by Jolie Day
So why did Maya have me itching to call her like I was some high school punk, dying to ask her out before the popular guy came to his senses and swept her off her feet? It’s that voice, I decided. I’d grown accustomed to hearing her husky laugh and lilting voice in my house at all hours of the day. I was used to coming home to it. I wanted to hear that voice again, and I wanted to be able to hear how much she missed me, too.
“Goddammit,” I said, admitting defeat to myself, the only person who ever received the privilege. Rick’s little sister still had me tied up in knots, even after all these years, and I wanted her so bad I could taste it. Taste her.
My driver brought the car to a smooth stop alongside the curb of a high-rise contemporary hotel. One attendant opened my door for me, and another asked if I had any luggage I would like delivered to my room, and I waved them both off with a smile. Inside, the concierge, who was good enough at his job that he had recognized me when I arrived, despite my only having stayed at this hotel twice in the last year, greeted me with a nod.
“Mr. Gladwell.”
The hotel was a stud in modernity and clean lines, decorated with soothing water features and monochromatic arrangements of seasonal flowers. The entire atmosphere was gorgeous and elegant and entirely as it should be, except for one thing: I wanted Maya here with me, to enjoy the kind of luxury a woman of her caliber so clearly deserved. To edge close to me in the elevator, to kiss me like she couldn’t get enough, unbuttoning my shirt at the door as I fumbled with the room key, to bury her face in my crisp white sheets as I made her cry out my name.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I muttered to myself. The elevator dinged as the doors slid shut behind me, and I rode up to my room on the seventeenth floor alone. Maybe, I shouldn’t have called what happened between us in my car five years ago a mistake, no matter what sort of negative fallout it had led to. If that was a mistake, I was in the mood to make it again and again.
My room was a sanctuary of calm in the hectic noise of Tokyo after dark. Slate-gray-and- buttery-beige furnishings, low lighting, and a sweating bottle of top-shelf champagne was waiting for me in a tin ice bucket. I made it a habit to enjoy a glass or two of champagne after my big deals. Not all of them, but the ones I’d worked my ass off for, or the ones that brought along a lifestyle-changing payout. I was a firm believer in treating yourself to a little something exquisite after all bills had been paid and all investments had been made, and, honestly, what in the world was better than champagne? Well, sex with Maya would be, that was, if I ever got another chance.
As the tart bubbles dissolved on my tongue, an image flashed through my mind. Maya, giving me that wicked smile from behind a glass of effervescent gold, laughing and letting me kiss her soundly in celebration of tonight. I could almost smell that coconut freesia body spray she spritzed her clothes with every morning.
“That’s it.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, hit Maya’s name in my contacts, and tossed it onto the bed. I slipped out of my jacket as the call rang through. There was a possibility she wouldn’t answer, that she was still upset with me, and that she wouldn’t return my call until morning. By then, I would have had plenty of time to think about what I was doing and realize it just ain’t worth it, and I would be stronger against the temptation that was Maya St. James. Part of me wished that this would happen, and part of me had already committed to following this bad decision as far down the rabbit hole as it wanted to take me.
I took a swallow of champagne, loosened my tie, and then, on the fourth ring, Maya picked up.
“Hello?”
Her voice was high-pitched, but the speakerphone made it feel like she was in the room with me. My pulse ticked up a notch.
“Maya.”
It was the wrong voice, the one I used to negotiate terms in business transactions, the one that made her name sound like a formal address. I tended to revert to it when I felt unsure of myself, knowing that feigning confidence was the only way to achieve true self-assurance, but now I realized it sounded awkward, forced. Maya knew me better than that, she’d known me well before I became that person. The thought both terrified and excited me.
“Ethan?”
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, I…” I heard the shifting of blankets on the other end of the phone, and she inhaled as though gathering her thoughts. She’d probably been curled up on the sofa, lost in a book. “It’s afternoon here.”
“I know. Your voice sounds tired.”
“Is everything all right? Do you need me to do something at the apartment for you?”
“No, everything’s fine. I just called to check in, actually.”
“Check in?”
Her voice had more than a couple of different questions threaded through it, and I was overwhelmed with the urge to backpedal. I had no idea how any of this was going to go. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted out of this conversation, just that it felt imperative to hear her voice.
“Yes… how’s everything over there? No incidents, I assume?”
There was another shift, probably Maya settling back into wherever she’d been sitting. I heard the clink of ice in a glass as she took a sip of something. “None. Everything’s peachy in the apartment. The housekeeper came by yesterday, but I texted the cook and told her to take the week off like you said.”
“Good. And you tipped Elsa, right?”
“Of course. She sends along her appreciation as always.”
“Good.”
An awkward quiet passed between us.
Maya broke the silence. “Is that… all you needed?”
“No, actually.” More of the old Ethan appeared in my voice. I’d been a very sincere and open kid before I’d learned to be guarded. “How are you doing?”
“Oh, am I an extension of the house you can dial up and check in on, like some kind of high-tech appliance?”
Her humor added a little bit of light-heartedness to the air.
“Not unless you want to be. Although I’m sure you’d make a valuable asset. Really drives up the real estate value of the place.”
Maya chuckled, that husky laugh that had always managed to set me on fire. “Happy to know you’d be willing to invest. I warn you. I have high installation fees.”
“You’re worth it.”
“You sound like you’re having a good night.”
I strolled over to the large window that overlooked the busy street many stories below. I was smiling in a way I was glad Maya couldn’t see. It would’ve given too much of me away.
“I am. I’m happy to announce that as of thirty minutes ago, I have a new business partner.”
“Congratulations on closing the deal.”
“Thank you. But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“And what’s the penalty if I don’t?”
“I keep pestering you about it.”
“Well, then.” She gave a languid little sigh, and the sound felt so intimate that goose bumps rose on my arm. All she had to do was breathe in the right way to get my mouth watering. It should be illegal. “Hmm, let’s see. I worked, of course. Ran to the bodega on the corner for some coconut water and Takis, and then collapsed on the couch with my Kindle. Not very eventful. But… yeah, I guess I’m doing well. Things have been quiet around here.”
“Yeah?”
“Restful, I guess. But…” She trailed off and sighed. “To be honest, I’m looking forward to you coming back. Having the place to myself is nice and everything, but it gets kind of spooky after a while. I’ve lived with other people all my life. It’s kind of lonely up here by myself.”
I made a pleased humming sound, incapable, it would seem, from showboating at every opportunity. “I didn’t realize you missed me so terribly. I’ll have to keep the business trips short from now on, so you don’t pine away to nothing without me.”
I was teasing her, of course, but there was a little challenging truth in the statement that we could
both hear. Maya blustered on the other end, and I could hear her opening and closing her mouth multiple times before managing a weak response.
“Not… necessarily.”
My smile spread into a wolfish grin. “You don’t sound very confident.”
“You’re terrible. Are you calling just to tease me? Don’t you have beautiful Japanese heiresses to wine and dine or something?”
I shrugged, aware she couldn’t see the gesture. Below me, taxis weaved at breakneck speed through the streets, and couples hustled through crosswalks with their arms linked. A light rain had begun to fall, and a mother on the street corner popped open a miniature clear umbrella and handed it to her red-cheeked kid.
“I’m not much for heiresses these days.”
I picked up my cell and lowered myself into the room’s ergonomic chairs, the one that had probably been manufactured by a high-end designer. I settled the phone into the crook of my shoulder and began to unlace my leather loafers.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” I said.
There it was—I said it.
There was a pause on the other end of the call, but then Maya spoke soft and low. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What about me?” she asked, her voice husky in that sexy way of hers. “What were you thinking?”
I settled in, making myself comfortable, tipping my head against the back of the chair and closing my eyes. “Just remembering the other night. Remembering the way you felt. The way you tasted.”
“Oh, but… that must have been very distracting for you in your business meetings,” she said. Her ever-sharp wit couldn’t hide the hitch in her breath, or the softening of her voice.
“Very. Obviously, I shouldn’t have started something I couldn’t finish before leaving town. There’s too much unfinished business in that apartment.”
I was gambling, betting all my sexual instincts and this momentary hit of self-confidence on Maya being in the same kind of mood. It could backfire, of course. She could tell me to go to hell, tell me that she was planning on moving out, tell me that the kiss was fine, but from now on we had to keep it professional. All three possibilities felt terrible in their own way, but I stood my ground. I didn’t brush off what I’d said as a joke or apologize. I didn’t like beating around the bush, and if Maya was going to hang around much longer, as a friend or anything else, she was going to have to get used to that.
Maya was quiet for a moment on the other end. I took a sip of my champagne. But then she spoke, “And what is it that you think needs finishing over here?”
“Ideally? You first, and then me.”
Another little pause. When Maya spoke, it was in that thoughtful, intimate voice people used to proposition other people for all manner of things. “How do you intend to go about that?”
I ran a hand down my face, feeling the blood rushing to my head. Not the one on my shoulders.
“You want specific details?”
“I wouldn’t mind a teaser.” She sounded confident, despite the slight tinge of nervousness in her statement right at the end. Maya usually spoke her mind—I liked that about her, especially right now.
“I would strip you down naked and kiss every inch of your body. Then I would find creative ways to make you forget your own name and scream mine. Good enough for you?”
She made what sounded like a purring noise of pleasure that coursed through my entire body like a bolt of electricity. How could one sound get me so fucking hot and turned on? I was used to being in control of any sexual situation I found myself in, and while I was pretty sure that I still held the upper hand here as the initiator, Maya was going to give me a run for my money, I could feel it.
“Yes.”
I wanted to keep going. I wanted to detail everything I’d ever wanted to do to her, how I planned to touch and tease her pussy, down to the position and technique, until I heard her come for me on the other end of the phone. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t fucked this woman yet, but delayed gratification was powerful, and I wanted her to want this as much as I did. In my line of work, you learned to be patient. You waited. You learned not to play your entire hand—until the last possible moment.
“I have a proposal for you,” I said, “if you’re interested.”
“Don’t you think that’s moving a little quickly?”
“Clever girl. You know I don’t mean that kind of proposal.”
“What, then?”
I moved to the bed, settling in on the stark-white, soft pillows. I slid one hand behind my head and closed my eyes, trying to picture what she looked like now. Had she flipped through a book and painted her nails, just before my call? Were her cheeks flushing that adorable shade of pink, her heart hammering in her chest for me?
“I’ll be home tomorrow night, probably around ten. If you want to hear more about what I have in mind, wait up for me. A bottle of wine wouldn’t be a bad idea. If you’re not interested, no hard feelings. We never have to have this discussion again, and I’ll respect your decision.”
“Sounds fair to me.”
“Good.”
“You always drive a hard bargain, don’t you?”
“At every available opportunity. I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Miss St. James. And, I suggest you rest up tonight.”
Maya let out that intoxicating laugh, the teasing one that left me with no idea what she thought of me and desperate to find out. At any rate, she sounded flattered and amused, which was a good enough starting point for me. I would have her by the time this was all said and done. I wanted nothing more.
“I want you to wear that nice dress you had on when you came to look at my apartment.”
I could hear her smile. “Did you like it that much?” she whispered with a flirtatious tone.
“I liked your ass in it. It looked spectacular—couldn’t stop staring. Also,” I growled.
“Yes?”
“Don’t wear panties.”
I heard her gasp.
I knew I was bold. But the truth was, the thought of her waiting for me wearing nothing under that skirt had me rock hard. In my mind, I saw myself running my hands over her ass, reaching under her skirt to her...
“Sweet dreams to you, too. Goodnight, Ethan.”
“Goodnight.”
The line clicked on her end and went dead, and I tossed the phone back into the armchair like it was a disposable thing that had served its purpose. She thought I drove a hard bargain, huh? She hadn’t even begun to get acquainted with my hardness, and I was gunning to show her the entire selection.
I glanced at my watch and decided that sleep was exactly what I needed, considering all the traveling I had to do tomorrow.
That night, I tossed and turned for what must have been an hour before finally falling asleep. Usually, this would have been because I had visions of spreadsheets and acquisitions streaming through my mind, and ten new schemes for success battling for my attention.
But that night, it was Maya’s silhouette that haunted me, the shape of her beautiful rosebud lips, the sparkle in her eyes, the weight of her tits under my hands. The scent of her perfume invaded my dreams, dreams that were full of her laughter and all sorts of sexual situations that the two of us would find ourselves in. It was probably two in the morning when I fell asleep, but I didn’t care.
If there was one thing in this world I was willing to lose a good night’s sleep over, it was her.
I got back into New York later than I’d anticipated and stepped out of the taxi onto my doorstep at a quarter to midnight. It had been a fourteen-hour flight in from Tokyo, and I hadn’t managed to catch much shut-eye on the flight, even after my fitful night in the high-rise hotel. But I didn’t feel tired. If anything, I’d caught a second wind and was practically vibrating with energy. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep until I saw her, no way around that. One way or another, I was laying eyes on her tonight—and my mouth and hands as well.
I pushed open the door to my
apartment and was welcomed by the secure embrace of those familiar rooms and possessions. The smell of teakwood and cedar greeted me, along with my favorite peacoat hanging up by the door. I felt the tension I always held in my shoulders while traveling melt away. Home.
“Maya?”
My voice echoed through the house, even though I had tried to keep it down, well, at least I’d intended to. During my wired desire to get off a stuffy airplane and back into my apartment (aided and abetted by three cups of coffee on the flight), I’d mentally adjusted for the time difference. I knew Maya had to work early tomorrow, as per usual. Chances were, she was asleep, and I shouldn’t bother her at this hour, proposal or no proposal.
But then I turned the corner into my kitchen, and my eyes fell on the woman who had haunted my thoughts for the last two days. Maya was leaning with her hip against the counter, swirling a glass of ruby-pink wine in her hand. The bottle sat open on the countertop next to a sparkling clean glass, waiting for my arrival home. Maya wasn’t wearing the dress I had suggested, but a soft-looking cream-colored sweater that had slipped off one of her shoulders, a white short skirt showing off her sexy legs, and her long hair was free from the tight fishtail braid she always wore to the café.
“Welcome back,” she said.
I dropped my briefcase on the floor and left my rolling carry-on bag by the door. I strode over to her, drawn by an irresistible passion, and seized her face in my hands. She offered her mouth willingly to my kiss, and I all but devoured her. Three days away somehow felt like three hundred, and I was sure if I let her go for even a moment, I would burn into ash from the pent-up desire I’d been carrying around for her.
“I’m sorry for storming off the other night,” she said.
“Hush.” I barely pulled away from the kiss long enough to get a few words in edgewise. “I was being an asshole. Don’t worry about it.” I brought my lips near her ear and whispered softly, “Are you wearing anything underneath?”