“I have no idea what you’re talking about. This place doesn’t kill sex.”
“Yeah, I might need more convincing than that. I mean, just listen to that music.”
“I’m trying not to, to be honest. It sounds like the juke is giving birth to our terrible robot overlords. My fillings are actually starting to weirdly vibrate.”
“Exactly. Exactly. And check out this table.”
He lowered the menu, then.
But only to look at where she was pointing.
“I know,” he said. “I think that stain is about to gain sentience and speak.”
“Yeah, and you know what it’s going to say?”
“Could be I have some idea.”
“I’m here to wither your vagina.”
Now, he looked at her—and it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared.
In fact, his gaze was more amused than terrified of random sexual contact.
And so was his next comment, “Okay, no I had no idea that was coming.”
“Are you sure? Because it kind of looks like you planned it this way.”
“I did not plan to wither your vagina. I love your vagina,” he said, and she didn’t know what she liked best. That he blundered into saying something those words, or that he actually facepalmed after the fact. “Christ, how did you make me confess to loving your vagina within five minutes of sitting down in the diner sex forgot?”
“So you admit it was your intention to throw desire into a deep dark hole.”
“There was no throwing. Or deep dark holes.”
“Apart from the one by the bathrooms.”
She pointed, and to his credit he followed her finger to the gaping maw that was over there. He even nodded, and said, “Yeah…I think part of the floor collapsed.”
“But you maintain this was an ideal first date venue.”
“No, I don’t maintain that. I know it sucks insanely hard and yes, I did want to take advantage of that fact. Just not exactly for the reasons you think.”
“Well, maybe you should tell me what the reasons are.”
He sighed, short and sweet. “I would, but they seem crazy now.”
“Crazier than withering vaginas?”
“Ah, the little known sequel to Wuthering Heights.”
“Don’t try to little known sequel your way out of this, Isaac. You got my hopes up. You asked me out. We were supposed to roll around on a beach while waves crashed over us—and instead, I just contracted typhus.”
“You totally cannot contract typhus from this table.” He paused just long enough to consider the table of doom and look back at her, eyes bright with unspent laughter. “As long as you never touch your face or mouth again and shower daily at the Silkwood facility.”
“Good movie references aren’t going to help you either.”
“Yeah but they’re so satisfying. Especially when you know exactly what I mean.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So now you’re trying flattery to get out of this?”
“I’m not trying to get out of anything.”
“But you’re still not explaining.”
He leaned back in his seat and sighed, heavily.
Then finally, finally, “I needed to see if we could be a normal couple on a normal date. No fear that all of this is just an illusion brought on by proximity and kindness. No sudden violent right turns into lust. Just you and me having coffee and talking. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Okay, you realize you could have just told me that, right?”
“I thought it would only strengthen my reputation as a patronizing dick.”
“You have no reputation as a patronizing dick, Isaac. Every worry you’ve had has been completely understandable. Often wrong and misguided. But understandable. And that goes double for this one.”
He did his equivalent of an eyebrow raise: his left eyelid flickered slightly. “Really? Because I really felt the dickishness as soon as I dreamt it up.”
“I can assure you, the dick quotient is zero. It was a good idea.”
“So you’re totally onboard with it?”
“Yes, completely. One hundred percent.”
“We can just do this like we started dating right now.”
“Honestly, that sounds cool. We can do first date things—like awkwardly talking too much about our boring hobbies, or saying something devastating without meaning to,” she said, though really she only did it to keep the mood light. To make him laugh, maybe.
She didn’t imagine for a second that he would seize on it.
But for a second he almost looked eager.
The way his voice sounded when he asked me for more details, she thought, and actually got a little thrill. Even though he only asked, “How about sharing our favorite movies? Is that a first date thing?”
“You’ve been dying to ask me that, haven’t you?”
“Fuck, yes. Every time I tried to segue into it we started talking about sex instead.”
“Oh you poor thing. How did you ever cope?”
“With great difficulty. Now come on.”
He gestured at her, in a way that seemed familiar.
Then she remembered: he’d done it during defense training.
Come at me, she thought he meant. So she did.
“Okay, okay. Mine is Grosse Pointe Blank.”
“So completely unrealistic fairytale about a murderer.”
“I guess that would be one way to look at it, yeah.”
“And what would be the other way?”
“Martin Blank is fucking awesome.”
He rolled his eyes, at that. Very obviously, too.
And when he answered, his voice was heavy with sarcasm.
“Tell that to the people he kills with a fork,” he said.
But she wasn’t about to let him get away with that.
Not when she suspected they weren’t talking about Martin at all.
“Oh you mean the awful, terrible bad guys.”
“How do you know they’re all bad?”
“Because I know him.”
“Maybe he isn’t what he seems.”
“Or it could be that he just judges himself as harshly as possible.”
There was a long silence, after that. A pointed silence, full of meaningful eye contact.
Yes, I’m talking about you, she thought at him, and he seemed to get it.
But man, he still didn’t like it. She had to change the subject just to stop him from moodily staring out of the window.
“Your turn,” she said. “Favorite movie.”
“I would probably have to say The Fly.”
“Really? And here I thought you liked a happy ending.”
“Yeah, well. Happy endings aren’t always possible for gross, nightmarish monsters.”
He didn’t look at her as he said it—he was busy accepting his coffee from the mean lipped waitress. But she got his meaning anyway.
And knew just how to throw it back at him.
“True. But hey, at least the monster gets to bang Geena Davis for like ninety percent of the movie, before he meets his terrible and disgusting end.”
“I do not remember it being ninety percent of the movie.”
“So sixty percent, then. Maybe sixty-five.”
“Sixty-five still seems way to high.”
“Will you at least give me forty?”
“Forty is possible,” he said, as he sipped from his surprisingly good smelling coffee from his surprisingly clean looking mug.
Though really, it was his smile she paid attention to.
Just a little hint of one—rueful, but a delight all the same.
And definitely evidence that they could do this. They could date like this, as slow and steady as he wanted, and it would be fine. She was certain it would be fine.
Until they got to her apartment door and he said so what happens at the end of a first date, and she answered with a laugh. A kiss, she said, without thinking for one second that he really would. And then just as she turn
ed to put her key in the lock, he caught her hand. Casually, like it was nothing. Like it was no big deal. Even the words he said were almost offhand. Wait a minute now, he said. As if she’d left her jacket in his arms or forgotten to tell him something.
Only it was neither of those things.
It was his hands on her face suddenly, warm and strong and sure. It was him leaning down, slow enough that she had time to nearly lose it. Her heart started actually pounding. Somehow, she was trembling all over, in a way she hadn’t since teenage dates with guys way out of her league. And then his lips touched hers, and oh god, it was just beyond anything she could have imagined.
Somewhere in the back of her head, she had thought he would be awkward about it. That he would find kissing too intimate, and shy away in a million tiny ways. Maybe his mouth stayed closed; perhaps he didn’t like to press too hard or too deeply. At the very least, she was sure it would feel somewhat robotic—like someone who had learnt the notes well, but struggled with the passion part.
But it didn’t. Dear god it didn’t at all.
He kissed her as if savoring every second of it—so soft and sweet it was nearly unbearable. Though it was the rhythm of the thing that really nailed her to the wall. The way he pressed in deep and then almost pulled away, before rolling that hot mouth back against hers. Sinuously, she thought, and that seemed right. He kissed in waves, in long slow waves that made her knees want to buckle.
And then she got just the barest flicker of his tongue, and they almost did.
She had to get hold of him just to stay on her feet. Her hands went to his shoulders—but of course his shoulders only made everything more intense. He was so solid, so real suddenly. And he was still kissing her, in that incredibly sensuous and way too arousing way. In fact, if anything he was doing it more deeply. His hand had gone to the back of her head, and everything was so hot and wet suddenly, and oh fuck, those maddening licks were getting longer and slicker and soooo good.
Fuck, did he know how good this was?
She was sure he must.
But when he finally pulled away, it didn’t seem like that at all. She was left dazed—breath coming too quick, legs like jelly, pulse beating too hard in every part of her body. Whereas he looked as if he’d just brushed his teeth with her lips.
“Goodnight,” he said, as calmly as you please.
Then he just strolled away.
At which point she knew.
Normal dating was going to be hell.
Chapter Eleven
He asked her to choose the next venue for their great dating experiment—and she understood why. He thought that she would make the better choice. That she would pick something that was neither a possible portal to hell, nor something that would make taking things slow hard. He trusted her to come up with something that worked within the plan they’d agreed on.
And truthfully, she did try her best. She went with a drive-in screening of The Fly, thinking it served all purposes. It was his favorite film, so it showed some real thought. They could talk through it, and not bother anyone. But most importantly they got to go to the movies, without having to sit super close together in almost complete darkness. It was a good, chaste option, like something from the movie Grease.
Then they got there, and it dawned on her what the movie Grease was about:
Mostly teenagers humping the shit out of each other at the drive-in.
In fact, if memory served, the drive-in got Rizzo pregnant.
And it was pretty obvious why. They were in a tiny, dark bubble, with a backseat like a bed only inches away. There was literally nothing they couldn’t do to each other, in this environment—though she did her best not to think about that. Instead, she focused on other things. Like the movie.
The movie that just so happened to be forty percent fucking.
God, why had she not remembered the movie was forty percent fucking?
They had only talked about it the other day, yet somehow she’d just let it fall completely out of her head. Now, she had to watch Jeff Goldblum athletically pounding away, while a guy who looked like his more handsome, much younger brother sat with his arms and legs almost wedged against hers.
It was absolute agony. More than agony, in truth.
She had to look away from the screen just to stop herself sweating—but oh man, was that ever a mistake. Her eyes went straight to Isaac, and of course his face was even more amazing than usual in the flickering light. The shadows beneath his cheekbones were deeper; the color of his skin was richer; the curl of his top lip looked incredible.
And oh so, so tempting.
Had it always been this tempting?
She didn’t think so—it had to be the memory of those lips that was doing it. The press of them against hers, butter soft and sweeter than anything. The way he had moved over her, in that gentle but strangely insistent way. That rhythm, like an echo of something far filthier. He fucks like that, her mind whispered, and as soon as it did, she was pretty much lost. A bolt of arousal went through her, heavy and hot enough that she could hardly cope. She almost jumped him right then and there.
But managed to restrain herself, at the last second.
She got herself back under control.
Or she thought she had.
Then he said, “So what are we supposed to do on a second date?”
And completely stupid words just popped right out of her.
“Second date is usually making out,” she said, as if she hadn’t learned her lesson at the apartment door. He clearly liked following the rules of dating. It was obviously possible that he was going to obey them again, here. Yet, somehow, she was convinced that this was way too much. Too outside the parameters of what they’d agreed on.
Then he started to lean towards her, and she knew she was completely screwed. He just looked so fucking amazing, in every way amazing was possible. His eyes had gone all heavy lidded, and they were not meeting hers. They were on her mouth instead, as if his memory of how she tasted was as intense as her memory of him. And when he did look up, it was only to trail his gaze over the rest of her. Slowly, slowly, in that savoring way of his.
Though it was his lips that really fucked her over.
He had sunk his teeth into the lower one, and oh, that was way too much for her to handle. She almost told him to stop it—but what good would stopping have done? He was still moving towards her, in the most agonizingly deliberate way possible. His hand still went to the side of her face, like someone tilting a cup to their lips. And he still kissed her.
Fuck, when he kissed her.
She had half convinced herself the first one had felt like that because it was new. He was new to her; kissing itself had become new again. But as soon as he made contact, she knew she’d just been fooling herself. The simple truth was:
He was fucking fantastic at it.
Within thirty seconds, she was actually trembling. She had to clench every muscle in her body just to stop it showing, but she knew it wasn’t doing any good. Too many other obvious signs of her excitement followed it, one after the other. Her hands kept bunching his jacket up, no matter his hard she tried to curb them. Her hips would not stop rolling, even though she glued herself to her seat.
And she knew what she looked like.
She was so boiling hot it had to be showing on her face.
She had to be a little flushed, at the very least.
Though, if he noticed, he didn’t say.
In fact, she was starting to think he might never say anything at all. That somehow, when he got to a certain point, his reservations dissolved, and now there was just this. Just frantic kissing in the front seat of his car, like they really were teenagers again. It definitely felt like it. It felt the way it had when she’d rode up to the bluff in Josh Matheson’s Crown Vic, where even the slightest, smallest thing had seemed enormous. His tongue in her mouth had almost made her come.
And it was the same here.
All he had to do was shift a
little closer in this discontented, greedy sort of way, and a thrum of pleasure went through her. One tease of his tongue and she was thrilling, as if he’d slipped it into something else entirely. He drew back just a little to lick over her parted lips—like someone allowing themselves just a taste of a too sweet ice cream—and she actually felt her clit ache and swell in response.
Though, it was something far more innocent that really drove her wild.
It was the hand that settled on her side—as if he had just wanted to rest it there.
He didn’t want to touch her breast, even though her breast was now millimeters away.
This was nothing. It was nothing.
Yet, somehow, it was everything.
Suddenly, all she could think was when, when, when. Every second was thick with anticipation, and god, that anticipation was amazing. It made her nipples stiffen into tiny points, as if his fingers were already there, caressing her. And of course, she couldn’t stop thinking what that caress would be like. Soft and teasing, she thought, like his kisses. Just two fingers, circling, circling, circling.
Then just a hint of something filthier. Of something hungrier.
His mouth, for just a second. Or maybe him cupping her breast, in a way that said exactly how much he liked the feel. How much he wanted to know what it felt like.
Yes, oh yes, that would be it. She was sure.
Though, if it was, he seemed reluctant to let it out. The hand stayed right where it was, until she could hardly breathe because of it. She couldn’t think because of it. The weight of him radiated out from that one point, in one long, steady throb.
It was like he was burning her there.
So, it wasn’t a surprise when she broke.
Or, at least, it wasn’t a surprise to her.
It definitely was one to him.
The very second she slid his hand up over her breast, he stopped dead. His mouth froze against hers, as if she hadn’t moved him a couple of millimeters at all. She’d flicked his switch from on, to off. She’d corrupted his programming, and now he didn’t know how to do anything. His eyes had flicked open, but they didn’t go back to a normal blinking pattern. They just stayed like that, wide eyed in a way she’d never seen before.
Even more alarming: he wasn’t breathing. She was actually starting to think she might have to jumpstart his heart by the time he finally pulled back.
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