Текст книги "The Plan"

Автор книги: Qwen Salsbury

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Day of Employment:

381

6:47 a.m.

*

Bags

: Packed. In case of hasty retreat.

*

Hair

: Straight. Clipped back.

*

Coffee

: Ready.

*

Me

: Not.

I HAVE BEEN STANDING in the hallway for a while. Mustering. Muttering.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think—

My hand rises to his door to knock. Before I can, he opens it.

Make or break. If I make eye contact, it’s going to break me.

“Good morning, Mr. Canon,” I say, breezing past him and setting his coffee down with a flourish.

I begin gathering up his things, focusing on them. “Rebecca sent over the reports you asked for; Peters’ assistant finally emailed me the correct documents this time; they’re catering lunch in from a pizza place, so I requested thin crust for you; I have forwarded an email from Mr. Dowry about some tickets to an event later this week; and I will need time in my schedule this afternoon to relocate everything to the new hotel.” And…breathe!

I have packed up during this spiel and now have nothing to do but look up at him.

He’s standing across the room, ready except for the suit jacket still draped across the bed. He seems to have been motionless during my act, to have simply watched me.

I finally meet his eyes. He blinks away.

For over a minute, he says nothing while he fastens his cuffs.

“Is that everything, Ms. Baker?” Monotone.

“I believe so, Mr. Canon.”

“Very well.” He grabs his things and sidesteps the incoming breakfast cart as he exits.

A pineapple has died a needless death.

9:15 a.m.

*

Location

: Office of Diana Fralin, Wearer of Actual Wonder-Performing Wonder Bra.

“THESE CLOSING COSTS seem exorbitant.” I shake my head, looking at the expense records for the deals Fralin has touted as the most profitable.

“You have to grease the wheels overseas for everything from getting your phone lines hooked up to filing government permits,” she says. She looks at Canon and shakes her head. “I thought everyone knew that.”

I do my best to ignore her and also make darn sure I do not see the look she probably throws Canon at my expense. He excuses himself to take a call.

“And these promo items?” I sift through voluminous printouts. “That’s a huge line item expense. Do you have records for where these product samples went?”

“Our paperwork is in order.” She waves her hand. “Listen, honey, maybe this is all new territory to you, but let me explain how things work in the real world.” She sits on the corner of her desk. I feel my eyebrows disappear into my hair. “Sales reps do just that: sell. If they have to account for where every single individual magnet or trial-size cleanser goes, what nurse gets a pen with our logo, who might end up with a free T-shirt…well, you can see where they’d spend all their time meticulously documenting to please the bean counters rather than selling.”

“I’m not suggesting the level of detail be anything that…stringent,” I say. “But there are concerns with sales in foreign markets. Your international distributors, their tactics, expose the whole organization to scrutiny. If anyone receiving discounts or free items is a state official—”

“Maybe I was not clear, Emma. I am sure you are competent at what you do. This is what I do. Don’t get me wrong. What you do is important; one can’t undervalue the skill of making a good cup of coffee.” She smiles too sweetly and smooths her already immaculate updo. “I’m also very good at what I do.”

I think this is not about work.

“There are those who work for and those who work with.” She traces her finger along the top of Canon’s laptop.

Yep. Not talking about work.

“Listen, let’s cut to the chase,” she practically whispers. “I have an MBA and I earned my way to VP in less than two years. I will run this place when Lawrence Peters’s slow, worthless ass finally retires. I know where I belong, where I fit. And with whom.”

This may be it.

This may be my breaking point. Well, my daylight breaking point.

I may snap and get on the intercom and yell to all who can hear me that I have an advanced degree in technical writing, a law school scholarship, and a recently acquired mastery of my gag reflex.

I’m under attack. I want to tell her that I—courtesy of numerous hours of lectures from my professor who actually helped write NAFTA into law—have a tad more awareness than she does of the recent surge in Department of Justice and SEC prosecutions for things like giving free samples to anyone who works for a hospital in a nation with state run healthcare. Things are different. People are going to jail. Companies are paying hundreds of millions in fines.

But I don’t. Because that is not my role.

I do not flaunt my divided priorities.

I do not assert myself.

I do not embarrass my boss.

And it hits me. I hadn’t even thought about it. I’ve been focused on awkward, morning-after hook-up tension.

He may be embarrassed to have been with me.

Diana Fralin knows her place. I never thought about mine.

I have never before so thoroughly questioned something I have done or why I have done it.

Question myself.

I don’t like that. I’m allowed to celebrate my womanhood, experience what I choose with whom I choose. I am not easy. I’m discriminating.

I have wanted him to notice me, hoped he might desire me. He might not always do so, he might do so and not show it, but there is no denying he desired me last night. I, literally, had proof in the palm of my hand.

The door opens as Canon returns to the room.

“Alaric,” she says, bolting from her desk and bumping my shoulder on her way to him, “your Ms. Baker is quite the go-getter. So very concerned about our foreign trade practices.”

“She is quite thorough,” he says, sounding almost as confused by her comments as I feel.

Fralin taps her chin as though she is just now forming an opinion. It’s for show; she’s plotting.

“Well, she seems to have so much insight. Maybe it would be a good idea for her to spot-check some things.”

Warning bells. They’re ringing.

Canon turns to me. He must wonder what I have been saying. “What did you have in mind?”

Fralin smiles broadly. “Well, I can give her access to a few market segments, let her explain her accusations to the sales people whose records she pulls—of course you’d want to find more passive phrasing, Emma,” she chirps. Canon’s eyes look like they may pop out of his head at the word “accusations.”

She doesn’t miss a beat…or an opportunity, it seems. “I can lend you a temp while she’s working on things.”

She wants me out of the way.

Here is where I’m going to balk. I’m not playing this role under different circumstances.

I’m here for him…for my company.

“I really don’t thi—”

“Mr. LaCygne would—”

She and I talk over each other.

“That will not be necessary.” Canon holds his hand up, effectively cutting us both off. “Give her unrestricted access to everything pertinent. We will go over it. Together.”

“Surely that would be a burden for you, Alaric,” she backpedals.

I, on the other hand, may do a wee jig. Even my plan didn’t fail this miserably.

Walking away, he punches keys on his ever-present phone. “I am not enduring a temp. Ms. Baker is the best I have ever had.”

Suddenly, I’m fine if we’re not talking about work anymore.

1:15 p.m.

*

Location

: Hotel front desk.

*

Luggage Trolley

: Stacked like a Jenga tower.

“BUT I SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED adjoining rooms or ones across from each other.” I’m livid. Distraught.

My hands have taken to gesturing as if independent from my body.

“Our sincerest apologies, Ms.…Baker,” the front desk clerk says after glancing to verify my name. “We can try to arrange for accommodations elsewhere.”

“I have already checked. I gave up two sets of reservations in favor of here,” I say as my hand swings, smacks, and threatens to topple our bags.

I’m both mad and scared. The rooms are in separate buildings at opposite ends of the hotel grounds. I will have to run back and forth. I will impact productivity. I will have to tell Canon. This is the first thing I have not delivered on.

Still at the counter, I call him. The clerk seems like she’d like to leave. Oh, no you don’t. You are going through this with me.

“Canon.” There are voices in the background.

“Hello, Mr. Canon.” I swallow back my nerves and take a deep breath. “There is a problem.”

“Such as?” The voices fade. He must be moving.

“The rooms are several minutes apart.” I describe the grounds and room layout.

He’s silent.

Then he’s not.

“Unacceptable,” he says, fumings. “Put them on.”

I hot-potato my cell to the wide-eyed desk clerk. “This is H—…Yes…It is an unfortunate mix—Yes, I suppose you are right…No, I mean, yes. Yes, there is no suppose.” Her face is as red as the poinsettia on the counter. “Perhaps I could fin—I do understand, bu—I understand…one moment, please…I’m sure your time is valuable…I do need a moment to loo—but…” She’s tearing up. I almost feel badly for her. The fact that she is the person who originally booked my reservation helps to erode my sympathy somewhat.

“Yes, we do. I will make the change now. Thank you.” Thankful is not how she sounds. She hands my cell phone back to me.

“…is disgraceful. How does it feel to be so incompetent a customer has to complete even the most perfunctory of tasks for you?”

“Mr. Canon,” I say after waiting for him to take a breath.

“Ms. Baker?”

“I take it that you resolved things, sir.”

“Not ideally. You were right to call. Set up there and come back. We should be out around five.”

At least it won’t be a late night. I think of my email inbox once again crammed with unwatched lectures and the copious number of briefs I need to read or write. I feel like joining the clerk in her sniffles.

Moments later, I’m being handed two access cards and a signature page.

“Your room is here,” she says and circles a corner room on the top of the main building. “Room service is twenty-four-seven with a limited menu after ten in the evening. If you need any special accommodations—” she looks up at me as if, having spoken to Canon, she is well-aware that this is a given “—please let us know.”

I sign and wait.

And wait.

“Did you need help with your bags?”

“Well, yes, that would be nice, but we need to finish the paperwork for the other room.” I manage to keep the irritation out of my voice.

“There is no other room. I…I had to…I bumped a late-arrival party and gave you their suite,” she splutters.

“One room?”

“There are separate sleeping areas.”

Oh, well, indeed, yes, that is a great comfort to be sure. I may swoon.

“One room?”

“There are rooms within the room. Separate sleeping areas.”

“Yes, you said that. But we are sharing a room?” I say, and she nods. “I’m sharing a room with that man?” I will have no break, no respite from that man? She nods. I am not entirely sure she hasn’t heard my thoughts.

I snatch the cards from the counter and glare at her as if it were all her suggestion. I barely remember to wait for the bellhop.

It is a lovely room. The nicest I have ever stayed in. Pale marble. Sage green silks. Soft cottons. Deep mahogany woods. One actual bedroom. Living area with glass doors to a balcony. In front of the doors, a sleeper sofa I will be calling home. Small kitchen. Huge plasma. One closet. One bath.

One friggin’ closet.

I hang the clothes. His shoes on the floor, mine on the shelf. He gets the top drawer. I put my stuff in the bottom. His stuff was on the left of the sink in the old hotel, so I put it there and put mine on the right or out of sight completely. I order extra towels and blankets. The room already has a coffee pot.

One friggin’ bath.

Plug his charger in by his nightstand. Make sure the in-room alarm is not set from anyone else.

One friggin’ room.

I’m at a loss for where I can keep all my school reading material. It ends up in a suitcase.

One friggin’…How the hell did this happen? I have tried to take it in stride, to go about my business, but how the…what the…I can’t room with my boss! I can’t room with a guy I shoved around and dropped to my knees in front of and sucked the stuffing out of. Went all “wham, bam, you better call me ma’am” on.

Sweating. Not perspiring or glowing or any of those ladylike things. I am sweating. Even my ass cheeks are sweating.

I splash my face at the sink. My reflection seems foreign. These are not my clothes. Not my hair. Not me.

The reflection stares back. Judges.

Perhaps I’m berating myself too much over last night.

How am I going to study? Get dressed? Relax enough to sleep?

Maybe you should try talking to him about what happened…

Voice of Reason…do you have an invite?

I am not allowed reason in this room situation. I have to take it in stride. He set this up. If he is okay rooming together, I have to act like I am as well.

Do what he says, when he says, without question.

I leave for work. I need a raise.

5:25 p.m.

*

Location

: Entryway of hotel room.

*

Pin

: If one dropped, you’d hear it.

STAGNATION GETS TO ME. “Shall I show you where everything is?”

His lips are pursed, tense. His eyes dart to the sofa, the bedroom, the bath, and back again.

“The bulk of your things are here,” I say and beeline for the bedroom. He shows up in his own time.

I begin opening or pointing to everything. I’m like Vanna White if Pat Sajak had his sex appeal ramped up by infinity.

“I put your things in the top drawer. The rest are in the closet. Shoes on the bottom.” He opens the closet and peers in while I rattle on. “Charger on the stand. Alarm is already off. I have sanitized the remote.”

I think I hear him say “perfect” from behind the open closet door.

“You may notice a few things missing. I have sent them to the cleaners due to the extended trip. If you will follow me, sir, there is not much left.”

Instead, he actually leads into the bathroom. My heels click across the tile. “I believe this is everything you had out in your old room.” I touch near his things at the sink. He glances at them, then around the small room until his eyes fall on the few items of my own I have left out. For a moment, it almost looks as though he is going to pick up my perfume, but he doesn’t. “If leaving this out here is going to be a problem, I can keep my things elsewhere.”

“No, no,” he says rather softly. It’s a small space. Intimate. Something shifts in the air.

I cough to clear my throat and throw open the shower curtain. “I have noticed you are nearly out of shampoo. Shall I pick some up for you or will the furnished kind be sufficient, Mr. Canon?”

“You don’t have to do that.” His hands are in his pockets.

“Very well. Shall I order dinner, sir?” I leave the bathroom as I speak. Flee, actually.

“What I meant was that you really don’t have to keep using ‘sir.’ And I feel like Mexican food,” he says, still in the bathroom for some unknown reason.

Not good. I have already read it over, and there is nothing like that on the hotel restaurant menu. “I can run out and pick something up.”

His tie appears on the doorknob. “Get changed.”

“Sir?” It’s a habit at this point. He flinches a bit at the word but says nothing.

“We will go out. There is bound to be a decent place around here. A chain or something.”

He disappears into the bedroom. I sit on the sofa, fingers drumming my skirt.

Changing as fast as men tend to, he’s out in jeans and surely a garment of some other kind. I’m fixated on the jeans.

Denim in long expanses. Barely contours to his thighs. Thighs I have leaned against but not touched. Bare feet.

Barefoot! Put some shoes on, already! How am I supposed to look unaffected and asexual with all this unfair fuckery happening?

He sees me sitting. He stops short, looks back toward the bedroom.

“Um, it is all yours.” He pulls his shirt down and steps to the side. A gray, long sleeve, V-neck tee. I pass silently and close the door.

I really want to lean my back against the door and breathe deeply for a few moments. A few hours. Fill my lungs. Decompress. Instead, I grab out my jeans and a white pullover. If I were home, I would wear my favorite electric blue sweater.

As I slide on my clothes, it occurs to me I’ve missed the opportunity to search for restaurants.

It’s getting to me. I’m slipping.

A quick search on my phone finds one within walking distance and several others nearby. Shoving my phone back in my pocket, I vow to keep my head in the game.

Grab door. Yank open. March.

“Ready, Mr. Canon?” My words are followed by a clatter in the open bathroom.

Canon walks out, nodding.

I check the mirror and think I might smell my perfume in the air.

6:10 p.m.

*

Location

: On the Border.

*

Chips

: Basket #3.

*

Salsa

: Abandoned for queso.

*

Margarita

: Want one.

*

Had

: None.

“IT IS OFTEN THIS WAY. You get on site and the whole proposal needs reinventing.” He practically shouts over the music.

“Good to know.” I’m smiling for some reason. I feel happy. It must be the cilantro talking.

He goes on a bit about contracts and even more about supplements and the new skin care line. I’m surprised; I would have figured he didn’t involve himself in products, just deals.

“This was the best idea,” he says and points his fork at his plate. I think we are both weary of stuffy dinners and room service.

Careful there, Canon, you’ll dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on your back. I nod and take a bite of my black beans. Then stop mid-chew. Do black beans cause gas? I can’t be playing a tune in my sleep. Not with him a few feet away.

“Yes,” I say, cutting off a bite of chimichanga. “It is delicious.” Without thinking, I offer him the forkful.

It’s just suspended there. Hovering. He looks at it and me and then leans over and wraps those lips around my fork and pulls and takes what I have offered him.

And now I’m just supposed act like it is no big deal to put that fork that has been behind his lips, inside his mouth, touched his tongue, back into my mouth.

“What do you think of Lawrence Peters?” he finally asks.

What to say in a situation like this? Be professional or go for blunt honesty? “He is an ignorant bore.”

Guess we’re rolling with honest.

Canon looks like he might have horked a jalapeño into his sinuses.

“And your opinion on the owner, Samuel Dowry?”

“Well,” I say, charging ahead, “I spent very little time with him. He seems shrewd but has…eclectic taste in personnel.”

“Eclectic…” Canon repeats, smiling. “Lance Rowe?”

“Delusional, manwhore sycophant.”

He laughs. “Diana Fralin?”

“You would know better than me,” I say and stuff a stringy, cheesy bite into my mouth.

“But I asked you.” His brows knit together.

Not sidestepping that landmine. Honesty. “Duplicitous skank.”

“Wow. Not pulling any punches.” He sits back and sprawls his arm across the back of the booth.

I shrug.

“What did she do to you?”

I would like to ask you the same thing…Scratch that. I don’t really want to know.

“Got you to call her Diana,” I mutter into my chimichanga.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing.”

“You mean to tell me you haven’t noticed how condescending she is toward me?”

“Yes, actually I have.”

“So why would you ask?”

He studies me for a moment. “Why do you let her get away with it?”

“I’m not supposed to embarrass my boss.”

He blinks. Repeatedly.

Yeah, put that in your picky pipe and smoke it.

He watches his fork swirl the rice around the upper corner of his plate. “I think we need to talk.”

“If you say so.” I try to look nonchalant.

“Don’t you think so?”

“If you think so, sir, then I think so.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what, sir?”

His fork clinks on the Fiestaware. “That. Don’t you think we have moved past the mister/sir thing in our off-hours now?”

Oh, this is more to the point than I was expecting. Pointy. Thorny.

This is different.

I swallow…which is different too.

He appears to chew on the word he’s about to say. “Emma.” Piercing stare. “You do remember, don’t you? Because I really hope to hell you remember, otherwise I need to take a whole different tack here.”

Our perky waitress appears. “Did you two save room for desert? Our fried ice cream is amazing.” With a pineapple garnish?

Canon looks at me as if to say he is game. I think he is a puzzle.

“Does it have a honey-based sauce?” I asked her.

“Oh, yes. Cinnamon and honey. It’s delicious.”

“No, thank you, then,” I say.

“Ugh. Bee vomit.” Canon looks nauseated. I’m probably catching flies. Too weird…the same phrase I use.

“How about some margaritas? They’re on special.”

“No,” we say in unison quickly. I shiver. Drinks. A reminder of last night.

“Just the check,” he adds.

8:05 p.m.

CANON IS IN THE SHOWER.

No other status report possible.

…

…

…

…

8:17 p.m.

I’M IN THE SHOWER.

The same shower in which Alaric Canon was naked and touching himself mere minutes ago.

The water on the walls may well have splashed off his skin.

Showerhead: Does not detach.

Universe: Hates me.

Water beats down on me. Our conversation plays back in my mind.

Not the best of decisions…for either of us.

Not my finest hour.

Mine either.

You regret it?

Yes…no…

Me, too.

Friends?

With you?

He scoffs lightly. Friendly then…

For the best…

I do not feel better. Not even in the realm of better.

8:35 p.m.

*

Awkwardness

: Tens all around. Off the chart.

IT TOOK A GREAT DEAL of insisting that Canon keep the bedroom. I am not in the camp of people who think genitalia determines many things, one of which being who gets the sofa and who gets the bed.

I’m happier out here with the television to keep me company. Hopefully the ambient noise will scare Lincoln away.

I don my PJs while still in the bathroom. My skin is damp, and the fabric clings.

I step out into the quiet main area. Canon is in his room.

A sofa bed is not as easy to set up as one might wish.

I am determined not to ask for help. It’s not the weight that is the problem. It’s stuck.

It pulls free. Of course, a spring hook also digs into my ’67 Impala pajamas and rips a huge hole as it scrapes down my thigh.

“Aaahhhhh!”

The bed legs smack the floor. I press my hands to my leg and will the pain away. It’s probably not that bad, just shocking.

“What happened?”

I open eyes I hadn’t realized I’d squeezed shut. Canon is down in front of me. He moves my hands to check.

I hiss.

At the sound he looks up at me. His fingers press through the tear in my pants.

“I’ll be okay.”

He shakes his head and tries to check for damage. Unsuccessfully.

Without looking up, he pulls what’s left of my pants off and out of the way. Why the concern? I can surely still brew coffee and type even if my leg needs amputation.

“I said I’m okay.”

All thoughts cease when his thumb traces a foot long red mark up my inner thigh.

“Enjoying yourself down there, Mr. Canon?”

The words are out of my mouth before I realize I’ve thought them.

He freezes.

It’s like a switch flips.

My hands run through his hair. I don’t know when I put them there. They move down his neck. To his shoulders. I fist his shirt and pull. Never looking up, he grabs the bottom of his shirt with his free hand. It goes over his head in one motion. It hangs in a circle around the arm he is still using to apply pressure to my leg.

“Move your arm and let the shirt fall.”

His breath hitches. I’m shaking. I hope he can’t tell. His shirt lands next to my pants, and he returns to my thigh.

“Surely you are familiar with the saying…kiss and make it better?”

Slowly—oh, God, so slowly—he leans in more and presses his lips to the bottom of the scrape near my knee.

Oh, yeah. I’m feeling no pain. Then his warm lips move up and press again.

Then again.

And up again.

If my knees don’t buckle out from under me, it’s going to be an unqualified miracle.

Near the top, after a dozen plus ongoing kisses, I touch his arm and bring it to my hip. To steady myself. I hope it seems like a reward.

His arm wraps completely around me. My hip at his shoulder, his palm pressing along the small of my back, stopping when his fingers encircle the other side of my waist.

I indulge myself. I run my fingers through his hair. Silk. Slide them over his shoulders. Satin. Trace the indents and sinews. Stone. The planes of his shoulder blades. Oak.

He hums.

I drag my fingers up his back, lightly scratching with my nails. Very lightly.

He moans.

It drowns out mine.

Here is a crossroads. A bridge. A defining moment. Run or succumb. Lead or be led. Live or be dead.

I want a lot.

I want to be more like the women he dates. The polished women. The ones on his arm.

I want him to not just be a fuck hot pretentious wanker who should drink pineapple juice so I can blow his beautiful cock more often.

Or something less whorish.

I want him to scoop me up in his arms and carry me to his bed and tell me he sees me for who I am and wants me and respects me, and he is only a hardass to get the job done and he will be the most patient and wonderful man on this green earth if I will only give us the chance.

But at the end of the day, I’m a practical gal.

He’s practically the sexiest thing I have ever encountered, and I am going to practically do whatever I practically can for as long as he is willing.

He reaches the top of the red line.

I want him to cross it.

“Mmmm,” I hear myself say. “I bet your lips would make everything feel better.”

With my words, he bows his head against me. His grip tightens around my waist.

“Isn’t there something in your way?” My voice sounds suddenly lower to my own ears.

“Yes,” he whispers.

Oh, my…why is this actually working?

“What do you need to do? Want? Tell me.” Slowly, I run a hand though his hair again and again.

“I need…to take off your clothes. I want…I want to…” he breathes into me.

I run my hand up under his jaw. “Want what?” My voice is low, slow. “Tell me.”

His hand at my thigh moves up and twists around my panties. “I want to take these off and spread you open and taste you and tongue you and feel you come apart.”

Gah. Thoroughly outlined. Well done, Canon.

I wrap a hand around the one he has at my waistband and encourage him to pull down. His other hand slides around to help, and I move my hands out of his way.

The panties fall into the ever-growing pile. I feel his breath. He kisses and slides his palms up my sides.

There is probably something I should say now to keep this little scene going, but I’m rather focused on not doing a header onto the sofa.

He presses his lips to my inner thigh, his breath swirls inward, and I pull his hair reflexively. He angles and does it again before he speaks. “Let me take you to bed.” I think my ears trick me into hearing a “please.”

The light hairs along his arm graze my palm as I travel from shoulder to forearm to hand. My fingers drag over his lifeline to reach his fingers, their tips. I curl and hold his fingers, and they curl into mine. Though I wish he would put himself out there, pull me, I pull him and step toward the bedroom, and I feel him shift and rise to follow me.

A half-naked Alaric Canon is following me to his bed. Forget buckling knees or not doing a header, this…this is a bona fide miracle.

I’m afraid to breathe. Afraid to upset whatever astrological alignment has set this in motion. Wherever you are, dear butterfly, keep flapping your chaotic wings. Flap them. Flap them like your little life depends upon it…or at least my little death.

Save for moonlight filtered through the curtain, the bedroom is dark. His feet pad along the carpet behind me.

Next to the bed, I stop; I need to turn and face him. Face this.

I’m not able to make myself turn.

I reach back behind me and find him. Stretching until I feel his arms, then sliding down them until I can feel his wrists and hold them.

I can’t get over the feel of his skin on mine. Warm. Smooth. Real.

I pull forward, and he steps flush against me, his every breath pushing against my spine. My hands travel to cover his, palm to back, and I place one on my abdomen and hold it there while I guide the other beneath the front of my shirt and drag it up my body until it brushes under the swell of my breast.

His breaths burn my neck. I press his hands into my flesh, then leave them there as I arch back and bring my arms around his shoulders and bend until I feel his hands stir. He twists to cup my breast as his lower thumb traces where my thigh ends and the rest of me begins.

As if I think he’s asking needlessly for permission, I grant it. “Yes.”

If I thought we were flush before, I was wrong. He pulls me against him, into him. Palms my breasts.

Yeah, just palms. I’m not big enough for his whole hand. Few would be. His hands are big. Huge.

Big hands include long fingers, a fact of which I’m reminded when the cupping between my legs turns to delving.

Oh, yeah, well, hey now…there. Right there. Oh, please—keep going…or there…up there. Yeah, that works, too…Jesus, I…whoa…I guess there works too…I concede, you know better than…more…holy…wow…All those times my knees threatened to give, to stop supporting me, they weren’t crying wolf; I would collapse if I didn’t have my fingers entwined behind his neck.

I need to lie down. Before I fall down.

I break away and sit back on the bed, and he seems almost worried, but I pull him to me and he drops and hits the floor and ends up looking up at me, hands roaming my skin.

Beautiful. He is gloriously, scandalously, incandescently beautiful.

I want to hold him.

And never let go.

It scares me.

Get back on task. I find a word. “Now.”

He descends into the shadows.

Oh. Okay, so that is what we’re doing. I can barely see his outline. Um, all right. I bless the darkness and hope it hides whatever shows on my face.

“This is not something I have ever been into,” I hear myself say. That is a bit too real. A trip down a memory lane of lame lovers. Wow, over-share much? I know I need to cover my slip. Distract him. “Convince me.” I pull his hair without reason. It spurs him.

Oh, holy night…I have been wondering about this. A niggling. Rooting around in my brain. Why would he need pushing? Act like he needs it? The concern has been there, but I have not wanted to consider it. It would be unfair to have such a pretty package and nothing inside. To look like a sex god but be sans skill set.

Not. An. Issue.

I don’t know exactly what he’s doing down there, and I don’t really care just so long as he keeps doing it for a long, long time and—

Then he adds fingers into the mix. Where was I…what was I thinking?