Free Lying In Bed by MJ Rose Page B

sensations of the silken hair against bare skin and pulsing flesh against her fingers. But it bothered her. She was willing to do anything with the woman/stranger, but she couldn’t do it in the presence of the driver. She didn’t want a man seeing this. And so she looked into the rearview mirror to see if he was watching
.
    His eyes were there waiting for her. With a little smile playing in them. Because what she hadn’t seen before was that he was not a driver that Philip had hired for this excursion
.
    He was Philip
.
    And so when the woman’s lips moved lower, Gaia opened her legs and looked down at the top of the woman’s head, seeing herself, feeling another, and when the first wave of pleasure hit, instead of keeping it inside and swallowing the moan, she let it out. Knowing it would circle and circle the way the orgasms was circling inside of her and that the circle would include the man driving the car down into the night
.

9.
    Gideon came back to see me at Ephemera at the beginning of the following week. I hadn’t thought about him since we’d accidentally shared coffee and his chocolate chip cookies. I’d been working hard during the intervening days, finishing up an original short story for Vivienne Chancey, a letter for Robert Rosenthal, and several easy jobs – personalizing stories that already existed. In between, I’d done some decent work on one of own my collages, gotten up early and went running every morning and gone out to dinner with friends until late every night. I was overcrowding my days the way you stuff too many unimportant details into a conversation when you want to avoid the one thing you need to discuss. And I was tired. Not only from the hours and the constant activity, but because it was an effort to clear my stepbrother from my mind. It took constant work to fill up my days with enough activity to drive Cole back into the deep background where I didn’t need to think about him or his gallery opening or his photographs. Where I’d managed to keep him for almost two years, until I’d seen the invitation on Jeff’s desk.
    “You look busy.” Gideon said from the doorway.
    He was wearing black jeans and a black sweater and carrying a portfolio.
    “Hi.” I must have sounded startled because he apologized for surprising me.
    “No. That’s okay. I didn’t even know you were there. I didn’t hear you. You seem to have just appeared.”
    “I was watching you. I couldn’t help it. You were clearly lost in what you were doing. Artists can do that, can’t they? Disappear into their own imaginations. It’s a blessing. You looked so absorbed.”
    I felt a rush of recognition as if we were deeply connected and understood each other on a bone level.
    Except how could that be? I didn’t know anything about him. And what he knew about me was only superficial. But nothing about the way his eyes moved - like hungry hands roaming over my body - or the way his voice sounded - as if he were revealing the most intimate secrets - seemed perfunctory or trivial.
    I didn’t know what to say. “Come in,” wound up being my profound response. I was chagrined and caught off guard.
    And disturbed.
    He walked over to my desk and sat down, bringing with him the sound of the wind, the mixed smell of his cologne, the spring air outside and the very realistic and compelling idea that he was back because he wanted to hire me, which made me glad. I needed the work, having finished up everything in house. I lived on the money I made at Grace’s. My rent for the loft – along with everyone else’s in New York City – is too high. The supplies I use in my own artwork are expensive. It all adds up.
    But more than that. I needed something new to distract me from my stepbrother.
    “I was finishing up a job. Do you want some water? Or tea? Afraid we don’t make good coffee here. We can’t compete with Dean & Dulcua.”
    “Nothing. I’m fine” he said and he smiled as he leaned forward in the