Echoes of the Past

Chapter 5

The next few weeks passed awkwardly for Eric. Annie kept calling him to see if he wanted to go out. Finally he agreed, if only to keep David from getting any more suspicious of his behavior. They still hung out but the tension was strong between them and Eric didn’t know how to hide it. His night with Annie went fine … up until the end when she draped herself all over him in the front seat of his car as they sat in her parents’ driveway. Good thing the steering wheel kept her from mounting him completely. She was as hot and beautiful as ever, but he couldn’t get the image of David writhing under him out of his head. He didn’t know what the hell to do about it either.

And fuck NO he wasn’t going back to that psycho, tarot card-reading bitch! She’d caused him enough trouble already as it was. But now it was three weeks after the first dream … and yes, there’d been plenty follow ups to that dream, damn that psychic psycho’s hide … and he was set to go out with Annie again tonight. And this time he had a feeling that he’d have to put out or she’d demand to know what the hell was up. The phone rang and he absently grabbed it as he muted the TV.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, sweetie!” Annie’s saccharin-coated voice sang into his ear, making his stomach lurch precariously.

“Hay, babe,” he said flatly.

“I’m so looking forward to tonight, you know,” she giggled. “I hope this time you don’t get a migraine like last time. That really sucked.”

“I know it did,” he cooed insincerely as he watched the scores flash on the bottom of the TV screen on ESPN. “Don’t worry, though. They’re very rare.”

“I hope so!”

So that’s why she called, he thought. To make sure she’s set to get some later. Maybe if I think of David like I do at night (cue dream), I’ll be able to stomach it. He looked down and sighed inwardly as his cock hardened with even the slightest hint of the image. Well, at least I know I’ll be able to get it up now.

“I was wondering,” her voice broke his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think your friend David would want to come out, too?”

The question seemed innocent enough but his hackles rose immediately. Why did she want to know if David would come?

“Um, I don’t know,” he answered slowly, deliberately evading her query. “I’d have to ask him, but it’s really late to invite him out with us, don’t you think?”

“He didn’t strike me as someone who makes a lot of social plans,” she replied.

“Hey! He does fine!”

“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” she cooed. “Just that he seemed like the shy, quiet type is all. The kind that needs a push to get out there and live, you know?”

He did know, and he’d been the idiot to do the pushing in the past. Still, she had no right making assumptions about his best friend. She only met him once, and David looked like he didn’t want to see either her or Charlene – especially Charlene – ever again. Charlene … ew! Eric bristled involuntarily. That woman gave him the willies in a really bad kind of way. Ugh! What was Annie doing hanging around with such a sour-looking, aggressive woman?

“Well, he likes books a lot,” he offered mildly, trying to sidle her away from the idea of asking David to join them. “Besides, do we really want a third wheel along tonight?” he dropped his voice an octave or two and purred sexily into the receiver. “I thought tonight was going to be just for us, you know … because we haven’t been able to see each other as often as we’d like.”

Her small gasp told him she was pleasantly surprised with his admission. Predictable. He smiled shrewdly and waited for her to respond.

“Oh, I agree!” she squealed. “But Charlene asked if I could set up another meeting for them. She really liked him and wanted to spend some more time with him!”

Charlene? NO! Oh, God, no! Eric had to think quick. He’d promised David he wouldn’t set him up with any more of his date’s friends. And Charlene had topped his list of taboos.

“Um, well David’s not free tonight.”

There was a pause as Annie shifted the phone. “Hmm. I thought you said you didn’t know what he was doing tonight,” she said thoughtfully.

“I just remembered,” he offered in a panic. “He said he was going to see his folks. Some cousins came into town and they’re all having dinner there.”

“Oh.” There was another weird pause and a whispered oath under Annie’s breath before she went on. “Okay then. Next time, I guess.” She tried to sound cheerful again, but something fishy seemed to be going on there. Eric couldn’t seem to figure it out though so he let it slide. “Where are we going tonight, anyway?”

Though he really didn’t feel like going through with it, he suddenly felt like he had to for David’s sake. There was something up with this Charlene chick and Annie was the only link he had to work with.

“How about we stay in instead?” he heard himself ask her in that same sexy tone. I really, really don’t want to do this! “Rent a movie,” he went on, automatically, “get some takeout?”

“That sounds nice,” she sighed. “What time should I be over?”

“How about we say, seven?”

“Seven’s good.”

Not for me it isn’t!

“What kind of food should I bring in?”

“How about I bring it over with me?” she suggested. “There’s this great Italian place on the way over.”

“Mmm,” he couldn’t explain the bad feeling he had about that idea. “I’m not feeling that tonight. What did you want to get from there?”

“I was just going to get myself a grilled chicken salad.”

“I can get that at the chicken place near me, how’s that?”

“Whatever,” she purred. “So long as you’re the dessert!”

“Aren’t I always?”

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Six hours later Eric found himself glaring at the ceiling in his darkened bedroom while Annie slept peacefully wrapped around him. It had taken all of his willpower not to toss her out on her pretty round rump, not to mention a running mental image of David breathless and moaning for him to help keep his shaft hard for her. She’d been like an insatiable demon tonight. What do they call those? A succubus. Yeah, that’s it. Annie’d had the stamina of a succubus tonight. He’d had to endure position after position while she pressed him on and on, harder and harder, while she had orgasm after orgasm. Damn the woman could cum! He’d loved that about her when they first got together, but now it made him sick to his stomach.

Luckily for him the condom he’d used was extra-strength. He came once she signaled she’d finally had enough and he’d had to squeeze his eyes closed and think of David to do it. When he came back from the bathroom after cleaning himself off and discarding the rubber, he was both relieved and annoyed to find her fast asleep. Relieved that his services were done for the night, and annoyed that she was staying over. He’d thought that he could just sneak back into bed and huddle on the other side of it, but she gravitated right to him unconsciously. Damn it! And he dared not close his own eyes for fear that he’d dream of David and wake up screaming his name, or … worse … wake up screwing her brains out without a condom. That was one risk he wasn’t even contemplating taking – no matter how hot she was.

He held her loosely beside him as she snored softly, and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now. Charlene was obviously after David now, for some reason. And Annie seemed to be connected to it somehow. What connection though? He’d met Annie well before Charlene had been introduced to David. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that Charlene was the bad guy here, so to speak. Her interest in David was too … well, eerie-feeling, for lack of a better term. It was like she branded him as hers once she laid eyes on him. And that made even less sense to Eric. David, though beautiful to him, had never been the object of any girl’s lust before, as far as Eric knew. Sure, the guy’d had sex, when Eric had set him up. But David never went looking for it, and the girls he’d slept with hadn’t seemed like they cared one way or the other if they’d get laid that night.

Charlene was different. She wanted the redhead with an intensity that shocked and enraged Eric. Well, she wasn’t going to get him, he vowed.