Call Me Saffron (Greenpoint Pleasures)

by Talia Quinn

  Dinner. With this man. I must have licked my lips subconsciously, because I could feel a sudden coolness there, and Dylan’s gaze sharpened, staring at my mouth.

  But dinner led to drinks, which led to talking, which led to intimacy, both in bed and out. A date. A relationship?

  My body felt both heated and chilled. Dylan’s gaze challenged. And I had no answer.

  “Friday night. Meet me at the Spotted Pig in the East Village. Seven o’clock. Then I’ll let Fernando know we want to hire Alvarez but that you won’t be part of the team. Deal?” The glint in his eye was more measuring than hungry.

  It made it easier to say yes. It wasn’t a date, after all. It was the next move in our bizarre game of chess.

  ~*~

  On Friday at six p.m., I sat at my vanity, staring at my reflection. I’d outlined my eyes the way Jeanine had that first night, dark and mysterious.

  I scooped up a bunch of hair and tried to pin it on top of my head, but half of it fell out immediately, leaving my hair in semiplanned disarray. Now I looked like a ten-year-old tomboy with incongruous kohl eyes.

  No, I looked like pictures of my mother from her last years. I glanced over at a framed photo I’d put on my dresser. She stared back at me, dark-eyed and painfully vulnerable.

  I should get going.

  I picked up the phone and dialed.

  Three rings. Four. Five, and I was about to hang up.

  “Hello? Who is this?” My grandfather sounded shaky. So frail.

  “It’s Samantha, Gramps.”

  “Is everything all right there? Do you need money?”

  “Everything’s fine. I’ve got a good job now, remember? I don’t need anything.” I picked up the photo and traced my mother’s face with my finger, leaving a smudge on the glass. “I wanted to, I don’t know, hear your voice. See how you were doing.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Someone murmured in the background. A woman.

  “Do you have company? Should I call back?” I set the picture down.

  “Oh, that’s Hattie. My nurse. She’s making dinner. Cabbage soup or something, I don’t know. It smells like a swamp.” He wheezed. “Is everything all right? Do you need money?”

  My throat closed. His short-term memory had gotten worse. “I’m fine, Gramps. I have money. I have a good job now, remember? The architecture firm?”

  “Oh. Right. Good, then.”

  I ran my hands through my hair, digging my fingers into my scalp. The barrette popped off. “How are you? Are you doing okay? Cabbage soup and all?”

  “Oh, I’m, you know. Okay.” I could almost hear his hand swishing in the air, gesturing to make the vague point. He cleared his throat. “Good you called. Good to talk to you. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Gramps, do you ever—” Miss your daughter, my mother? Miss your wife? Miss me?

  But he’d hung up.

  Chapter Seven

  “Sam? Samantha?” Jeanine was at my bedroom door, silhouetted by the hallway light.

  I closed my eyes again. “I’m asleep. Go away.”

  She flicked the overhead light on, blinding me, and came all the way into the room.

  “Hey!” I put my hand up, shielding my eyes.

  “What gives? She slid the photo frame out from my slack, sleepy grip. “That’s your mom, right? Man, you’re a mess.”

  “Did I say you could come in here and bother me?” I sat up, blinking hard against the light. “I’m pretty sure this is a violation of our roommate contract.” I reached for the photo.

  “She rises from the dead! Hallelujah!” Jeanine clutched the picture to her chest.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be out? With a client or something?”

  “Early session today. He’s got a date.”

  I rubbed my face, trying to wake up. “Wait. The guy’s got a date, and he paid you to come over first and…”

  “Give him a blowjob, yup. Stress relief. He really likes her. You should have seen him. He was so nervous. It was kind of cute. I hope things work out. He hasn’t had someone in his life for a long while.”

  Um, okay.

  She narrowed her gaze. “Speaking of dates, what the hell, Sam? You agreed to a date and then stood him up?”

  I glanced at the clock on my nightstand, though the darkness outside was enough of a clue. Nine p.m. I’d slept right through my date with Dylan. But… “How did you know about that?”

  “Checked my email when I got home. Got a message with an all-caps subject header. Thought it was spam, but nope. Just one angry, sexy client.”

  “He’s not your client.” Dylan paying Jeanine to have sex with him? Dylan having sex with anyone who wasn’t me? Jealousy lanced through me, spiky and unexpected.

  “Maybe he should be. I’d treat him better.” She eyed me. “You look like pigeons have been roosting in your hair and a preschooler drew your eyeliner on. Did something happen?”

  “No. Yes.” I grabbed a pillow, clutching it to my chest. “I called my grandfather. I was thinking about family, you know? And love. And…” I gestured toward the photo. “My mom. Love broke her heart. And she was his daughter, my grandfather’s daughter, and I wanted to hear his voice. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s not like he’s going to suddenly be warm and cuddly.”

  Jeanine stroked the edge of the frame and handed it to me. “Before your dinner date? Isn’t that a lot of baggage to haul to the restaurant with you?”

  “Why do you think I’m home?” My mom looked painfully sad in the picture. She’d been maybe thirty-five. A year before she shot herself.

  Jeanine tenderly smoothed my hair back from my face. “You really like him, don’t you?”

  I didn’t look up at her. I couldn’t. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  She stood, decisive, and grabbed the pillow away from me. “Problem is, you like him too much. You’ve put too much weight on it. Now it’s about love and sex, all intensity and exclamation points.” She gestured with the pillow. “No wonder you didn’t show up at dinner. You’d lost your appetite. So you and I, we’re going out tonight. We’ll fix your face up and put you in a slinky dress and go to Krissie’s engagement party at Greenpoint Pleasures.”

  “But I already told Krissie engagement parties weren’t my thing.”

  “Then she’ll be especially happy you showed up after all. And if you meet a nice guy, you’re going to flirt and smile and not say no right away. Got it?”

  It would be good to see our old coworkers, get a hug from Marina and Greta, the owners, and surround myself with music and laughter. But a guy? Not so much. After Dylan, they’d all seem like losers and wannabes anyway.

  ~*~

  “Come here often?” The guy smiled at me, nearly a wink. Too bad. Before that lame line, I’d been admiring the way his cowlick gave him a certain boyish insouciance. But seriously? Come here often?

  He laughed, showing his teeth. “Come on. Smile, at least a little. It was a joke. Postmodern, if you will. A parody of a pickup line. I mean, who wants to admit they come to a sex shop on a regular basis?”

  “I worked here. For three years.”

  He slammed his palm to his forehead. “I put my foot in it, didn’t I?”

  I sipped my spiked punch, starting to enjoy myself. He was charming in a goofy sort of way. “I’m guessing you’re a friend of Doug’s. Any of Krissie’s friends would know how much this place means to her. I’m also guessing this is your first time here. Sure, you’ve bought sex toys before, but online only and mostly just lingerie for your girlfriends, though you’ve eyeballed the cock rings and prostate stimulators and wondered if you dared.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’m that predictable?”

  Definitely cute. “Go with the cock ring. It’s fun for the whole family.”

  “You’d have to show me how it works.” He gave me a wobbly smile. “That was an even worse pickup line than the last one, huh?”

  I laughed. Behind him, Jeanine gave me a thumbs-up
. I was tackling Flirting 101 with a modicum of success, for a change.

  Beyond her, in the chattering melee, I saw a tall man standing by the lingerie, a plastic cup in his hand.

  Dark hair. Handsomer than he had any right to be. Excruciatingly familiar.

  What was he doing here, of all places? I’d stood him up for dinner tonight. Shouldn’t he be home, throwing darts at my effigy?

  “So what’s your name?”

  I swiveled back to the guy standing next to me. “Uh, what?”

  “Your name. You do have one. Or do you all go by code names here? Like, you’re Blue Lady.” He indicated my dress, which was a shimmery indigo. It was also tight fitting, per Jeanine’s specifications. With cleavage. Which he was staring into.

  I glanced past his shoulder again. Dylan wasn’t even looking my way. Did he know I was here? What bizarre coincidence had brought him to this party tonight?

  He was chatting with Marina. Saying something amusing, obviously. She threw her head back, laughing, her glorious blonde mane shifting and settling like in a shampoo commercial. He grinned at her, revealing a dimple in his cheek I couldn’t see from this distance but could picture perfectly.

  Marina was married to Greta. He wasn’t going home with Marina unless the two women had an open relationship, which was entirely possible. A couple who owned a sex shop together might well have decided to enjoy sexual pleasure outside their marriage. And Marina had an eye for an attractive man.

  As I watched, she put her hand on Dylan’s sleeve and cocked her head to look up at him. Definitely flirting. My stomach clenched.

  “So what do you say, Blue Lady?” My would-be date looked at me expectantly. “Want to go somewhere quieter?”

  I set my paper cup down on the glass counter, right above a display of pink and purple dildos in varying sizes, all exquisitely detailed to look like real penises. “Not interested. Sorry. You’re nice and all, and you’ve got a cute embarrassed foot-in-mouth thing going for you. But I’m not available.” To anyone. Which was why I’d stayed home. And why I should leave the party now. Jeanine could walk the fifteen blocks back to our apartment on her own.

  And yet I shouldered my way through the crowd anyway. Go figure.

  “Samantha! What a lovely surprise!” Marina enfolded me in a cinnamon-scented hug, her voluminous scarves enveloping me like a perfumed veil, then stepped back. “You should come by more often. We miss you. Any time you want to grab a work slot for old time’s sake, let me know. Nobody knows this place like you do.”

  I glanced at Dylan, who was scarily impassive.

  “Uh, hi.”

  Marina put her hand on his arm again. “This is Dylan Krause.”

  His eyes were dark. So dark. I’d had sex with this man. Hot, wild sex up against a wall. A few days ago. And I realized that I wanted to sleep with him again. Badly. I should have gone to dinner. Or skipped the meal and dragged him back to my apartment, cavewoman style.

  I flushed. My whole body felt hot. He narrowed his gaze. Looked at my cleavage. Pointedly. It felt like a rebuke. I jutted my chest out so he could see it better.

  Oblivious, Marina went on, “He’s thinking about investing in the shop. Isn’t that awesome? He’s got some great ideas for a remodel.”

  Remodel? I loved the deep red sponge-painted walls, the neat metal shelving, and, most of all, the huge posters of buxom pinups from the ’50s superimposed with incongruous slogans like Embrace Your Inner Goddess, She Wants to Get Laid Too, and Stilettos are My Superpower. This place was my offbeat, off-kilter home, and I didn’t want a single poster removed, not a single pastie, not one dildo. I wanted it preserved like this forever.

  My dismay must have shown on my face, because Marina gave me a reassuring squeeze. “It’s just talk so far. We won’t do anything. Not for a while.”

  “At least you care about something.” Dylan’s emphasis on the word something was so slight, Marina didn’t catch it.

  She gave me a squeeze. “All our girls fall in love with the store. We take in the wounded and the lonely and make them family.”

  His eyebrows went up, but he said nothing.

  “I wasn’t as wounded as all that.” I stepped away from Marina, giving her a smile to lessen the sting, then I turned to give Dylan as genuine a smile as I could muster, which was to say not much of one. “It’s a great shop. I’m sure you’ll do something gorgeous with it. Don’t mind me and my quirks.” Seriously, don’t.

  “Quirks?” He folded his arms. Game on.

  “I’m not good at letting go. I’m also not good at holding on. Or doing what people tell me to do.”

  Marina’s sly smile lit up her eyes. “You know each other.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Dylan’s voice was ultradry. Like scotch, it seared on the way down. “I would, rather, say I don’t know someone at all when she stands up a guy for dinner without even calling.”

  “I don’t have your number!”

  “Your roommate does.”

  “Dinner? As in a date? Oh, Sam.” She smacked me. “You don’t stand up a guy like this. Not ever. You hear me?”

  “Yeah. Uh. Sorry about that. I took a nap after work, and I, uh, overslept.” I gave him a sideways glance. Which was a mistake. His face was alight with the same intense hunger I remembered from our night-long tryst, but with a hard edge.

  “So reschedule.” Marina spread her hands as if to say problem solved.

  But rescheduling meant actually going through with it. I’d have to put on makeup, get dressed up for him, and leave the apartment with full, specific intent to go on a date with this potent, intense man who didn’t let me get away with anything. Then I’d sit across from him at dinner in a quiet, upscale restaurant and make small talk. Be his date for the evening. It felt improbable. No, impossible.

  Maybe that was why I’d called my grandfather. To make myself so miserable I’d have an excuse to stand Dylan up.

  He spoke before I could. “No. Not dinner.”

  “No?” Now I was pissed. “Why not? Changed your mind? You don’t want me?”

  “I don’t think we should do it. Not that way.” His eyes glittered. He glanced at Marina.

  She waved at him. “Go on. Nothing I haven’t heard.”

  The music shifted, a song with a strong backbeat. Around us, people were coupling up to dance. Linda, who’d worked here the same time I did, grabbed a feather boa off the mannequin and wrapped it around herself as if she were doing a striptease.

  I found myself leaning forward. “What way?”

  “Same as the first time.”

  Sexual awareness flooded my veins. He wanted me. We could do it again. No strings attached. No relationship. Just sex. With Dylan.

  “But in reverse.”

  I blinked.

  Marina cocked her head. “Are we talking position, or…”

  I grabbed Dylan’s arm and pulled him away, leaving Marina behind. We were going to talk. In private. Now. Thankfully, he came willingly.

  When we got outside, I let go of him. The street was busy, with people spilling out of the restaurant next door and smoking in the freight entrance doorway across the street. But it was more private than inside, and the music was muffled by the glass walls.

  “Let me get this straight. You want to be my gigolo for a night.”

  “I prefer the term escort.” His eyes gleamed with amusement. “It sounds classier, don’t you think?”

  “Is this some way of turning the tables on me? I stood you up, so now you’re going to get revenge by—by what?” What would he do? Tie me up and leave me in a hotel room? It didn’t make sense.

  No, this wasn’t revenge. This was something else. But he was clearly tense. His smile was tight and his eyes still glowed with that sharp, hungry look. “I want to make sure you show up. And if you’re paying, you will, won’t you?”

  I nodded. My lips felt chapped. I flicked my tongue out to moisten them. He watched. My throat was dry. I swallowed. He watched that to
o. The air out here was cool, presaging winter, but I felt stiflingly hot. My cheeks, my chest, my groin. Throbbingly hot. This man. In my bed. At my bidding. All night long. Tonight? “So what now? Do we go to your place?”

  He touched my hair, tucking a stray lock back into place. Oddly gentle. “Not tonight. I’ll let you know when. And where.” He kissed my nose—my nose—and then went off down the street, strolling past the late-night diehards on the restaurant patio huddled under heat lamps while they ate their fries. I could hear him whistling.

  I shivered in my thin dress. My jacket was still on the pile of outerwear in the stockroom. I went back inside.

  “I’ll let you know when. And where.”

  Boyish Cowlick guy was chatting with Annie near the door. Good luck, dude. Annie wore her shawl like a shield and her lovely white-blonde hair pulled back. He was ignoring the keep-away signs, but he’d run up against them soon enough. She was seriously into her unavailable, unattainable boss. Awkward Dude didn’t stand a chance. Too bad. He was rather charming in his way.

  I nodded to them and squeezed past to get my jacket. On my way to the stockroom, Jeanine snagged me. “What happened back there?” she hissed at me. “He left without you.”

  “You noticed.”

  Wait a second. She hadn’t asked who he was. Hadn’t asked why he was here. And he’d said, “Your roommate has my number.” She’d called him. Tonight. “You set me up. Again.” I wrenched my arm away and stomped into the stockroom.

  Dylan had known I’d be here. He’d planned this out. That explained the coolness, the calculating gleam in his eye.

  Jeanine came into the stockroom behind me. “You bailed on dinner with him. I thought you needed a nudge.”

  “You thought you should stage-manage my life. Again.”

  “Someone has to! You’re not exactly doing a stellar job of it.”

  “Maybe I don’t need a man in my life, have you thought of that? You don’t have one. Not everyone needs a relationship, or even a hookup. I was perfectly happy with my vibrator until you set me up with Dylan.”

  “And since then? Not so much, right? You’ve been moping for six months straight. I live with you. It’s been hell. Plus, there’s never any ice cream left after your self-loathing binges. Being with him reminded you that you prefer boys to your plastic toy, but you’re too scared of real emotions to act on it.”