The P.U.R.E. (15 page)

When his mouth moved to my hipbone, I couldn’t help but rock it up and down a few times. “Please, Jon, I want
you
now.”

He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.” Scrambling off the bed, he retrieved a condom from his wallet.

I stretched out my hand for the plastic package. He ignored me and climbed back on the bed where he kneeled between my legs. Jon-the-tease continued as I writhed with desire, taking his sweet time like some kind of male burlesque performer. Impatient as I was, I sighed as I took in the sight.

Who is this guy?
Damn, damn, and triple damn.

He was equal parts commanding and playful with a dash of well-deserved conceit. My Jon was full of surprises. Just when I didn’t think he could get any better, he nestled in the cradle of my hips and pushed against my entrance. A large man in all respects, he again confirmed what my eyes, mouth and hands already knew.

“Mmm, yes,” I whispered as I rocked my hips against his, loving the hot demanding weight of his body on mine.

He slid forward and rocked his hips until he filled me. The slow, sensuous advance and retreat rhythm soon melted into more forceful thrusts, ebbing into longer intervals of rock and roll recovery. He cycled his movements through slow and fast, hard and gentle, rough and tender. I loved it all and surrendered to his masterful command of my body.

Jon made love to me with both body and words. His lips hovered near my ear uttering encouragements and telling me again and again how amazing I felt—words I repeated because they were true for me too. It was all good, all driving me wild, all eliciting warm ripples that promised something wondrous just around the corner.

“Ah, Gayle, I’m so close. I don’t know if I can …” He gritted his warning out as he and raised up on his hands. The view of his broad shoulders and muscular chest, with its dusting of dark body hair and the sheen of a light sweat, was the last little push I needed.

I slammed my hands down on the bed and gripped the sheet beneath us, tensing and relaxing different parts of my body. “Oh, yes, yes!” I keened as a violent and soul-shattering orgasm caught me up like a waterfall and hurtled me over the edge.

He made his own sounds of intense pleasure as he drove deeply inside me over and over again until he shuddered and collapsed, heavy in my arms.

I stroked his hair, damp near his ears from his exertions, as our hearts thumped in unison. His heady male scent imprinted forever in my olfactory memory.

“That was … off the charts. So good. So perfect,” I whispered.

A low rumble vibrated near my ear. Jon lifted his head and grinned at me before he placed the sweetest kiss on my lips—a kiss that promised many more nights of passion, that offered his warmth and his protection.

I had never felt safer in my life.

20

Jon’s Energizer bunny battery finally showed signs of running down after a marathon second round. Breathless and slick from our gymnastics, he settled into a slow and comfortable rhythm. My body luxuriated in his, languid and receptive, tingly but not yet satiated.

“For God’s sake, Jon, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” A woman’s voice intruded from the outside hallway.

Jon’s head shot up, and we both froze.

“Fucking around in my house? In my guest bed!”

Swearing softly, he looked at me, an apologetic cast to his brows, eyes and lips, before withdrawing and rolling off to face his accuser.

“Jenny! Get out!” He pulled the top sheet higher over us.

We hadn’t bothered with the door after stumbling half-clothed into the guest bedroom in our lust-crazed frenzy. We must have been so into our lovemaking we missed the rattle of the lock on the front door and the approaching footsteps.

She stood in the doorway, obviously appalled at the live sex show.

I was too mortified to say or do anything but stare.

Jenny pointed her finger at me. “Who is this woman? She’s not your fiancée!”

“Damn, Jenny! It’s not what you think. I’ll come explain in a minute. In the meantime, would you please get out and give us a little privacy?”

“Fine. I can’t wait to hear this story. And you’re changing the sheets in the morning, asshole!” She left, closing the door behind her.

He captured me in his arms. “I’m so sorry. She wasn’t supposed to be home until the day after tomorrow. Are you okay?”

“I’ve never been caught in flagrante delicto. I’m not sure if I’m more embarrassed or turned on.”

I wanted to shock him to relieve the tension, but he called my bluff. “Hold that thought, and don’t you dare move or put any clothes back on. We’ll find out when I come back.” He got out of bed and pulled on his jeans.

As he opened the door, he turned and ogled me, whistling under his breath before closing it again.

• • •

I had no idea how long Jon talked with his sister because I fell asleep. I woke when he slipped off his clothes and joined me under the covers. He moved stealthily until I touched his shoulder.

“What happened with Jenny?”

The mattress depressed as Jon shifted closer to me. His hand caressed my butt and the back of my upper thigh. “I told her Thalia and I called off our engagement several weeks ago.” He placed a soft kiss on my forehead. “I also told her what I’m telling you now. I’m going to marry you someday, Gayle Lindley. It won’t be tomorrow or next month, maybe not even next year, but eventually I will. I think you have a right to know my intentions.”

I was and I wasn’t astonished by his admission. After all, it was Jon, whose conversational style had always been a bit cryptic. Plus, being engaged had been a way of life for him and his family.

“Do I get a say?” I humored him but was glad the darkness masked my expression.

“Not really, no. Not yet anyway. You can’t stop me from loving you or planning my future life with you.”

No point in arguing with a crazy man, especially one who felt so good against me, inside me. “Oh, well in that case … Gayle Cripps, eh? Hmm … It could work … someday … maybe. Why do you think I’m ‘the one’? We’ve only been friends a few months, and you just ended an engagement.”

“Sometimes you just know.”

“Did you ‘just know’ with Thalia too? I’m doing a reality check on the precision of your spousal selection radar.”

“No, I didn’t. I never had the absolute knowledge with her that I have with you. I was sure you were ‘the one’ the first day I met you.”

“What? Since that day we proofread together? Come on.” I couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice. I didn’t believe in love at first sight and couldn’t take his bold declarations seriously without being a cynic or thinking him a bit soft in the head.

“Crazy, huh? I didn’t believe it at first either. I kept hearing this voice in my head saying, ‘She’s the one’, ‘This one’, ‘You will love this woman for the rest of your life’, and I have—a little more each and every day since. That you also give the best blow jobs imaginable is further confirmation.” He let out a smug snort.

I smacked him on the butt. “I hate to tell you, but if you marry me, guess what’s the first thing to go?”

He growled and pulled my hips to his.

“Wow, you’re kind of blowing me away here, Jon, no pun intended. This is so rainbows and unicorns of you.” I hoped he wouldn’t be insulted by my dissing of his so-called inner voice, my oral talents notwithstanding.

“Listen, I’m okay if you don’t feel the same way as I do … yet. You will though, eventually.” He rested his forehead against mine, almost as if he were the one humoring me, totally convinced of his master plan.

“You told your sister all of this?”

“Yeah. Well, except for the blow job part.”

“What did she say?”

“She called me crazy.”

I laughed. “She’s right.”

“She usually is, but so am I.” He slithered his hand down my side and rolled me beneath him. Our bodies resumed the conversation our words ended.

My mind switched off, devoid of any thoughts other than the tiny voice, the lone survivor in my head that mocked, ‘This man’, ‘This one’, before reason regained control and shushed it.

• • •

We woke at a quarter past six, thanks to the alarm Jon remembered to set, though we only managed about three hours of sleep. Thankfully, I never did get to meet his sister since we slipped out so early—not that I couldn’t have looked her in the eye anyway.

After a long and lingering kiss at my door that had us both seriously considering playing hooky, he left me to shower and dress for work, promising to return for me in half an hour.

My answering machine displayed a ‘2’ on its screen. The first message bore a time stamp of midnight.

“Gayle, it’s Doug. I need the Aphrodite files back. You had no right to remove them from the office. I expect you to hand them over first thing in the morning, then we’ll need to have a talk.”

The machine beeped and continued to the second message.

“Hi, Gayle, it’s Sandy Gomez. I was calling to confirm our meeting for two today. I’ll see you then.”

Sandy had called about five minutes before I got home.

Doug’s message didn’t sound too ominous—a good sign, but not enough to overcome the dread that slithered up and down my spine.

Jon picked me up at seven thirty sharp, and I walked into the office five minutes after he did at a few minutes past eight.

Several of the staff stared and whispered as I passed.

Callie Oldham pulled me into the ladies’ room. “Did you and Jon Cripps beat up Doug Martin last night?”

“What? Who said that?” I figured I would play dumb at first until I had extracted as much of the word on the street as possible.

“Doug’s face is all bruised. He has the beginnings of two black eyes and a fat lip. Someone wrote ‘loser’ on his forehead in black ink, and he hasn’t been able to get it all off. He’s telling people Jon went berserk because you were flirting with him late last night in the office. He said you instigated the whole fight because you got off on making Jon jealous.”

“Unbelievable and complete bullshit. He’s been harassing me, Callie. I’m not the only one he’s bothered before either. This is common knowledge, right?”

“Yes.” Her expression morphed from incredulous to outraged.

“Doug made me come in to the office late last night to work. I took a break, and when I returned to my desk, I caught him going through my wallet. He had my address written down on a piece of paper! He started groping me, saying disgusting things. Jon was working late too, and he came to my rescue.”

“Are you and Jon dating?”

Leave it to Callie to focus on the most irrelevant part of my story. “No. We’re friends.” If she had asked me that question yesterday, my answer would have been truthful. My having crossed the line and slept with him a few paltry hours earlier, I considered a “rounding difference”.

“Well, you’d better watch your back.”

“I’d better watch
my
back? I filed a sexual harassment complaint against him. He’s trying to retaliate and discredit my witness and me. He’s a liar and a psychopath, and I’m going to stop him.”

As we left the ladies’ room, I interrupted a couple of others talking about Doug.

I glared at them. “Whatever you’ve heard is a lie.” I shouldn’t have bothered, but my colleagues’ willingness to chat up
Doug’s story
thumped my good sense into submission. The lack of sleep made me grouchier than a grizzly bear.

When I reached my cubicle, Jon had already shed his coat and settled in. I had the files Doug wanted in my briefcase and had no intention of handing them over until I’d flipped through every schedule.

Doug wasn’t around, but a man’s jacket hung on the chair in the first cubicle nearest the window where he usually worked. Jon sat in the middle one behind Doug’s, his back to me, having a hushed conversation on his cell phone.

Who is he talking to?

He offered a tense smile when he turned and ended his call. He stood and met me at the low wall that separated his cubicle from mine.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“There are a lot of rumors flying around. Tony shared the grapevine version. Apparently, I’m a jealous lunatic who assaulted Doug without provocation. You’re the bloodthirsty she-devil who egged me on for kicks.”

“I know. Callie pulled me aside and said pretty much the same thing. What’s most disturbing is how many people are willing to believe such a stupid story. I mean, geez, Jon, you have a reputation for being quiet and smart, not a hot head, whereas everybody thinks Doug’s an ass. I’m just the ditzy blonde who used an evening gown as a napkin.”

“They aren’t wrong about me in a certain sense. I did bust up his face. That makes him the victim as far as outward appearances go.”

I crossed my arms. I didn’t like where he was taking our conversation. “They are wrong about you—”

“No.” He shook his head, his gaze off into the space behind me. “I did lose it.” He turned his back and retook his seat.

• • •

Thirty anxious minutes later, the paging system announced, “Jon Cripps, please dial extension 4023.”

Cold dread crept back in and chilled me.

The rigid line of Jon’s mouth and the droop of his eyes betrayed his alarm. He picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hi. This is Jon Cripps. You just paged me? … Okay. What time? … I’ll be right there. Bye.”

“What’s going on?”

He slipped on his jacket. “I’m to report to HR immediately.”

“Oh my God, Jon. Don’t forget, the truth is on our side.”

“What is the truth, exactly?” he snapped. “We’ve got a bunch of crazy random facts and theories that don’t make any sense and a well-connected psychotic’s word against ours.”

“We don’t know yet why they want to talk to you. Just be calm. They would have all done the same had they been in your shoes. You rescued me from a guy who was acting on his many threats to molest me. You did the right thing. Jon … you’re my hero.”

He remained silent and chewed on the inside of his lip. He didn’t look at me until I finished. Wearing a forced smile, he said, “You’re probably right. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

21