Just This Once by Evelyn Jeannie Hall

Fifteen

Zane didn’t consider himself a rocket scientist or genius, but he was a fast learner. The memory of seeing Benjamin placating Kat with a lip lock had stayed with him, and he wanted to thank Lacey for improving his shitty mood. For confiding in him.

For just being there.

As he kissed the ever-loving fuck out of her, he allowed himself to get lost in it. He let it wash over the bitter hole in his chest where his heart used to be, wishing he could stay with her like this forever. He even allowed himself to believe that being with Lacey could cure his ailments and solve all his problems. And it could. As long as their lips maintained their contact, anyway.

He truly had been prepared to take her out to the Paleo restaurant, interestingly enough. He’d wanted to wine and dine her and make it a real date. And while keeping Aliyah out of his psyche might have been one aspect of that choice, it wasn’t the main one. He enjoyed hanging with Lacey. She was one of the few people he liked being around for no other sake than being around her. What could he say? Lacey Farrell made for some prime company.

Nine years ago, his life had looked extremely different, and his best laid plans had gone so far off the rails he couldn’t even see the train anymore. But hearing how bad she felt about herself after her run-in with Kat’s ex? And then listening to her tale of being fucking roofied? Jesus. The more he thought about it, the more he needed to touch her. He needed to erase any horrendous thing she’d ever suffered.

So, he did touch her. Today, Lacey had donned a short rust-colored dress that matched that copper hair of hers so well it was as if it’d been made for her. Flipping her around to straddle him, he drew his hands along the fleshiest region of her hips, lifting the fabric of her dress to her waist as he did. Using the tenderest of caresses, and he palmed her bare ass. Christ, he adored her disdain for panties. To date, he’d never seen her pull on so much as a G-string.

His dick immediately reacted, and he’d bucked his own hips upward when he felt the distinct sensation of being watched. He glanced up to spot a small crowd ogling them from the other side of the glass storefront. With salacious eyes, the group grinned at Zane and Lacey as if they’d stumbled upon a live version of a video on Pornhub.

Fuck. It was one thing to get down and dirty against his window five stories up after dark and another to display their sex life to the neighborhood in the middle of the goddamn day. What the hell had he been thinking? Granted, they hadn’t been right next to the window, but they were close enough that he’d almost exposed the area Lacey called her various and sundry to the general public out on the sidewalk.

“Eep,” she squealed when she too noticed they had an audience. In the next instant, she’d risen to her feet. Fisting his most expensive tie, she led him out of the main seating area of the bakery and back to Elizabeth’s office.

The office had limited space which had been cramped with shelves, a standing fireproof safe bolted to the floor, and a row of gray metal filing cabinets. It had a counter that served as a quasi-desktop that held an adding machine but no chair. Not that Zane necessarily needed a chair. Turning the tables on his lover, he yanked her up into his arms, kicked the door shut with a resounding clunk, and proceeded to push her back against it.

They resumed making out like crazed teenagers until she broke their kiss. Apparently, control would be a tug-o-war this go-around. And to the victor—and loser—go the spoils. At this point, he didn’t care which one he ended up as.

“Put me down so I can undress you,” she told him, and he felt only too willing to oblige her.

She tore into the buttons on his shirt as he unknotted his tie, throwing the strip of blue silk behind him without a care in the world. Lacey dispensed with his button-down and sleeveless undershirt seconds later, then unfastened his belt and unzipped his pants, pushing everything on his bottom half down to his knees.

Anxious to have her naked, he ripped her dress over her head to find a plain beige sports bra. Lacey glanced down when he paused to examine it.

“This particular bra isn’t my sexiest, but I like to work in it because I don’t bounce around. See?” She did a couple of straight up and down jumps, and while he’d never considered that specific activity to be all that arousing prior to now, he decided he’d have to revisit that notion going forward.

“You are fucking irresistible,” he told her. “No matter what you wear.”

He assaulted her neck again, licking and nipping. Normally, he didn’t like to leave love bites behind because he thought that lacked class, but maybe because he’d already accidentally left one, he felt this compulsion to mark Lacey elsewhere. To make her even more his. Dragging the stretchy material upwards, he towed the sports bra off, too.

Lowering his mouth to first the left breast, then the right, he suckled hard until Lacey made these whimpering cries, then peered down at his handiwork. More reddish imprints appeared around each nipple. The sight of her eyelids at half-mast, her curls in disarray, her rosebud lips swollen with arousal, and the work of his mouth staining her pale pink areolas made something inside of him shatter and coalesce simultaneously.

Everything about her was breathtaking, but even that term didn’t do her justice. She truly was like one of those seductive sirens he’d compared her to back at the islands, a being so entrancing that men would crash their ships into a cliff just to catch a glimpse of her. Except Lacey was even better. Flirtatious. Kooky. Easy to talk to. Constantly willing to do the horizontal tango while being sweet and funny, too.

He was becoming addicted to her.

Still, he didn’t want to get too caught up in the moment, so he set her down for long enough to retrieve a condom from his wallet. After sheathing himself, he raised her back into his arms, pinning her body to the door with his. She wrapped her legs around his waist and as he sank into her, he remembered something that made him chuckle.

“We are literally fucking right now. What could possibly be humorous about that?” she protested with a wrinkled brow, but mirth teased the sides of her mouth, making her beauty mark more prominent. Hastily, he gave it a quick peck.

“I was thinking about that time we discussed having sex amongst the muffins and sourdough, and here we are, feet away from doing just that.”

“Well, the shape of a donut is pretty suggestive,” she pointed out, and he squinted at her.

“Did you seriously just make a donut sex joke?”

“Yep.” Her lips twitched as if she was trying to fight off a smile, but despite her attempts to keep a straight face, levity ultimately won out. Within seconds she started giggling, and since he’d embedded himself inside her, he felt every compression of her core as she did. The affect was so much stronger than when they’d done this during the afterglow.

“Ah shit, ah fuck, stop laughing or you’re gonna make me come before you do,” he told her. The trouble with that statement? He was laughing, too.

“You stop,” she chortled at him.

“I can’t.”

Concluding that he’d better get this show on the road, he began to thrust into her instead. The tremors from her hysteria died away as their bodies met in the most delicious manner possible again and again. He latched onto her gaze. His habit had always been to shut his eyes to savor the sensations rolling over him, but this time he didn’t. This time he continued to focus on her blue depths, and the intensity he discovered there made something behind his ribcage—something he’d long believed destroyed—reawaken.

Any amusement between them faded as he rocked her against the door, making a rhythmic thunking noise as he increased their momentum. She used her hands to bracket herself on his shoulders as her legs banded even more tightly around his waist. This shifted her by an inch or two, and he knew he must be hitting her G-spot when her expression grew more and more euphoric. Still, they maintained eye contact as their climaxes approached, her features such an image of pure ecstasy that he lost it. Shooting his seed inside the condom, inside her, he continued to motor his hips forward and backwards, hoping she’d follow right after.

She did, keening as she spasmed around him. He relished the feeling, kissing her deeply as she shivered from head to toe, the peak of her pleasure continuing to go on and on. Maybe due to that muffling kiss, when a horribly unwelcome sound came echoing toward him, he heard it. He identified the noise as the jangle of keys against an aluminum door lock, and it was promptly trailed by the tinkling of the brass bell announcing someone entering the shop.

“Lacey,” Elizabeth called out from the other side of the office door. “You still here?”

Zane could feel the last involuntary shocks of Lacey’s orgasm erupting through her as every other part of her body stiffened and went completely still, her eyes as round as saucers. She then shoved against him, and he moved so she could put her feet on the floor and disentangle herself from him at breakneck speed.

Horrified by this turn of events, Zane luckily had the sense of mind to seize her dress and toss it back over her head. As Lacey stepped into her slip-on sandals, he pushed her curly hair into a configuration that looked more orderly and camouflaged the hickey on her neck. Then he ducked into the side corner to conceal himself as she padded out.

“Hey,” he heard Lacey greet her younger sibling.

Zane extracted the used condom, tied it off, and hastily tucked himself into his boxer briefs and slacks. Afraid to leave the prophylactic behind, he wrapped it in a tissue from a box he found on one of the shelves and stuck the thing in his front pocket. As he buckled his belt, he glanced around the confines of the room, locating her discarded bra and the rest of his clothing. As silently as he could, he donned his undershirt and oxford, then stuffed her bra into his back pants pocket.

“You are here. I’m so glad I caught you. I just wanted to tell you again how much I appreciate you helping me out this afternoon.”

“How’d the meeting with the graphic designer go?” Lacey sounded astoundingly normal.

“Really well. He came up with three designs, and each one had its own flare. I liked them all, but I picked this one.”

“Oh, Elizabeth,” Lacey exclaimed like she was authentically excited to see the choice. “That’s so cool.”

“I think so. I wanted something kind of funky, so it’ll stand out. Do you like the lavender and mint green together?”

“They fit the bill perfectly.”

“Yay!” Elizabeth cheered, and as he finished buttoning and tucking in his shirt his brain computed his next steps. “I knew you’d agree. Getting your approval means so much to me.” There was a brief lull in their conversation. “Sweetie, are you feeling okay? You look kinda flushed. And where’s Zane?”

Well, shit.

“Zane?”

“Yeah. I thought he was going to help you study after we closed.”

“He did, but he had to go. Busy, busy. You know how it is.”

“Speaking of busy,” Elizabeth went on. “Did customers overrun you while I was gone? I swear it’s like people can sense when there’s only one person left to wait on them and cram in on purpose.”

Oh, there’d definitely been some cramming. But not the kind Elizabeth must be thinking of.

“Well, there was a decent-sized pack of them there at the end of shift, but I got them squared away. No worries.”

“Good. Just let me toss my notebook in the office,” Elizabeth said, and Zane froze with his tie only halfway knotted. Typically, he kept a level head, but if Lacey’s sister waltzed in here, she’d know from his state of dishevelment and the subtle scent of sex in the air what had gone down. “Then, I’ll take you out for ice cream to celebrate.”

“Bring the notebook,” Lacey suggested on the fly, the slight hitch in her voice demonstrating her nerves. It was the first crack in her serene façade, as least as far as he could tell. He had to admit that her acting game had been pretty top-notch. “I uh… I want to look at your new sign more closely.”

“Yeah?” Elizabeth’s tone struck him as quizzical. He hoped she wasn’t becoming suspicious.

“Yeah. And ice cream would be awesome. It’s so sweltering out for May, and I could use the pick-me-up. Let me grab my handbag.”

For the count of three seconds, he watched as Lacey bustled into the office, lobbed him a feral-eyed “I don’t know what else to do” look and went straight out again. He didn’t know what to tell her, and even if he had, anything he said might be overheard.

He couldn’t risk it.

So, Zane listened as the two women made to depart. He heard some beeps as they engaged the alarm system, the bell on the door rang again, and finally, the clanking thud of the deadbolt slammed into place. The security system continued to beep, and he recognized that it was counting down, allowing all the occupants to leave before setting up its perimeter. That meant if he changed position, he’d probably set the goddamn thing off.

Fuck my life.