Page 9 of Veiled in Brick

He obliged, moving a hand between my legs, and I cried out at the sensation.

“Oh my God,” James gritted out from behind me. “Are you gonna come?”

I mustered all my breath for a whiney, “Uh huh.”

“Fuck.”

At that last cursed word, I imploded. I shouted nonsensical sounds into the abyss as he continued to pound into me, and then stilled abruptly. What almost sounded like a growl graced my ears, and I let my body go slack.

We caught our breath for a bit, then. James pushed himself up and gave me an appreciative pat on my right cheek, pulling himself from me slowly. I groaned, reaching for my panties around my knees and hauling them up before flopping myself over. I sighed out a long breath and swatted in his general direction as he began to re-fasten his jeans.

He smirked at me as he sat back and questioned me with a quiet, “Hmm?”

“Good,” I somehow found my voice, but stammered a bit in the process. “Good—good job.”

His crooked smile grew, and he laughed to himself softly as he stated, “A pleasure, Miss Sheffield.”

Liam sat next to me on the couch in my apartment, cackling so hard that he was struggling to catch his breath. He clutched at his ribs, blonde head thrown back to the grey fabric of the cushion behind him as his booming laughter bounced off of the walls and reverberated back to my ears. I narrowed my eyes at him, waiting for the noises to subside.

When they didn’t, I snapped, “Are you done?”

He faked wiping a tear from one of his brown eyes.

“I’m sorry, Zoey,” he said, exhaling a last time. “That’s just…that’s fucking hilarious.”

“It is not hilarious,” I responded.

We both turned our heads and squinted our eyes at the offending delivery: an arrangement of red roses. They were in a clear vase, situated perfectly as they sat in the center of my kitchen table. Truthfully, they were beautiful, but they were so, so not up my alley—and Liam knew this. Anyone who spent more than five minutes with me should know this. But, apparently, James did not.

Liam giggled, coughed to try to cover it up, and spoke as if his throat had a frog in it, “You went on one date—yesterday. That was fucking fast. How’d he even set up the delivery in time?”

I groaned, collapsing back on the couch with my hands covering my face, which only made Liam laugh at my misery even more. I took my aggravation out on his hip, kicking him swiftly.

“It’s not funny, Lee,” I chastised him, and his teeth glinted out to bite the corner of his mouth as I noted, “James must have lost his goddamn mind—”

“I told you I’d see you at the wedding—”

“And I told you to fuck. Off. Liam.”

He joked, “What, do you have a magic pussy or something?”

I barked out a reluctant laugh. “No,” I paused for a moment, “actually—probably. Yeah, sure, I have a magic pussy.” Liam pursed his lips, and I added, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You can water them and enjoy how they smell.”

“Not the flowers, Liam, God,” I retorted, exasperated. “The situation with James, what do I even do with that?”

Liam shrugged. “I don’t fuckin’ know. If he’s clingy, cut him off.”

“Clingy is a massive understatement, Liam!” I exclaimed, throwing a hand to the ceiling. “He’s been on my ass for a date for half a year, I finally cave, and I get these?!”

He opened his mouth to speak but a pinging noise sounded from his jeans, cutting off his inevitable response. He leaned back, stretching himself in such a way that allowed him to reach a hand into his right pocket, and I found myself having to avert my eyes as his white t-shirt rose just high enough to reveal his abdomen. I focused instead on his phone that he fished out of his jeans, tracing my eyes over the heavily cracked screen.

“You still haven’t gotten that fixed?”

He spoke offhandedly, “Someone quoted me a hundred bucks.”

“That seems high.”

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