JENNIE
My phone rang as I packed my overnight bag. I saw who was calling and looked at the clock. Lisa had said she would be here by seven to pick me up. It was quarter to right now. "Are you having second thoughts and crying off for our sleepover tonight, Lisa?"
She laughed. "No chance of that, and I hope you have your bag ready, baby."
"So why aren't you here to whisk me away?"
"Yes, well I had to send a car to collect you. Some business related emergency pain in my ass. I'm so sorry. The driver's name is Neil and he works for me. He'll get you into my apartment and I want you to just make yourself at home until I get there. Will you do that for me, my darling?"
"I guess so." My mind was spinning with the implications of me on my own in her house. I wasn't really scared, but the idea did not thrill me either. "Are you sure, Lisa? I mean—we can do this another night if you're busy—"
"—I'm sleeping with you tonight, Jennie. In my bed. End of discussion."
"Oh boy." I smiled into the phone. "Can I start dinner for you then? Is there food in the house or should I have your driver stop at the supermarket?"
"No need to stop. There's food and even some things in the freezer. My housekeeper cooks meals and freezes them. You choose whatever you like—excuse me." I heard muffled voices and Lisa speaking to someone. "I have to go, baby. I'll see you as soon as I can get there."
I said goodbye, but she was already off. I stared at my phone for a moment before setting it down, lost in the surreal, and feeling like Alice in Wonderland again. My life seemed to be careening in fast-forward with me unable to switch modes. I'd gone from single girl to girlfriend in just over a week with no sign of a slow-down. At all.
My phone lit up again with no screen ID on display. "Hello?" I answered.
"Ma'am, my name is Neil McManus. Ms. Manoban instructed me to pick you up. There's a black Rover waiting down at the curb for you now." The smooth English accent formed the words efficiently.
Neil. I remembered what Lisa had said about the driver. "Sure. Be right down." I slung my bag over my shoulder and made it out to the street at a quick clip. The car that waited looked exactly like Lisa's Range Rover, but I skidded to a halt when I got a load of Neil-the-driver; huge, muscular, bleached blonde, spiked-haired with very dark eyes.
"You!" I said, completely shocked. It was the guy with the Jimi Hendrix tat from today.
"Yes, ma'am." He held open the passenger door for me, his expression giving away nothing.
"You were following me around today!" It was no question as I am sure Neil realized. I dropped my bag to the ground, folded my arms beneath my breasts and went for a Mexican stand-off instead. "Give me one good reason why I should get in that car with you, Neil."
Neil smiled briefly and looked down to my bag on the sidewalk. "I work for Ms. Manoban?"
I gave Neil my best stone face.
He tried again. "He will fire my ass if I don't get you delivered to her apartment per her instructions?" He looked back up at me, his black eyes sincere. "I very much like my job, ma'am."
My head started spinning with more wild thoughts of what I was doing, what Lisa was up to, how many people were involved in my business, and my list could have gone on and on. Man, oh man, did we need to have a discussion or what! Still, it wasn't fair to take out my frustrations on Neil, who for all appearances was just doing his job.
"Fair enough, Neil." I picked up my bag and got in the back seat. "But the deal's off if you keep calling me ma'am, got it? My name is Jennie. And if Ms. Manoban doesn't like it you can tell her that she can kiss my informal Yankee ass. She should know that Korean girls despise being called ma'am!"
Neil tilted his head at me and cracked a grin as he shut my door.
He started driving as I seethed in the back seat. The silence just irritated me so I figured I might as well get it all out in the open. "So Lisa hired you to stalk me around London, huh?"
"Protection, ma'am…ahhh…Jennie. Not stalking you," Neil answered.
"Protection from what?" I demanded. "Are you watching when I go for my runs in the mornings too?"
Neil looked up at me through the rearview mirror. "The city can be a dangerous place." His eyes went back to the road. It had started to rain and the buzz of the windshield wipers dragged rhythmically back and forth. "She's just very watchful is all," Neil said quietly.
"Yeah, I know." Lisa is watchful and controlling and more than a little high on the arrogant scale for my tastes much of the time. She was so in trouble with me. "So how long have you worked for her, Neil? Lisa tells me absolutely nothing, so I figure you can enlighten me." I smirked into the rearview for his benefit.
"Six years now. We met in the SF."
"That's Special Forces right? So are you guys some kind of James Bond for the British government?"
Neil actually laughed and shook his head. "I can see why Ms. Manoban keeps a watchful eye over you, Jennie. You have quite the imagination."
"Yeah, Lisa's told me that one too," I said dryly.
As annoyed as I was with Lisa's presumptions—which were well beyond out of line—I couldn't really take it out on Neil. He seemed like a decent guy, and he had great taste in music. I liked him. Neil was simply doing his job. Whatever that was in regards to me.
Neil got the car parked and us into the elevator through the garage entrance. Before I knew, I was inside Lisa's gorgeous home again, just this time, without Lisa.
Neil had me put his number into my cell and said he would be close if I needed anything. "How close is close? Am I private here? You can't watch me in her house can you?" I checked his eyes for telltale signs of subterfuge. "Do not even think about lying to me, Neil. I will be out that door so fast Lisa will feel the wind ruffle her hair all the way from here to wherever the hell she is at the moment."
Neil actually winced. "In here you are totally private. There are no cameras in the apartment, but out in the hall there are. So if you were to leave, I will see you. I'm in another flat across the way. Not far. Ms. Manoban really just wants you to make yourself at home." He put his phone up to his ear and jogged it. "Call me if you need anything, Jennie."
The door latch clicked and my protector was gone.
Well this was weird. Alone in Lisa's home with my overnight bag and a scrambled head. I wondered if I would ever feel normal again.
First things first, I went to the fridge, took out a chilled water bottle and drained half of it. The inside of Lisa's refrigerator was well stocked with plenty of fresh things to work with so no problem on the dinner. I explored her coffee maker next and started drooling. Very nice indeed. I set a pot to brewing and checked out her sub zero freezer. Lisa's housekeeper appeared organized to the point of labeled and dated frozen meals in nice plastic containers for easy identification. I passed on those. I wasn't really hungry anyway after the massive Chinese lunch she'd fed me at her office.
I moved on to the bedroom and was instantly hit with remembrances of the last time I was in this room. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of Lisa. She was everywhere even when she wasn't. I stepped into her bathroom. The grotto shower of travertine marble was gorgeous, but that magnificent tub was a fantasy for a girl who did not have a proper bathtub in her flat. I knew what I was going to do first.
An hour later my skin was pink from the heat and soft from the bubbles. I'd dressed in my Jimi Hendrix t-shirt and a pair of Lisa's silk boxers that were very swishy on me. I'd organized my purchases from Boots in a bathroom drawer, shaved my legs and slathered myself in primrose scented lotion.
I wandered back to the coffee maker and fixed myself a mug before drifting into the other rooms of Lisa's apartment. The home gym had a state of the art treadmill facing the floor-to-ceiling windows. The view took my breath away. I love a city lights view, but imagined it was just as spectacular in the daytime.
I found what I believed to be her office and turned the handle. The room behind the door was indeed an office. Flanked by a massive oak desk, the opposite wall held a panel of TV monitors and other high-tech equipment. But it was the wall behind the desk that really caught my attention—a salt water aquarium glowed with light and colors and bubbles over the rippling water. I came closer and took in the rainbow of fish darting around elegant coral formations. The Lion Fish did not dart. He came up to the glass and fluttered an array of multi-colored fins at me as if in greeting.
"Hey, handsome. What does she call you I wonder?" I spoke to my fishy companion and sipped my coffee.
I ate a cherry yogurt at the kitchen bar and fixed a second cup of coffee. One whole wall of the main room held shelves of books. I perused her collection which was eclectic to say the least. Classics, mysteries, mainstream stuff and tons of historical fiction filled out most of it. There was some military history and books on photography. A large amount on statistics and gambling too. She had popular fiction and even a few books of poetry which made me smile. I liked that Lisa valued books.
I snagged a book of letters Keats had written to Fanny Brawne and took it into the living room to sit on the sofa and enjoy. I had my coffee, angsty love letters from a poet to his girl, and the twinkling night lights of London displayed before me.
I spent a nice hour before I set the book aside. I looked out at the city. This was the spot where Lisa had undressed me, right in front of her balcony window. She'd stepped back and told me that nothing compared to the sight of me standing in her house. Oh, Lisa. I decided to text her.
Jennie Kim: --is pissed at u about the Neil thing. R u crazy?!!!
Lisa Manoban: --crazy for u we need to talk about things. Miss u very much.
Jennie Kim: --is wearing ur boxers right now and u better believe it, buster!
Lisa Manoban: --just got a hard-on picturing u in my shorts. Pls leave on pillow cuz I'm never laundering.
Jennie Kim: --still pissed and thinks u have a beautiful coffee maker.
Lisa Manoban: --thinks I have a beautiful girlfriend. Did u eat sthg?
Jennie Kim: --ate sthg. U have a pet lion fish. :)
Lisa Manoban: That is Simba. I pamper him he tolerates me. U 2 have much in common
Jennie Kim: Ur getting no more BJ's just 4 that comment. :P
Lisa Manoban: --so wants to spank u right now… kiss u… fuck. Ur killing me baby
Jennie Kim: --is getting sleepy. Gonna take pill and get in ur bed. Don't tease me.
Lisa Manoban: Never…Go 2 sleep my beauty. I will find u. 3
I got up from Lisa's sofa and headed back to the kitchen to wash up. I cleaned out the coffee maker and set it up for the morning. All I would have to do is start it. I used my new purple tooth brush and took the pill. The super soft sheets of Lisa's bed smelled of her; soothing and comforting me in my solitude. I filled my head with her scent and crashed.
--
Firm arms held me. The smell I adored floated around me. Lips kissed me. I opened my eyes to the night and saw shadows. I knew who was with me though. My waking was peaceful and gentle, something good, and for me, a totally new experience.
"You're here," I murmured against her lips.
"And so are you," she whispered. "I fucking love finding you in my bed."
Lisa's hands had been busy in my sleep. I was naked from the waist down, her silk boxers long removed. Lisa was naked too. I could feel her hard muscles and solid flesh trying to meld with mine. My shirt was pushed up and my breasts being devoured by her rasping lips tickling the sensitive flesh, teasing my nipples with sucking pulls until I was a moaning, writhing creature beneath her.
I buried my hands in her hair and felt the movement of her head as she worshipped my nipples and plumped the weight of my breasts with her hand. She stopped and pulled my shirt all the way off and stared down at me, hungry and beautiful. The light from the master bath filtered in enough to allow me some vision of her and I was glad. I need to see Lisa when she comes to me. It reassures me that I will be safe with her.
"Your bed smells like you." I said.
"You are the only thing I want to smell, and right now I need the taste of you in my mouth." Then she spread me wide and descended.
"Oh, God, Lisa!" The work of her tongue on my cleft, swirling and smoothing over heated flesh opened to her switched me from sleepy to sexed in less than a second. I couldn't keep still even though she held me down and open at the inner thighs. The orgasm came upon me so fast and so violently that I heard myself shout through it, riding her tongue like a wanton, my muscles clenching and throbbing in scorching pleasure.
Lisa growled against my pussy lips and pulled away, probably staring at what she wanted to take with her cock. She didn't ask. Lisa took.
She lifted my legs over her shoulders and pierced me hard and deep. She made sounds as her cock filled me. I was pinned by her invasion while still reeling with an orgasm so I could only hang on as she fucked me. The sex was fiery and demanding with her telling me how good I felt and how much she wanted me here in her bed and how beautiful I was. All words to bring me closer to her. More dependent on her. More tangled up in her world. I knew it.
Lisa made me climax again; nearly punishing strokes meant to claim first and pleasure secondly. But the pleasure was exquisite when it arrived simultaneous with her filling me up with her own explosive orgasm. I felt tears sliding down to the sheets as I accepted what she gave to me. She choked out my name, her eyes locked onto mine like the other times. I knew she saw my tears.
She moved my legs off her shoulders and propped herself against me, holding my face and stroking, her brown eyes searching, still buried in me flexing slow and deep with her talented cock, drawing out the pleasure. "You're mine," she whispered.
"I know," I whispered back to her. Lisa kissed me reverently with our bodies joined; gentle explorations of my lips and feathery pulls and nibbles with teeth that only grazed. She held on to me and kissed me for a long time before she finally moved out of my body.
Fucking Lisa can only be described as beautiful in my head. I know to others it would be pornographic, but to me it was simply a beautiful act of us together. To be intimate like that with her wanting me so intensely was an addictive drug. More potent than anything I'd ever experienced before in my life. I think I could forgive Lisa just about anything that she might do to hurt me. And this was my very great mistake.