Page 56 of Loss and Damages
I’d planned to stay until morning, but I couldn’t sleep.
Before I left, I washed our wineglasses, re-corked the bottle and placed it in the fridge, and left her a note on the breakfast bar giving her my private phone number. I want her to be able to call if she needs to...or if she wants to.
She’s struggling, and after what we shared, she might decide to hide from her feelings rather than see me again. It would hurt, more than I want to admit, but I would understand. Leo found her first. What we have growing between us might not be strong enough to survive his ghost.
Leo’s car accident looms as I drive back into the city at a little after two in the morning. There are few cars on the road and a deer darting into the highway is so much more plausible now that I’m in my brother’s place. He would have been distracted, thoughts of Jemma diverting his attention from the blank nothing in front of him.
The scent of her hair, the softness of her body. He’d lie with her and talk until she fell asleep. My brother was a fool, but he was about as stupid as I am. There has to be a reason he nevertook her to bed, but it will drive me crazy if I can’t leave it alone. I’ll never find out why.
No one bothers me at this hour, and I drive to Leo’s without incident. I park in the underground parking and go up to his apartment, but I’m too restless to sleep and I sort through email and skim social media. While I was in Hollow Lake, protesters spray-painted nasty slurs on the front of the Milano Management and Development building. Our security team called the police, but the vandals were able to get quite a few good licks in before they ran away. The cops didn’t catch them, but I doubt they tried.
My father called me while Jemma and I were in bed, but I turned my phone off to enjoy the time with her. There will be hell to pay for not being available and nothing will appease him except the sale of the 1100 block that will be on my desk later this morning. Pitts didn’t look well at the Scarlet Wing, and Wilkins wouldn’t have been of any help. He has his own family to consider, and if he was wise, he would have spent the rest of the afternoon backtracking and telling Pitts the sale was in his best interest after all.
I’ll have to be extra vigilant once the news is announced. No one will like it and it will be a rough several months while the evictions take place and the razing is completed.
Settling more comfortably in Leo’s desk chair, I stroke myself through my lounging pants and think of Jemma’s body. Her pussy was so wet and so tight, and my cock was such a snug fit I barely kept it together long enough to get her off first. Thank God she was quick.
Her heavy breasts filled my hands perfectly, and I reveled in sucking her sweet nipples into my mouth, nibbling them into little peaks. My cock hardens.
Fisting my dick, I relive our lovemaking, and I come sitting at Leo’s desk, our company logo on my laptop’s screensavershooting sparks on the black screen. She felt right in my arms, but damned if I know how to turn her into a permanent part of my life. She tolerates what I do, but a relationship won’t last on resignation alone.
I’m not willing to change how I do business for a woman.
Not even Jemma.
The sun starts to rise, and I secure tape over my gauze and shower to clear my head and prepare for a hectic Monday. I can’t stop myself, and again, I fantasize about carrying Jemma to bed. Only this time there won’t be so much talking. Water pelts my back, and I pump my cock, picturing her on all fours, my favorite way to screw, giving me access to all of her, from her clit to her ass. I don’t finger a woman’s ass unless she likes it, and in the shower, on the verge of another orgasm, I hear Jemma beg for it. Gently, I press a finger into her tight muscle, and she moans my name. As I do, I push my cock inside her, filling her in all ways, my fingertips massaging her clit. She’s so wet and her panting echoes in my ears.
She comes when I do, and in my daydream I’m not wearing a condom. I brand her, shooting my load deep into her body, and she’ll walk around with my cum inside her.
I rinse off, the tension gone, and dress for work, my arm hurting like fuck.
I forgo coffee and a pain pill, I can’t afford to be woozy, and contact my security. It may be only seven in the morning, but I need to start being careful. Today will change things, the announcement will change things, and the last thing I want to do is give the mayor what he wants.
Just a little more to the left.
I don’t plan on dying.
Two black SUVs meet me in the underground lot and no one will know which one I’m in. It’s a big pain in the ass as far as I’mconcerned, but the protesters are growing more desperate by the second and the sale will tip the scales...and not in my favor.
The two SUVs split up, and twenty minutes later my driver parks in the office building’s underground parking garage undetected.
My father isn’t in yet, perhaps doing his own version of musical vehicles, but it’s nothing he hasn’t had to do before.
I pour myself coffee in the breakroom, and by nine o’clock a courier delivers the envelope I’ve been waiting for.
The contract for the sale of the 1100 block is inside, and there, at the bottom, is Pitts’s ugly scrawl. Without wasting a second, I add my name and send it to the legal department.
I sit back and wait for the wave of satisfaction to wash through me. This is the biggest deal I’ve ever completed. The luxury skyscraper I’m going to build in place of the rent-controlled apartments will bring in millions of dollars.
To sweeten the pot, my executive assistant slides more purchase contracts for land and property located in Oakdale Square onto my desk and I sign those too. Both river shores are mine, and I can do whatever the fuck I want with them.
I tap my pen on my desk.
Something’s missing, but there shouldn’t be. My father’s wanted the 1100 block for years and buying property in Oakdale Square will shake Wilkins up quite nicely.
The satisfaction doesn’t come, and I have only one person to blame.
My father steps into my office without knocking and waits expectantly without saying a word.
