Page 44 of Truth Be Told
“Right. So because of my money is what you’re saying.”
“No,” she rolls her eyes, a little of her sense of humor breaking free, “not because you’re a Thatcher. Because you’re Cohen.”
I get what she’s saying, but being me, I don’t get the appeal. My mind drift to its darkest corners, to the place where I can’t help but think of the past and the biggest thing I failed at – which just so happened to be a big enough failure to overshadow any possible successes. I think about the woman in the car’s future, which was taken from her, and the family she left behind.
I clear my throat. “Maybe not everyone sees me the way you do.” I try to keep the words meaningless, but I fail. Emotion creeps up and I have to swallow it back down.
She catches it, but does a good job of changing the subject to avoid bringing up something that’s too deep for the moment at hand. “You don’t have to get back to work?”
“I’m not going back today.”
“What about your appointments?”
“I’m cancelling them. After what happened, we won’t be back in business until I can get my staff sorted out.” I lean back. “It’ll take some emergency meetings, so to speak.”
“I guess something like that is a pretty big deal.”
“Members of my staff completely undermining me? Hell yes it is. I’ve just learned I can’t trust about eighty percent of my them. I can’t be in business until I can trust my staff.”
“So if it’s an emergency,” she sits next to me, “does that mean you’ll be leaving me?”
I shake my head. “Tomorrow.” Truthfully, it should mean today; but I just want to be here with her. “I should be able to get it sorted out pretty quickly.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“By firing lots of people,” I half-joke. “And what about your job?”
“What about it? It’s the usual. Boring.”
“Have you applied for anything on the side?”
She shrugs. “Not yet. I’m still thinking that over, to be honest with you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ll have to come up with something. It’s not like your bills will adjust to your level of income. Wouldn’t that be nice?
“That’s very true. They won’t. But my offer still stands.”
She cracks a smile of genuine thankfulness.
We spend the afternoon on her couch, browsing through her television, coming to rest on some mindless comedy to pass the time. The show doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that does is the warm glow that Stella’s body is radiating onto my side. Eventually, she settles back, leaning into me as if she can’t burrow deep enough. I drape my arm over her shoulders and we pass the time that way until the sun starts to set.
“Are you hungry?” she asks, positioning herself to get up off the couch. The place where she’d been resting against me suddenly becomes cold at the lack of her presence.
Instead of answering her, I lean in and slide a hand under her shirt, cupping the warm flesh of the small of her back. Instinctively, she knows, but she doesn’t want to say it. She leans back against my hand, increasing the pressure. I hoist her forward until she’s straddling me and then tuck my face into her neck.
“Cohen…” she says, pausing.
I want to tell her that it’ll all be okay. No matter what happens, even though I know all too well that that can, at times, be a lie.
I entwine her fingers with mine, and at that she gives in; she leans down at the same time that I lean up, and our lips collide. I brace the back of her neck as I smoothly move her onto her back, then lift her shirt and graze her smooth stomach with my mouth, stopping just before the I reach the crest of her jeans.
STELLA
“Take off your clothes,” he whispers, our lips still brushing. “Then take off mine.”
He washes away any remaining hesitation with the caress of his tongue. That brief moment of hesitation stemmed from two things: the fact that, in addition to being mysterious, Cohen seems to have a hell of a lot of baggage. Baggage which, as I learned today, isn’t always as clear-cut as it may seem. Scarlet was vicious. What do I know about being with a rich guy? What if I don’t have what it takes to fend off or compete with women like her, and one day, one of them wins?
The worries vanish when he pulls away from my mouth and instead uses it to drift down my body. We’ve never before explored each other in this way, and I tilt my chin up, arching my back in response to the new sensations.
I pull myself up to do as he said. I fumble to unbutton my jeans, then, when I’ve steadied myself, manage to peel them off, leaving my underwear for him. He can’t resist helping me with my top, and when I’m free of it he dives to my breasts, covering the top of them with his mouth and cupping them through my bra.
