Hooked

He paused once again. But Bella could tell he wanted to say more, so she wordlessly motioned for him to proceed.

"And, uh...well, I haven't spoken to my family in years...I can't remember the last time I had a meaningful date, or anything close to it, really. In fact, this is probably the most...intimate conversation I've had with a woman, or...anyone, really, in a long time. And you'd have to be the most...lifelike girl I've met in...in...I don't even know how long."

"Oh, I'm sure that's not true."

"Ohhh, I know better, and I'm sure it is."

"Wow," she repeated. "I hope you're at least looking after yourself, uh...y'know, sexually."

"Well, if you can call it that," Zack shrugged. "But at this point, again, only so I don't go freaking insane. If I wasn't so brain-dead, that would be my only source of comfort or pleasure."

"Geez, I'm sorry. You poor guy," Bella sympathized.

"Yeah...so, basically, life is...well, mindblowingly dull as hell, put it frankly, and..." He took a deep drink. "That'd be my personal prison from which I'm in such desire of said freedom."

"Well, honey, at the risk of sounding a little cold, why don't you just quit?" she asked. "I know I have no right to make your decisions for you, but, that's not healthy! I mean, I may not have the details of your entire life laid out in front of me, but from the way it sounds, you're just punishing yourself. And that hurts my heart."

"Don't think I haven't considered it," he swigged again. "Sometimes I think I'm not gonna make it through another day of it."

"Then why put yourself through it?" Bella asked, becoming more adamant. "Why torture yourself like that? You deserve to have some fun! It definitely sounds like you've earned it."

A little silence elapsed as they downed a few more ounces. "Maybe you're right," Zachary said finally.

"There you go."

"I guess I never saw it as a real option before," he mused. "But I...I could just quit, couldn't I?" He took another drink. "But I-I would have to give them at least two weeks' notice, that's the crummy part."

"Would you?" she asked. "Just to play devil's advocate, humor me. I'm not saying I recommend it, but hypothetically, worst case scenario, what's the most they could do to you if you didn't give any notice?"

"Well..." Gulp. "They could see to it that I never got another job in this city again."

"Okay," she replied. "Well, leaving aside for a moment the possibility of just relocating, are you in any financial trouble?"

"No, not really, as a matter of fact, just the opposite. I'm pretty comfortable, actually."

"Oh, good, all right, good," she commented. "And again, worst case scenario, if you did have to get a job somewhere else, would it be that difficult?"

Another pause as he considered the situation. "In theory...probably not," he said. "I mean, I might have to settle for making a little less money, but—"

Bella jumped in. "But that's a tiny price to pay when you think about what you could have!" she said. She put down the glass and took his hands. "You could work forty hours a week and sleep eight hours a night like a regular person! You could go out and actually do stuff! You could make new friends, and you wouldn't have to sit in a hotel room at...at...wh-whatever time it is right now, worried about making a plane to Oslo in three hours!"

Enough of the wine had been consumed that both their minds had started to become a bit flighty. But Zachary could still tell that what Bella was saying was making a lot of sense. Maybe it was a good thing he'd gotten the wine. Maybe it was just the thing he'd needed to loosen up a little and bring up his nerve to just...to just...

...It did still seem like a risky and rash move, he told her.

She nodded, letting go of his hands. "I know...I know," she agreed. "I guess I'm just getting a little excited. But the truth is...well..."

It was her turn to hesitate and his to urge her to go on.

"You know what I do to make my 'living,'" she said, finger-quoting, "But...you know what I wanted to do when I was little?"

He shook his head.

She took another drink. "...I wanted to be a...a n-..."

Suddenly she couldn't finish the sentence. She downed some more. "Promise me you won't laugh."

"All right, I promise," he said.

"'Kay." She closed her eyes, took a breath and said, "...I wanted to be a nanny."

Eyes still shut, she gave a small wince. Zack's facial muscles didn't move. "Why would I laugh at that?" he asked.

She peeked at him through her lashes. "You don't think that's...kinda silly? Given what I'm...y'know...doing now?"

He shrugged. "I dunno...kinda sounded to me like you didn't exactly go into your, uh...line of work, of your own volition, and...besides, why should one thing have to have anything to do with the other?"

Bella's heart warmed up. She smiled tenderly at him. "That might be the sweetest thing anybody's ever said to me," she told him. Her voice even came close to cracking in the midst of the sentiment.

Zack finished his swallow, raising his eyebrows. "Haven't been treated like a princess your whole life?"

"Well, unless being treated like a princess means being orphaned at age nine, having your so-called best friend steal the love of your life at age eighteen, and being spat on and smacked in the face when you don't make enough money at age twenty-seven...then no, I'm not exactly royalty," she confessed.

Zack looked at her worriedly. "They don't actually...do that, do they?"

She chuckled bitterly. "Hon, why do you think I stay in hotels all the time? It makes it harder to track me down and abuse me."

He suddenly realized that there was more going on here than met the eye. "My God, I..." He stammered, shaking his head. "I'm so sorry, I...really had no idea...you poor girl."

Bella shook her own head. "Oh, you're fine. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dumped all that out on you. You didn't need to hear that." She tossed down the entirety of the wine left in her glass and started pouring herself some more.

He watched her refilling the glass, silently feeling guilt build up on him and eat away at him from inside for the things he had thought about her earlier that evening. But almost as if reading his mind, Bella quickly added, "Oh, but don't worry, Zack, really. Like I said, I'm used to it."

Zack was about to ask how exactly the hell one gets used to such a routine, but Bella continued again. "I just wish I could have been a nanny instead. I actually haven't told too many people this before, but...I've always had this desire and instinct inside of me, almost even a compulsion, to just...take care of people. And be a sort of...mother figure. I've always looked after everyone's well-being, ever since I was a little girl. I can't help it; sometimes I'm hardly even aware I'm doing it." She paused to sigh and take a sip. "All I've wanted to be's a nanny. Or a nurse, either one."

"Well..." said Zachary, "I hope I'm not stepping out of line here, but...what's stopping you? You're still a very young lady, with a lot of life ahead of you...well, unless perhaps you keep smoking those cigarettes."

"Oh," she scoffed. "Don't even worry about those, they're harmless. Nicotine-free, tobacco-free," she assured him. "They might as well be candy cigarettes. We're supposed to smoke them 'cause it makes us look...'hot' or something. Personally, I think it makes us look stupid."

Zack chuckled. "Well...let the record show, you said it."

"But that's why it makes me feel good when a guy wants to share himself with me emotionally, not just in the hay," Bella said. "It's okay enough to be able to do what I do. But, on the rare occasion when I get to turn somebody's bad day around, and put a real smile on their face, that's what really makes my day."

When she finished her speech, she again downed what was left in her glass. "Oh, gosh!" she said. "That's some good stuff you brought! You really know your wine."

Zack just gazed at her for a few minutes. Something about the way she tilted her head to swill the wine back and then leaned forward again to return the glass to the table reached inside him and gave a little squeeze. Already mind-numbingly long as it had been since he'd had anything resembling a date withany sort of woman—comely or not, intriguing or not, alive or not—sitting here with this younger girl, sharing wine and conversation with her, he found something happening to him. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the soft gentle lighting of the table lamp above them, maybe it was his already compromised faculties complemented by the very late-night, early-twilight hour. Maybe it was all of it. But whatever it was, Zachary Harris was finding himself drawn to this young lady, a person whom he wouldn't go near a scant six hours ago. A growing feeling of affection was materializing within him. He was starting to remember how really nice it could be to just spend a little time with a really nice girl.

He didn't anticipate that Bella was feeling the same way, but had he, he wouldn't have been far off. Actually, what Bella was wishing most right now was that she had a flower to give him. The very first time Bella found out a boy liked her (though they were at the time a little too young to think of each other as more than friends), he'd told her so by picking her a flower. It was the prettiest flower she'd ever seen or would ever see in her life. It was just one daisy in a yard full of them, but to Bella, it was the most special thing in the world. She held it to her torso and let it literally touch her heart. Ever since, the gesture had maintained a magnificent significance in her, and remained to day her favorite, most heartfelt way to express her devotion and fondness to one she liked.

Zack wasn't the only one becoming fuzzy taking in the vision sitting across the table. In the faint artificial light, his eyes looked somewhere between green and hazel to her. He had a chiseled face and a strong jawline, adorned currently with a five o'clock shadow on Daylight Savings Time. His hair was thick, dark, straight and trim. His hands were pretty strong, she could tell...and sizable...which made her heart undeniably speed up just half a beat. Her eyes continued scanning him, going south, examining the give with which his suit hung casually on him. At last, her eyes nestled in between his thighs and she remembered the peep she'd copped at his nakedness when he jumped under her bed covers. Tingle, tingle.

She hadn't any need to worry had she known where Zachary's eyes had settled in, at least for the moment.

The room had fallen silent for a few minutes as they began to slowly, very slowly mentally undress one another, each wondering and hoping the other was feeling at least somewhat the same. Less than a third of only one of the bottles was left, and indeed the wine had done its duty.

Zack abruptly blinked and gave his head a quick shake. "Whew!...Is it getting a little warm in here?" he asked, reaching to unbutton the top button on his dress shirt.

"Uh, yeah," chuckled Bella, giving her forehead a wipe with one hand and airing out her nightgown with the other.

He motioned to the remainder of the wine. "Shall we just kill off the bottle?"

"Sounds good to me..." They distributed what was left equally in both glasses. "It tastes even better now than it did when you opened it," she added, "Although, tell you the truth, I'm starting to get a little more...hungry, than thirsty, now."

For one instant Zachary looked back at her to say, "Oh yeah? Well, maybe I could take you out for a little breakf—..."

She laid her hand on his. He looked back up from the glasses to see her gazing into his eyes with a smoky, sultry expression on her face. It didn't take long for him to grasp the picture after that.

"Oh..." he nodded in revelation.

Bella nodded back at him in response, her facial muscles curling up into an inviting half-smile. Both could tell their minds were each heading in the same direction. Feeling that the situation was adequately green-lit, Bella took Zack's hand, rose from her chair and urged him up from his. Holding on to him, she led him to the same bed under which he'd taken quick shelter in his nude state just a couple of hours before.

They sat on the bed together. Zack was unsure exactly of how he was to begin things, having done nothing like this in eons, but he needn't have worried. Bella could handle it. She gingerly unbuttoned the second-to-top button on his shirt. He unexpectedly fondled her breast, which gave her a little start.

"Ooh!" She jumped. Looking back up at him with a smile, she whispered, "Not just yet, honey. Soon, but not just yet. You'll know when."

"Sorry," he replied. "Haven't made love to anybody for...probably a decade or two."

"Good God," she whispered back incredulously, shaking her head as she pacingly worked her way down his shirt. "Well, I suppose that lowers the bar for me, so to speak, but if I waited a decade, I'd be drooling on myself. I'd lose my ever-loving mind."

"Believe me, it's felt like my mind's turned up in the lost-and-found dozens of times."

She reached the bottom of his shirt, opened it and caressed his bare chest. He closed his eyes. "Mm, that's pretty nice," he commented.

She leaned up to his face until their lips were less than two inches apart. "It's gonna get much nicer," she assured him. She proceeded to lay a warm, establishing kiss upon him, and they both felt their hearts ooze and radiate heat throughout their bodies. When they broke from it, they both opened their eyes to see their reflections in each other's. Zachary leaned towards her to kiss again, but she placed a finger to his lips. "Not just yet," she repeated cordially.

Zack was having a little trouble fully understanding. "Uh...why exactly not just yet again?" he wished to know.

She took his hands again, caressing the veins on the tops of them with her thumbs. "Just trust me, my angel," she told him. "Just go with me on it. I'm the expert—not to sound egoistic, but if you want this to be really nice, as nice as it can be, then just sit back and let me orchestrate it."

He agreed to trust her. His shirt was removed and dropped to the floor. She laid down, then gently pulled him higher up on the mattress with her. She blinked generous doses of seduction into him with her eyelids. One arm around his back, her other hand stroked him from the chin up the cheek to his temple, and through his hair, down to his shoulder, to continue exploring him. She nuzzled the other side of his face with her nose and her cheek. "Now, another kiss," she mouthed in his ear.

This time as they locked lips and the kiss ran its course, they felt each other's bodies react, which in turn mirrored its own effect. She arched her leg over his, slipped her bare foot under his trouser ankle and massaged his leg with her toes and her sole. They kept this kiss going, which took them off the metaphorical ground. Bella took Zack's hand and put it to task, stroking her own ear and hair with it a few times, after which Zack got the idea and continued on his own.

Bella's wandering hand floated down his body until her fingertips jumped the hem of his pants and touched his waist, then his outer thigh, and Zack's heart jumped, thinking she was going to start groping him right at that moment, but she didn't just immediately. She detached her lips from his and gasped out the words, "You can take them off now."

Zachary had been patiently waiting for the okay on that. He eagerly lifted himself up from the mattress, undid the trousers, started to slide them down, then looked back to her for a second.

"Briefs too?"

"Let's just stick with the pants for right now," she advised. "Don't worry, we'll get to them."

He did as Bella said. At the same time, she got up on her knees and pulled her nightgown off, refreshingly reducing the both of them to only their underwear. Zack's briefs hugged him around the waist a little tighter and tighter each second as he watched her take the nightgown off. He delighted in the sight of her removal of the nightgown, as she pulled it over her head and into something of a stretching pose for a moment, the taut flesh of her torso. She lowered herself back down on top of him, as they pushed into one initial, mutual dry hump together. She brought herself all the way down, pushing his erection up against her, triggering another twinge of arousal inside her, and a few small droplets of moisture dampened her panties.

They gasped through the next kiss, conforming the able parts of themselves to one another. Bella's breasts, still suspended in her bra, rested comfortably on Zack's chest, raising her body up an inch, and down an inch with each heavy breath. Her hair spilled around him on all sides, burying his face under her own. He thought he could detect a faint touch of perfume she'd ostensibly been wearing earlier that evening along with her makeup and street outfit. Zachary hadn't any scent to offer other than his own natural one, but that was all too okay with Bella. She greatly appreciated a gentleman's natural pheromones.

Both bodies grew tighter, warmer, steamier, sweatier, more sensitized. Once an only approximable thirty minutes had passed, Bella silently signaled to Zack it was time to finally set their bodies entirely free. Sixty seconds later, the undergarments having joined the remainder of their outfits on the floor, their sweet carnal activity resumed.

Their hands roved over every spare inch; no centimeter of non-genital flesh was passed by ungraced, although Zack was losing his uphill battle to refrain from touching her naked breasts until she gave permission. But he was also wondering how much she would really mind if he did take matters, quite literally, into his own hands. He decided to engage in subterfuge. He slid his palm up her belly and pretended not to know he was about to fondle her again, now braless.

He held his breath, and his hand made contact. To his surprise and delight, the touch made her shiver with excitement, vocalizing a kiss-muffled sigh of enchantment, and she immediately grabbed his other hand and clamped it over her other breast as well, encouraging him to grope them with loving squeezes. He gladly obeyed. Their tongues danced in merriment as the intensity heightened and brightened.

Once she had Zachary's hands right where she wanted them, Bella slipped her own right hand around Zack's back, slipped down low enough and affectionately squeezed his ass. His legs lay stretched out, locked, unbendable, toes flexed to their allowed extent. Bella had both of her slender gams wrapped tight around Zack's right, pumping on it until his circulation almost cut off.

Finally, when she decided the moment was right, Bella released his leg and rolled over on the mattress to his side. She rose to her knees. He wasn't sure whether to follow or not, until Bella placed a gentle palm on his chest. "Stay put, angel," she grinned down at him dominantly.

As Zachary remained lying still on his back, Bella settled to her side, pointing the opposite direction from him, putting them very close to a sixty-nine position. She picked up his hand and kissed each of its five digits. With her free hand, she proceeded to part her labia. The next instruction Bella gave Zack was, "And now...it's time to stroke the kitty."

She guided his hand between the lightly manicured lips of her hungry, patiently waiting pussy. She cozily granted him clearance to begin caressing her yearning womanhood, and finally set his fledgling hand free to its mission. Eventually on his own, he continued the pattern she had taught him.