Page 66 of Plum

He scoops me up and lays me under him, already hard against my belly. I feel my panties go damp, and I spread for him, pull him down. I could never budge him, but he does what I want, his chest covering my tits, his nipples rasping against the tender flesh.

“Whatever you want, Jo-Beth.” He hooks my panties in a finger, pulls them to the side, and then he slides home, to the hilt, filling me with his heat. We stopped using condoms a few weeks ago after Dr. Das ran some tests. I get the shot, so that’s not a worry, but it still makes me nervous when he takes me bare. Old habits.

It feels so good, though, like he’s touching me deep inside. When he cums, it’s hot and sticky, and he loves to make a mess of me. He won’t let me up to clean myself off until he’s looked his fill and played in the mess we’ve made.

Remembering brings me back to my body, focuses me on the moment, his hands cupping my shoulders, holding me in place as he drives into me, harder and harder. I tilt my hips so my clit hits his pubic bone, and then I’m circling, getting closer and closer. I close my eyes. He kisses my eyelids.

“Are you ready, baby?”

“Almost there.”

He drops a hand to lift my thigh, slams into me at a new angle, the perfect angle. “There! There! Don’t stop!”

“Never, baby. Cum for me now. Show me how much you love this cock.”

And I do. The coil erupts in my belly, and my channel pulses, squeezing him, and I go stiff and hot and then cold, and then go limp like a noodle as he groans and spurts into me.

I’m half-laughing, half-sighing, and he raises on an elbow to look at my pussy. He reaches down, swipes his cum with his first two fingers, and rubs it over my mound, into the triangle of curls I don’t get waxed. He draws those fingers up my belly, and then paints them across my lower lip.

“You’re mine, Jo-Beth. All mine.”

I murmur in agreement, opening my mouth to suckle those fingers, greedy for the look of adoration he gives me in these moments.

“Say you belong to me.”

“I belong to you.”

I say it, and I almost, almost believe it, too.

CHAPTER 9

ADAM

Ihate leaving Jo-Beth on Monday mornings. I hate how her face goes hard, how she busies herself in the kitchen and offers me her cheek to kiss when I leave. Every damn time I have to take her chin and make her give me her mouth.

And I really fucking hate how I say, “I love you.”

And she ducks her head and says, “Drive safe, okay?”

I spend the entire commute thinking about how I’m going to set things up so I fall asleep beside her every night. I’ve engineered hostile takeovers, and I’ve restructured a company from the foundation up, but I struggle with all the moving pieces in this situation.

Jo-Beth doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t trustus. She’s not going to quit her job or sell her house. She’s waiting for me to fuck up, and sometimes, I forget to be patient, and I get pissed. I’ve put a lot aside to give us a chance. My family. Her past. She’s perpetually hedging her bets.

But then, how would moving her to Pyle go? It’d be the equivalent of packing her into an old Ford and driving her up to the mansion on the bluffs. She won’t know anyone. She’s too proud to let me take care of her, and I’ll be damned if she goes back to dancing. As it is, I don’t know how much longer Dr. Das and Cue from the White Van will go along with my suggestion—accompanied with generous gratuities for services rendered—that her ankle won’t allow her to work quite yet.

And then there are the Wades. Jo-Beth is right; they won’t welcome her with open arms. And my Jo-Beth’s proud, but so fragile. This is a woman who has never taken a dive, who’s never let the dirt she’s had to eat define her. She’s fought for her entire life, and she’s lost battles. She doesn’t talk about it, but the clues are there.

She startles—violently—when I open the bedroom door at night after the lights are out. She won’t watch family sitcoms or Hallmark channel romances because “if I wanted to watch bullshit, I’d drive out Route 13.” And sometimes, when we’re making love, she drifts off, and I have to bring her back by stopping, saying her name, and cradling her to my chest.

She won’t talk about it, won’t even talk around it. Part of me knows she needs to, but a larger part—the coward in me—doesn’t want to know. I put the clues in the box with what she had to do before, and I lock it away. That shit can only rip your heart out if you look at it too closely.

I think about quitting Wade-Allyn. I could work from Jo-Beth’s house, do some consulting, some investing. I’d have to travel, but I could take Jo-Beth with me. I’d love to show her New York, London, Tokyo.

But then I pull up to the office, like I do this morning, and I stare up at the brick façade, the iron pilasters, and my last name in three-foot-tall letters above the revolving door. I pause for a minute on the sidewalk, crane my neck, count the stories.

I didn’t build it, but sometimes, it feels like mine. Thomas Wade didn’t build it either. His father bought it from a competitor when they went under during the recession of ’81 and ’82. It’s funny, come to think of it. Thomas Wade Senior shamelessly built his legacy on the bones of his rival, and here I am, always half-convinced I’m nothing more than a lucky imposter, despite all I’ve done to keep the place afloat.

Of course, an hour gives the lie to that feeling that I don’t belong. Eric needs me to resolve a fuck up with ArrowXchange. Thomas brings by a buddy, the C.F.O. of Western Coal Legacy, to troubleshoot a tax issue. A dozen people need a dozen things, and before I notice, I’m back in the grind. And it’s gratifying; it’s work that I love. Could I walk away?

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