by Amy Brent
“You don’t sound sure,” she pointed out, blunt as ever. I wrinkled my nose.
“What about?”
“I mean, what about the stuff that isn’t the sex?” She pressed. “You put up with a lot of shit from Matt. You couldn’t hide that from me, remember?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I wish I had been able to keep that from Patricia. She had always been less than a fan of Matt and our relationship, even if she never actually came out and said it to me. I could see it in the way she looked at the two of us, back when the three of us would head out for evenings on the town when we were all still back in college. I had always put it down to the fact that she was a little jealous that I was dating and she wasn’t, but now I could see that it was just her trying to bite her tongue in the face of knowing that I would never take her criticisms seriously, because I was a damn fool.
“Yeah, I remember,” I sigh. I had met Patricia first week of college when she had moved in to the room across the hall from me and she had been an indispensable part of my social circle ever since then. Since I had taken this job it had been hard to squeeze in the time to see her but I knew that wasn’t an excuse.
“But this is different,” I protested, a little weakly. “We said, it’s not going to be an emotional thing. Just sex. That’s all.”
“You want my advice?”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to want to hear it,” I admitted, and she giggled at the other end of the phone.
“Yeah, you likely won’t,” she conceded cheerfully. “But I’m going to give it to you anyway.”
“That’s how this works, right?” I grinned back. She had been so sweet to me, even when I had retreated in to myself after everything that had happened with Matt. She had been the one reaching out to me, making sure that I knew that she was here for me. I made a vow to myself, there and then, that as soon as I got some free time I was going to take her out to dinner and remind her how important she was to me.
“Damn straight,” she agreed, and then took a deep breath as though she was building herself up to deliver the killer blow to me. I braced myself. Patricia had never been one for bullshit and she wouldn’t start now just because I was still delicate from my recent heartbreak.
“Here’s the way I see it, right?” She began. “When you break up with someone you’ve been with for as long as you guys were together, no matter how rough the break-up is, you’ve got all this love and affection that’s got to go somewhere.”
“Right,” I furrowed my brow. I didn’t quite see where she was going with this.
“So when you meet someone new, it’s really easy to just use them as a receptacle for all that love that’s going spare,” she went on. “I think that’s really what happens when people rebound, they’re just looking for someone to contain all that stuff they don’t have a home for anymore.”
“And you think that’s what’s going to happen with…uh, him and I?” I asked, quickly remembering at the last minute that I shouldn’t use his name or else I would tip her off that it was the boss I was sleeping with. And no matter how sweetly open-minded she was trying to be about the situation, I knew she would chew me out if she knew that little detail.
“I’m not saying it’s going to,” she replied carefully. “Just that it could happen. You see where I’m coming from?”
“I see it,” I conceded, running my hands through my hair and throwing another handful of peanuts into my mouth.
“Are you going to break it off?”
“It has a built-in sell-by date anyway,” I reminded her. “We’re finishing up as soon as I’m out of the office, so I won’t have to worry about falling for him or…anything like that.”
“Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it,” she shot back. “It’s not easy.”
“You sound like you’re talking from experience,” I shifted the focus to her for a change. “Something you’re not telling me about your love life?”
“What love life?” She scoffed. “Yeah, I should be so lucky.”
“Don’t be too envious,” I teased. “You could have ended up with someone like Matt.”
“That’s almost enough to put me off men for life,” she warned. “He was a real piece of shit.”
“Oh, trust me, I don’t needed reminding,” I assured her. “So, what’s going on with you? And college? Catch me up on all the gossip.”
We went over all the news that had emerged from our mutual social circle since I had vanished off into this new job, and when I hung up I didn’t feel any of the wiser about how I felt about Nate. I thought that breaking the silence on it, getting it out there for someone else to go through with me, would make me feel a little more certain about things, but if anything I was even more confused.
I went for a shower that evening and tried to scrub the thoughts that had been running around and around my brain away so I could get some sleep. Nate was out of town that night and so I wasn’t staying with him; not that I stayed over most nights as it was, as one or both of us would start making noise about needing to play it discreet and keep things on the low-down and that meant sleeping in my own bed instead of his. Still, every time I found myself sitting in that cab on the way back to my place by myself, I found myself wondering what it would be like to wake up next to him the morning after a night like this one.
But maybe Patricia was right. Maybe I was still stuck in relationship mode, and was simply attaching the accoutrements of dating to sex because I didn’t know how to separate them. Or maybe…
No. There was no maybe. There was nothing between us but what we’d agreed on. Nate was nothing but a way to get myself out of the rut I’d found myself in. The way he smiled didn’t matter, the way he smelt, the way he pulled off his tie when he came through the door to his apartment and tossed it aside – none of it mattered. As soon as this was done, I would forget all about him. I had to. Because I knew he would forget about me, and I sure as hell wasn’t getting hurt all over again.
Chapter Five
“Nia?”
“Mmm?”
I raised my head, lost in thought – for once, I was actually focused on work instead of wondering what the man a few floors above me was up to. So imagine my surprise when I saw him standing in the door to the department with a glint in his eye that I recognized at once. Freda was smiling down at me, slightly confused, as though she, too, couldn’t figure out what the hell the boss was doing here.
“Mr Richards is here to see you,” she nodded in Nate’s direction. I sprang to my feet, trying to keep up the pretence of playing professional in front of the other staff. I flushed bright red, feeling the heat work it’s way up my neck. What the fuck was he doing here? He must have known that he was seriously pushing his luck, because I needed a little time to compose myself before other people saw the way I reacted to him.
“Hello,” I nodded, sticking my hand out to him for some reason, awkwardly letting it dangle in the air as Freda glanced between the two of us with her brow furrowed.
“Hello, Nia,” Nate grasped my hand and shook firmly, his grip enough to make my stomach flip-flop this way and that. “Good to see you.”
“You too,” I replied, eyeing him, hoping that my expression alone was enough to tell him that I needed a damn explanation as to what the hell he was doing here. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I just wanted to tell you that I’ve set aside some time this evening to discuss your internship evalutation,” he explained smoothly. I raised my eyebrows. I had a feeling that was code for something, but I couldn’t deduce what for quite yet.
“I’ll send you the details,” he went on. “I just wanted to impress on you how important this part of the process is to me. I hope you’ll make the time.”
I stared at him for a moment. What did he think he was doing, coming down here and all but scheduling a fuck-date in front of the head of my department?
“Of course,” I finally blurted out after an awkwardly long pause. “I look forward to it.”
�
�Good,” he nodded, glancing to Freda and nodding to her too. “Sorry to disturb you.”
“No problem,” Freda beamed at him, clearly pleased enough to have a chance to make a good impression on her boss face-to-face. She watched as he made his way out the door, and then turned her attention to me again. She eyed me for a moment and I quickly averted my eyes. Last thing I needed was for her to figure out what was going on between us.
“That was strange,” she murmured, mostly to herself, and wandered back off to pick up whatever it was she had been doing before he’d arrived. My heart was thumping hard in my chest. I wasn’t sure why he’d thought he could get away with that. Surely, he must have known I’d have responded with that pointedly confused reaction, practically writing it all out for Freda there and then?
A few minutes later, as I tried to steady my head and get back to what I had been working on, an email pinged into my inbox. It was from him. I opened it.
“La Monda,” The email read. “Tonight, seven. Wear something appropriate and I’ll meet you there.”
I widened my eyes. La Monda? I knew that place. It was the restaurant that I had always dreamed of Matt taking me, the kind of crazy-fancy place that always turned up in salivating profiles in Sunday supplements. The tables were booked out for months in advance, so he must have pulled some serious strings to get us in there. It sounded suspiciously like a date – but we had promised to keep this firmly on the down-low, right? Was I missing something? Was this actually about my employee evaluation?
I spent the rest of the day with my head in a haze, wishing I could call Patricia and ask her what she thought of all of this, but I knew that it was a bad idea. Not just because I would have had to reveal who I was dating, but because I knew precisely what she would say if she found out – that this was getting real, that if I didn’t want to get hurt then I should have pulled out now while I still had a hope of getting through this without ending up with a broken heart for my troubles.
I went home, showered, and picked out the nicest dress I could find – the one that I had worn to his place the first night we’d hooked up. I picked out the fancy, jasmine-scented lotion at the back of my cupboard, massaging it into my legs carefully. The thought crossed my mind, uncalled for, that this was maybe his way of breaking it off with me. Maybe he was doing it in public so I couldn’t freak out and land us in trouble. Maybe he had met somewhere better, someone he didn’t have to sneak around with. The notion twisted in my stomach, ugly and uncomfortable.
I caught a cab down there and pressed my head to the glass to cool my whirring thoughts. I still had a few days till the end of my internship so it wasn’t like he was getting me out here to dump me. He knew that this was over soon. He would have just waited it out and avoided a scene, not bothered getting a table at the most exclusive restaurant in town.
He was waiting there outside when I arrived, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw him on the sidewalk. He was wearing a crisp deep red shirt with some black blazer and black slacks, hair swished over to one side and carefully clean-shaven. He looked great, and I could see a few of the women who were entering the restaurant glancing in his direction. Yeah, he’s mine. Good luck getting your claws into him.
I carefully stepped of the cab, feeling like a movie star despite the damp sidewalk and the dozens of people out for a good time that night. He reached out, offering me a hand, pulling me to my feet; every time we had contact in public I felt like we were playing this dangerous game, where we could be caught out at any moment. A shot of electricity ran up my arm and he seemed to feel it to, offering me a smile.
“Good to see you,” he nodded, furrowing his brow slightly as though trying to keep the grin off his face. And then, he leaned in closer, so close I could feel his breath on my skin. My head spun as I tried to keep my footing. Anyone walking past us would think we were just a couple, and the notion of that was…a lot.
“That’s the dress you wore the first time, right?”
“Right,” I breathed.
“Good thinking,” he pulled away. “Shall we?”
And just like that, the night was on. I knew he was here to play and I had to give as good as I was getting if I wanted to keep up. We stepped into the restaurant, and I pulled myself up to full height and tried not to fall straight over my own feet. I wanted to pretend for at least a little bit that I belonged here.
“Ah, Mr Richards,” the hostess greeted us warmly as soon as we were through the door. She slid her eyes over to me, and I could tell she was trying to place me. I guessed she was used to seeing him with women a little more recognisable than me.
“Your table is ready,” she nodded to him, moving her eyes from me and looking back to him once more. “Would you like to follow me?”
“Of course,” he nodded, shooting me a look that I couldn’t quite read. My heart twisted up in my chest. What did he have planned for me tonight? Would I be able to handle it? Did that matter? I knew that whatever it was, I would go for it. Everything we’d done so far had been worth it, even the stuff that had initially made me a little nervous. I remembered when he wrapped his tie around my wrists, pinning them above us on the bed, and looked deep into my eyes as he fucked me. How it had made my head spin. I shivered, and it had nothing to do with the temperature in this place.
We took our seats, at this table for two huddled away at the back of the room. The tablecloths were heavy and hid our lower halves from the rest of this place, and as soon as I sat down, I felt his hand snake on to my knee.
“Okay, so you want to tell me what the hell we’re doing here?” I raised my eyebrows at him, my pulse picking up slightly. He just felt…fuck, there was something about being the focus of his attention that did things to me that no-one else had ever done before.
“Sorry,” he cocked an eyebrow. “I just wanted to see the look on your face when I did in person.”
“Yeah, well, Freda saw it too,” I shot back, making like I was mad even though I was practically giddy with excitement. “I thought you said you wanted to be careful about this?”
“I do,” he assured me, sliding his eyes around the room. “But I like…pushing limits. If you know what I mean.”
“What, like the limits of how far we can go without getting caught?” I shot back, and he shrugged.
“Maybe.”
I stared at him for a moment, not quite sure how to respond to that.
“So,” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. For once, I didn’t have to rush myself. We had the night, and I intended to make the most of this. “What are we doing here?”
“We don’t have much longer, right?” He cocked an eyebrow. I shook my head.
“Not much.”
“Well, there’s this…fantasy I’ve always had,” he traced his hand a little further up my leg, and I inhaled sharply. Fuck, that felt good.
“Yeah?” I breathed, prompting him to go on. When he spoke like this, it was like he was hypnotizing me. I wondered if he knew the effect he had on me. I wondered how many other women he’d held in his thrall like this before me, how many he would after.
“I’ve always loved this place,” he grinned. “And I’ve always wanted…well, not to have to wait till I get home afterwards to hook up, if you catch my drift.”
My eyes widened.
“You mean we…?”
“Here,” he nodded, that grin widening to something that looked almost dangerous. “I don’t mind if you want to wait till we’re done, but you look so good in that dress…”
He trailed off, and I realized that I could hear the blood rushing around my head. Fuck. I was so turned on by what he was suggesting I was having trouble thinking straight, having trouble working out if this wasn’t a really fucking bad idea. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t find it in me to care. I wanted this, and him, and right now.
“Now?” I breathed. He seemed to take a second to realize that I was saying yes.
“Seriously?” He raised his eyebrows.
�
��What, you think I didn’t have it in me?” I challenged him. Amusement flickered in his eyes.
“I guess I underestimated you,” he admitted. He moved his hand a little further up, so high now that he could almost trace the outline of my panties. I bit my lip.
“So how do we do this?”
He got to his feet.
“Disabled bathroom,” he nodded to the back of the restaurant. “Give it two minutes. The one on the right.”
And with that he left, walking away from me and leaving me sitting at that beautiful table, lit only by the candle that had been sitting between us. My heart was pumping hard, my skin preserving the feel of his hand perfectly, like he’d left an imprint. I counted the seconds down in my head, pretending to look around the place nonchalantly, even trying to look bored in his absence. I wasn’t sure who was watching my performance, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t want to get caught. Did I? A little part of me was thrilled at the thought, the way I had felt back in his office but to the nth degree.
Once I had finished counting down I made my way through to the bathroom where he was waiting for me. I walked slowly, taking my time, putting one foot in front of the other, feeling a little drunk already even though all I had done so far was look at the drinks menu. I took a deep breath when I reached the door, and slowly pushed it open. And there he was.
He pulled me inside at once and pushed the door shut behind me, locking it with one had and backing me up against it with the other. He ran his hand up my back and gripped my hair, closing his eyes as he pressed his face to my neck and inhaled deeply.