Page 16 of Service Included

The little box looked like its rightful place was in Mr. G’s world, on the mirrored table next to the glass vase that held a single huge leaf, where it could be reflected alongside infinite images of the shiny man who’d given it to me. My fingers managed to open it, but not without fumbling from the weight of my farm girl dreams. The twisted gold cord tying the box was so beautiful and so useless that I wanted to keep it forever, wrap it around my wrist, and feel it slide over my pulse.

“All cherry centers. You like those, don’t you?”

I was hungry, but also a tad embarrassed he’d noticed me eating the others, because I mostly use my tongue to lick out the filling until the chocolate is hollow, which I then nibble separately to preserve my lipstick.

I got over being embarrassed when he suggested I eat one right then. He watched me without moving. At least, I figured he could see from under his lowered eyelids.

These were more gooey than I expected, and a bead of cherry filling dripped onto the white fabric across my chest. Since one hand held the box, and the other had chocolate on it, Mr. G pulled his pocket square out of his jacket and knelt in front of me. “May I?”

I’ll confess to feeling overly warm and flustered when he blotted the stain. I’m twenty-one years old, and I’ve kissed a lot of boys, more than five, and even let a few put their hands under my shirt. Once I got so carried away after showing at the Lincoln County fair that I sat in a pickup with a boy whose steer won the grand prize. I had taken ribbons for my tomatoes and my long-haired rabbit, so we had sincere congratulations to exchange. Well, one thing led to another, and bench seats being bench seats and fair parking lots being large and dark, soon that boy was on top pushing his body hard against mine, for sure with his jeans on, and I was pushing back, and that was all very nice. Butnone of those before-times ever lit tremors deep inside like when Mr. G knelt in front of me to address that cherry filling.

After a moment, he said, “I’m afraid this needs to be wet.”

I surely agreed.

He rose and moved to his desk. While he dipped the end of his pocket square into a glass of water, I freely studied the way his dark hair curled over his white shirt collar.

He turned back to me with a dampened handkerchief and a smile like a man who knows something, and I licked my lips. In the beat of a dragonfly wing, he was in front of me and lightly touching the cloth to the last bits of stain. Strangely, I immediately wanted to dab more on my blouse, but it was my favorite and awfully new, so instead, I took another bite. When I used my tongue to swirl the last bit of filling out of the ball of chocolate, Mr. G made a noise like a growl. It startled me, and a smear of that cherry syrup stuck to my lower lip. I said, “I’m sorry, sir. I should be more careful.”

He seemed to mirror my concern, because he said, “Let me help you with that, Mary. We don’t want to make another spot.” Rather than use his handkerchief, he rubbed his thumb across my lip to capture the drip. Well, I couldn’t squander yummy cherry cordial, so when Mr. G pulled his hand away, I leaned forward and licked the end of his thumb. Waste not, want not, my mother would say. I certainly wasn’t going to waste something I wanted.

Cleaning his thumb took my tongue longer than I expected, and Mr. G put his other hand on my leg for support. Even through the fabric, his palm and fingers were so heavy and hot, I gasped. I grew up riding. My thighs can work all day. The one time I remember feeling trembly in my knees was a time I got thrown at a fence and landed with the wind knocked out of me. I guess that’s why when his hand squeezed my leg and I got a funny melting feeling in my bones, I moaned.

“Is this wet spot making your blouse uncomfortable?” he asked.

Amazingly, he’d figured that out before I did.

“It might dry faster over a chair.” His blue eyes were like the flickering colors on a jay’s wing, bright enough to make you chase even when you knew that bird was too fast to catch.

From the quirk of his lips, I suspected that he knew I didn’t have a free hand, but no harm in clarity. “It appears I need assistance. Sir.”

His nostrils flared when I said that last word, but all he did was take the candy box and set it on the floor next to the chair. On my first day at work, I’d noticed that Mr. G’s chest was very broad, but when he leaned closer and my nose almost brushed his shoulder, I also noticed how perfect he smelled. I could imagine that he and I were tramping through the forest, carrying a picnic basket filled with cherry pie while crushing pine needles under our feet, that’s how good the scent of his skin was. In case your readers think I exaggerate, let me be clear: farm girls know their odors. This man smelled lickety-slurp good.

Before I knew it, he’d unbuttoned my blouse. While I wiggled to extract myself, he whisked it away from my shoulders and stood. I watched him drape it over the back of the second chair. Shame he wore suit pants. A rear end like Mr. G’s belonged in denim.

Lest readers consider me to be immodest, I wore a camisole. With skirts or dresses that do not have a sturdy lining, I also wear a half-slip. If Princess Diana had my mother, she would never have posed for that photographer with sun-silhouetted legs visible through her skirt. She would have worn a good solid slip, like I was raised to do, guaranteed.

Mr. G knelt near my chair again and picked another chocolate from the box. His blunt fingers unwrapped the foil with the same efficiency I admired in his deposition questions.

As I parted my lips, that naughty man squeezed so hard, the cherry filling spurted on the skin below my collarbone. The liquid hung like a ruby pendant before it tracked a route toward the top edge of my camisole. Unlike my blouse, this layer was synthetic and washed like a dream, so I didn’t mind. I thought Mr. G intended to apologize, because he looked like a dog that’d been caught with a hen in its mouth.

But he did not say a word. Instead, he licked that cherry goo from my skin with a long, slow lap of his tongue.

A shiver went up my spine, and my lips parted. He was a dirty dog indeed.

Seeing the remains of the cherry cordial and melted chocolate smeared on his fingers and thumb, instinct spurred me to grab his wrist and lift his hand to my mouth. I could smell the starch used on his cuffs, the underpinnings of cherry, but best of all, I could smell him. I slid one finger past my teeth, let my lips encircle his knuckle, and swirled my tongue. That must have been the right thing to do, because he made a humming sound against my skin.

He was chocolate and soap and heat. The pad of his finger was rougher than my tongue, and it dragged across my lower lip as he pulled back, before he pushed it inside my mouth again. Its weight pressed on my tongue. I felt the urge to suck it like a straw. My legs wanted to wrap around him and catch him close, but when I tried to spread my thighs, my skirt trapped me. All I could do was rock my teeth in the grooves of his knuckle and suck. When he pulled his finger away again, breaking the seal of my lips with a popping sound that jolted through me, I wanted to snap at him like a cranky mare at an apple.

The way his eyelids lowered and a flush colored his cheekbones made me feel like a woman who could stroll down a street, toppling men in her wake. He placed both of his palms flat on the lower part of my camisole, slicking that fabric acrossmy ribs. I’d previously thought the material was smooth, but it caught and pulled on every bump and prickle of my skin, and I had so many prickles. Then he curled his fingers around the bottom hem and began to raise it. My breasts had filled in during the months I’d lived in the city, but I hadn’t known they could become a size bigger in the seconds it took him to lift my camisole over my head. I’m pretty sure I would have overflowed the cups of my bra if he hadn’t unhooked that last restraint.

His hands cradled my breasts and lifted them to his mouth as he followed the Giorgio perfume dabbed between them. I sunburn easily, but his lips scorched hotter than any summer I’d ever encountered, even in the middle of a hundred acres of August wheat. His mouth mounted the curve of my breast to my nipple. He suckled me. He suckled, and I shook. Sensation radiated from my nipples through my body, as far as even the edges of my ears. My senses opened so fully that I could hear every creak of the leather chair that cradled my body, every raspy breath that fled my lips, the thud of my heart against my eardrums.

His mouth left my breast, and I heard a sound like a moan. It came from my own lips. I didn’t want him to stop. “Please,” I whispered.

I saw his chest expand, his gaze focused on my breasts, but he didn’t return.

I wanted to pull him back, but my fingers were too sticky to touch this beautiful man. It seemed unfair for me to be shirtless, speechless, and breathless, and him completely covered. I tried to get what I wanted without grabbing. “Please, sir.” I lifted my chocolate-streaked fingers. “I’m afraid to get this on you. I’m so…” I knew what to say. “Dirty.”

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