The List

by Anne Calhoun

  Except it did. Only meeting Colin Wilkinson salvaged the night. That was going to work. She just knew it, the way she knew when two people were meant for each other, as friends, as lovers, as life partners in all the beautiful, glorious iterations that phrase took on. She and Colin Wilkinson were going to get on extremely well, and that would make up for the hollowness left by Daniel Logan’s abrupt departure.

  She waited a few more minutes, then collected her purse and left the building. Outside the building she paused by the door and lit a cigarette.

  “If the ledges don’t get you, the cigarettes will.”

  Daniel was standing in a shadowy doorway. He stepped down to the sidewalk, into the harsh glare cast by the streetlight.

  “That’s an easy choice,” she said mildly, and flicked the butt into the trash can on the corner. “Done.”

  “Giving up a vice is that easy for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It wasn’t for me.”

  “You were a smoker?”

  He ducked his head in a way that was almost shy, almost abashed, then nodded as he leaned against the lamppost. “Smoking was my lone act of rebellion in college. I gave it up when I started training for marathons,” he said. “Some people can run and smoke, but I’m not one of them.”

  “That was your lone act of rebellion?”

  “This surprises you?” he countered.

  “You’re proving rather surprising,” she said.

  He looked away, around the street, then up at the sky. The cloud cover parted to reveal a full moon, a couple of bright stars visible through the light pollution, as if he were committing the moment to memory. “It’s like you make the weather.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. “Lost your way?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Were you waiting for me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t seem happy about it.”

  He didn’t say anything, just looked at the base of the streetlamp he was leaning against. He was like something out of an old movie, wearing a blazer even though it was still warm, hands shoved into his jeans pockets. She thought of all the things she didn’t do, like dance, or date, or tell her secrets, then thought about who he was, what she would do to him. But there was no denying that her heart beat a little faster while she looked at him. There was also no denying that no matter how badly she wanted this to work, it wouldn’t. Men like Daniel wanted things that were not in her power to give, much less feel. “I really am more trouble than I’m worth, Daniel,” she said gently. “No hard feelings.”

  “I can handle a hell of a lot of trouble,” he said. “Take me home with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve been thinking about what it will be like to be inside you since I left your house the last time.”

  Heat flared along her spine, curled around her ribs to drip and pool low in her belly.

  “Because I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  Exorcising demons she understood. She knew all about that, wanting and helpless to stop the wanting, until the only solution left was to take it in great greedy dripping handfuls until you were satiated, then pay for it afterward. “And you want to.”

  “Because I want you.”

  He said it like it meant something. Her face must have changed, because he turned north and held out his elbow. She slid her hand into the crook and set off beside him. They walked slowly up West Broadway, through Washington Square Park.

  “I went to school here,” he offered in the park.

  “As did I.”

  “I had my ten-year reunion last year. You?”

  “Six.”

  “You’re making your mark on the world for six years out of college.”

  She shrugged. “One keeps busy,” she said.

  They stopped in the shadowy space between lights on the path. He slid his palms along her jaw, such an old-fashioned gesture, then bent his head and kissed her, almost tentatively at first until his lips urged hers to part and admit his tongue. Then heat flared between them. Tilda found herself gripping his belt, felt the shift of muscle and bone under her palm. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.

  “It’s as bad as I remember,” he breathed.

  She drew in a shuddering breath, then captured his mouth for one last kiss. His arm slid around her shoulders as they set off again, turning west along Waverly Place to Perry Street. In the dark doorway to a thrift shop he backed her into the wall and ground against her, hiking her skirt up to get his hand to the curve of her bottom. His fingertips found lace and silk, then he pushed forward, hips tipping and sliding against hers in a delicious parody of sex. He broke off the kiss to bury his face in the curve of her neck and groan.

  “I would take you right here,” he said.

  His old-fashioned language charmed her, and she doubted that swearing was a vice he often permitted himself. “I’d let you. I’d let you have me right here.” It wouldn’t be the first time she’d picked shards of brick from the skin of her back. Sometimes the pain made the pleasure that much more exquisite.

  One arm braced beside her head, he drew back to look at her. “Is there anything you won’t let me do?”

  “Do I seem like I have boundaries?” she countered.

  “Everyone has boundaries,” he said. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness in the doorway. She saw pale flashes of blue as he searched her face. She could have told him it was pointless, but she didn’t. Instead she turned her wrist and slid her palm over his erection straining against his jeans.

  His eyes closed as he ground against her palm. His teeth caught her lower lip. She delicately licked his upper lip, rubbing his balls with the tips of her fingers in time to the strokes. He groaned, the sound low, tight, helpless, and released her lip.

  “This is going to be so good.”

  This time his hand rested on her waist as they crossed Bleecker and transitioned into the angled, tree-lined streets of the West Village. When they had to stop for a short line of traffic, he pulled her close and kissed her like no one was watching. One hand on her jaw, the other wrapped all the way around the small of her back while his tongue rubbed against hers. She hooked her elbow behind his neck and pressed in close, luxuriating in the heat coursing through her body, in the sheer abandon of kissing someone who loved to kiss.

  He stood at her back, hot and breathing deeply while she fumbled with her keys, then dropped them entirely when he palmed the back of her head, tipped it forward, and set his teeth to her nape. “Let me . . . let me open the door,” she half chided, half laughed.

  He crouched, picked up her keys, unerringly jammed the right one in the lock, and opened one half of the narrow double door. She stepped inside, and he slammed her up against the wall.

  “Third floor . . . two flights of stairs . . . that’s a long way.” His voice was like the purr of the big cat, coming from his chest as much as from his throat.

  She shoved his jacket to the floor. “The wall?”

  “No,” he said, and dragged her halfway up the first flight of stairs. She stopped one step above him and threaded her hands through his cropped blond hair, holding him for her mouth. It was crazy, the way she wanted him. She was slick and hot, nerves tingling with anticipation.

  “Here,” she said, and sat down, hiking her skirt to the tops of her thighs.

  “No,” he said again, and hoisted her to her feet. “This happens in a bed.”

  On the landing she unbuttoned his shirt while he jerked open his cuffs. Desperate to get her hands on his cock, she opened his belt and jeans at the bottom of the next flight of stairs, tugging down boxers and jeans until she could grip it.

  “Stop,” he said. “Do that and this will all be over.”

  Possessed by a demon, she turned her back to him. “Unzip me,” she said.

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nbsp; He did. She shrugged. The dress dropped to her feet. Without turning around she proceeded up the stairs in nothing but four-inch heels and lace panties. “Coming?” she said.

  “Just admiring the view,” he said.

  He caught up with her at the top of the stairs, taking them two at a time by the sound of his bare feet on the wood. Without breaking stride his hands slid over her ribs to cup her breasts, teasing her nipples as they walked. The sensations were so strong she had to brace herself on the doorframe. His hands skimmed down her torso to hook in her panties and urge them down her legs. She stepped out of the lace and her heels, then pulled the duvet to the end of the bed before sprawling back on her elbows.

  He’d stripped off his jeans while she prepared the bed, and joined her on the bed, kneeing her thighs apart. While she watched him he rolled a condom down his shaft, then reached for her hands and pinned them to the bed next to her head as he nudged into place.

  And waited.

  “Daniel,” she said.

  “Shh,” he said. His mouth hovered over hers, their lips barely brushing. Tilda felt her eyes close as her awareness shrank to the slight pressure of Daniel’s cock against her slick folds. He was going slowly, so slowly, torturously slowly, and every time she lifted into the pressure he pulled back. With her hands pinned she had no leverage. Trying for some, for anything that would make this happen, she wrapped both legs around his hips and pulled, moving him not one whit.

  “Easy,” he said. “Shh. Wait. Feel this.”

  She groaned and went limp. When she stopped fighting for what she wanted, the sensation of him stretching her, easing into her half an inch at a time, filled her senses. His fingers, clasped with hers. His chest hair brushing her nipples; the increasing slickness of their skin; the rough but nearly invisible blond stubble on his jaw; the heated, damp caress of his breath against her lips, her cheekbones, her eyelids, her ears.

  Then he was finally all the way inside, pelvis pressing against her, abdomen brushing hers with each rapid inhale. “Still with me?”

  She opened her eyes. “Of course.”

  He shifted the minute distance necessary to rub his shaft against the bundle of nerves inside her. Every muscle in her body tightened, her eyes flew closed, and then he drew out and thrust in, smooth and deep and unhurried. The whole stroke slid over that ache inside, tip to base, and she moaned helplessly.

  The pace he set wasn’t hard and fast or slow and deep. No, nothing so contrived. It was simply relentless, and perfectly timed to keep her riding the tight curl of energy. Her face was hot and flushed, her pulse pounding in her throat and cheeks. Someone was whimpering and it couldn’t be her, but it was too high pitched to be Daniel.

  He was, she realized at the back of her mind, getting off not on the sex, not on having sex with her, but on how sex made her feel, making her lift, tighten, go molten. He wasn’t taking something from her, using her to get off. No, he was exerting an astonishing willpower to own her. This wasn’t as ordinary as she comes, he comes, find your clothes, and leave.

  The friction was indescribable, adding some punch to the unrelenting strokes.

  The air when she remembered to breathe smelled like sweat and sex.

  The slick sounds of skin on skin punctuated her gasping little cries.

  She gripped his hands and clung to his hips, lifting up, up, up, until the world whited out. He came almost immediately after, grinding into her.

  “Oh my bloody God,” she said.

  He laughed, a response she felt in the bellows-like action of his ribs against hers and in the huff of air against her damp hair. The sound was almost tertiary to the experience of feeling Daniel Logan laugh while he was inside her.

  He released her hands, then pulled out to sprawl beside her. “Exactly.”

  She made a little sound of agreement. He got up, went into the bathroom, then untangled his boxers from his jeans. She pushed herself up on her elbows.

  “Worked me out of your system?”

  “I figured I’d save you the trouble of kicking me to the curb again.”

  His voice was carefully emotionless, as if he didn’t really care whether he stayed or left. In thinking over their time together his voice hadn’t changed much at all, but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking that a limited vocal range meant a limited emotional range. No, Daniel Logan was simply very, very careful about who he showed his emotions to.

  “You can stay,” she said, surprising herself.

  Completely unselfconscious about his nudity, he paused with his underpants in one hand and his jeans in the other. A sex flush faded on his throat and chest. “I can.”

  She shrugged. She’d wanted like that before, knew it didn’t last, but she’d learned to hold on to something until it got too hot to hold. Right now she had the tiger by the tail. Letting Daniel Logan spend the night held no threat at all.

  His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he studied her. “All right, but we go out for breakfast and have a conversation.”

  She blinked. “That sounds serious.”

  “Not that kind of conversation. A get to know you conversation.”

  “The kind we should have had before we started sleeping together.”

  He didn’t move from his position by the door. She openly admired his runner’s body, lean, muscled, the sparse hair on his chest tapering to a line that thickened again around his cock. She could see ribs, hipbones, the bulge of muscle by his knee. As she studied him his cock twitched and lifted.

  “Ah,” she said. It came out rougher and throatier than she expected.

  “If we’re going to do this again, we talk to each other first.”

  “The last time we did this I was fairly clear about what I do and do not do.”

  “You were,” he agreed, his smile creasing his cheeks. “Now I’m being clear about what I do and don’t do.”

  “I don’t like ultimatums.”

  “Tilda,” he said very seriously in that voice like dark, melted chocolate, “it’s not a marriage proposal. It’s not even dinner and a conversation beforehand. It’s breakfast and a conversation after, and you don’t have to tell me your whole life story over hash browns.”

  “Deal,” she said, and scooted over to make room for him.

  “Breakfast,” he said.

  “Sarabeth’s.”

  He crawled onto the bed and sprawled on his stomach beside her. “Eggs Benedict.”

  “With salmon,” she said, and heard him whisper ornery before she drifted off.

  – SIX –

  September

  “I let myself in,” Daniel said. He stopped in the doorway to her office and braced his shoulder against the white-painted frame. The room, like Tilda, was a hidden surprise, windows taking the entire back wall, then continuing halfway up the roof. When the trees were in bloom the effect was a bit like a greenhouse, sunlight dappling the room through the thick leaves of the oak tree. Her desk faced the wall, more conducive to work, she said, and the chaise lounge angled toward the windows, the better for sorting through the card file she kept of people who’d asked for Lady Matilda’s help with a connection. He often found Tilda up here, curled on the chaise like a child hidden in a tree fort, rereading letters. Today the antique brown leather card files sat on the carpet by the chaise, as if she’d been reviewing paperwork, refreshing her memory, perhaps even celebrating successful matches. She wore jeans and a gray cashmere sweater, and her curls spilled away from her face against the throw pillow. Rain plunked steadily against the windows, the kind of steady drizzle that made the fallen orange and yellow leaves gleam on the Perry Street sidewalk.

  “You’ve got to stop leaving the door unlocked. It’s not safe,” Daniel said.

  She turned her head and smiled but said nothing, just went back to looking out the window. He stretched out beside her on the chaise, slotting hi
mself between her body and the back then wrapping his arms around her to pull her close. Her exposed arms and bare feet were chilly against his skin. He sucked in air, then said, “You’re cold.”

  “I thought it would be warmer,” she said distantly.

  “The cold front came through sooner than they said it would,” he replied, and reached for the silver-gray throw behind him.

  “What are you working on?”

  “Just rereading the letters. These two,” she said, tapping two folded note cards lying on the floor by the chaise, “have been on my list the longest.”

  “What do they want?” he asked. After she ascertained that he didn’t want to be put on the list, they didn’t discuss it, but Daniel could tell how much it meant to her. She took the list seriously, puzzled over the notes, in a way that told him that connecting people wasn’t just a sideline. It was a compulsion.

  “They want what everyone wants, deep down,” she said. “A soul mate.”

  “That’s a lot to ask of Lady Matilda. Of you,” he said.

  “Ask and ye shall receive,” she said, but her tone lifted a little at the end, making the statement a question, or at least indicating a hint of doubt. “You have to ask. If you don’t ask, you don’t stand a chance of getting what you want.”

  “You don’t believe in fate, or serendipity, do you?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Do you ever review successful matches?” he asked, looking at the second card file, with its smaller assortment of cards.

  “No,” she said. She shifted restlessly. “I hate this weather.”

  He smiled and kissed the back of her head. He’d never heard her express that much emotion about anything. “Why?”

  “This is England for about eight months of the year. Dreary, rainy, cold. One’s feet are always wet unless one wears ridiculous ugly boots.”

  Daniel felt his smile broaden. She must be tired. She got a little more English when she was tired, as if she filtered herself to sound more American when she was awake and alert. “What have you been up to today, besides working on the list?”