by Anthology
"I guess I'm always surprised to know you think about me at all," she offered after a half a minute and unable, this time, to keep her voice from cracking.
"I think about you all the time, of course," Ian said and broke her heart all over again. "You should know that."
"Why did you call me, Ian? Why are you doing this to me?"
"I don't know." It was an honest answer; if there was anything she knew about him, it was that he'd never lied to her. "I wish I could stop."
Maura pressed her fingertips to her mouth for a second before being honest with him, too. "I don't."
"You should. You should tell me to stop. Never to call you again. You should tell me to go away."
"I can't do that, love." She drew in a shaking breath. Stomach a little sick.
Up and down, back and forth, in and out. Everything changed and everything stayed the same. Who was the fire and who the hand that touched it?
"If I ask you to come over, will you?"
She wanted to say no. "Yes. You know I would. Are you going to ask me?"
"...No."
More than once, when circumstances had meant they couldn't be together, he'd told her he wished she were there. Now she could be, and now he wouldn't ask. Together, they were a tapestry woven of complication and fuckery. But why couldn't that change?
"Let me tell you a story," Maura said.
"What kind of story?"
"Shhh," she told him. "Just listen."
Chapter Three
I've spent an hour going through everything in my closet. Another mixing and matching outfits, uncertain what to wear. Nothing fits right. Nothing flatters. All I have are clothes I hate, and if I don't feel good about what I'm wearing, how in the hell will I be confident enough when I'm naked?
After all the talk, the hours on the phone or messaging on the computer, after the second time we met at the dance club and ended up making out for hours in his car...tonight, I'm going to fuck Ian for the first time. He doesn't know it; at least I'm not sure he does. He might be hopeful, but uncertain. Maybe even wary. He might even try to tell me no.
But I'm not going to let him.
Naked, I stand in front of the mirror. No woman stares at her reflection and finds herself without flaws, but this...this is horrifying. Every bulge, every stretch mark, every stray hair and lump and bump, leap out at me like I'm looking at a circus mirror. How can Ian want me when I am so clearly imperfect?
And, closing my eyes, I run my hands over all the places I want him to touch. I think of the way he looks at me. Of his smile. I think of the taste of his mouth, the curve of his lips on mine. I think of his fingers curled against the small of my back and the press of his thigh between mine. The first night we met, he pulled me close and danced with me, and my face found the heat of his neck, the sweetness of his shoulder. I lost myself in him that first night for no more than a few heartbeats, but in them, I melted and I've never been the same.
Maybe if I'd let him kiss me that first night, this wouldn't feel like such a big deal now. If I'd taken that leap just over a year ago, done that bad thing back then, I'd never have spoken to him again. Guilt-stricken, I'd have tied up my tiny secret with ribbons of crimson and black and tucked them deep inside, never thought of them. But no, I'd done the right thing and pushed him away.
"I can't," I'd said. I didn't know I had a line until I couldn't cross it.
Now my line is toe-scuffed and faded, blurred into oblivion. Oh, I still have a line, it's still there. At least that's what I tell myself as I powder and lotion and smooth and stroke and paint and primp. When I slide on stockings and garters and pretty lace panties and a matching bra. There is still a line, somewhere. I just no longer care about stepping over it.
We live about twenty minutes apart, but we are meeting for dinner in a restaurant an hour and a half away. Ian is on a business trip, and I have the weekend unexpectedly free. Chad's gone fishing with his buddies to someplace in upstate New York. He left Wednesday night, won't be home until late Sunday. Before he went, he expected me to not only do his laundry but to help him pack his suitcase. We didn't fight about it, because I walked away before we could.
I walked away from him; now I'm running toward Ian.
I take too long with my hair and makeup and the outfit on which I've finally decided. I chose a simple wrap dress in navy with a faint, paler blue pattern of flowers on the fabric. It shows off my cleavage and disguises as it flatters. Paired with a pair of kitten heels and a single strand of pearls --real, my grandmother's, a necklace I never wear, I've done enough. Made enough of an effort without looking like there's more than dinner on my mind. Still, I'm late now. Later still when I can't find my keys. The clock is ticking, stealing away precious minutes of time I could be spending with Ian. There's never enough.
I search the closet hook where the keys are supposed to hang. My purse, the one I'm leaving behind because I've switched to a nicer bag for tonight. The last jacket I wore. I text Ian as I search.
Haven't left yet. Will be a few minutes late.
Take your time, comes his reply. No rush.
He doesn't understand. There is a rush. I need to be on the road. I need to get to him, before my lost keys and worries about my clothes and hair and face all rise up to crush my determination to make this, at last, the night I finish what we began a year ago on a dance floor.
Finally, I find them on my dresser, where I must've left them to reply to Ian's earlier texts with the restaurant's address and the time of our reservation. He's taking me to one of those Brazilian steakhouses, the kind where they bring you meat after meat after meat and you can eat until you explode. I clutch the keys with suddenly shaking fingers. The metal's cold, or maybe I've grown too warm.
My knees threaten to give way, and the stuff on top of my dresser shakes and rattles when I put both hands flat on the surface. I bought this dresser from a thrift store because of the handles. They look like seashells. The dresser is Waterfall, an Art Deco style with beautiful inlaid laminate and a huge mirror surrounded by intricate scrollwork. It matches nothing else in the bedroom, but I had to have it. I spent hours cleaning and polishing the wood to its original luster, but I haven't really looked at it in a long time. I focus on it now to keep myself from thinking too much about anything else.
In the mirror, my eyes are wide and very, very gray. Is my mouth too red? My hairstyle too fussy? A blemish threatens in the corner of my mouth.
"Breathe," I say aloud. "Breathe."
If I don't leave now, I won't go at all. I push away from the dresser, keys in hand. I take my carefully packed overnight bag, my purse, grab a lightweight trenchcoat from the closet downstairs. There might be rain, later.
In the car at last, I type another quick text to Ian. On my way.
I have an Ian playlist. It's full of songs about lust and fucking, also about longing. Lots of dance music, but there are a few ballads and hard rock classics, too. The song we danced to, that first time. The song I'd like to slow dance to with him, if I ever get a chance. I crank the music loud. I sing and sing and sing as my car chews up the miles, bringing me closer to him. My fingers tighten on the wheel until they ache. Every exit I pass sends another wave of anxious arousal over me. I'm awash with anticipation.
I drive so fast I should get pulled over, and how would I explain to Chad about where I was going and why? I should be more cautious, but it's impossible for me to drive slow. I pass eighteen-wheelers and resist the urge to pump the air with a fist, asking them to blow their air horns the way I did as a kid. I am giddy.
And then, I'm there.
I pull into the parking lot and find a space. I don't see him, though I'm a few minutes late as I'd warned him. My hands shake as I turn off the ignition. The music cuts to silence. I sit with my phone cradled in my palms, knowing I need to text Ian and let him know I'm here and yet unable to keep my fingers steady enough to do it.
I see you, his text says. I'm waiting for you.
Oh go
d. Oh god. Oh god.
I check my reflection quickly. Run my fingers through my hair. I want to swipe my nose with powder, my lips with gloss, but there's no time now because he's heading for my car. I gather my purse and phone, pull my keys from the ignition. I get out of the car.
First, he takes my hand. Leans in to kiss me, but on the cheek. We could be business acquaintances, long-lost cousins, anything but almost-lovers. Hell, he could be my pastor for all the passion in this embrace.
"I hope you're hungry," Ian says.
"Starving," I assure him, though the truth is I'm sure I won't be able to eat a single bite.
We don't hold hands in the parking lot as we walk toward the restaurant. An hour and a half from home, I'm still cautious about being seen. Besides, after that initial brief squeeze, he let me go and hasn't reached for me again. His hand on the small of my back, though, that is typical Ian. Steering and guiding me, making sure I navigate the scatter of broken glass on the asphalt, the smear of rainbow-shimmer oil.
"Careful," he warns.
It's too late to be careful, but maybe I'm the only one who of us who knows it. Inside the restaurant, they take us to an intimate booth in the back. Tall sides guarantee our privacy, the curved seat means we can sit next to each other instead of across. Ian, ever the gentleman, lets me slide in first. The vinyl snags my skirt and the metal clips of the garters on my thighs, so by the time I reach my spot, my hem has crept up far too high for propriety. I don't pull it down.
"Have you ever been to a place like this?" Ian turns his body toward me. The dim lighting turns his hazel eyes brown and hides the glint of silver at his temples.
I shake my head, my voice steady though it feels like it wants to tremble. "Nope. All I know is that it's a meat-a-palooza."
He laughs and tugs the menu toward us. "Yeah. Says here, fifteen kinds. Basically, they give you these cards. Turn the green side up when you want them to bring you meat. The red side when you want them to stop for a while."
"Seems easy enough."
We stare at each other with no more than a few inches on the seat between us. What would the wait staff do, I wonder suddenly, if I were to straddle Ian right here? Fit myself on his lap, unzip him, push him deep inside me and ride him until we both come? I shiver at the thought of it, my nipples tightening, but I know I'd never do it. If anything, I'm a voyeur, not an exhibitionist. I can't even hold his hand in the parking lot, how on earth would I fuck him in a Brazilian steakhouse booth, no matter how secluded?
The waiter brings us drinks, and the parade of meats begins. I find my appetite, at least a little of it, and since no single serving of meat is more than a bite or two, we work our way through a staggering array of the choices they bring to our table before I have to admit defeat and turn my card red side up.
"Just try this one more." Ian slices a bit of garlic-infused steak, rare, from his plate and offers it to me on his fork.
So intimate and sensual, that simple act of taking food from his fork. Flavor explodes in my mouth. I'm way past any kind of physical hunger, but that steak is literally so delicious that I moan. A full-on sex noise, right there in front of him.
"Good, huh?" Somehow we are sitting closer. Touching, now. His thigh pressed to mine. His pupils have consumed most of his iris. Dim light or desire?
I want to devour him and spit out the bones.
"So good."
I want him to kiss me. I want him to anchor his hand in my hair and pull me toward him. Plunder my mouth. Take away my breath. I want him so much it's fire.
The waiter, who's probably at least a little used to interrupting cooing and billing couples in this back booth, offers us coffee and dessert. With a look at me to confirm, Ian declines. Neither of us have moved, and the pressure of his knee on mine is enough to send a pulse of desire straight to my clit. Internal muscles clench.
"You want to get out of here?" Ian asks.
"Oh yes," I tell him. "Yes, Ian. Please take me somewhere."
He's staying in a business-suite hotel. His room has a couch, a fridge, a desk. The bathroom is purely functional, no luxury about it, but the bed...oh, God. The bed is enormous and it's really all I can see.
He offers me a drink, but I don't really want to add alcohol on top of all that meat. Plus, I'm already drunk with anticipation and lust. My head already spinning. Here I am in Ian's hotel room. I still have time to leave. He hasn't made so much as a move to kiss me, much less take me on that gigantic bed.
I can't look at him. My gaze will be too hungry and greedy; there will be no hiding the desire on my face. Ian talks enough for both of us, and I realize that he's nervous too. Maybe more than me.
As a kid I used to go swimming at a local lake. There were several docks anchored far out in the water, one with a diving board set a few feet off the surface. One twelve feet high. To jump off that high dive meant plunging straight down and sinking below the first foot or so of sun-warmed water to the frigid depths. If you were heavy enough or jumped hard enough, it was rumored you could actually touch the lake's bottom, though I'd never known anyone who actually had. Word was a kid had drowned trying and his ghost would grab your feet and hold you under if you ever managed to do it. Kids jumped from the high dive with their hearts in their throats, straight as arrows until they hit the water, when not even the bravest could stop themselves from clutching their knees to their chests to keep their toes from the icy grip of the ghost at the bottom of the lake.
I hated the high dive. I hated the climb up the rusty, narrow ladder. If there was a line, you might have to cling there for a while before you could move up to the platform. I hated the way the earth seemed to tilt away from me when I got up that high. I hated creeping out to the edge, my toes curling over it, and I hated looking down into the water. Most of all, I hated that leap. The final few seconds before leaving the dubious safety of the board and launching myself into the air were always the longest and most horrifying. Worse even than the way my stomach lurched into my throat, or the sting of the water against my bare flesh when I hit. I hated jumping from that high dive, yet I did it every summer.
I hadn't done it in years, never taken any sort of chance. I'd met and married a man who hadn't asked much of me, at least not emotionally. I'd settled into a career that provided me with a living but didn't challenge me. Still, those far-off summer days of childhood had taught me how to leap, and that's what I do now.
I jump.
Not literally. As a matter of fact, it takes me forever to cross the room toward him, every inch as hard-won as though the carpet is made of tar clutching at my heels. Everything around me goes bright and clear, a picture forced into focus. Every sound amplified. The gust of chilly air from the vent, the sliver of light through the blackout curtains, the faint hiss of static from the clock radio next to the bed.
"Ian."
He turns from the TV, remote in hand, hazel eyes wide and unexpecting, and that's when I finally kiss him.
He puts his arms around me immediately. The remote disappears, dropped or tossed away. One hand goes to the small of my back, the other to the base of my skull. We fit together, every line and curve of my body matching a place on his.
We kiss and kiss and kiss until I break it with a gasp. "I want you so fucking much, Ian, do you know that?"
His answer comes with another kiss. I back him toward the bed until he sits on the edge. And then at last I can straddle him, my dress hiking up so that my stockings snag on his leather belt. Ian's hands slide beneath my dress to palm my ass. The heat of him sears me through my lace panties. He presses me closer, grinding me against his erection.
I cup his face in my hands, holding off the kiss for a moment while I try to catch my breath. I see my face reflected in his eyes. My hair's a mess. My mouth swollen. I lick my lips and the flicker of my tongue against his mouth sends a shiver through us both.
"I want you," I whisper against his lips. Then against his cheek, his jaw, his throat, where I nip and nibble bet
ween the words. Then into his ear. "I want you, I want you, I want you."
Ian rolls us so that he's on top. He's strong. I feel the muscles in his arms bunch when he moves me upward on the bed, and I'm not a small woman, but Ian makes me feel tiny and precious.
It's not the first time he's ever touched me, but this is different than grinding on the dance floor or even making out in his car. The weight of him is unfamiliar. The way he moves his hands over me. His mouth. He traces my chin with his lips, moving lower to my throat, where the press of his teeth tips my head back to give him all the access he wants.
I've never asked him how many women he's been with, but this is certainly not the first time at the rodeo for either one of us. And still we fumble, still we hesitate. His watch gets caught in my hair, pulling, and not in the way I like. My stockings run. His cock presses hard in his pants, and I can't manage to get his belt undone. We are ungraceful in our eagerness, and I love every second of it.
He's on top. Then I am. He takes off his button-down shirt, leaving him in a slim-fitting t-shirt.
"Well," I say. "If we're taking things off..."
I wriggle out of the garter belt and toss it away. My knees pressed to his hips, I run my hands up and over the soft fabric of his t-shirt, feeling the muscles of his chest and belly, eager to get at his bare flesh and yet wanting to draw this out as long as I can.
It's going to be the only time, after all.
I inch up his shirt, revealing a sliver of skin. Then a little more. I could lean to kiss him, but I'm too fascinated by this slow reveal.
Ian, on the outside, is a businessman. He wears his dark hair short on the sides, a little longer on the top but only a little. Silver at the temples. He uses glasses for reading. He favors solid-colored shirts and ties with tiny patterns. The first time I met him, he wore a pair of plaid shorts in several shades of brown and a matching white polo shirt -- total preppy.
But underneath his clothes...oh, my God. I push the shirt higher and higher, shamelessly ogling what he's got going on. Abs. Not a six-pack, nothing so obvious. Just hard, firm flesh with the ridge of muscle clear beneath it.
