The Fling (4 page)

Annie came twice before she passed out with her hand between her legs.

*

“What’s wrong with you?”

Oksana put the car in park and swiveled in her seat to face her sister. Kat stared back, her eyes narrowing. Oksana ignored the tongue ring Kat clicked against her teeth impatiently. She also ignored the Sweet Valley way Kat flicked her head back to get her bright green bangs out of her eyes. They slid right back into place, screening the black shadow smeared over the top and bottom of her eyelids.

“What are you talking about?” Oksana asked.

“Something is going on with you. I can tell and so can Baba.”

“What? She cannot. I’m fine.”

“See? If it was nothing you would have said so. But you know Baba can see something’s up with you and so can I. You spent the night out the other night and you haven’t done that in like forever, and then last night you wouldn’t let your phone out of your sight. You always leave it in the little house when you come up for dinner. So I want to know what is going on with you? Or should I ask, who is she?”

Dammit.
Oksana had planned on coming clean to Paulo. Her boss needed to know when she crossed a line with a client. Not that her job was in jeopardy. Oksana’s gym, Elite Fitness, had the same rules as any whorehouse. Be thorough, be professional, sleep with as many clients as you want, but never, ever fall in love. Oksana never liked the idea of getting sexually intimate with her clients, but when it came to a certain petite blonde, Oksana wished the option of love wasn’t completely off the table.

But that was between her, her boss, and a certain petite blonde, not a conversation she needed to be having at seven thirty in the morning outside her old high school with her little sister. The fact that Kat had brought up her odd behavior was problem enough. Baba Inna would kill Oksana if she knew exactly where she had been the other night. Her actions were irresponsible, and simply put, she wasn’t setting a good example for Kat by staying out all night or sleeping with her straight,
engaged
client.

Kat’s eyes softened for a moment, a look Oksana only saw when the kid actually let down this tough as nails persona she’d taken on the second she hit puberty. It was the look Kat gave her when she needed Oksana to be honest with her as a sister, not a parent. The look they shared any time their mother bothered to call, the look they exchanged whenever Baba started moving a little slower.

It was a weird role: parent and sibling.

She and Baba were doing an all right job raising Kat. No fights in school. Good grades. Only a few arguments on Facebook here and there over various girls, but all in all, the kid had turned out pretty good, and for a moody teenager, she seemed fairly happy. But when she gave Oksana that look in relation to Oksana’s love life, Oksana felt like a single mom whose only child really wanted her pathetic parent to find love already, for the good of the family.

She’d seen variations on the expression before. The night she moved out to live with Vivian and the morning she’d lugged a duffel bag of her stuff back.

Oksana hated that look. It made her feel trapped and unworthy, like she was failing at this parenthood thing and doing even worse as a big sister. She couldn’t
lie
to that look.

“What’s going on?” Kat pleaded.

“Okay…” Man, she’d really fucked up. Why did Kat have to be so perceptive? “I was out with someone, but I don’t think it’s going to work out. We were talking a little bit yesterday, but it’s over.” Oksana ignored Kat’s gaze as it darted to her cell phone nestled in her lap.

“What happened? Why didn’t it work?” The look was becoming too much even though Oksana should have expected it. She’d been single for so long, and even though they didn’t say it directly, her sister and her grandmother knew she was lonely. They did want her to find someone, but Annie was not that someone.

“She’s just not right for me,” Oksana replied. Kat regarded her for a moment, the concerned look on her face a bit disturbing. She really wasn’t a kid anymore. Oksana had to be more careful before her mistakes turned Kat into the wrong kind of adult. “I promise I’ll tell you when I meet someone I want to bring home.”

“Okay.” Kat unbuckled her seat belt and grabbed her bag. “I don’t believe you, but okay. I’m taking the bus with Erica.”

Oksana didn’t like that turn in the conversation much better. Erica, aka girlfriend number two in as many months, was one of eight kids. Oksana wasn’t into the idea of Kat adding to Erica’s mother’s already heavy after school burden, but with her evening session and Baba staying later at the store, Oksana didn’t want the girls hanging out at the big house by themselves. She also didn’t like the idea that Erica’s mom was so busy with the other children that she didn’t have time to catch Kat teaching her daughter the ways of physical love. Oksana had already caught them twice. She held in a shudder as she dished out her orders.

“Home by seven or meet Baba at the store.”

“I know. I know.” Kat rolled her eyes as she jumped out of the car. “Love you.”

“Have a good day.”

Oksana counted to ten then rolled down the passenger window. “
Ekaterina, wait,
” she yelled in Russian. Kat paused and looked over her shoulder with wide-eyed horror. Oksana switched back to English for the benefit of everyone in a two-block radius. “I love you too,” she shouted.

Kat flipped her the bird and booked it for the side door.

Oksana’s smile held until she pulled away from the high school. This shit with Annie, whatever it was, had to stop.

As soon as she read the text Annie had sent her a few minutes before.

One night. It was supposed to last one fucking night, and now it was stretching into two days. When Annie came to her with her silly idea, Oksana wanted to be annoyed. Who the fuck did she think she was anyway? At first glance, she was a snobby, rich brat from the OC who had her parents’ wallet wrapped around her little finger, but she found that Annie was the exact opposite. She was funny and smart as hell and hot. Really hot and short. An angel of Oksana’s secret shame. She was a sucker for short women.

The day she’d taken Annie on as a client, she knew she’d have a hard time keeping her thoughts professional. Annie was too attractive. Her beach babe next door package was complete with natural bleach blond hair and sky blue eyes. Her lips looked soft and inviting enough to suck on. Her smile was infectious. Annie didn’t need a trainer. Her body was amazing, plump and soft in all the right places with a huge rack and a round ass that shouldn’t belong to a girl that little. Almost immediately, Oksana could tell Annie was intelligent with a hint of a sick sense of humor, qualities that Oksana loved in a woman. She had to ignore the ache in her nipples and between her legs, a cruel tug and swell that always fired up during their sessions together, set off by Annie’s smile, her laugh, and maybe her ass. Annie was off-limits. She was a client. She was straight, straight enough, and she was engaged.

Even if Annie was just some ignorant straight woman who thought she could borrow a lesbian for a night, Oksana couldn’t see past the silver lining. Staring her in the face was her chance to fuck Annie Collins. The best thing to walk through the doors of Elite Fitness in the time Oksana had been working there. Or ever.

It took some time, but she was finally over Vivian. Or more accurately, the way her ex-girlfriend had left things between them. Oksana’s heart had been broken. Her sense of trust torn and spat on, and when the wreckage had been cleared away, Oksana and everyone around her knew she needed some time before she put herself back out in the dating game. The standard few days to cry over a relationship lost turned into a few months of self-pity, which turned into a year of self-reflection and another three years of refocusing her energies. In all, four sexless years. She’d been a little gun-shy when it came to being with someone new, but not long before she met Annie, Oksana was ready to try again.

It was time for her to get back out there and find something good, something healthy for herself that didn’t involve shuttling teenagers to the beach or conversing with an elderly chain-smoker who’d had fond memories of the Cold War. She loved her grandmother and her baby sister, but for what she was feeling, they weren’t enough.

She wanted love again, real love this time, and great sex with her own girlfriend, not someone else’s fiancée. When Annie came to her with her prenuptial confessions, Oksana could not ignore the tiny voice in the back of her head screaming at her to go for it. This was the moment she had been waiting for, not just to indulge in the fantasies of Annie she’d been harboring since the moment they were introduced; it was also an opportunity to move on, to shake herself out of this sexual slump.

At the time, this “play date” with Annie seemed anything but risky. It seemed like fun with absolutely no risk of commitment. The perfect mix to help Oksana dust off that part of her life. But sleeping with Annie was not the thing to do. She should go out and date someone single, someone who was gay. Problem was, she wanted Annie Collins so badly her mind erased every logical reason for staying far, far away from her.

Oksana rolled her eyes at herself as she stopped with the flow of traffic right on the edge of West Hollywood. Things were a mess now. A huge mess. Her innocent little one-night stand was now something else. It was a distraction, and suddenly it was a point of interest for Kat. God, and Ronnie. Her best friend would have a field day mocking Oksana’s ass if she knew she’d actually fucked a straight woman. An engaged straight woman. She had less than a future with Annie. If things went well, Annie would get married and they would never see each other again. If things went poorly…Oksana didn’t want to consider those humiliating possibilities.

This was a
huge
fucking mess.

The parking lot of Elite Fitness was almost full at eight a.m. Oksana pulled her Tahoe to the rear and deftly backed it in the free spot between Paulo’s Ferrari and the ivy covered wall of the smoothie place next door. After she cut the SUV off, she dared a look at her cell phone.

Hope you slept well. I got wine tanked and fell asleep with my fingers in my crotch. Can you say classy?

“Fuck,” Oksana grumbled through gritted teeth.

Another text that shouldn’t have been sent, but was because as good as Oksana was at pleasing a lady in bed, she was absolutely terrible at subtle brush-offs. She texted Annie and Annie texted her back, back and forth like Kat and her friends, and now, on day two, Oksana needed it to stop. It was great, immature, reckless fun and a disaster waiting to happen.

Annie was her client, nothing more.

“This ends now. Now. Right fucking now,” she announced to no one.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she opened their message log. She looked through their texts, thought of the way Annie had kissed her, the way they’d fucked.

Those should have been my fingers.
Oksana typed then hit send. And then her stomach plummeted into her ass. She wasn’t ready to cut things off.

Oksana had feelings for Annie; she had from the first joke they’d shared, but soon she would have to blow her favorite client off because in twelve weeks that client would be married to the man who completed her world. A man who was smart enough to hold out for more than one fuck.

Don’t do that,
she scolded herself. It was much more than a simple fuck. She and Annie had come pretty damn close to actually making love. She’d had some passionate sex with Viv before the bitch disappeared, but it hadn’t been nearly as passionate or fun as the sex she’d shared with Annie in those short hours.

Oksana’s phone vibrated again in her hand.

Now I’m wet. Thanks.

A knot tied itself in Oksana’s chest as her thighs pressed into the leather seat. She let the sensation fester for a moment before she shook off the arousal and grabbed her bag from the backseat. She had to come clean to Paulo, and if this shit didn’t resolve itself, it was time to find Annie Collins, her beautiful, brainy producer, a new trainer. After they shared a few more texts.

The Awkward Workout After

For no good reason, Annie was hiding in her car. Using a half-assed conversation with Megan as an excuse, but it was an excuse either way. She was hiding from Oksana. Stalling maybe. Not hiding. Actually, it was more like she was just taking her time walking into Elite Fitness. She was late. She knew it, but she wasn’t ready to face Oksana yet. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to act. How do you behave when you see someone you’ve just had sex with? Someone you’d spent the last thirty hours exchanging dirty texts with. And these texts were dirty. Like “I want to fuck your pussy again” dirty. How do you act natural around someone after they spell something like that out so clearly, then send it to your phone? How do you go back to calm and casual when the texts you’ve sent were just as explicit? Annie didn’t know, so she was hiding until she came up with a plan.

It had been ages since she’d had a sexual encounter with someone new. Annie had wanted to jump Oksana’s bones for months, but now she knew how Oksana kissed. She knew how smooth her thighs were and how her toes curled when she came. She wanted to experience all of Oksana again. Right after they worked out. As soon as Annie got up the nerve to leave her car.