The Heart Wants Ch. 05-09

I could feel a tremble course through her, like a small orgasm...

She shook her head, "It's so hot..."

Something from last night clicked into place. The interaction in the car, between Rachel and Laurel. The point where Laurel grabbed Rachel's face...

"Wait, so last night... in the car, you kind of grabbed Rachel, and you told her no and then asked if she understood. That was you and her..."

She smiled, rolling her eyes as she curled up a bit like she was embarrassed. She shook her head a little, smiling at me mischievously, "No. That was something... different."

I raised an eyebrow, "Different?"

She curled back up a bit, "Yes. She has this... I don't know... fantasy?"

That was shocking... shit. From everything Laurel was describing, it sounded like Rachel was living the life!

"Fantasy?" I asked, feeling myself start to... feel funny.

She smiled, this time ear to ear, "She keeps trying to talk me into it. She wants to have me and a man..."

I raised an eyebrow at her again, "Doesn't she already have that?"

She hit my leg, "I mean at the same time silly..."

That mental picture slammed into me hard... and I mean... hard.

"And that... excites you?" I was losing control of this situation fast. That question wasn't me trying to understand her. That was me filling up the spank bank for later.

She looked up at me, the excitement on her face palatable, "Yes!" She closed her eyes, reaching her hand out like she was picturing the scene, "She'd be on all fours, going down on me, and my hand would be tangled up in her golden locks. She'd look at me and smile, her tongue flicking in and out." Her breathing started to quicken, her eyes stayed closed, "And the guy, he'd be taking her from behind, each thrust would kind of... go through her, and I'd feel it..." She swallowed, her arm coming in. I could see her putting pressure on her breast with it, "And I'd look up and see his eyes on me... could see the desire on his face to have me like he was having her..."

She stopped dead. She looked up at me, like a deer caught in headlights, "Sorry... got a little not safe for work there..."

My mouth was hanging agape. The scene she described played out in full motion, high definition video in my mind...

She shrugged, like what she had been talking about ten seconds ago wasn't that big a thing, "Anyway, she was asking if I wanted you to be that guy."

My face went dead, Dear God. I would die happy if I could do that... I thought to myself.

Red light! Stop that. She doesn't want that! She said no! She told Rachel no! I warned myself.

I could see the panic on her face again, "Oh god! I said no! You saw me say no! I didn't mean-"

I shook my head at her, "No! It's okay! Stop." I held her hand tighter, patting her on the back, "I'm not offended. I get it. We're friends and that would make thing... really complicated..."

She looked at me, still talking fast, like she needed to justify to me, "You can have sex with her!"

Just the way she said it was so funny I had to crack up laughing... as if fucking Rachel was a consolation prize or something...

I saw her roll her eyes, embarrassment once again sweeping through her. She sat up a bit straighter, "I don't mean..." Her shoulders suddenly slumped, "I want to do that with Rachel, and..." She shook her head, "I'm just too embarrassed..."

I was still chuckling, "Why would you be embarrassed?"

She looked at me, trying to explain herself and embarrassed about what she was saying, like she hadn't just, graphically, described a sex scene to me, "I've never been with a boy before..."

I shrugged, "Yeah, so? You're a lesbian, that makes sense."

The look she gave me was one of such wonder, filled with something like respect, "I love that about you."

Looking at her I asked, "What?"

She shook her head at me, "You don't judge me. You really listen when I tell you something." She held a finger out at me, "You know you are the first person, the first person ever, that I've told that and had them just take my word on it? With no," She shook her shoulders, "Sure, wink, wink, you've never been with a boy before."

It filled my heart with pride to see how happy I made her...

She reached out, her hand settling on my leg again, "That's why I told her no... just because I'd be embarrassed. And I meant it when I said you can have sex with Rachel."

My eyebrows came down, "I'm not going to do that..."

She leaned into me again, rubbing her ear against my chest, "I would like you to have sex with Rachel..."

I pulled her close, enjoying the feel of her against my chest, "I'm sure Rachel wouldn't be happy with that..."

Her head snapped up, "Are you kidding?" She asked, laughing, "Rachel wants to fuck you... bad."

Now she was pulling my leg, "That's not funny."

She grabbed my face, a giant grin on hers. I could see her eyes shifting over the contours of my face, "You really don't see it, do you?"

I shook my face out of her grasp, "No. I don't."

She raised her eyebrows, "After your little thing last night? After the kiss, and then you set her boss straight? She was so pissed that I brought Isha along to that party. She worked me all night about it."

Leaning into me again, she bumped me playfully. "I think you two should do it... I think the two of you would have a lot of fun."

I rocked her a little, squeezing her a little tighter.

"Can I tell you a secret?" She asked.

I smiled at her, even though she couldn't see it, "Sure."

"Rachel got called away this morning..."

I frowned, how was that a secret?

"She and I had a plan. I was going to send her over here tonight and she was going to seduce you." She looked up at me, licking her lips. I could see the desire written on her face, "And then she was going to come home and make love to me the way you did it to her..."

She tucked her face into me, "Oh god! That's so embarrassing to admit!" she exclaimed as she giggled like a schoolgirl...

I let her wind down and felt as she grew more morose. And then she started moving again, rubbing her face against my chest. Something about it seemed so... fragile?

The very thought of what she was describing excited me...

Not just the thought of having sex with Rachel. That was exciting...

What was turning me on the most was the thought of Rachel then doing those same things to Laurel... It would be like... like I got to make love to her...

I swallowed hard.

She curled in tighter to me, "Your heart is beating faster."

I nodded, feeling desire start to sweep me away. "Yeah."

"Does that excite you?" Her hand was on my leg again, "The thought of being with Rachel?"

I felt my breath quicken, my heart beat faster...

I wanted so much to tell her that the thought that was exciting me wasn't the thought of being with Rachel, it was the thought of being with her, even if it was by proxy...

Her voice was so perfect, "It does. You like that don't you?"

I closed my eyes and calmed my breathing... I forced my heartbeat to slow.

She put her hand on my chest... "You're so special..." I heard her whisper.

At that moment, I desperately wanted to tell her... I wanted to make love to her...

"You should be with Rachel. I want you to do it. It would make her happy, and it would make you happy too. I love you both, and I want you to be happy." Her voice was filled with so much emotion. Hope, fear, love, and happiness all fighting for the forefront of the front of her voice.

I wrapped my arm tighter around her, "I love you too..." I whispered to her.

Somewhere. Somewhere deep in my chest, I felt something break. I could have sworn I heard a physical snap, like a heavy branch being broken. There was a rush of emotion from deep within me and I realized, right there at that moment, that I loved her. Not as a friend loves a friend, but as a man loves a woman. As a lover loves a lover. I felt heat rush up my face, focusing in my eyes. I wanted to cry. To just curl up and sob like a child. To kick her away, to scream at her... because she made me love her.

And I could never have her...

Never in a million years would she be mine.

Be her friend. That's what she needs you to be... a calming voice whispered in my mind.

I tried to force order to my thoughts. Feeling that she needed me to speak, I cast desperately about my mind for something, anything to talk about...

And a thought occurred to me, a hope, desperate and stupid, "And you? What's your number?"

She giggled, curling up like a little girl against me for a split second before she looked up at me, her dark eyes piercing into my soul. The smile faded from her lips like she could see in my eyes what I knew in my soul...

My eyes drifted to her lips, watched as her pink tongue slipped out, licking them. I felt myself lick my own lips, felt my mouth start to open as I started to lean in. I only caught myself at the last possible second. I almost leaned in and kissed her.

Stop! You fucking idiot! Stop! She already said no! She doesn't want you! Knock it off, stop thinking with your dick and get it through your thick fucking skull before you lose her! My brain screamed at me.

Her head twisted to the side a bit, her mouth opening just a bit before she stopped and swallowed.

"I'm like twenty." She curled up a bit again, that beautiful laugh spilling out of her, "Maybe a twenty-five"

Her head once again pressed into me as she rubbed her face against my shoulder. With her far hand, the one I wasn't holding, she reached out, touching my leg.

She took a deep breath in.

Did she just smell me? I thought.

"A thirty at the most." Her voice was quiet like she was lost and trying to find her way out.

I kissed the top of her head without thinking, "That high? I was thinking you were going to say like a five or a ten."

She laughed again, this time a musical laugh of pure joy like she was discovering something new. Finally, her head still tucked in against my shoulder, she said, "I used to think that too..." She looked up at me, her eyes again burning into me. She nibbled at her bottom lip, "But some stuff lately has made me think a little harder about that..." She paused, "I mean, for example, I think you're cute..."

Kiss her! Something in my brain screamed. The scary thing was, this voice was the one that always sounded like the voice of reason...

I swallowed hard, finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden. My chest hurt, my stomach turned in knots.

Forcing myself to push her back a bit I tried to explain my odd behavior, to buy myself some time to think...

"I have to use the bathroom, sorry..."

She smiled at me as she leaned back, a weird look on her face, "Okay. Have at it."

I walked like a robot through the kitchen. As I walked she yelled out to me, "Hey, can I use your laptop? I need to check on something really quick!"

I stopped at the bathroom door, yelling back to her, "Sure. The password is cl4p-tp, the t is capital."

"Claptrap!" she screamed. "Onward seeing eye minion!" she followed up in a pretty damn good Claptrap impression.

Rolling my eyes at her I closed the door to the bathroom. As the door closed I felt the tickle of something in the back of my mind. Some detail that I knew was important but that I knew I was overlooking. Wracking my brain, I tried to figure out what it was.

I lifted the seat and started peeing.

It was still there. Still tugging at me. It hit me as I finished up...

You left the fucking financial analysis open on your computer you fucking idiot! My brain screamed at me...

I rushed out of the bathroom, nearly sprinting through the kitchen. Taking the corner into the living room so fast I hit the threshold to the door, holding my hands out, talking too fast, "Laurel! I can explain!"

She looked up from my laptop at me, a smile on her face, "This is actually pretty close."

"I'm sorry. I know this looks really bad! I just got in the zone, and I..."

Fuck! I tried to think and all I could come up with was, Fuck, fuck fuck! She's going to think that...

God, what was she going to think?

That I was trying to rob her?

That I was spying on her?

All the possibilities of the unsavory things that she could be assuming about me were swimming through my head and I was starting to panic. "I just, I got curious after Isha talked to me, and so I started looking things up, and I..." Shaking my head I blundered on, "I just started organizing things and I didn't even think about how it would look if someone saw it..."

She smiled at me, "How did you figure out how many subscribers I had? That's not public."

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, "I hacked into your account?"

Her face went still as her eyes pinned me down, "How did you do that?"

"It's complicated... but uh..." I pointed to the laptop, "there's a security vulnerability in the website design. I kind of tricked it into thinking I had a cookie in my browser that showed a successful login..."

Her eyes got wide, "You know how to do that?"

I nodded dumbly... "Yes."

Her face lit up, "That's awesome!"

Walking over, I carefully sat down next to her. Narrowing my eyes, I started staring at her carefully.

She leaned away from me, "What are you doing, weirdo?"

"They made you look so lifelike..."

"Who did?"

I shook my head, "Whatever insane robot factory made you. I mean they obviously dropped the ball in programming your emotion processor, but... perfection otherwise..."

She tilted her head, a half smile on her face, "Ha, ha. My sides are splitting."

I grabbed her, pulling her in for an enormous, bone-crushing hug. "Thank you for not being mad at me," I whispered as I slowly crushed the life out of her.

She resisted weakly, "Ow! You're crushing this unit's vital organs!" she screamed, again, in a very good Claptrap impression.

I let her free, holding her at arm's length, one of my hands on each of her shoulders. "Now, I want you to understand," I told her, looking deep into her eyes, "I'm doing this for your own good."

And then I shook the crap out of her.

The instant I stopped shaking her she slapped at me, "Hey! What the monkey loving son of a biscuit are you doing?"

Pointing to the laptop I scolded her, "If you ever see something like this, break the laptop over the guy's head and run because it means best case scenario whoever is doing it is most likely going to rob you. Worst case, he's going to rob you, and then kill you, and then maybe skin you and wear your suit around the house while he tucks his wiener back or something. I don't know a lot about these people, but you need to be careful!"

Her hand came up, her fingers resting on my cheek, "I trust you."

Sighing, I told her, "And I'm telling you, I love you for that, but I don't want anyone to ever hurt you..."

Nodding, she pointed at the screen. "Help me understand this?"

I took the laptop from her, putting my feet up on the table and setting it in my lap. "This is a risk model. It's most likely not even a very good risk model. I was just screwing around. Don't worry about it."

"It's better than anything I could do. I could use the help."

Pointing to the spot that showed how much money I was projecting she made, I said, "I think you're doing okay without my help. Shit, based on just Moxy and hard work, you're killing me."

"Could I be doing better?"

I looked at the computer, thinking. This was something I had to be really careful about...

On the one hand, there was an opportunity, and she was asking for help.

On the other hand, saying something was kind of knocking her business...

Finally, deciding, I nodded, "Yes."

She folded her hands in her lap and sat up very straight. "Then act like you work for me, Mister Morgan, what are your suggestions for LilLinLin in Q3?"

I bumped her, "You don't need to hear this from me, Rachel could help you. In fact, I'm surprised that she hasn't already."

She smiled, "Rachel is awesome, but she's a saleswoman, not a businesswoman. She could talk a fucking Eskimo into buying a fridge, but she's not good at this kind of stuff. She's a PR person. She can spin the ever-loving crap out of something and make a disaster seem like a stubbed toe." She pointed to the screen, "She can't do this. You can. So, help me, please."

I smiled at her, grateful to feel valued. "I'll tell you what, we'll go over all of this, but I need a much better understanding of the whole picture if I'm going to do anything other than blunder all over this. I'll help, but I need you to give me more information so I'm not just guessing..."

She nodded, all serious and businesslike. "So, what changes would you make?"

I lifted an eyebrow at her, unsure of whether or not I should say something...

"Well... uh..." I began, stammering, "right now, all of your energy is tucked into active income streams."

She tilted her head, "Active income streams?"

I nodded, feeling my brain finally start to engage in something I knew about, something that I could wrap my brain around...

"Yeah. Active income streams. You see, right now, you have to dance for your money. What would happen tomorrow if you quit streaming?"

She raised her eyebrows, "My channel would go down like a two dollar whore at a half off sale!"

I smiled at her, "See. That's an active income stream. One where you have to be actively working at all times to make money from it. For my money, I would say that you need to blend your active segment with a more passive one. Maybe something like cutting your videos up and putting them up on YouTube. Then you'd get the active revenue from the Twitch stuff, and you'd get passive income from people visiting your channel later on YouTube. You'd get ad dollars from the YouTube stuff you put out, plus you'd drive new people to your channel when they stumbled onto your YouTube stuff."

Her face screwed up, "So I would be like, making commercials for myself?"

I nodded, thankful that what I was describing she was understanding, "Yeah, kind of like that, but better. See YouTube has ad dollars, so not only would you be making commercials for yourself to drive additional revenue to your Twitch channel, you'd get a percentage, a very shitty percentage mind you, of the ad dollars."

She frowned, tilting her head, "Only one problem with that..."

I nodded, realizing with something akin to panic that I must have missed an important piece...

She smiled, "I can't edit video worth a crap!"

I turned from her, waving my hand dismissively, "Oh, that's a cinch. I can help you with that, at least until you find someone to do it for you. Work out some sort of percentage off of your YouTube videos with them for it."

She shrugged, "Like a fifty-fifty split?"

I nodded, "Yeah, I mean, that might be being a little too generous, but start with something like that."

She grabbed my hand, shaking it, "Okay. Deal. Fifty-fifty split!"

I stopped dead in my tracks, "Uh... what?"

She smiled at me, still holding my hand, "You make my videos for me and post them. You and I split the money, fifty-fifty!"

"I... uh..." I looked down at her hand, still holding mine, "Ummm... are you sure you want to do that?"

She nodded again, "You can do the video, right?"

I nodded, "Yeah..."

She shook my hand again, this time more firmly, "Than I'd be a fool not to hire you, especially if you are working straight on commission."

I nodded, feeling a bit guilty like maybe I was taking advantage of her generosity...

Her eyes though... so filled with hope that there was no way that I could say no...

I nodded again, like a fool, "Yeah. Okay. Fifty-fifty split."

She smiled, her hand still in mine as she shook it yet again to seal the deal...