The Unblocked Collection (29 page)

I changed lanes and accelerated, realizing I passed Timber Towers blocks ago. I had to turn around, but I needed more road before I could do that. “Yeah, I got it.”

“See you tonight, then.”

I hit a red light and pulled up my text messages as I came to a stop. I opened the last conversation I’d had with Frankie. I didn’t think about the consequences. I just typed:

Me:
Come to my townhouse tomorrow for breakfast. We need to talk.

A bubble popped up to show she was typing.

Frankie:
I’ll be at your office at 9:00. Just coffee. Brea will be with me.

Me:
No Brea. Just you. At the townhouse. Business only, I promise.

The light had turned green, and the car behind me honked. I ignored both. I wasn’t moving until I saw her reply. It took far too long, but eventually she answered:

Frankie:
Business only. No exceptions.

Me:
You have my word.

They may have only been texts, but I recognized that tone, that distance. I knew it all too well.

She was speaking to me the way I’d spoken to her.

FRANKIE

NORM PICKED ME UP
at my condo to drive me to Derek’s townhouse. Had this been a personal meeting, I would have taken a cab. But nothing personal would ever happen between me and Derek again, regardless of the location. Everything would be business from here on out.

I hadn’t expected to hear from him after he had texted me his address, but it would have been nice to know our agenda. He had probably been too busy with Hayden. I had no idea who she was…and I wished I hadn’t seen her text message. It only reminded me how temporary our situation was, how interchangeable I was. How someone like Derek Block could never be tamed. And how much I was going to mourn losing him.

There was a part of me that knew a relationship with Derek could never work. I wasn’t in a position where I could start something serious with anyone. With the level of responsibilities I had and the preparations needed to convince my father of the takeover, time spent with a man would be far too distracting, especially if that man were Derek. So the energy I’d been directing toward him would now be applied to acquiring the agency. There was no way I’d sacrifice a personal life only to end up with my father selling.

As for Derek, he would now be a memory. A blissful, ecstatic memory, and one that would eat at me every day. A face that would seep through the shadows of my dreams, bringing me those talented fingers and that beautiful dick. But it would stay just that: a fantasy. It would be my fingers that did the pleasuring, not his.

However…

There was another part of me, one that wanted more of him. He hadn’t let me into his life and unlike the other men I had slept with, I’d never seen his house, and I didn’t know the foods he enjoyed, or where he shopped for his flannels. Those things didn’t matter. With him, I felt different. I felt alive.

I felt free. Sexually, at least.

If I never got to experience anything like that again, at least I knew someone like him existed, someone who could bring out every desire I’d kept hidden. Now I knew it was possible to have more than one orgasm in an evening, to enjoy a finger in unmentionable places, to crave a man being in my mouth because the need to please him was greater than my need to come.

I hoped the memory would be enough.

“Ms. Jordan, the address you gave me is just up ahead,” Norm said.

 I glanced at the tree-lined street he pointed to. It was crowded with Victorian brownstones, nineteenth-century. I could only assume most of them had been fully renovated at some point. Derek had likely gutted his; his attention to detail wouldn’t have allowed anything less than the best. In spite of my nerves from being in his presence again so soon, I was looking forward to seeing how he had designed the home, and how it reflected him.

Norm parked along the curb, and I opened my door. “I shouldn’t be too long,” I said.

“Let me help you out.”

“No, I’m fine,” I told him. “I’ll see you soon.”

I stepped onto the sidewalk as the door to Derek’s townhouse opened. A flutter of anxiety passed through me. I had agreed to be there at nine, but I was ten minutes early. I hadn’t expected him to be waiting for me at the door.

I took a deep breath, hoping to keep my emotions from showing on my face. Then I glanced ahead…to find someone waiting for me.

Someone who wasn’t Derek.

It was her…the slut I’d found in bed with Reed the night I had showed up to his condo unexpectedly. It was the night my whole life changed, the night he took something from me I would never be able to get back.

“You,” I hissed.

She stopped on the second step, carrying an overnight bag, unaware of my presence until I spoke. She was fixing her blouse, tucking it into the waist of her skirt. Her long dark hair looked like it still held yesterday’s curls, and a new sloppy coat had been applied to last night’s makeup. She was disheveled, a mess…just like I would have been had I spent the night at his place.

She studied my face for several seconds until her expression told me she recognized me, too. Our eyes met as I recalled that night at Reed’s. The bed, the screaming…the blood.

“What are you doing
here
?” I asked.

“You have no right to ask me that.” Her voice had haunted me, the way it had devolved from a moan to a screeching gasp in seconds. She wasn’t wrong. I had no right to ask her about this. Derek wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t someone I had any claim on. He was a client now, regardless of our sexual interactions.

A client and nothing more.

The text from Hayden should have prepared me for how quickly he was going to move on. It hadn’t—not at all. For all I knew, the woman standing before me wasn’t the only one he had been with since our night at the hotel. But it had to be her—the woman who had ended my relationship with Reed?

This was all too much.

“It always has to be
you,
doesn’t it?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She could play stupid all she wanted. It made no difference now. “Fuck you,” I said.

I yanked the door of the SUV open and threw myself into the backseat.

“Is everything all right, Ms. Jordan?” Norm asked, stunned to see me again so soon. “Would you like me to—”

“Just drive, Norm.” I reached into my purse to grab a tissue but came up empty. I could feel my mascara running down my cheeks, my nose getting ready to drip. There was too much traffic on the street. Norm was having a hard time finding a clear spot to pull out. “Please hurry,” I cried.

“Yes, ma’am. Where to?”

It didn’t matter. I just needed to get out of there…away from her.

And away from Derek Block.

To be continued…

U
NBLOCKED
:

E
PISODE
3

M
ARNI
M
ANN

Seattle, WA 2015

COPYRIGHT 2015 MARNI MANN

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Attribution
— You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Noncommercial
— You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

No Derivative Works
— You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Inquiries about additional permissions

should be directed to:
[email protected]

Edited by Steven Luna

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

PRINT ISBN 978-1-62015-949-1

EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-980-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015907314

To Jennifer and Randy Gilbert, a perfect picture of love.

Thanks for being an inspiration and for allowing me to capture it.

DEREK

I WAS WAITING
for my cup of coffee to brew when I heard the front door of my townhouse open, and heels clicking on the wood floor. Hayden had left just a minute ago, but must have forgotten something; there was no other reason she’d be back so soon. Frankie wasn’t due for another ten minutes, and she wouldn’t have come in without knocking…especially not after telling me she never wanted me to touch her again.

Never again
.

I gripped the mug with both hands, my teeth grinding together as the swishing of fabric and clicking of heels got louder.

“I need coffee,” my sister said as she entered my kitchen. She moved with much more steam than when she’d left.

I handed her the full mug and brewed another. “Check the fridge,” I said. “I think there’s some of that vanilla creamer you like in there.”

“I won’t ask why you have it.” She poured in a few drops and placed it back in the door. “I’m not here enough for you to stock it, and you drink your coffee black.” She walked to the island, her eyes widening as she looked at the granite. “Is it safe to lean on this counter, or did you have her on the surface of this, too?”