Page 67 of Stoker's Serenity
“Fuck, yes, Orchid!” Stoker groaned, and he shuddered against me, his fingers gripping my thighs with bruising force as he filled the condom inside of me.
I groaned too; if I could have just held off for two seconds more, we could have come in unison.
Damn.
I would have liked that. For some reason, I would have liked that a lot. The intimacy of it appealed to me like no other. I would love that with him. God, I was pretty sure I just loved him at this point, the emotion strong as he held the condom on himself and pulled out. He stripped it off his softening cock and flung it down a storm drain while I pulled my skirt down over the tops of my thighs, the light material sticking to me and having none of it when it came to cooperating with me.
I shivered, which had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with just how achingly unfulfilled I was feeling. I wanted him to take me home. I wanted to spend the rest of my night in his bed having sex every which way it was intended. Hard, soft, dirty, sensual… I was a glutton for it, all of a sudden.
“You okay?” he asked, helping me down off of the car once he was, ah, put away.
“Better than okay whenever I’m with you,” I confessed.
“Right on, I like it!” His chest swelled with pride and he put an arm around my shoulders as we set off in the direction of home. Well, his home… I didn’t want to get ahead of myself but who knew? Maybe someday.
* * *
The weekdays draggedand the weekends flew by and I was so close to the long weekend, the trip with Stoker and his club, that I could taste it. It was my Friday, we were supposed to leave as soon as Stoker picked me up from work, and the second hand seemed to be ticking over like it was the minute hand on the clock.
I was sweating bullets. Our manager had been by squawking a few times about the schedule and I just knew she was about to screw me out of my already-approved time off.
Not today, Satan,I thought at her.Not today.
Oh, but it was going to be today…
“Serena,” she called out, and she had never, not once, gotten my name correct since I had initially corrected her. In an attempt to just not make waves I had never bothered to correct her again. I ground my teeth and plastered on my most genuine looking fake smile.
“Yes, Lydia?”
“You’re going to have to come in tomorrow,” she said, with a nasty little smirk.
“I’m sorry,” I said in an attempt to stand my ground. “I can’t. I’ll be out of state; you approved the vacation time over six weeks ago.”
“I approved it, yes, but now I’m canceling it.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but it wasn’t my voice that spoke.
“You can’t do that, and if you do, she quits and we sue.”
I blinked and craned my neck way back as Stoker’s hands fell onto my shoulders.
“Hey, Orchid.”
“You don’t show up tomorrow, you’re fired, and that’s final,” Lydia glared at me. “And just who are you?” she demanded.
“Stoker, and ‘Lydia Farminger’ isn’t the name you started out with, is it?” Lydia’s mouth dropped open and Stoker gave her a nasty little smile. “Ah, yeah. Didn’t expect anyone would do any digging on you, did you?”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Just watch,” he said, low, for my benefit only, his thumbs digging gently into my shoulders.
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t play fast and loose with my job, it was the only one I had and what if I couldn’t get another right away? I couldn’t do that to Mrs. Sedgwick. I lived paycheck to paycheck and barely managed to keep a couple hundred dollars in savings. What was he doing?
I stood frozen as a few of my co-workers drifted near and Stoker tore my manager to shreds.
“No, you got married. Your real name – or maiden name if you like, is Lydia Caruthers. Your sister was Caroline Caruthers.”
I jerked slightly in his grasp and he firmed up his grip on my shoulders.
