Читать книгу Dirty - Меган Харт - Страница 7

Chapter 02

A figure in black waited for me when I got home from work on Thursday night. Black sweatshirt, hood pulled up over black-dyed hair. Black jeans and sneakers. Black-polished nails.

“Hi, Gavin.” I put my key into the lock as he stood.

“Hi, Miss Kavanagh. Can I give you a hand with that?” He took my bag before I had time to protest and followed me inside. He hung it neatly on the hook by the door. “I brought your book back.”

Gavin belongs to the neighbors on my left side. I’d never met his mother, though I’d often seen her leaving for work. I’d heard raised voices a few times through our shared walls, and it made me conscious about keeping my own television turned low.

“Did you like it?”

He shrugged and set the book on the table. “Not as much as the first one.”

I’d lent him my copy of C. S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy. “Lots of people only read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Gav. Do you want the next one?”

At fifteen Gavin was a typical Goth wannabe with his Jack Skellington wardrobe and liberal use of eyeliner. He was a nice kid, though, who liked to read and didn’t seem to have many friends. He’d shown up at my door about two years earlier, wanting to know if he could mow my grass. Since I had a patch of grass about the size of a small compact car, I didn’t need a lawn boy. I’d hired him, anyway, because he’d looked so sincere.

Now he spent more time borrowing from my library and helping me strip wallpaper and sand floors than he did on my sad excuse for a lawn, but I liked him. He was quiet and polite and far cheerier than any Goth kid should have been. He was good, too, with tasks I found too tedious to tackle, like scraping the wallpaper paste residue left behind when we peeled off two decades worth of home decor from my dining room walls.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll get it back to you by Monday.”

He followed me to the kitchen, where I put a box of chocolate cookies on the table. “Whenever you get it back to me is fine.”

He helped himself to a cookie. “Do you need any help stripping tonight?”

We looked at each other as soon as the words had escaped his lips, and I blinked. He looked stricken. I had to turn around so as not to embarrass him with my laughter.

“I’m done,” I managed to say. “I could use some help priming the drywall, though, if you’d like to help.”

“Sure, sure.” He sounded relieved.

I pulled out a frozen pizza and put it in the oven. “How’ve you been, Gav? I haven’t seen you for a few days.”

“Oh. My mom…she’s getting married again.”

I nodded, pulling out plates and glasses to set the table. We didn’t always talk much, Gavin and I, which I think suited both of us fine. He helped me renovate my house, and I paid him with cookies and pizza, with books and with a place to go when his mother was out, which seemed to be quite often.

I made a noncommittal noise as I poured milk into the glasses. Gavin got up to get the napkins from my cupboard and set out two. He washed his hands before he sat back at the table. His black polish had chipped.

“She says this guy’s the one.”

I glanced at him as I set out grated cheese and garlic powder. “That’s nice for her.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged.

“Will you be moving?”

He looked up, dark eyes wide in a pale face. “I hope not!”

“I hope not, too. I still have an entire dining room to paint.” I smiled at him, and he smiled back after a moment.

I didn’t have to be a mind reader to see something was bothering him, nor a genius to figure out what it was. I could have played the part of mentor. Asked him sympathetic questions. We didn’t have that type of relationship, though, the sort that shared secrets or heartfelt revelations. He was the boy who lived next door and helped me around the house. I don’t know what I represented to him, but I doubted it was a guidance counselor.

The buzzer went off on the oven, and I served us both sizzling slices of pizza. He added garlic powder. I used the grated cheese. We ate discussing the book I’d lent him and debating whether or not the next episode of the cop show we both liked was going to reveal the name of the killer. Gavin helped me load the dishes in the dishwasher and put away the leftover pizza. By the time I came downstairs after changing my clothes, he’d already spread out and taped down the tarp to protect the floor and opened the can of primer.

We listened to music and painted for a few hours until he had to go home. Before he went, he browsed the shelves in my living room and picked out another book.

“What’s this one about?” He held up my battered copy of The Little Prince.

“A little prince from outer space.” That was the easy answer. Anyone who’s read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic story knows there’s far more to it than that.

“Cool. Can I take this one, too?”

I hesitated. The book had been a gift. It had also sat on my shelf gathering dust for years without so much as a glance from me. “Sure. Of course.”

He gave me a real grin, then, the first of the evening. “Great. Thanks, Miss Kavanagh!”

He let himself out, and I stared for a moment at the empty space the book had left behind before I started cleaning up.

That night I dreamed of a roomful of roses and woke with a gasp, eyes wide open to the darkness. Turning on the light chased it into shadows cowering in the corners of my room but could do nothing for the darkness lingering in my thoughts. I lay in my bed for a few minutes before admitting defeat and reaching for the phone.

“House of Hotness.”

I had to smile. “Hi, Luke.”

I’ve never met my brother’s lover. They live in California, a world away from my safe nest in Pennsylvania. Chad doesn’t come home. I hate flying. So far, it’s just never worked out.

We weren’t strangers despite this, and his reply warmed me. “How’s my girl?”

“I’m fine.”

Luke clucked into the phone, but didn’t comment further. A moment later Chad got on the line. He wasn’t so taciturn.

“It’s after midnight there, sweetie. What’s wrong?”

Chad is my younger brother, but you wouldn’t know it by the way he pampers me. I settled further into my blankets and counted the cracks in my ceiling. “Can’t sleep.”

“Bad dreams?”

“Yes.” I closed my eyes.

He sighed. “What’s going on, punkin? Is your mother getting on your case again?”

I didn’t bother pointing out that she was his mother, too. “No more than usual. She wants me to go with her.”

I didn’t have to tell him where. Chad made a disgusted noise, and I had no trouble picturing his expression. It made me smile, which was why I’d called him.

“You tell Puff the Magic Dragon Queen to leave you the hell alone. She can drive her own damn self wherever the hell she needs to go. She should lay off you.”

“You know she can’t drive, Chaddie.”

He launched into a tirade of cursing and colorful insults.

“Your creativity and vehemence leave me in awe,” I told him. “You are truly the master.”

“Do you feel better now?”

“I always do.”

He snorted. “What else is going on?”

I thought of the man I’d met in Sweet Heaven. “Nothing.”

Chad paused to give me time to add more, and when I didn’t, he snorted again. “Ella. Baby. Honey, love muffin. You don’t call me after midnight your time to talk to me about the Dragon Queen. You’ve got something else on your mind. Spill it.”

I love my brother with all my heart, but I wasn’t going to tell him about my sudden lustful fixation on a stranger who favored odd ties and liked black licorice. Some things are too private to share, even with someone who knows all your deepest, darkest secrets. I mumbled something about work and the house, which he seemed reluctant to accept but did, anyway.

The conversation drifted from my pathetic mental state to his work in an elder-care home, his plans to meet Luke’s family, the dog they were considering buying. He had a cozy little life, my brother. A good job. A nice house. A partner who loved and supported him. I relaxed as he talked, my body melting into my bed and sleep beginning to tease me into thinking it might return.

Then he dropped the bomb on me.

“Luke wants to talk about having kids.” His voice had dropped to a whisper.

I might suffer from occasional social awkwardness, but even I know the appropriate response to that announcement is not “What in the holy fuck are you thinking?” but rather “Oh, that sounds nice.”

I didn’t say either one. “What do you want, Chaddie?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. He says I’ll be a great dad. I’m not so sure.”

I didn’t doubt my brother would make a wonderful father. I also knew why he feared the thought. “You have a lot of love in your heart.”

“Yeah, but kids…kids need a lot of…stuff.”

“Yeah.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, separated by distance but connected by emotion. At last he cleared his throat. He sounded more like his usual self when he spoke again.

“We’re just thinking about it. I said we should get a dog first. See how we do with that.”

It was more than I’d ever wanted to commit to, a pet. “You’ll be great, Chad. Whatever you decide, you know I’m here for you.”

“Aunt Ella.” He laughed.

“Aunt Elle,” I corrected.

“Elle,” Chad agreed. “Love you, bunny muffin.”

As far as pet names went, bunny muffin was among the more bizarre. I didn’t quarrel with it. “Love you, too, Chad. Good night.”

We disconnected and I settled back onto my pillows, my mind whirling with his news. A child? My brother…a father?

I fell back to sleep with visions of laughing babies in my head, which was marginally better than the dreams of red roses.

Friday came faster than I’d expected. I’d never been to The Blue Swan, but it was everything Marcy had said. More an intimate-coffee-shop setting with a dance floor than a dance club, it featured a steady pulse of electronic dance music, soothing blue lights and soft couches, an interesting array of drinks and stars scattered across the black-painted ceiling.

Marcy introduced me to her new beau, Wayne. He looked like the junior executive he was, complete with a hundred-dollar haircut and trendy designer tie, plain, without skulls and crossbones. He shook my hand and, to give him credit, did not overtly check out my breasts. He even bought my first margarita.

Marcy grinned. “Planning on getting wild, Elle?”

“Ah, one drink’s not a big deal. Not everyone’s a lush like you, babe.” What might have been condescending sounded fond from Wayne, his arm outstretched along the bench behind her to toy with the long, curling strand of her hair. “Trust me, Elle, we’ll be carrying Marcy out of here.”

Marcy made a face and nudged him, but didn’t look displeased. “Don’t listen to him.”

“Hey, so long as it gets me laid,” Wayne said, “I don’t care how drunk you get—”

She slapped him in earnest this time. “Hey!”

She sent me an apologetic glance, but I shrugged, not as embarrassed as I think she expected. The fact was, I liked drinking too much to be a hard drinker. I liked the oblivion, the way a few drinks softened the edges of my mind and chased away even the ever-present need I felt to count, catalog and calculate.

Alcohol is the noose with which my father keeps trying to hang himself. I understand why he does it. He is, after all, married to my mother. Now, retired and in his sixties, drinking is my father’s career and hobby all in one. Maybe it’s his shield. I don’t know. We don’t talk about it. We aren’t the only family with a white elephant in the living room, but who ever cares about anyone else’s family when their own is the one they have to live with?

“So, you work with Marcy?” Wayne earned points for what appeared to be sincere interest.

“Yes. She’s in public accounting and I’m in corporate, but we both work for the same company.”

Wayne grinned. “Me, I’m in murders and executions.”

“Wayne!” Marcy rolled her eyes. “He means—”

“Mergers and acquisitions. I got it.”

Wayne looked impressed. “You know American Psycho.”

“Sure.” I sipped my drink.

“Wayne thinks he’s Patrick Bateman,” Marcy explained. “Aside from that pesky bad habit of slicing up prostitutes with a chainsaw.”

“Well,” I said carefully, watching him, “nobody’s perfect.”

His smile rewarded me, and then he laughed. “Hey, Marcy, I like your friend.”

She looked at me. “Me, too.”

Sometimes you share a moment with someone that has nothing to do with where you are, or what you’re doing. Marcy and I giggled, girly in a way I wasn’t used to but enjoyed nevertheless. Wayne looked at us, back and forth, until he shook his head with a shrug at our feminine absurdity.

“To murders and executions,” he said with a lift of his beer. “And to all things materialistic and shallow.”

We toasted his words. We drank. We talked, though much of what we said had to be shouted over the music. I relaxed, letting the alcohol and music loosen my tense shoulders.

“It’s my turn,” I protested when Wayne made to order one more round of drinks.

He held up his hands. “I’m not gonna argue. My mama told me a woman’s always right. You go right on ahead, Miss Kavanagh, and buy the next round. I’m comfortable enough in my masculinity to accept a woman’s generosity.”

“Oh, ho ho,” said Marcy. “You mean you’re drunk enough you don’t feel like getting up to go to the bar.”

Wayne grinned and pulled her close for a kiss that made me feel like a voyeur. “That, too.”

That was my cue to leave them for a few moments. I needed to stand, anyway, to gauge my own level of inebriation. Two drinks took me a lot farther than they had three years ago.

A space opened up at the bar as I approached, and the bartender gave me his immediate attention. I knew he was paid to flirt as much as he was to mix drinks, but his smile still flooded me with warmth. I’m no more immune to my sense of self being reflected in the light of another’s esteem than any other woman. I smiled back and ordered two more beers and a bottle of water for myself.

“She doesn’t want that. Get her a shot of Jameson.”

I didn’t turn to face the voice that had haunted me for the past three weeks. I nodded at the ’tender waiting my approval, and he slid the shot glass toward me without another word.

“Hi,” said the man from Sweet Heaven, and I turned.

“Hi.”

The crowd had grown as the night wore on, and now it jostled us closer. He looked down at me, his smile bemused. In the blue neon light his eyes looked darker than I remembered.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

My fingers curled around the shot glass, but I didn’t lift it. “Yes.”

His gaze traced the lines of my face; I felt his look as if it was a touch. Someone pushed toward the bar behind him, nudging him forward another inch. He reached to grab my arm just above the elbow, so the sudden impact didn’t make me stumble. He didn’t let go.

“Aren’t you going to drink that?” He nodded toward the shot without taking his eyes from mine.

“I’ve reached my limit.”

More people pushed to the bar behind each of us, pressing us together. His hand slid down my arm to rest on the curve of my waist. A touch so casual anyone watching would assume we’d known each other for years. A touch so blatant it made my breath catch.

“So, you’re a good girl.”

Another man who’d called me a girl would have earned a stomp to his foot and maybe the drink in his face. For him, my mouth curved. Closer we drew, magnets attracting, one to one, without the pressure of the people around us.

“Depends on your definition of good.”

His fingers splayed against my side, his thumb drifting back and forth along the smooth fabric of my shirt. “Are you flirting with me?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Do you want to do what I want?” My pulse pounded at his question, murmured directly into my ear.

We’d already aligned thigh to thigh, belly to belly. If I turned my head, our mouths would be close enough to kiss. His breath caressed my ear and the slope of my neck exposed by my upswept hair.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“I want you to drink that shot.”

I did without a second protest. It burned in my gut and shot liquid fire through every vein. He hadn’t moved anything but his hand, which now lingered at my lower back, keeping me tight against him though the crowd at the bar had eased a bit and there was no longer a need for us to remain so close together.

“Take down your hair.”

A command, but voiced as a request, and I reached to undo the clip holding it on top of my head. Released, it tumbled over my shoulders and halfway down my back. It brushed his face, still so close to mine.

“Dance with me.”

He pulled back to look into my eyes, his smile less bemused and his gaze brighter. Hungrier. He didn’t move his hand.

“Is that…what you want?” My hesitation sounded coy, and I hadn’t meant it to. I’d meant to sound sultry, to play the game.

He nodded, solemn. His eyes stared into mine, hard, and I could see nothing else. Could feel nothing else but the spots on my body where his body touched.

“That’s what I want.”

I gave him what he wanted. The dance floor, even more crowded than the bar, left little room for maneuvering, but most people weren’t really dancing. Bouncing up and down in time to the rhythm, maybe, and wiggling, but not dancing.

He took me by the hand, fingers laced, and put us in the center of the dance floor. One step, and he drew me close to him. Another, and his hands fit my waist like they’d been made to match my curves. Three steps and his thigh slid between mine. These points of connection grounded me, kept me tethered.

There could be no talking here, for even a shout would’ve been difficult to hear above the pounding throb of the music. The bass thumped its pulse in the pit of my stomach, the hollow of my throat, my wrists, between my thighs. The crowd surged around us like the ocean against rocks, parting and retreating to return in the next instant, surrounding us. It pressed in on us as the song changed and brought more dancers onto the floor.

He wasn’t smiling anymore, like this was serious business. Like he could see nothing else around us, like his world had narrowed to only me. I shivered at the look.

When he put his other hand on my side, up high, just under my breast, I startled but had no place to go. No retreat. I looked up, into his eyes, those light-and-dark eyes, and lost myself in them.

We moved together, and my hand slid from his shoulder to cup the back of his neck. The edges of his sandy hair tickled my knuckles. The heat of his hand branded me through my blouse. Heat flared, too, in my belly where it rubbed against his groin.

It had been a long, long time since I’d danced with anyone, an eternity since I’d had a man’s hands on me, since I’d seen my own desire reflected in another’s gaze. It stole my breath and drew my tongue out to lick my lips. The motion caught his attention the way a cat will watch a mouse.

His hand slid up my back to tangle in my hair, tip my head back, bare my throat to his mouth as he bent to slide his lips along my skin. I felt myself gasp but couldn’t hear it. He pulled me closer, and I gave in to his whim.

The crowd had become one body moving to the music’s sensual beat. One entity with us in the center of it, pressed so close I could no longer be certain where I ended and he began. His hand slid up to embrace my breast through my blouse. I blinked and saw nothing but his face shadowed with blue and green, the colors pulsing in time to the rhythm.

Nobody watched us. Nobody saw. We had become part of something bigger and yet remained separate from it. The couple next to us kissed, their tongues tangling as their hands stroked and kneaded each other. The dance floor had become an orgy of lust. I smelled it, tasted it, saw it reflected in his eyes and knew he saw it in mine. The song changed again, blending into the previous one without break.

Bodies all around us pressed us together. Sweat slid down my spine and shone on his forehead. Everything had become heat and beat.

His cock pressed hard against my belly. The sensation parted my lips in silent reaction, and his gaze watched my mouth again, his expression tense, as though he was in pain.

It wasn’t pain that thinned his mouth. I knew it by the way his jaw tightened when another surge of the crowd rocked me against his body. The hand on my ass splayed, then stroked upward to reach the small of my back, then down again to caress and press me against his erection.

I was lost. Lost in his eyes, in his touch, in the pounding pulse of music and lust. Lost in my own desire, which I’d denied for so long and now could no longer fight.

I saw the shift in his gaze and knew the exact moment when he recognized my reaction. If he’d smiled smugly or leered, I’d have fled. Instead, his eyes narrowed slightly, and his expression became a mixture of determination and helpless admiration. He looked at me as though he didn’t care if the song ever stopped or if he never looked at another woman again.

His hand slid down my hip to my thigh. His fingers caught the hem of my skirt, inching it up as we danced, until he could slip his hand beneath it. He cupped me, the heel of his hand pressed against my clit on the outside of my panties.

The crowd moved us, so he no longer had to. The hand on my rear kept me secured close to him. Another shift of the crowd, and his fingers moved to dip inside the lacy edge of my panties and find my slick heat.

His eyes widened so slightly only someone staring into them as I was could have noticed. His lips parted in an unheard gasp or groan. My body jerked as his flesh came in direct contact with mine, and a groan tore from my throat.

His fingers teased my folds before gliding up to caress my clit. If not for the support of his hand and the crowd crushing us on all sides, I’d have stumbled. The touch speared straight to my core. My fingers gripped his shoulder in a sudden, tight hold, and his gaze flicked there as he winced. I’d hurt him but could do nothing about it. Every stroke he gave my clit made my fingers dig involuntarily into him.

Now he looked determined, admiring and quizzical, but the last passed in a moment as he circled my tight nub and watched the reaction I couldn’t hide. Now he looked… honored, was the only way I could think to describe it, if I could do any thinking at all, which was becoming impossible.

Everything had become this man. His hand. His eyes. His cock, still pressing on my hip and now throbbing, hard, hot. He licked his lips, and my clit pulsed in immediate response beneath his fingers.

He tangled his fingers in my hair again, massaging the base of my skull and keeping me from moving away. We danced, each movement rocking me against his hand until in moments I was on the edge.

I’d been feeling this way for weeks. Breathless, aching, body burning for release, unable to focus on anything but the pleasure building between my legs. My nipples tightened, and his gaze fell to my breasts.

It was impossible to see his face flush, not with the flashing blue and green neon coating everyone in science-fiction shadows, but I knew he was burning, as I was.

This was incredible, impossible, and at last I put my hand on his chest to push him away. I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t let some stranger get me off on the dance floor, not like this, I didn’t do this…

But I was going to. Oh, yes, I was going to come, right there. Right then. I was going to come on his hand like we were the only two people in the world, and it didn’t matter if anyone saw me, I was tipping over the edge so hard and so fast I thought I might faint from the pleasure.

His breath blew hot against my skin as he nuzzled my ear, whispering something I shouldn’t have been able to hear but was unable to ignore.

“Let go.”

I shattered, biting my lip to stifle the cry that tore from my throat. My pulse pounded in my ears and throat while my clit spasmed over and over, each beat of climax pulling another low moan from me.

His arm tightened around me, holding me close as I rode his hand, body shuddering and jerking. He kissed my jaw and the side of my neck. He stopped his fingers moving and cupped me again, perfectly, keeping the pressure there without working my oversensitized flesh into pain.

I tried to breathe and at first could not. I tried again, my body limp and languid and sated, and found not only breath but along with it the scent of him. I thought I would never again see blue and green neon without remembering the way he smelled.

It seemed to me everyone around us would know what had just happened, but if anyone did they showed no sign of it. The crowd moved and swayed in its own orgasmic rush, intent on finishing whatever piece of ecstasy its members were knitting for themselves.

The man I was with put a finger to my chin and lifted it until I looked up. He bent to kiss me. I turned my face at the last second so his mouth landed on my cheek and not my mouth. My pulse pounded in my throat.

“Okay,” I thought he said, though the music made it impossible to hear him.

“Hey, watch where the fuck you’re going!”

“The fuck you’re going, asshole!”

Two dancers had collided, their faces red with exertion and slick with sweat. Fists upraised, they began the steps of another sort of dance, one that would lead to bloodshed and broken teeth.

My partner took me by the elbow and steered me away, out of the crowd on the dance floor and through the one in the rest of the bar. He led me to a small booth. I looked around for Marcy and Wayne and saw they’d moved to the bar, both of them laughing and kissing.

The booth had a half-circle bench. He let me slide into it first, then took the place beside me. My heartbeat had begun to slow, my legs to firm, my breath to no longer catch in my throat. From the waitress who appeared beside us I ordered a sparkling water with lime. He ordered the same.

I could not look at him, though moments before I had been unable to look away. Heat that had nothing to do with the room temperature crept up my chest and throat, along my cheeks and the back of my neck.

I had done things in the past that would have made a hooker proud, but always in privacy. Never in public, and never with anyone whose name I didn’t know. Strangers to me, yes, with nothing but a few hours acquaintance to recommend them, but even when I gave them a false name I always learned theirs.

He said nothing until after the waitress had brought our drinks and we had both sipped. I wanted to press the cool glass to my forehead, but refrained. I sat stiffly on the edge of the faux-leather bench, acutely aware of the closeness of his arm to mine and how he could have, but did not touch me.

“What is this?” he asked.

Back here the music muffled his voice but didn’t drown it out. He didn’t have to shout for me to hear him. He didn’t have to lean forward to murmur in my ear.

I said nothing for a moment, uncertain how to answer. He reached for me. I thought he meant to touch my face, or put his arm around my shoulder, and I stiffened. His hand caressed my hair from crown to ends, brushing it off my shoulders to hang down my back and expose my profile to him.

“What’s your name?”

Such a simple question, the sort asked at cocktail parties and in parks, an international query you might hear anywhere. Not out of place in a bar like this, where names, vital statistics and phone numbers were exchanged between singles the way women will exchange recipes for pound cake. Recipes for love.

“Elle.”

He waited before answering, long enough that I broke and looked at him. He smiled at me. His fingers twisted a strand of my hair.

“I’m Dan.”

He held out his hand. Socially groomed to take it, I did. He curled his fingers around mine, held it tight, drew me closer.

“Pleasure to meet you, Elle.

“Thanks for the drink. I should go.”

But I didn’t. I looked up at him. He looked at me.

“What is this?” he asked, voice pitched low but still audible.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, and my hair fell forward again, over my shoulders.

“Do you want to know?” He moved closer.

Now we sat thigh to thigh, his hand still enclosing mine. The heat from his body seeped through my clothes, but I shivered.

I knew arousal. I knew desire. Lust. This was something else, all three and something different, too. This was tumbling headfirst down the rabbit hole, this was standing on the edge of the cliff and preparing to leap, this was nothing and everything all at once.

“Yes,” I whispered, sure he couldn’t hear me. “I want to know.”

He took my hand and slipped it beneath the table, into his lap. I’m sure I gasped like a virgin, though I was anything but. He placed my palm flat on the bulge of his erection. He didn’t do anything so crass as to move my hand, not even to rub it against him. He leaned forward to speak into my ear, my hand on his straining cock and his covering it lightly.

“I’ve known you forever, haven’t I?”

I could only nod in reply and close my eyes. I curved my hand over him. His trousers were smooth under my fingers and beneath them I felt the outline of him. I moved my hand and he twitched. His other hand slid around under my hair, his thumb pressing the pulse on the side of my neck. His mouth brushed my earlobe, his voice tight, low, thick with need.

“Who are you?” He asked me. “Some kind of angel? Or a devil, maybe…?”

I turned my head to bring my mouth close to his ear. “I don’t believe in angels or devils.”

I stroked him slowly, infinitesimally, a gentle curve and straightening of my fingertips undetectable to anyone watching. He got harder. Hotter. I traced the line of his cock, then lower, my hand cradling the softer bulge below.

His hand tightened on my neck. “You look like a goddess when you come, did you know that?”

Sex makes bumble-tongued fools even out of the most eloquent, but the beauty of it is that it also tunes our ears to hear the meaning of words that, spoken under other circumstances, would make us laugh or cry or frown.

“I’m not a goddess.”

“Not a goddess. Not an angel. Not a devil.” His breath, whiskey-scented, washed over me. The wetness of his tongue caressed my earlobe, making me shiver again. “Are you a ghost? Because you can’t be real.”

In reply, I took his hand and put it on my chest, over the place my heart had begun its triple-thumping once more. “I’m real.”

His thumb passed over my nipple, which tightened. His hand covered my breast, but he didn’t fondle me. He held it against me, and I knew he could feel the beat of my heart.

Then he took his hand away and took mine from its place on his crotch. He moved back in his seat a little. His hair had fallen tousled over his forehead. His face was somber, eyes bright with reflected neon.

He reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a business card. He put it on the table between us, then pushed it in front of me.

“The next time I watch you come,” he said, “I want to be inside you.”

Then he got up from the table and left me there, alone.