by Lauren Rowe
I shrug.
“So, no interest in corporate law, then? There are plenty of top law firms in Seattle offering ridiculous salaries to starting lawyers. Trust me, I know—I’ve probably funded a sizeable number of their salaries myself over the years.”
I don’t like this topic. I want to know more about him, not tell him about me. “I didn’t go to law school for the money,” I say simply.
His eyes flash and I feel his desire for me in no uncertain terms. The way he’s looking at me, I know he’s hard right now. Yet again, I imagine myself sitting on his lap and taking his hardness into me. I wonder if his “strategy” could withstand that. By the expression on his face right now, I’d swear this man can read my exact thoughts.
“What are you thinking right now?” I breathe.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re looking at me like you want to swallow me whole.”
“I’m thinking I want to swallow you whole.”
I can’t help but smirk.
“I’m thinking you’re everything I fantasized you’d be. And more. And I’m thinking I want you so bad, it’s causing me physical pain. And, most of all, I’m thinking you’re so fucking beautiful.”
Boom. Just like that, I’m throbbing. And wet. I want him.
We stare at each other for a moment.
He leans back and sighs. “Tell me more about what you do for The Club, My Beautiful Intake Agent.”
I sigh, exasperated. “Why?” I whisper. I hope my voice doesn’t sound as impatient as I feel. I don’t understand why he’s so chatty tonight. Isn’t this the man who thinks about fucking a woman in a bathroom while chatting over a nice glass of pinot noir? I check the label on our wine bottle. Yep. Pinot noir. So what gives?
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why do you want to know more about me? I thought you didn’t care about any of that kind of thing.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not a monster.” He leans forward. “Talking to you is turning me on. And I like getting turned on.”
There’s that throbbing again. I lean forward onto my forearms. “I review applications assigned to my geographic territory—Seattle—and read all about people’s deepest secrets and fantasies. I research to find out if they are who they say they are, and then I do surveillance on each applicant—”
“Did you do surveillance on me?”
“Of course.” I tell him every detail about how I saw him fly past me in his BMW.
He exhales sharply, his mind blown. “To think I drove right past you when I was desperate to find you.” He shakes his head.
I grin. “Normally, I would have just waltzed into your office to ask about you. But I didn’t want you to see me. When it came to you, I didn’t do anything the ‘usual’ way.”
“Why didn’t you want me to see you?”
I purse my lips. “I guess I wanted you to see me for the first time ... on a night just like this.”
He arches his eyebrows and smiles. “Good call.”
I grin.
“So, usually, you just walk right into a guy’s office when you’re doing surveillance?”
“Yeah, I just go wherever they are and waltz right in. Who cares, since they’ll never see me again?” As an example, I tell him about my recent trip downtown to watch that software engineer leave his building for lunch.
“What did that guy write in his application?”
“Actually, he didn’t care about the sex all that much. I think he’s genuinely looking for love.”
Jonas scoffs. “In The Club? Yeah, right.”
I’m offended. “Anything’s possible. And he only signed up for a month. So that says a lot.”
“Why does that say a lot? A fucked-up deviant can’t sign up for a month?”
“No, the fucked-up deviants are the ones who sign up for a full year.”
His eyes flash at me. Was that anger? Humiliation? I can’t tell.
“I don’t understand,” he mutters, his cheeks blazing.
“The ones who sign up for a year have zero faith they’ll ever find love—or else they wouldn’t commit to a year up front. For them, it’s all about the sex. Nothing more.”
His eyes are hard.
Shit. Clearly, I’m pissing him off right now. I forge ahead anyway. Screw it. He wants “brutal honesty,” right? “The ones who sign up for a month are the romantics,” I explain. “They’re hoping to find love right off the bat and never need The Club’s services again. I think they’re sweet.”
“Ah,” he says. Yeah, he’s pissed.
“Not everyone is scared of love, you know.” I sniff. “Some people actually think love is the most important thing in the world. And why shouldn’t that software engineer find someone to love—in The Club or however he can find it? He deserves love as much as anyone.” I’m becoming angry and I don’t understand why. “Even if you don’t believe in falling in love, Jonas, that doesn’t mean the rest of the world doesn’t believe in it. When I saw that software engineer leaving his lobby for lunch, he looked so alone, so lonely, so sad, I actually cried a little bit.” And, what the hell, I feel like I could cry all over again, just talking about that guy. Why am I taking up the software engineer’s cause so passionately? Why am I blasting Jonas right now? I knew what he was before I agreed to dinner. So why hold it against him now?
Jonas looks at a total loss.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, but my pulse is racing. “I don’t know why I got so riled up there. I’ve known all about you from the start. It’s not fair to hold it against you now.”
He runs his hand through his hair.
I exhale. “I’m sure you’re plotting your swift escape right about now,” I mutter.
“Correct,” he says.
My stomach drops. I’ve blown it. I’ve totally and completely blown it.
“But only to take you away from this table to a place where I can touch and kiss every inch of you.”
I exhale sharply.
His eyes are on fire. He’s like a caged lion.
“Why me, Jonas?” I ask. I can’t help myself. This man can have any woman he wants. I wish I could let it go, go with the flow and not ask, but I don’t understand why he’s moved heaven and earth to find me, and rented out this restaurant for me, and is now looking at me like I’m a bottle of whiskey and he’s an alcoholic, especially now that I just ripped him a new one. “Please. I don’t care about your strategy, whatever it is,” I whisper. “I just have to understand why you’ve gone to such extremes to pursue me.”
His eyes darken with intensity. “You want to know?”
I nod. “Please.”
His eyes are blazing. “The minute I read your email—the minute I saw the sender name on your email—even before I’d read the goddamned message—I knew you’d change everything.”
I can’t breathe. My heart’s thumping in my ears.
“And, Sarah, I wanted you to”—his jaw muscles pulse—“change everything.” He puts his fork down and stares at me.
My heart is beating like I just ran a hundred-yard dash. That throbbing between my legs has returned with a vengeance. I’m a whirl of unbridled emotion right now.
His chest is heaving.
I stand up from my chair. I’m his for the taking. Take me.
He leaps out of his chair and grabs me, pressing his body fervently into mine, his hardness nudging against my hip. He swoops down to my mouth for a kiss, and electricity floods my every nerve ending. Oh my God, his lips are warm and soft and delectable. When his tongue parts my lips and enters my mouth, I smash my body against his, and we’re both instantly impassioned. In a flash, we’re moaning and clawing and grasping at each other, both of us savage animals.
“Now,” I whisper. “Right now.”
“Sarah—” he begins, and it’s clear he’s going to protest.
I reach down and touch the bulging package between us. I want to wrap my legs around him and take him into me right here. “Jo
nas,” I moan. I’m so turned on I’m in danger of losing my legs out from under me. If he doesn’t take me into the bathroom this very second, I just might unzip his pants right here in front of the waiter.
“It’s either on the table or in the bathroom,” I breathe. “Take your pick.”
He looks around for a brief second and back at me.
My stare is unwavering.
He grips my hand and pulls me toward the back of the restaurant. Everything is a blur around me. I’m in sensory overload. I’m having trouble walking—my legs are rubber under me. I’m enraptured by the scent of him, the rawness of him—by the all-encompassing throbbing between my legs. Oh God, I want him.
We’re in the bathroom. The women’s bathroom. There’s an anteroom with a feminine-looking couch. He brings me to the couch, his lips assaulting mine, and lays me down on my back. He’s frantically unzipping the back of my dress and pulling it down, roughly, while at the same time pulling up the hem. He’s groaning. His hands are all over me. Now there are soft, warm lips on my shoulder, my neck. Oh God, a finger slips inside my underpants, inside of me, eagerly working me, rhythmically caressing me, making me wet. I cry out. Lips on my nipples. I fumble for his zipper. I’m clawing at him. I can’t breathe.
His fingers work themselves to my clit. I cry out again and reach for his hard shaft. He yanks my underwear off. My dress is pulled down from the top and hiked up from the bottom, bunched around my waist. I’m soaking wet between my legs, aching, yearning for him. My thighs are covered in my wetness.
“I’m on the pill,” I whisper. “Now, Jonas.”
“No,” he says, bending down toward my crotch, clearly intending to lick me.
I pull at his head, forcing his face back toward mine. I glare at him, desperate. “There’s no time for that,” I hiss back. “Now, Jonas.”
I grab feverishly at his penis and pump his shaft up and down as his fingers work their way to the exact spot that drives me wild. I groan and lean back onto the couch, pulling his hardness toward me, positioning him right at my wet entrance.
“Now,” I plead. “Please, now.”
“No,” he says, but I feel the tip of his penis resting at my entrance. He moans.
I thrust my hips toward him, urging him to enter me, teasing him. “Do it now,” I say, gritting my teeth.
“We’re at cross-purposes here,” he says, trembling, but a second later, he plunges into me, making me cry out.
He slams into me, in and out of me, over and over. He lets out a choked noise that tells me he’s already close.
I reach my hands under his shirt to find warm, taut muscles. He pulls down my bra and pinches my nipple—and when he does, something deep inside me faintly ripples at his touch. I make a sound I don’t recognize—a sound I’ve never heard myself make before—and he shudders visibly with his arousal.
He pulls out of me and bends down toward my crotch, yet again intending to lick me, but I get up and push him onto the couch, onto his back. In one swift motion, I straddle him and take him into me again, riding him roughly. I gyrate on top of him, moaning. His fingers quickly move to massage my clit.
I’m on fire. I’m feeling so much pleasure it’s beginning to feel like pain. My nerve endings are zapping me like live wires. Glimmering waves of pleasure begin nipping at me from a distance. Again, that foreign noise escapes my throat.
He cries out and I feel his ejaculation inside me, spilling into me.
I’m shaking. Panting. Wanting more. I’m not done yet. I’ve never been this aroused in all my life. I want more.
I open my eyes to look at him.
He’s looking right at me. He looks like a Greek god reclined beneath me. I’ve never even kissed a man this good looking—and now I’ve just had the best sex of my life with him. Holy crap, this was amazing. I’m panting like a rabid dog, aching for more. Needing more.
He’s still.
He touches my clit again, but I jerk away.
Now that he’s done, I don’t want to be touched. The moment has passed for me. When he was fucking me and touching me at the same time, my body belonged to him. But now—now that he’s climaxed—my body has closed up shop. I don’t want all attention on me—I know exactly how that ends. Not well.
But, oh God, I was close. I know I was. I was closer than I’ve ever been before. I felt like I was about to lose myself—like I was losing control. And I liked it. I really, really, really, really, really liked where this was heading.
I want to do it again.
I feel his hands on my breasts again. And then on my stomach, my hips, my butt.
He moans underneath me. I tilt my head back and sigh, remembering how I felt a moment ago—how everything started warping inside me. I want to feel that way again—I think I could feel that way again.
His hand moves between my legs and I gently guide him away again. No. The moment has passed.
He looks defeated.
Oh, I’ve disappointed him. My stomach drops into my feet. Of course I have. Good sex means only one thing to him. How could I forget that? I get off him quickly and angrily and start pulling my dress back down and up, trying to put myself back together.
“What’s the matter?” he says, shocked.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I hiss.
“Oh my God!” he shouts, throwing up his hands. “And here I thought I was supposed to be the fucked up one. Sarah, do you even know how fucked up you are?” Wow, he’s angry.
I wheel around to look at him, incredulous. “I’m fucked up? Why? Because I won’t pretend to have an orgasm for the sake of feeding your ego?”
“No, because you’re hell bent on sabotaging yourself. Look at you. It’s text book defense mechanism.” He grabs my shoulders. “Well, guess what? I’m not going to let you do this. Do you understand me?”
“Do what?”
“Sabotage this.”
“There’s nothing to sabotage,” I say.
He looks wounded. “You don’t mean that.”
He’s right. I don’t mean that. Not at all.
And he’s also right that I’m so fucked up. I’ve been fucked up for a really long time, now that I think about it, despite how much it might appear I’ve got it all together. No matter how hard I try to be perfect, and rule-following, and smart, and keep it together, no matter how great my grades are and how well I convince the world I’m Sarah the Straight Arrow, Sarah the Studious One, Sarah the Snarky One, I’m always one hair away from falling apart, pushing people away, quickly rejecting before I can be rejected. Holy shit, he’s right. I’m so fucked up. I’ve always been so fucked up, despite appearances. And he figured it out this fast? No one ever figures me out this quickly, because I don’t let them.
I finish putting my dress back together, slowly, and then I sit on the edge of the couch and put my head in my hands.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re right.”
“About which part?”
“All of it.” I bury my face into my hands. Tears are threatening. “I’m trying to screw this up.” I turn to look at him, cringing.
“Why?”
I sigh. “Come on, Jonas. I’ve read your application.” I search for the right words. “I know you’re just going to move on. I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t. Either way, you’re gonna reject me. Sooner rather than later, too.”
He exhales. “So you’re gonna do it first, then. Is that it?”
I nod slowly. “I guess so.”
He sighs. “Understandable. Given what you know about me. And who you are.”
I shrug. I am what I am. So is he.
He puts his finger under my chin and guides my face to look at him. The moment my eyes meet his, my eyes moisten.
“I’m glad you’re fucked up,” he whispers. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t want me. No one’s more fucked up than me. You have no idea.”
I can’t help but smile through my impending tears. I trace his lips with the tip of my finger. “W
hy are you so fucked up?” I ask him.
His eyes are soulful, earnest. Sad. He leans his forehead against mine. “It’s a long story.”
I understand. I don’t know why I understand, but I do.
“Why are you so fucked up?” he asks, his nose touching mine.
“It’s a long story,” I say quietly.
He leans back, exhaling. “Oh, Sarah.”
I look up at him and a lone tear escapes down my cheek.
He wipes it away and kisses me. It’s a gentle kiss—a kiss of sheer kindness.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. “Bring the car to the front now,” he says, never taking his eyes off me. “Thank you.” He stands and grabs my hand. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”
I bristle. He banged me, and now it’s time to send me packing—is that it?
He shakes his head, obviously bewildered by my facial expression. “To my home, you big dummy. I’m taking you home with me.”
The streetlights flash on his face as we sit together in the backseat of the limo, our bodies close and our hands clasped. He holds my hand with supreme confidence, like I’m his. I like it. I want to be his. Even if I wanted to freak out again (which I don’t) I couldn’t possibly muster the effort—not with him holding my hand like this.
I hate the way I reacted in the bathroom. I shouldn’t have done that. I ruined what should have been an incredible moment. I need to just turn off my brain and go with the flow and see where this leads. No more self-sabotaging. He was right.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next, it’s true—but I don’t need to know. We’re going to his house, and that’s exactly where I want to go. I want to see him naked. I want to touch every inch of him. I want to find out everything there is to know about him. I want to see his family pictures. I want to see how his house is decorated. I want to see if he’s neat and tidy or a slob. I want to see what’s in his fridge. I want to make love to him in a bed. And I want to turn the tables on him and lick every inch of him ‘til he begs me for mercy. Yes, for some reason, I want to bring him to his knees and thwart his every strategy.