you know.”

  I nod. So was I. I felt him getting excited. I slide back onto his lap. “It’s okay. It’s actually a compliment.” I lift up my shirt, he returns his hot hands to my back, and all is well with the world again. “So why are you adding more poop to our poop?”

  He digs his fingers dangerously close to my booty. Whoo. “It’s the best kind of payback. I’ve actually been working on my last presentation for Harrison Hersey and Boulder for a long time. It’s already in the can and ready to go.” His fingers sneak below my panty line, and my booty quivers. “It has nothing to do with bicycles, I assure you. It has everything to do with everything that’s wrong with Harrison Hersey and Boulder. It will be a masterpiece of nonsense.”

  “But they’ll fire you.” And though he’s only teasing me, he’s about to light my booty on fire.

  “It’s what I’m counting on.”

  “That’s ... that’s crazy.” I pull myself back up onto the table to cool off. “But Mr. Peterson will be so angry and confused. He’s such a nice man.”

  He reaches for me, but I scoot farther away. “We’ll get to Mr. Peterson in a minute,” he says. “Once I’m fired, you’ll probably get fired. If you don’t, you have to quit again.”

  My booty is getting cold, but I’m still not following him. “So in this scenario, we’re not one but two unemployed people who have an ad campaign that no one will ever see.”

  “Only Mr. Peterson will see it,” Tom says, “and then Methuselah’s Breezy Hiccup will have its first client.”

  “How can we guarantee that?” I ask. “What if Mr. Peterson won’t listen to us after the horror show we’ve put him through?”

  He stands. “I like this table. Just the right height.”

  I’m glad I bought it.

  He takes off his sweatshirt, the tightest T-shi
rt barely on him underneath. “He’ll listen to you, Shari. He likes you. He gave you a bike. And once he sees what we have for him, he will love it, sign the papers, and take us out for rib-eye sandwiches.”

  Don’t stop with the sweatshirt, though that T-shirt leaves nothing to my imagination. “I don’t know, I mean, what about the legal ramifications?” That has to be the first time in my life that I have said the word ramifications. I must be nervous. “Technically and legally, the campaign we’re creating belongs to our agencies, not to us. It’s proprietary information, and we’re using company time to collect it.”

  He steps closer and puts my legs around his hips. “Are we? We haven’t actually done anything yet. I mean, Corrine went down to Georgia, right?”

  And there’s plenty of paper and some receipts to prove it.

  “And I’ve been on unpaid leave since leaving Detroit,” he says. “I’m using my own personal camera and equipment. I’m doing all of this on my own time. All you have to do is take some unpaid sick days, and we’re technically doing all of this on our own time.”

  I frown. I’ll have to deal with Piper the spitter again. “This sounds so shady.”

  He slides me closer. “So is advertising. We’re just using shadiness against itself and to our advantage.”

  I hook two fingers into his belt loops. “So let me see if I can get this straight. Corrine returns, I quit, I come back when she throws a fit... .”

  He slides me even closer to him, and I have no choice but to lock my vise-gripping legs around him. “Um, then I feed her crappy information, watch her give a crappy presentation, watch your career go up in flames with your poop, and hope Mr. Peterson will still hear us out when the, um, poop clears.”

  “Right. It’s the crap.” He slides me even closer, my jeans making squeaking sounds on the table.

  “It will never work.”

  “It will.” He slides his hands under my booty. “It will.”

  Can two pairs of jeans rubbing together down there start a fire? I think I’m about to find out.

  “I really like this table, Shari. Solid oak.”

  And then we lose our minds for the rest of the evening. I can’t get enough of him. I am like Velcro on that man, and as much as I want to tear off my clothes and his clothes and get down to business, I am having too much fun. On the couch, back to the table, on the floor—everywhere but my bed, even though I steer him there several times.

  When we are both exhausted and barely have the strength to kiss and grope, I become his second skin. He turns, I turn. He stands up, I hold on. We become one pair of jeans and one T-shirt, and I can’t let go. Even when we watch him skidding in to home plate thirty-five times, the dust flying just right, his smile infectious, his shoulders blocking out the sun, I don’t let go of him. He cradles me in his arms and rocks me gently on my skinny little couch.

  This is bliss.

  But we both decide that the couch isn’t comfortable for both of us. He’s so big that he’s half on and half off, his foot planted on the floor.

  “You’re not comfortable, are you?” I ask.

  “Not really.”

  “My bed is big enough, but I’m a little scared.” I’m a lot scared. My jaw starts to shake, and I can’t make myself say it.

  “What’s wrong, Shari?” he asks.

  “Um, Tom.” I pull my hands off his chest. I’ll have to explore it some more later. “Do you promise to answer any question I ask you?”

  “Sure.”

  “And do you promise to answer truthfully?”

  “Yes.”

  I squint. Hmm. He answered pretty quickly both times, so I guess I believe him. “Do you expect to have ...” Why can’t I say the stupid word? “I know you want to have ... sex.” I finally said it. “With me. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  C’mon, jaw, stop wiggling. “I want to have sex with you, too, but ... but I’m a little nervous about ... it.” I am so articulate.

  “I thought you were going to ask me some questions.”

  Oh yeah. “Did you and Corrine have a lot of sex?”

  He blinks. “Define ‘a lot.’”

  “Um, did you ... have sex ... every time you were ... together?”

  “For the first three years, yes. Every time. After that, only on special occasions like her birthday or the anniversaries that only she celebrated.”

  Every time. For three years. Hmm. “Um, would you say that your relationship with Corrine was based on sex?”

  “Yes.”

  That was clear enough. “And was the sex ...” I can’t ask that.

  “Was it good?”

  “It’s none of my business.” But tell me anyway. I’m not that experienced. It’s only been Bryan.

  “Define ‘good,’” he says.

  When was it ever “good” with Bryan? “Um, fulfilling, um ... meaningful.”

  “For three years, it was good.”

  “How good?” escapes my lips before I can stop it.

  He laughs. “Do you want the play-by-play?”

  I shake my head quickly. “No, um. That won’t be necessary.” I slide off him to the other end of the couch, slipping my legs under me. “Tom, I’ve only been with Bryan. I’m worried that ... I want to satisfy you.” Every time.

  “I am so satisfied right now,” he says. “These last few days have been more meaningful to me, and without sex, than all those years with Corrine. Perhaps I should tell you more about Corrine and me.”

  “Just not the play-by-play.” Although I might learn a few pointers.

  “I’ll describe a typical date, okay?”

  I nod.

  “I pick her up in a rental car, something European. She wears something, um, revealing.”

  This is nothing that I didn’t know.

  “Um, very revealing.”

  Okay, easy access. No draws, bra. That would explain her stretch marks.

  “We’d go to some function or other, she’d flirt, network, flaunt her body, and when it was over, we’d go back to her place.” He shakes his head. “Um, just use your imagination for the rest.”

  My imagination is running wild right now. There’s so much I don’t know! “Just ... tell me ... a few ... things.”

  “Um, how ...” He winces. “She has some ... tastes.”

  I’m almost relaxing. He’s having as much trouble telling me as I’m having asking him to tell me. “She was ... into things?”

  He nods. “Yeah. Um ...” He shakes his head again. “She had certain ... needs.”

  Now I have to know. “Needs such as ...”

  “I am so embarrassed to tell you this,” he says. “Um, she needed to wear interesting undergarments.”

  He’s so cute! “Like sexy lingerie?”

  “Um, well ... she’d put them on, and I’d have to tear them off.”

  Only used once. What a waste of money! Flannel! Get flannel! “What else?”

  He looks away. “Um, rope. On her, not me.”

  Corrine liked to be dominated? I can’t believe it! “You tied her up?”

  He shakes his head. “She tied herself up.”

  No danger in that. She knew what knots she used. “What else?” This is actually pretty educational. “Did she use any ... toys?”

  He nods.

  Okay. Single woman. Lonely. What’s the fuss?

  “And ... um ...” He slaps the couch.

  I blink. “Spanking?”

  He nods.

  Okay, I think I’ve heard enough. Corrine likes risky sex. She likes to be dominated. She likes to be hit.

  “Not hard,” Tom says. “Once or twice would usually, um, do the trick.”

  I crawl across the couch and rest my head in his lap. “And which excited you the most?”

  He winces. “The last one.” He blinks at me, and I blink at him.

  “And that turned her on?” I ask.

  He looks down. “It usually, um, turned her off, um, finished her, if you know what I mean.”


  So Corrine “finishes” because of booty slaps. Interesting.

  “And, um, smacking her booty excited you, too?”

  He nods.

  I hold out my hand. “C’mon.”

  He doesn’t move. “Where are we going?”

  “Just stand up.”

  He stands, and I hug him. “Thank you for your honesty.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I look up into his eyes. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you haven’t had much sex in two years.”

  “Um, about five times.”

  That’s so sad. “And I, um, really haven’t had anyone, um, make love to me.” It was just the act to Bryan. I want to know what it should feel like. “But ...”

  He nods. “But.”

  “I want it to be special.”

  He smiles. “So do I.” He exhales. “Wow. You had me worried.”

  I widen my eyes. “I had you worried?”

  “Yeah. I was so worried that I wouldn’t satisfy you.”

  Him not satisfy me? Is he kidding? He has to be kidding.

  “Shari, I don’t want sex to ever come between us,” he says. “I don’t want sex to ruin what we’ve got going.”

  Oh. Hmm. “You don’t want to have a sexual relationship?”

  “No, I mean, yes, I mean ... I want something that is going to last.”

  I hug him tighter. “But you do want me ... sexually.”

  “Yes, but mostly emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually. I want to be your best friend first.”

  I can’t hug him any tighter. “You’re, um, if I had to pick a best friend right now at this moment, it would have to be you.”

  “Thank you.”

  We both look at the couch. “Well, you can’t sleep out on this couch.”

  “I can try.”

  I take his hand. “We’ll figure something out.” I lead him into my bedroom and push him onto the bed. “I have an idea.” I go to my closet and pull out a white bedsheet. “I like watching old movies, old romantic comedies to be specific. Ever see It Happened One Night?”

  He smiles. “Yes. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.”

  He’s seen it? And he remembers their names. I thought I was good at remembering names. “Remember the motel scene?”

  He nods. “A classic.”

  “Let’s do it.”