Downing Abbey – Chapter 7

(Abigail)

My eyes were darting around. It was quiet, except for the rhythmic breaths of the man beside me, his fuzzy chest rising and slumping against my back. His body was warm, but instead of basking into his heat like a bearded dragon, I felt chilly. Even bearded dragons had personal dens to retreat to after a blurry night of wild, crazy sex.

I was nervous to move, to breathe too loudly. I didn’t want to wake him up and have the awkward morning after talk where we both made it seem like what happened was a good idea and we would see each other again. No, there was no need for limp excuses and flaky promises of commitment.

He had all the signs of a playboy. The exorbitant wine, the minibar in his bedroom, the way he got me into his bachelor pad and out of my panties the third time we spoke . . . it was clear I was just part of the long list of his accomplishments that he and his brothers used to compare dick sizes over bottles of five-thousand dollar booze.

His arms were spider webs, and I only had a few inches of room to wiggle. The unmistakable crest of his member from a passing glance of my ass reminded me of how naked we were, as I struggled to untangle myself from the vascularized forearms and rangy fingers.

Thankfully, he was a heavy sleeper, as I managed to escape but not without making more contact than I would have liked to in the process. My inner nympho was sated in every way, but the friction of his skin on mine still made me clench my stomach muscles and purse my lips in want. I didn’t know why the affect was so molecular, but I didn’t like how it turned me into a bucket of hormones.

Piecing memories of the night together was difficult, but putting together my full wardrobe was like an Easter scavenger hunt. My coat was unruly flung over a standing lamp, my dress was only visible from the dark corner fabric sticking out from underneath the bed, and my bra was somehow stuck to the second arm of the massive wall clock. Credit to the torque of the device, it was still ticking accurately to each second with my bra attached, making endless circles as if to tell me this social activity led nowhere.

Ten minutes crawling around with my bare ass in the air was enough for me to realize that along with my dignity, my underwear was lost somewhere within these walls. I made the executive decision to consider it a sacrifice to the chastity god I’d been worshipping for the better part of twelve months, hoping it was enough to quell his anger.

As if one pair of grace lace could make up for the deviancy that developed in this room last night.

A pat down of my wrinkled dress and my handbag in the crook of my elbow, I made my way to the living room, where I found the pair of heels that were chucked behind his loveseat two seconds after the front door slammed shut last night. The door was unlocked, another tendril of a poor decision rooted from this mistake. Slipping on the second shoe, I hesitated to open the door as the words he said before I fell asleep replayed.

*Don’t you dare leave.*

*I’m feeding you tomorrow morning.*

I wondered if he had meant what he said last night about breakfast. Though I was betting it was a line he regularly threw out in hopes for morning oral, the chance of it being a genuine offer made leaving without explanation a gamble into bitch territory. The fact that we were working together threw about eighteen more wrenches into the equation as well.

Rolling my shoulders back and deciding that I didn’t owe him anything other than a replacement handkerchief, I closed the door behind me and tried to ignore the visceral flashbacks during the elevator ride down. Though all I wanted was a pint of ice cream and blackout curtains, I was due for work in twenty-five minutes, and Luke’s building was closer to the store than mine. Calling for an Uber was tempting, but the sunlight was begging to be taken advantage of, and if I resisted the urge to text while walking, I could even snag a muffin from the bakery that was always too out of the way from my typical route.

The frenetic pace at work was a welcome distraction from Harley Quinn over my shoulder shrieking at me to respond and apologize for the calls from Luke I’d been avoiding. My phone was my calendar, my assistant, my everything, but an hour into work and I had to silence that barking puppy. There was a limit to missing calls that transitioned from genuine busyness to let-you-down easy ignorance, and while there wasn’t a concrete number as to where that line was, fourteen by lunchtime was a strong contender for passing that bar.

The soreness hit me as soon as I closed my apartment door, a wave of ache consuming me. Every part of me felt used, from the piqued sensitivity of my nipples to the tenderness of my ass to the bite marks on my shoulders. My feet and calves were the only part of me left unscathed when the sun came up, but ten hours turning corners in heels left them ready for a hot soak as well. Inhaling from a cloud of steam as I ran the water, I let out a deep sigh that eased down the barriers momentarily, my mind wandering to where I’d been avoiding all day.

It didn’t take long for us to find his bed, but it was difficult staying in it. I was asleep before midnight, but if the hazy cloud lingering around my head all day wasn’t clue enough, the marks all over my body were. Last night wasn’t just a typical sleepover, it was an event infused with layers of sleep and sex, us waking up every hour or two to besmirch another part of his bedroom. The stiff armchair, the silky rug, the cold dresser, the creaky end table; the order of operations escaped me, but the impressions of each piece on my body were there.

Across those sessions, our bodies grew to understand each other, becoming more and more efficient at doling out pleasure. The periods between orgasms narrowed as the night went on, as every orgasm became a trailer for the next. We only filled the gaps with sleep out of necessary recuperation and as exhaustion began hitting us, his growly, bitey ways became gentler to accommodate. Even my affinity to label everything knew that “sex” was an inadequate description for what that was.

Slipping into the sweltering water, I felt my muscles relax for the first time today. After an exhausting day at the store, half an hour in the tub wasn’t just a preference – it was a requirement. Dipping my head back, I remembered all the emails I had to catch up with, groping for my S8 lazily. While I was an Apple fan girl all the way, underwater productivity was the reason I chose the waterproof Samsung over an iPhone. Swiping right, I opened the phone to a parade of text messages from Luke. The boy just cannot take a hint.

**Luke:** Good morning cupcake. Am I supposed to find you? Is that how you want to play it?

**Luke:** Okay where are you? I spent the last fifteen minutes scoping out my apartment for a warm body.

**Luke:** It’s obvious you left. So . . . I’m heading to work now.

**Luke:** Abigail, pick up your phone.

**Luke:** I need to know you’re okay.

**Luke:** Seriously Abigail what the fuck. Are you all right?

**Luke:** I have half a mind to cancel this string of meetings and find you myself. Where do you work?

**Luke:** Was it something I said? Or was I too harsh on you last night??

**Luke:** Please Abbey . . .

Fuck. Just fuck. Why is he making this so difficult? I was sure the barrage of rings throughout the day was to tell me that he wanted to forget last night happened and continue our relationship professionally. After all, hump-and-dump was the protocol for man-whores nowadays right? Even sexy, chin-dimpled, millionaire man-whores.

I lathered citrus bubbles over myself with my free hand as I contemplated my action plan. I couldn’t barrel through this one like I did most complications. No amount of work ethic or checklists could save me here. This was a matter where morality mattered as much as logic, which is why I didn’t do this, I wasn’t this person. I’m not the girl who gets tipsy during business meetings. I’m not the girl who goes over to swanky condos on the first date. And I’m certainly not the girl who puts out before knowing the guy wasn’t simply trying to pad his “number”.

And depending on whether that number referred to women or the number of times scoring, I may have boosted Luke’s somewhere in the ballpark of half a dozen in one night.

Which is why I was avoiding him in the first place. I needed space from the magnet that was Lucas Brimstone to gather myself, regroup. The goal was still to crush Brett in court, and I needed Luke’s help to do that. Last night was . . . something, but I wasn’t about to let that something ruin our professional relationship by making it all weird. And as socially lubricated as I was with customers, I was more awkward than that turtle when it came to keeping things casual with people I’d slept with. The plan was to give each other a few days, maybe a week to let the tsunami of oxytocin die down and clear our heads.

In his texts, there was a hint of playfulness, an undertone of desperation, but more so than anything else, there was possessiveness. That rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t need to explain my decisions or my ability to take care of myself, and I certainly didn’t owe him status reports throughout the day. Who was he to demand that I take time during work hours to answer his calls? There were shipments to inventory, customers to appease and a store to run. I didn’t have time to assure him that his recent conquest was fine and available at his beck and call. I never asked for him breathing down my neck.

Not to mention that I was sure I had already told him where I worked, and the fact that he didn’t remember still gave credence to the Luke is just a man-whore theory.
_________________________________

While the headache was cured with a full night’s rest, Luke’s continued persistence Friday morning was testing the battery of my phone. After spending lunch break feigning interest in AT&T phone plans for their charge station, I delivered the modern-day equivalent of a backhand slap by blocking his number. It wasn’t an easy decision, but this was bordering on harassment – the irony didn’t help.

An email pinged, informing me that my local grocer was having a buy one get one free sale on their extensive, and I mean *extensive* collection of Haagen Dazs, and the day couldn’t go by any slower. Shaking my head at how time was a fickle concept, I tallied up the healthy earnings – color blocking items have been a literal gold mine – of the day, and locked up. One thought led to another, and I found myself rushing home from work to grab my reusable totes. This was going to be a shopping spree of creamy goodness variety, and the mini-fridge I inherited from my brother’s old college dorm needed to start earning the square footage it’s been taking up.

Changing out of professional Miss May and into comfy Abigail, I plugged my phone into the charger for a few minutes of juicing as I rounded up my gear. Neatly folding the maximum allotment of eight totes into the tote bag holder, aka the bag bag, I grabbed my phone, threw on my Mets cap, and swung open my door to a looming figure. Instinctively, I dropped into a karate stance, letting my bag bag go as it landed with a fluffy poof.

“Oh my god, what the hell are you doing here?” I moaned as I recognized Luke by the confident grin plastered across his face, and he took his time melting me with those damn greener than green eyes.

‘I wanted to know why my client had blocked my number,’ he said, rubbing his chin with his free hand, his other balled up in his blazer pocket. I hoped he couldn’t notice my heated cheeks, as that motion reminded me of when his stubble was tickling my stomach as his tongue trailed downwards to have its way with me. ‘And I have something important to give you.’

‘What?’ I asked sharply, hands across my chest, eyes daggers. I made peace with having to tilt my head upwards to look at tall men eye-to-eye, but the brim of the baseball cap combined with Luke’s skyscraper frame was forcing my neck backwards into an uncomfortable angle to do so.

He revealed his pocketed hand, unclenching it slowly, and like a tulip opening to meet the first rays of sunlight, my underwear inflated from the stage of his palm. The navy polka dots were like a hundred judgmental eyes, disapproving of both my irresponsible care for it and the irreversible acts I engaged in after shedding them. I blinked quickly, my mouth suddenly dry.

‘G-Give me that!’ I screeched, swiping at the fabric with a right-handed lunge. He avoided my telegraphed attempt easily, holding up the panties in his lifted arm. If matching his eyes was difficult enough, I had to take a step back to see how high his hand reached. ‘What the fuck Luke?’ I clamored, palms upturned.

He took a breath so deep I thought his lungs were leaking air, all the while staring a hole through me before saying, ‘This is what’s going to happen next. I’m going to give this back to you, and then you’re going to explain to me why you left that morning without a word.’ He lowered his hand, and in one smooth motion I snatched the underwear and threw it onto the sofa behind me.

‘No, I don’t need to tell you anything,’ I said, collecting the bag bag from the floor. ‘I was on my way somewhere, so if you’ll excuse me.’ I motioned for him to sidestep to grant me clearing.

‘Abigail, please I just . . . I just need to know what happened,’ he murmured as he took a step towards me, leaned down and kissed me, hard and urgently. Like he was begging for forgiveness. His tongue invited itself past my teeth, licking and caressing mine. His teeth sank in, claiming every part of my upper lip. His hands mapped my cheeks and damn it, I was enjoying this too much.

*Stay strong. Disengage.*

Somehow, I found the willpower to pull away, taking two strides back to match his one. A look equal parts confusion and hurt stretched across his face, and I wanted to hug him, to tell him that I was the one who needed more time before I could act human around him again. But any more physical contact with Luke outside my apartment door would lead to our clothes sprinkled all over the floor and possibly a bedframe broken via blunt force trauma come sunrise. And while that sounded more delicious than any flavor of ice cream I could buy, it was a big middle finger to my plans of keeping this relationship strictly professional.

From now on, that is.

But the thought of walking away from him and his vulnerability right now wasn’t something I could do. Judging by the way he showed up in person, I was betting that offer for breakfast was more genuine than I thought, which means that I was officially a bitch, and there was a chance he wasn’t the man-whore I coined him to be. Add that to the softness of my underwear indicating they’ve been washed, and I owed him . . . something.

‘There’s a café half a block from here. Blue Bagel. Meet me there in an hour,’ I sighed.

His face softened and I felt my spirits lift from that removal of anguish. Clearing his throat, his eyebrows squeezed together in curiosity. ‘What are you doing for an hour?’ he asked.

‘Me? I’m going to Whole Foods and buying every damn tub of Haagen Dazs with chocolate in the name.’

_________________________________________

I was on an ice cream shopping high – there wasn’t a cubic inch left in my freezers nor a single chocolate Haagen Dazs left in that Whole Foods. This must have been how our ancestors felt like after spearing a bison or elk ten thousand years ago on the savannahs or something. Speaking of bison, it was easy spotting Luke’s muscle-bound frame with his peat coat and slacks in the crowd of twenty-nothing hipsters in skin-tight tie-dye and grass-roots clothing.

I briefly caught his eyes as I ordered my coffee, but quickly looked away as he split into a warm smile. Deeper into bitch territory I went, but I wasn’t exaggerating about my issues staying nonchalant with . . . well I was going to say ex-boyfriends, but Luke *definitely* wasn’t that, another reminder of my slutty mistake. The wait for the coffee felt every second of the minute and a half it took, and I nearly burned my tongue in an oversip as I sat across from Luke, cursing quietly.

‘Slow down there,’ Luke said, passing me a napkin to wipe my mouth. I took it and thanked him under my breath with a rigid smile. What is it with him and always having the right cleaning cloths? ‘You remind me of that rabbit.’

‘Excuse me?’ I said, one eyebrow cocked. The only rabbits I knew either pooped sixty times a day or worked in the playboy mansion, and I failed to see a compliment in either of those options.

‘Energizer. You know, the battery? Their mascot is a rabbit that goes on and on and on. You remind me of that, always on your phone, always rushing. Whether it’s drinking your coffee or going to buy your ice cream, or rushing to leave my . . .’ he stopped mid-sentence, and let out the rest of his breath. ‘I’m sorry, I had some time to myself and my mind wandered.’

I was caught off guard, and between taking offense or taking comedy, I somehow chose the latter, a breathy laugh escaping my lips. ‘Oh really? I actually think of you the same way,’ I said, swinging a leg over the other. ‘A workaholic. Not many people would spend two and a half hours of their Wednesday night teaching a stranger something they’re not paid to do,’ I nodded. ‘And you want to talk about rushing? There were only three cars parked in front of this café, and only one looks like it belongs in Tron. Talk about getting to places in a hurry.’

A microscopic grin tugged at the corner of his mouth and it should have been too small for me to notice, but my eyes were studying his face like it was hiding Waldo. ‘That thing was a stupid purchase. I can never give it the roads it was meant for in these streets and nowadays, I only drive it for the speaker system and the heated cup holder,’ he said with a raise of his cup. I liked my coffee, but I left this boy for fifty minutes and he was already on his third venti.

‘Okay, if you’re a coffee fan, or in your case –’ I pointed to the evidence on deck ‘ – an addict, you should try the iced vanilla latte they sell here. It’s the best.’

‘The best?’ he asked, cocking his head sideways.

‘Don’t doubt my beverage knowledge Lucas,’ I teased with a shake of a finger.

He smiled and shook his head at the floor. ‘In that case it’s a shame I’m allergic to cow lactate.’

I squinted my eyes at him before murmuring, ‘I’m sorry, what the hell did you just say?’

‘Shit, sorry,’ he frowned. ‘I’ve been spending way too much time with my cousin. We’ve been working long hours together on this big payroll shakedown, and he has the vocabulary of a parakeet,’ he said as he rolled his eyes. ‘What I meant to say was that I’m lactose intolerant, or so he says.’

I nodded in recognition. ‘Ah, I think I met him on the way to your office. He was wiping coffee off his pants, which by the way, were at least two sizes too small on him, judging by the open zipper,’ I giggled as I sipped my coffee.

‘Yep, that’s him. ‘The vocabulary of a parakeet, the style sense of a camel, and the elegance of a donkey,’ he muttered. ‘Now to address your second point.’

‘I had a second point?’ I asked.

‘Yes, you said that there weren’t many people who would spend their evening teaching strangers,’ he said, a hint of disbelief in his voice. ‘I don’t consider you a stranger Abigail.’

Instinctively, I went to tuck my hair behind my ear before remembering I had it in a ponytail behind the cap. Blushing from embarrassment, I stared a hole through the table while the seconds ticked by, feeling his hot, patient gaze on me. There it was, the timid, scatterbrained version of myself that always came out around people I’d been with. ‘Oh,’ was all I finally managed.

Oh? That was all I could come up with? I’d normally at least be able to muster up a full sentence in these situations but it seems like I traded my tongue for my panties today.

As if he knew exactly how insecure I felt, he circled around to my side of the table, and reached out for me slowly, giving me every chance possible to refuse, to move away. And unlike at the bar where I could spread partial blame to the alcohol, my decisions were fully my own today, and I simply didn’t want to move away. His fingers landed on my shoulders, tracing lightly down towards my elbows and back up again, resting his hands there and his touch was all I needed right now.

He was just too nice, considering I made him wait while I shopped for frozen sweets after going AWOL on him for the last two days. ‘I’ve missed your touch, Miss May,’ he sighed into my hair, and my muscles relaxed to the point where I nearly dropped my drink into my lap. And that was all it took to tie an anchor onto plan keep it professional, and throw it into the Hudson.

‘So have I, Mr. Brimstone,’ I murmured, his touch somehow dissolving the lock on my jaw.

‘Do you realize how worried I was about you?’ he grumbled. ‘I must have given myself a tumor from calling you these past few days, and damn it, you can’t do that to me. I want to know what happened.’

His moody tone didn’t match the tenderness of his caress, his hands kneading from my neck down to my lower back before settling at my waist, drawing me closer to his body, to that endless heat. He was a domineering brute, but at least he was sweet about it.

‘Nothing happened, I was fine,’ I quipped. ‘And to be honest Luke, was felt suffocated by you. You called me like a hundred times and sent a million texts. I didn’t have a choice. Don’t you think you overdid it?’ Maybe it was harsh, but he needed to know the truth about love affair with independence.

‘I don’t care. I needed to know you were okay. Don’t give me that crap about overdoing it. We both know that the only way to do something right is to overdo it,’ he said, spinning me around to face him. ‘And the most comforting thing you did was to block me, because then I knew you were actually alive.’

I sat there with a surprised look on my face, my argument disappearing over his resounding protectiveness.

‘Fine. But you have to promise that you’re not going to use my underwear as leverage again,’ I muttered, folding my arms.

‘Oh I don’t think I can’t promise that,’ he smirked, inducing a roll of my eyes. ‘But you will have to promise you’ll never pull a stunt like that on me again,’ he said with a hint of a plea, leveling his lips onto mine, and all I could think of was *more more more.*

‘Fine,’ I groaned lightly after our lips parted. ‘Are we done here? Can I finally go and eat my weight in ice cream?’ I said, finishing my coffee.

‘Of course,’ he said, squeezing my waist and lifting me up off of the stool as if I was a bag a potatoes, plopping me onto my feet. ‘But you need to make a very important decision first.’

‘What?’ I asked sharply. It came out sounding harsher than it was meant to.

As if he didn’t hear the undertone of annoyance in my voice, he said with a grin, ‘Whether we’re having Haagen Dazs at your place, or Ben and Jerry’s at mine.’

Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/7966r3/downing_abbey_chapter_7