“Show me, baby. Show me how you make yourself come,” he whispered, with his eyes transfixed on what I was doing.
Fantasy Matt eventually lifted his eyes to mine just as he came with a grunt. His cum hit his stomach, and his heated gaze never left mine. That was when my release hit me like a freight train. I called out his name as my eyes closed and my body shook.
When I came down, I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling while settling my erratic breathing. Now that that was taken care of, I needed to shower and get ready to pick up my baby.
And if my heart skipped a beat at the prospect of seeing Matt again, I chose to ignore it.
*****
By the time I got to Rachel’s classroom, my stomach was in knots. It was so bad, I was nearly doubled over from the pain of it.
What if he hated me for the way I left things all those years ago? It wasn’t as if he had known everything I did had been for his own good.
I never did well with the unknown. I was a planner and a worrier—not a good combination. Hence, the reason I was such a wreck.
Moms were hovering around Matt as I walked into the classroom. I instinctively found myself jealous and possessive of the way they fawned all over him. But, it wasn’t as if he were really mine anymore. Hell, for all I knew he was in a committed relationship. Or didn’t even want a committed relationship.
This whole thing was really fucking with my mind.
With Matt’s attention diverted, I quickly looked around for Rachel. I found her standing in front of her cubby with her book bag on her back.
With a sidelong glance at Matt, I shuffled over to her as quickly as possible.
“Hey, baby,” I greeted her.
“Mommy!” she cried out, throwing herself into my arms.
“Did you have fun?” With the feel of my girl nestled tight to me, the fear of seeing Matt was a distant memory. Nothing was more important than Rachel.
“Yes!” Her enthusiasm had me chuckling.
“What did you do today?” I set her back on her feet and grabbed her hand, leading her towards the door.
With a skip in her step, Rachel started babbling. “We read books and ate snacks. Oh and we met Herman!”
“Who’s Herman?” I quirked my head in curiosity.
“He’s Mr. DiGristino’s turtle!” The thought of Matt with a turtle made me smile for some reason. He always had liked unconventional pets. Like the iguana he had when we were younger. Guess some things never change.
We were two steps out the door and heading down the hall when I heard Matt’s voice getting louder. My steps quickened, until I was essentially pulling Rachel behind me towards the school exit. All the while she continued to regale me with details of her first day of kindergarten.
Unfortunately, I didn’t hear a single word she had said. My mind was focused on getting the hell out of that building without having to face the one man that had ever truly held my heart. I wasn’t ready to answer his questions. And honestly, I wasn’t sure my heart could take him rejecting me this time around.
I heard my name being called, but it didn’t matter because I was free. The door shut behind us, and I took a deep breath of fresh air before practically sprinting with Rachel to the car.
Yes, I know. I was nothing more than a complete and utter coward.
*****
For the next two weeks, I played the same exact game of cat and mouse with Matt. Every day he sought me out, and every day I avoided him like the plague.
Dropping Rachel off just as the bell rang was becoming a habit. One that didn’t make my little girl happy in the least. Even at the ripe old age of five, she knew what she liked and being early to school was at the top of that list.
It was on a Friday morning when my carefully constructed plan of avoidance came crashing down. I had just kissed Rachel on the tip of her pert little nose, making her giggle.
“Mommy has to work tonight, so if you’re good we’ll get ice cream for dinner,” I promised her.
“Yay!” she screamed while jumping up and down.
“Mmm. I love ice cream for dinner,” said a deep voice behind me, surprising me and making me jump out of my skin.
Never—not ever—would I forget that voice. The soft whispers in my ear of what he had wanted to do to me. All the sinfully wicked ways his tongue was going to taste me. The deep rumble as he told me how much I was loved, how perfect we were together, and how we’d be together forever.
I stood abruptly and spun on my heel to face him, probably with a look of horror on my face. My attempts at avoiding him were thwarted, and that completely threw me off my game.
“Gee, not exactly the kind of welcome a man wants to get,” he joked at my discomfort. At my continued silence and wide-eyed stare, he continued. “Okay. Well, you could at least say hi or something.”
“Hi,” I croaked out, then cleared my throat. “I better get going.”
“Not so fast.” He grabbed my arm as I tried to shoot past him, completely ignoring the fact that my daughter was still standing there. Granted I had technically already said goodbye to her, but the situation had me so rattled that I actually forgot about her. That wasn’t like me at all.
“Let go of me.” I gasped at the feel of his hand on my bare skin. It was like a branding iron radiating heat through my body.
“Not until we talk,” he said low in my ear, and I shivered. I both hated and loved the way he affected me.
“You need to start class,” I protested.
“Rachel, honey, why don’t you go inside and tell Ms. O’Reilly to read everyone a story. Tell her I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Bye Mommy!” Rachel chirped as she raced off to do as he asked.
“Matt,” I began, but he abruptly cut me off.
“I’m not playing this game anymore, Miranda. I’ve been trying to talk to you for two weeks now. You owe me that much.”
“Okay,” I said with a quivering voice.
“Not here.” He released my arm and ran a hand through his perfectly coiffed black hair. “Can we get together after school?”
I shook my head. “I have to work.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I work tomorrow too.”
“Sunday?”
“It’s my day with Rachel.”
Frustration marred his beautiful face at the realization that a single mother just didn’t have time for things like catching up with an ex-boyfriend.
Welcome to my world.
“We’re going to do this, Miranda. You can keep putting it off, but it will happen whether you like it or not. So you should make amends with that sooner rather than later. I don’t like waiting unnecessarily for what I want.”
What exactly did that mean? Was I what he wanted? Or did he only want an explanation from me? To tell me to my face what a pathetic piece of shit I was for leaving him high and dry?
Fuck. I was reading too much into this. Damn him and his cryptic words.
I rubbed my forehead to stave off the headache that was threatening.
At that moment, the principal came walking down the hall in our direction. I used that as my opportunity to escape.
“I better go,” I said, before hightailing it down the hall and past the principal.
“I’ll talk to you later, Miranda,” he called after me, his words a promise of what was to come.
I knew I wasn’t going to get out of it that easily.
THREE
My car door slammed, the sound echoing into the quiet of the parking lot outside my apartment complex.
It wasn’t the greatest place to raise a child, but some of the lower income rentals in the area were considerably worse. It was a fact I reminded myself of whenever life seemed to be closing in on me, and I felt like a horrible mother who could barely take care of her child.