A Love Like Ours

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

It was only a couple of hours later, when packed and freshly showered, that I stood staring out at the incredible view. I was all dressed and ready to make my way back to the city.

"Stay," Justin murmured softly, nuzzling at my shoulders. He had spent the better part of his few hours awake catching up with long-lost relatives. Not that they had been actually lost or anything.

"Laundry," I murmured back gently if a little sarcastically. His sigh swept across my naked shoulders. Clad in a bustier blouse that clung over my breasts and floated freely over my ample hips in skin-toned pastels, I gave all the appearance of being partially naked. I shifted impatiently, my skinny blue jeans rustling thickly with my movements before I turned to draw Justin's lips to my own. We kissed as always in an open-mouthed onslaught.

Being freshly engaged had a strange effect on me. It made me want to stamp my mark of ownership all over him. The possessive light in his eyes said he felt the same. All the more reason to spend this night apart. We had been inseparable ever since we came together. That couldn't be healthy.

Wrenching free, I turned away to pick up my bag and head for the door. Breathing hard, my voice was husky but determined. "Goodbye."

I was hitching a ride with a party of Justin's cousins. They would drop me back at my place, where laundry and a lonely dinner in front of the TV awaited.

I had to leave. I had work the next day. Work I could no longer avoid unless I wanted work to start avoiding me. So I left and then later spent that night feeling terribly bereft for my efforts.

The big-O Orlando, was the first to corner me at the office the very next day.

"Aria!"

I swiftly muffled an outright groan.

"Orlando, you're early," I murmured with a wide smile. I had gotten up and swept into work early today for the precise reason of avoiding any encounters like this.

"Maybe I didn't leave at all," he murmured with a sly laugh.

I gaped at him.

It was Monday; he couldn't have spent the weekend here. But he did look rumpled up, and there were rumours that he liked to bring his paid companions here for some of his more absurd roleplaying fetishes.

I watched as his gaze dropped to take in my heavy top. Even covered up in a jacket as I was, Orlando could never resist an opportunity to leer.

I shook my head at him. I figured he was resolute in remaining unlikable because the world has learnt to just deal with it. There was no longer a need for effort in liking someone. Worse, there was no longer a need to be liked at all. In fact, one was better off being unlikable. No one believed the likable anymore. Too many pretentiousness having given it a bad name and all. They were considered overdone, old style, and even deceitful.

Orlando was to all intents and purposes extremely not likable at all. He was sadly honest in that way. Therefore, I had to offer him some measure of respect for being honest to his true nature.

Still, there was no reason to encourage one of the more time sensitive monologues that he seemed bent on delivering. But as luck would have it, he had already begun.

"You have been sadly remiss in turning up to work in the last week. ..."

I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, unconsciously jiggling my top and retaining his keen interest to continue with his monologue.

"So you see, tardiness is unacceptable, but I am ever so willing to look the other way if you offer the right incentives."

"Huh?"