Was he excited? I knew enough to look for a bulge at his crotch, but it was too dark to see. I wished he could tell me what he wanted me to do, but maybe that would ruin the illusion of safety. From fifteen feet away, I watched him lick his lips and heard the tacit message.
I put a finger to my lips and licked, slightly exaggerated so that he could see. He leaned forward slightly—
yes, more
. I sucked the finger into my mouth and could have sworn his hips moved slightly where they rested against the car. Trailing my wetted finger over my chest, I circled my nipple and pinched again, savoring the bite of cold air and hard pressure.
I let down my hair from my tower in the form of secret glimpses, and like Rapunzel, I needed exposure like I needed air. He joined me with his arousal, in the commands conveyed with his body. We communed in a language of our own.
Climb to me. I don’t want to be alone.
An ache built in my sex under the weight of his stare and my own touch. My hips moved in answer to his, finding an instinctive rhythm.
I reached for the band of my sweatpants, then paused. Panties too? Too much. I pushed down the pants but left the matching pink bikini panties on.
There was no way I could have heard, but I could have sworn he groaned. I imagined tiny molecules of air vibrating at the sound, traveling all this way and whispering against my lips.
I tucked my fingertips beneath the soft, stretchy hem of my panties, but then he wouldn’t be able to see. Instead I slid my palm over my covered sex and slipped beneath the strip of fabric between my legs. Wet heat met my questing fingers, more slippery than I had ever felt it when alone in my bed. I teased myself along the slick outer lips before sliding upward in search of a particular place—
there
.
My knees threatened to buckle from the pleasure that coursed through me, from the hard training of the day. I braced myself against the window, one hand on the glass and the other on my clit. It did more than sustain me, it connected me to him, an arc from the outside in, and the result was electric.
He leaned forward, gripping the top of the open door. I watched his other hand ball into a fist before letting my eyes fall shut, imagining that hand on me, holding me just as tightly, bruising me so I would never forget.
Finish it.
I didn’t know whether the words came from him or me, but I let the currents pull me along, let the arousal swirl faster and deeper until I couldn’t find the surface, couldn’t breathe—could only buck and moan and spill all over my furiously rubbing fingers. My stuttered moan was loud in my ears, filling my room before it dropped off into a sigh.
I let my hand fall away and opened my eyes.
He stood exactly as I’d left him, bristling with an almost palpable tension. After a moment, he detached from the car, moving slowly, like a man in pain, as if he’d been injured.
He turned away and rested his palms on the top of the car. With an unreadable glance back at me, he gingerly got inside and drove away.
I watched him go, sated but far from satisfied. Always wanting, always needing something above my reach. Dreaming of ballerinas when I came from the slums. Lusting after the smart, successful man in a well-tailored suit. One of these days, I’d reach too far. I’d fly too close to the sun, but even knowing so, I couldn’t stop myself from spreading my wings.
T
he next evening,
I stumbled into an empty house and collapsed at the kitchen table. Practice seemed to be getting harder—then again, the newest additions to the group kept up just fine. My body wasn’t suited for the grueling excess any longer, and if I continued to push, I would injure myself. Well, worse than I already did on a daily basis.
I whimpered as I forced my leg to straighten. I wanted to keep dancing for fun, to teach, which meant I had to quit while I still had the ability to walk.
I let myself drop onto the hard kitchen floor and flopped onto my back. Then I pushed my knee over in front of my body, stretching the tense, aching band on the outside of my thigh. I groaned as the stretch shot pain through my knee—but this would keep it from locking up all night.
A scuffing sound at the entrance to the kitchen snapped my eyes open.
Drew stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching me with a bemused expression. I must have looked like an idiot, tangled up on the kitchen floor and moaning.
I attempted to stand, but the muscles spasmed, sending me into a graceless sprawl. Mortified, I shut my eyes. So much for looking sexy and mature.
He was there in a second, rubbing away the ache in my thigh, soothing me before I’d even thought about his hands on my body. He gently pressed my leg back down.
Ohhh, yes.
He knew exactly how to handle me.
I sighed. “Harder.”
“Are you sure? Sounded like it hurt.”
“I need it like that.”
He raised his eyebrow, his face two feet from mine. Then I realized how I sounded. He was basically on top of me, holding me down while I made sex noises and talked about wanting it hard. Wicked, that was how I sounded.
Even though I hadn’t meant it in a sexual way, it became sexual as the weight of his body bore down on mine. A flush heated me from the inside out.
“My knees have been acting up. The pressure helps. How did you know, anyway?”
His expression looked wry. “I have been to the gym once or twice. Have to work off the calories in those billed lunches somehow.”
Something about the way he mocked himself, dismissed himself when everyone else saw his value, made my heart squeeze. I felt breathless, on the verge of something important. Or maybe it was just the stretch.
“Is that how you think I see you, a stuffy old lawyer?”
“That’s what I
am
, Rose.”
I studied him. Our position, with him pushing down on me, was definitely a new perspective. It allowed me to see him with fresh eyes. The creases at the corners of his eyes, remnants of his genial demeanor and stressful profession. The sandy-brown hair flecked with silver. His curious brown eyes, like stained glass with light behind. A stuffy old lawyer? He was that—as well as uncommonly smart and subtly funny and quietly handsome.
“Well, this is interesting.”
We both turned to see Philip standing in the doorway. Immediately, Drew backed up, easing me out of the stretch. My knee gave a weak throb, and I stifled a moan.
Philip was at my side, ready to help me up.
I waved him away, forcing myself into the kitchen chair. “I’m fine. Just a little cramp.”
His face was dark. “Maybe you need to cut back with the company.”
Yes, quitting definitely qualified as cutting back. And I would—only to do something that would piss him off even more. Without a word, Drew grabbed a few bottles of water from the fridge and slid one across the table to me. Grateful, I took a sip.
“At least hire a proper trainer,” Philip said. “If you’re relying on my lawyer for your physical therapy, you must be worse off than I thought.”
“Hey,” Drew said without heat. “I played volleyball all through college.”
Philip snorted. “Harvard had a volleyball team?”
Drew gave a small grin. “How else could I afford to go? That scholarship paid for the law degree you get so much mileage out of.”
“Well, thank God for large, undeserved favors. You’ve kept the business from sinking so many times. What would I do without you?”
“Bribe the judge?” Drew said blandly.
“Now there’s an idea,” Philip said with equal languor. “Should I be writing this down?”
“Only if you plan on firing me.”
“Don’t count on it. You’re going to retire when you’re done working for me, and you’ll be a rich old man when you do.”
“I’m counting on it. I’d hate to go back to getting my balls busted to make rent.”
Feeling unsettled, I excused myself from the table. Drew’s gaze burned as I left the room, but I couldn’t meet his eyes, afraid of what I would see there. Afraid of what he’d see in me. Desire. Curiosity. Longing.
I limped my way upstairs and took a hot shower, then reclined in the armchair. I’d wanted to peel back the layers, but I was finding more than skin and sex—there was a man underneath, his dreams and determination as attractive as his body.
I knew Drew had gone to Harvard, but the image of him hustling on a volleyball court or struggling for a scholarship didn’t mesh with the crisp-linen, gleaming-edged man he was today. Had money and success changed him? It hadn’t seemed to make Philip happier. If anything, he was more paranoid, more worried it would all be taken away. Did Drew feel the same way?
A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts.
“Come in.”
Drew stepped inside, carrying an ice pack wrapped in paper towels. “I come bearing gifts.”
The sight of him in my bedroom made my breath catch. He seemed to fill the room despite his casual stance and light tone.
“More like instruments of torture.” Still, I accepted the cold compress and pressed it to my knee.
“Leave it on for a few minutes.” He leaned against the bedpost and crossed his arms as if to wait. “Otherwise it’ll swell up, and Philip will never trust my doctoring skills again.”
I slanted him a glance. “I’m surprised he let you up here.”
“
Sent
me up here,” he corrected. “He had to take a call. I told him I could handle it. He’ll be busy a good thirty minutes.”
He spoke casually, but my breath caught at the implicit offer. Time. We had time. “Yeah, well, he trusts you with a lot more important things than delivering an ice pack.”
“Nothing is more important than you.” He added, “To Philip.”
My heart thudded in my chest. “Right. So what happened last night was probably a bad idea.”
“He would be pretty pissed.”
“I notice you didn’t say whether you agree.”
His shoulder lifted in a half shrug. “You tell me.”
“And where does your will come into play?”
“Are you asking if I would say no to you, Rose? I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine what you could ask that I wouldn’t give you.”
My throat felt thick and swollen as I swallowed.
I was privileged. I knew that. My brother had money, influence, and everyone wanted to get close to him. I had been propositioned plenty of times with suave smiles and calculated remarks from guys who wanted to get to know me better. After all, getting to know me meant getting introduced to the family. It meant financial advantage in the form of my brother’s favor. I didn’t want to be used, didn’t even want serious. I just wanted sex.
“You would say yes…for me? Or because you think Philip would like you better if we were an item.”
He shook his head, not offended at my accusation. A simple refute:
no, try again
. “Philip would kick my ass if he knew, but aside from that, I don’t need your help to stay in his good graces. I’m as close to him as anyone, maybe more than you.”
That was true, he didn’t need my help. Unlike any of the other men who had come on to me, he wouldn’t really gain more access to Philip with me than without.
Was that what made him so attractive? Though attraction wasn’t really what I felt for him. He didn’t pull me to him with charm or seduction. His very presence flipped a switch inside me. I became alight with anticipation and arousal and other things I didn’t have the words for. I wanted to feel like this all the time. He’d said he wouldn’t deny me.
I swallowed, wondering if I had the courage to ask for what I wanted.
Drew opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to reconsider. “Well, I guess I should head downstairs. It will feel better if you leave the ice pack on.”
He turned to leave, and I blurted out, “Would you do it for me?”
A beat passed, then two.
“Do what?”
“What…what I did last night.” Strip. Masturbate. “Would you be willing to do it for me?”
His body tightened. Even through the barrier of his shirt, I could see the muscles of his back go taut. His hands fisted in the air. “You want to see that?”
I had dreamed of it last night. “I want to. I promise not to touch.”
“Is this supposed to be convincing me?”
A surprised laugh escaped. “I won’t touch…this first time.”
“Ah,” he said quietly. “Then I suppose I don’t have a choice but to wait and see. How would you like me?”
Well, that was a loaded question. Weighted down with other questions like
how long until Philip comes looking for him
? and
where will we go from here
? I don’t know, I don’t know.
I stood and dimmed the light, leaving us bathed in soft yellow from my reading lamp. The same as last night, only closer and more intimate because he was here with me. I locked the door too, just in case we had less time than he thought.
I turned to face him, leaning back against the wall. “Wherever you like.”
He looked at the bed. He looked back at me.
He sat down in the armchair by the corner. The message was clear and heartbreakingly thoughtful—no pressure to go further, like a bed might imply. And there was a sweet symmetry, in the place I had stripped myself and where he would do the same. Our reflections caught by the same window, faint impressions trapped in glass where only the two of us could see.
But even while I appreciated the gesture, unease nudged at me. He seemed so alone in the corner, as if this were a perverted sort of punishment instead of my reward.
He reached for his zipper, and my breath caught.
“No,” I breathed.
His hands froze. He raised his eyes to meet mine.
“How can I make this…better for you?” Inwardly, I winced at my bumbling ignorance, but I held my ground. This was my room, my show. I could make of it what I wanted. And I never wanted him to hurt.
“If you were here with me.” His voice roughened. “Near to me. I would come so hard.”
I knelt on the floor at his feet. My knees cried out in pain, but I couldn’t hear it over the pounding of my pulse. It beat a rhythm of wanting and waiting, a tribal song I somehow knew by heart.
“Your knees?” he asked.