Absolute Beginners (Absolute #1) (19 page)

She’s toying with me. And I don’t like it
.

Lily came back and I quickly put my phone away.

“Everything all right?” she asked politely, pointing to my coat pocket.

“Yes, everything is fine,” I lied, offering her a smile.

I would focus on Julia later. I couldn’t think about her anymore right now or I would get angry once more. Angry
and
aroused.

Lily and I picked up our conversation again easily. We shared a lot of the same interests; she also loved both classical music and opera, reading the classics, and so on.

“You know, you’re nothing like I imagined you would be,” she said when we were eating our dessert.

“Oh, how so?” I inquired, taking a sip of my coffee.

“Well, first of all, you look too young to be a tenured professor,” she said, motioning toward me with a well-manicured hand.

“I suppose I
am
somewhat younger than my colleagues,” I admitted. “I’m thirty-three.”

She nodded, scrutinizing me with her gaze. “You just don’t look like the typical academic type,” she declared. “Your hair, your clothes.”

Automatically, I ran my hand through my unruly hair and she smiled. I looked down. I was wearing a light gray suit and a white shirt, but I had decided not to wear a tie because I remembered that Matt once told me that I looked too closed up—“verging on constipated”—when I did.

“Which type do I look like?” I asked curiously.

“An actor, maybe,” she said. “Some sort of entertainer, definitely.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, feeling a little stunned by how she perceived me.

“You’re very confident and you have a certain air about you. You’re sure of yourself, and that’s very attractive in a man. You’re obviously used to talking to women and you’re not intimidated by a blind date.”

I think you might have me mistaken for my brother. I’m Stephen, the older, stuffy one, remember?

I couldn’t believe her description of me. I was confident and sure of myself? Since when?

Lily went back to eating her tiramisu while I sat across from her with what I was sure must have been a puzzled expression on my face. I quickly went over the evening in my head and it hit me like a ton of bricks: after I’d said hello to Lily, I hadn’t been nervous at all. There’d been no stuttering or scrambling around for words. I hadn’t been unsure of what to say, and the conversation had flowed easily.

I’m not the least bit intimidated by Lily
.

I looked at her and wondered why she was so different from the other women I had dated. There was nothing about her that stood out, and I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t feel at all apprehensive talking to her. She looked up and smiled.

“So, Stephen, would you like to do this again sometime?”

No
.

The thought came out of nowhere, but it was true. I didn’t care if anything ever happened between us. Lily was perfectly nice; she had a fine personality that complemented mine, and she hadn’t said or done anything that rubbed me the wrong way, so to speak. I just wasn’t interested in her at all. There wasn’t even a hint of attraction. She was pretty and well-dressed, but I had no desire to touch her. I remembered how nervous I had felt before the date started, but that had evaporated the second I saw her at the bar. I didn’t want her at all.

I looked at the woman across from me. She was exactly what my mother had predicted: perfect. She was perfect for me, and I didn’t care.

Lily had the right age, the right job, the right look. We had the same interests and goals in life. We were compatible. I should have been ecstatic about meeting a woman like her. And yet, I couldn’t have cared less if I ever saw her again.

She isn’t the one I want
.

The thought completely floored me. How had this happened? What had that obnoxious, beautiful girl done to me? I was willing to throw away a woman like Lily, who was everything I should be looking for—for what? A girl who granted me access to her body, but was otherwise unobtainable?

“No, I’m sorry,” I said quietly, giving Lily a small apologetic smile.

Her face fell a little. I couldn’t even feel guilty about turning her down. Just thinking about going out with her again felt like a betrayal of Julia.

“You’re a very lovely woman,” I said sincerely. “But…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

“That’s all right, Stephen. I appreciate you being honest with me. Sometimes the attraction just isn’t there.”

I nodded. There was definitely no attraction.

“Friends?” I asked softly.

“I’d like that,” she said.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t awkward at all after that. We talked about other things that we had in common, finished our dessert, and I walked her to her car.

“I had a nice time,” I told her honestly. I had enjoyed talking to her even if there wasn’t anything remotely romantic between us.

“I did too,” she said with a smile. “Give me a call if you want to go to the symphony or something like that.”

“I will,” I promised.

She smiled again and I watched as she drove away. I had never turned down a woman before and I felt a little uneasy. Lily was lovely, and a few weeks ago I would have been cautiously excited about dating her, but now I could only regard her as a friend.

I drove home quickly and opened a bottle of wine. I was wound up and tense and needed something to calm myself down before Julia came over. I checked my phone but she hadn’t written again, and I could only assume that she would show up as planned in one hour. I shrugged off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves while I tried to figure out what I would do when she got here. I had another glass and then another, but the alcohol only made me angrier and more worked up.

What had happened to me that I would discard a woman like Lily for someone who was so clearly wrong for me? Julia had happened. I felt as though she had bewitched me. She haunted my dreams and I woke up almost every morning painfully hard, longing for her. I thought about her constantly and stalked her Facebook profile relentlessly, trying to learn all I could about her. She had secrets, that was for certain, and it enraged me. I wanted to know everything about her. Somehow, I had been reduced to an obsessed, quivering pile of need whenever I was in her presence. I was willing to risk my career and reputation for the chance to be inside her, and the thought aggravated me even further. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t acting like myself. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought she had put some sort of spell on me.

I poured another glass of wine, put on a Sinatra album and found the song “Witchcraft.”

Singing along, I finished the bottle and I found myself doing an idiotic dance around the living room.

“Oh, Frank,” I lamented drunkenly. “Did you have a Julia Wilde of your very own? What did you do about your witch?”

The lyrics told me that there wasn’t any nicer witch than his. I rolled my eyes.

“Well, you see, Frank, Julia isn’t nice. She’s naughty. She sends me dirty text messages when I’m out to dinner with another woman. She taunts me and haunts me,” I slurred and went to look for another bottle of wine. “This was supposed to be a simple thing,” I continued. “It was supposed to be some good sex and nothing more. Actually,” I chuckled, opening the bottle, “the sex isn’t just good. It’s fucking spectacular.”

I clamped my hand over my mouth and looked around. Then I heard myself laughing again. “You know what, Frank?
Fuck
it. I can say fuck. I’m a grown man. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I poured a big glass and drained it. “I love fucking Julia. But I fucking hate her for doing this to me,” I grumbled, starting the record over again.

I did another moronic dance routine and stumbled back in the kitchen where I left the bottle, muttering to myself as I went. “I love fucking Julia. I love f-fucking Julia. I fucking love Julia.”

Bringing the wine with me, I found my way into my office where I started puttering around, reorganizing my books and straightening up my desk, hoping it would make the time pass quicker while I waited. I came upon an assignment of hers that I had yet to read and flopped down in my desk chair, wine bottle in hand, diving into Julia’s thoughts on sexual manipulation in
Lolita
. She wrote so well and so eloquently on the topic, it made my anger come back full force. Of course she knew all about sexual manipulation! She’d been doing it to me since day one, dressing like a naughty schoolgirl in class, making suggestive comments, sending me dirty text messages. Gulping down more wine, I grabbed my red pen and starting scribbling in the margins with a scowl on my face, eager to give her a piece of my mind.

At some point, the doorbell rang and I looked up, feeling a little dazed. It rang again.

Julia. She’s here
.

I ran to the door, nearly tripping over the shoes that I had thrown unceremoniously on the floor, and ripped it open.

Oh, dear God, my head!

Groaning, I squinted through heavy eyelids. Daylight was pouring in through my bedroom window and blinding pain shot through my head. I closed my eyes again, rolling to the edge of my bed with difficulty. I desperately needed to relieve myself and had to get up, even though my entire body protested. I staggered into the bathroom. Afterward, I looked at myself in the mirror and winced when I saw my bloodshot eyes. My throat was completely parched, and I made my way toward the kitchen, glancing briefly into the living room and stopping dead in my tracks.

What the hell?

It looked like a disaster area. Knocked-over dining table chairs, scattered records, and DVDs next to a broken shelf, couch cushions all over the place. There were stains on the floor and an overturned wine bottle next to them, along with my clothes from last night. I looked down, realizing I was completely naked.

What in God’s name happened?

Dry throat forgotten, I flopped down on the couch, feeling both nauseated and disoriented at the same time. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to clear my head. Memories from last night flooded through my brain and the room started spinning.

“You like it when I fuck you hard? Tell me, Julia. Fucking tell me!”

My voice still echoed in my head. Had I said that to her?

Oh, no, no, no!

I scrambled around for a few seconds before I ran to the bedroom. The bed was empty.

She isn’t here
.

Where was she? Had I hurt her? I closed my eyes and tried to remember everything that had happened last night. The details were more than a little fuzzy.

After the doorbell rang, I had run to the door, finding Julia outside. Without thinking, I’d grabbed her and pulled her inside before slamming the door behind me.

“Stephen, what’s going on?” she laughed. “Holy shit! Are you drunk?”

“You noticed, huh? Want to know
why
I’m drunk, Julia?” I asked, unbuttoning her coat
.

She nodded
.

“I’m drunk because of you, you little witch,” I slurred. “Because you drive me fucking crazy.”

“I do?” she asked with a coy smile
.

“Don’t play games with me, little girl,” I seethed. “You know perfectly well what you did when you sent me those messages!”

I opened her coat and gawked at her. Underneath, she was only wearing her underwear, a matching set in black lace. I pulled the coat off her and dropped it on the floor. She looked a little nervous, and I liked it. No, I fucking loved it. For once, I was the one calling the shots
.

“I’m sorry, Stephen,” she said, looking up at me contritely
.

“I don’t believe you. You did that on purpose to toy with me, didn’t you?” I asked, pressing her against the wall. “You like it when I get turned on, don’t you?”

She nodded
.

“Do you feel that?” I asked, pushing my erection against her stomach. “You succeeded. What are you going to do about it?”

“Whatever you want,” she whispered, raising her chin as if to challenge me
.

I stared into her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes that held so many secrets I wanted to uncover. Her breathing had sped up and I could see that her nipples were hard underneath the lace of her bra. I wanted her like crazy
.

“Whatever I want?” I murmured. “I want you to say that you’re sorry and mean it.”

Her eyes flared. “No.”

I grabbed her breasts and pressed her against the wall. My lips were inches from hers
.

“Say it,” I demanded
.

“No,” she moaned, arching her back and pressing her breasts into my hands. Her refusal both excited and angered me. Picking her up easily, I wrapped her legs around my waist
.

“Say you’re sorry,” I whispered in her ear, grinding myself against her. “Say it and…and I’ll fuck you.”

She made the most erotic sound, a desperate little whine, grinding her hips to gain more friction. I had to have her. Somehow, I managed to undo my pants and push down my boxers while holding her up. Gripping the flimsy fabric of her underwear in my fist, I looked at her again
.

“You want me, don’t you?” I asked
.

She nodded, leaning in to kiss me
.

“No, not until you say it,” I scolded, tightening my grip
.

“I can’t.”

I tugged down roughly, tearing the lace, and inhaled sharply when I felt her naked, wet folds. She wanted this as badly as I did
.

“Say it! Say you’re sorry for toying with me, Julia,” I ordered. “You knew I was out on a date and you did it anyway. Say you’re sorry!”

“I can’t!” she cried out
.

“Why not?” I yelled
.

“Because I’m not fucking sorry. I wanted you to think about me!” she shouted, pulling my face to hers
.

We had never kissed like this before. It was desperate and frantic. We were practically devouring each other. Scrambling around for a moment, I opened her with my fingers and thrust into her, burying myself in her heat
.