Sweet Stranger (Sweet Series Book 1) (3 page)

SweetStranger: Hey! Sorry
for leaving you hanging last night. Jen was being Jen, and I did
promise her that I would go.

Anonymous: How did it
go?

SweetStranger: The usual.
Chatting about our boring lives over drinks.

Anonymous: Really? Nothing
exciting happened during bar-hopping night?

SweetStranger: Jen is
concerned that I've been having an online affair for five months
and still haven't gotten laid. I almost made her proud when I got
hit on.

Anonymous: Who hit on
you?

SweetStranger: This young
accountant working at EY. He came over and complimented me, and Jen
tells him that if he can make me laugh he gets to buy me a drink.
So he tickled me :)

Anonymous: So you went home
with him?

SweetStranger: Nah. He just
flirted a little and got my number.

Anonymous: Okay.

Anonymous is
typing...

A few seconds had gone by, and he was
still typing, so Liz set her phone down and pulled her hair into a
ponytail. She was in the parking lot outside the gym. It was true
that she had been receiving considerable more attention from other
men since she started working out and cutting back on junk food.
But Anonymous never brought it up when she sent him
photos.

Anonymous: Guess it was a
little naive of me to expect that a cheater would be
exclusive.

Liz re-read his message in
disbelief.

SweetStranger: Excuse
me?

Anonymous: Go ahead and
sleep around. Doesn't make sense for you to stick with one
guy.

SweetStranger: I'm not sure
what your problem is, but I gotta go. See ya.

Liz quickly switched her phone to
airplane mode and climbed out of her car. She didn’t want to hear
any more bullshit. A wave of cool, air-conditioned air washed over
her as she walked into the gym. She felt the anger in the pit of
her stomach threaten to boil over in the form of tears.

What the hell is wrong with
him? What right does he have to speak to me like that?

She walked over to the
free weights and began her routine. This was
her
time. Her time to relax and
gather her thoughts, but here she was fuming over a faceless man
she had met over the Internet. She couldn't help but think about
him. She loved talking to him, more so than she ever did when she
had first met Michael. He had coaxed out the confidence that her
listless marriage had shattered. She loved coming home to questions
about her day, teasing and bantering, and knowing that she was
desirable; he took a genuine interest in her life. Michael never
bothered asking.

Liz exhaled sharply and heaved the
weights back onto their stand. She forced herself to think about
something else and remembered that Michael had seemed awfully
suspicious yesterday when before she had left with Jen.

“Where are you going?” he had
demanded.

“Girls’ night out, Mikey,” Jen replied,
leaning against the door frame and crossing her arms.

“I wasn’t aware that you needed to put
on a skintight dress and perfume to meet Jen,” Michael
snarled.

Liz had paused by the door, glancing
between Jen and Michael uncertainly. They were glowering at each
other with such intensity that she almost expected them to begin
circling each other.

“You don’t give a shit about her unless
it suits your needs,” Jen said, her voice dangerously soft. “Let’s
go, Liz.”

And with that she had seized Liz and
marched down the driveway, slamming the door in Michael’s enraged
face. Jen described various aspects of Michael as they drove,
painting a portrait of him with strings of colorful expletives as
Liz listened with a small smile on her face. They pulled into the
parking lot of the bar, and Liz walked around to pull Jen into a
hug.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t you dare thank me,” Jen mumbled
into her hair. “That asshole has had it coming for a
while.”

After the bars, Liz had gone home with
Jen and spent the night at her place. She groaned now, thinking of
what she would come home to when she returned tonight.

Still, she found it odd that Michael
had expressed a hint of… jealousy? He hadn’t paid her any attention
over the course of an entire decade, much less cared where she
went. She doubted whether he even knew what she looked
like anymore or noticed the changes in her physique.

Do I even give a damn if
he's suspicious? It’s not like he’s ever been straight with me in
this marriage. It’s only a matter of time before it
ends.

Liz wiped the sweat from her face with
the collar of her t-shirt and grabbed her bag. As she walked back
to her car, her thoughts wandered back to Anonymous. A slight itch
in the back of her mind nudged her towards an explanation that
would explain his behavior, but she immediately dismissed the idea
as a result of narcissism on her part.

Sighing as she climbed into her car,
she pulled out her phone and tapped an icon to turn airplane mode
off. Within a few seconds, a message from the SilentMeet app popped
up.

Anonymous: Stranger. I
apologize sincerely for my rude behavior. I had no reason to get
jealous. We met online and you don’t owe me exclusivity of any
sort… my reaction was all kinds of stupid on my behalf.

Anonymous: It’s just that,
recently, I’ve been aware of my feelings for you. I don’t know how
to explain it. I love talking to you. I live for the rush I feel
when you send me a message. It’s frustrating and confusing for me…
that you have such control over me with your words. I don’t know if
that makes any sense. I’m incredibly sorry. I hope you can accept
my apology.

Surprised and happy, Liz instantly
typed out her reply.

How could I not forgive
you?

No. She erased it.

As the emotions washed over her, Liz
realized that what she wanted more than anything was to hold him in
her arms. Tell him that he had no reason to be jealous to begin
with, because she felt the same way. Hell, she had even set her
SilentMeet account on private; she used it for the sole purpose of
chatting with him. Plant kisses all over his face and tell him what
he’s done to her. Liz smirked. She knew exactly how to get what she
wanted.

SweetStranger: Apology
accepted… if you meet me in Room 151 tonight at the
Marriot.

SweetStranger: I have
specific requests of you tonight. If you acquiesce all of them
adequately, I may find it in me to forgive you.

She had never done this
before.

She felt like a criminal, sneaking
around and waiting for a secret meeting. She wanted to see him and
understand his secrets. Liz had sent him instructions on where to
come, what to do, and how to do it in order to earn her acceptance
of his apology. She hadn't waited to see if he would agree or not,
mortified by the idea of being rejected.

If he doesn't show ... at
least I have a nice room for the night. And a bottle of Chardonnay
to myself. A win-win situation if I've ever seen one.

Now she lay sprawled across the bed,
wearing nothing but an old, over-sized T-shirt whose hem grazed her
leg mid-thigh. She had considered wearing the black lace lingerie
he liked, but she decided that she would have been too embarrassed
by her own foolish hopefulness if he never came. If he did come...
well, she had worked hard enough to achieve her figure that she was
quite comfortable being nearly naked.

It was eight o' clock. Liz decided to
use the room to its fullest, reminding herself that she did pay a
hundred for the night. She poured herself a cup of wine, laid on
her stomach, and began flipping through the channels. She found
herself checking the clock every few minutes and mentally berated
herself for it.

Eight-thirty. The nervousness kicked
in. She didn't have the slightest idea when he would arrive, if he
did at all. This fact made her all the more reluctant to check her
phone's messages. She stared at the sitcom playing on screen,
neither paying attention nor attempting to. She up-ended the
remnants of the glass and stood up to pour herself another
one.

Suddenly, she heard a knock on the
door. Her heart leaped into her throat. Was he here?

"Front desk," a soft male voice called
from outside.

Liz sighed, irritated with herself.
She slid the remote into her hand and turned off the TV. Forgetting
the way she was dressed, she walked over to the door and opened it
to a tall man in a black hoodie.

He pushed into the room. She caught a
glimpse of his smile underneath his hood. Before she could scream,
he grabbed her hands and pinned her to the wall, kicking the door
closed behind him. Gently, but firmly, he pushed her jaw up and
kissed her neck.

"Stranger," he mumbled with his lips
against her neck.

"You... you're... Anonymous?" she
gasped.

"Stefan," he replied, grazing his
teeth against neck. "And you?"

Liz tried to slow her breathing as he
continued his trail of kisses down to her collarbone. He smelled
like lemons. She tried to free her arms so that she could get a
look at his face, but he tightened his grip on her. How did he
expect her to reply while he was doing this to her?

"Liz," she finally managed to get
out.

Without a moment's hesitation, Stefan
threw Liz over his shoulder and carried her over to the bed. He was
playing along with her fantasy. While she struggled, he reached
into his pockets and pulled out a soft length of cloth to tie each
of her hands to the bed posts. He mounted her and pushed her shirt
up to her mouth to gag her. Still straddling her, he reached for
the lamp on the bedside table and shut it off. She watched the
outline of his figure pull his hood down. She strained her eyes to
get a look at his face, but she could only see his
silhouette.

Stefan leaned over and massaged her
breasts, licking her sensitive nipples occasionally. She could
barely keep her voice down, but her sounds were muffled through the
cloth of her shirt. He took one in his mouth and sucked on it
aggressively, pulling on the other with his hand. She protested
loudly, but settled to content herself with a quiet moan, letting a
wave of pleasure wash over her. Fortunately, the rooms on either
side of them were vacant.

He went in for her neck again while
groping her breasts, with the clear intent of leaving a hickey
behind her ear, away from the eyes of any man in her life. Once he
had finished, Stefan dismounted her. Liz protested again, wanting
nothing more than for him to continue. In the dark, she could
vaguely make out that he pulled off his sweats. He turned back
around and pulled the gag out as Liz glared at him.

"Why did you -”

Without bothering to let her finish,
he reverse-straddled her in sixty-nine position and pushed his cock
against her lips. She obliged and felt her core tense in pleasure.
He pushed in deeper, knowing from their dirty chats that she loved
giving head. He used his hands to find her clitoris; then, let his
tongue do the rest of the work. Liz didn't even pause to let
herself feel embarrassed by thinking about how wet she must have
been. Everything felt too warm and urgent. She tried to moan in
order to relieve some of the tension, but he was so far into her
mouth that it prevented her from doing so.

Exhaling sharply, his legs began to
tremble as he finished in her mouth. It was a lot, and she had no
choice but to swallow. He pulled out and started kissing her
slowly, alternating between her lips and her breasts, making her
beg before he pleased each spot. She could smell herself - taste
herself on his lips for the first time. He slid down again and
pushed his tongue deep into her. She yelped in surprise. He
responded by using his hands, too: one to massage her breast and
the other to stimulate her clit. His warm breath and his cold hands
made her feel numb with ecstasy; nothing else was of issue but that
he continued.

Liz thought she could be addicted to
this, never knowing how good foreplay, how good oral sex, how good
fingering were. Until now, the men in her life had never thought to
please her, only what they wanted until they came. Stefan began
moving even faster, and all thoughts in her head ceased. It was all
she could do to stifle her screams to moans and struggle to move
her locked arms. She wanted to grab his head and push it in. This
was unlike anything she had ever imagined when she pleased herself
to thoughts of him.