A coquettish smile crept across her face. “What do you take me for?”
He matched her smile. “I’m not judging. I just need to get . . . the lay of the land.”
“The lay of the land? Yes, I’m wearing something under here.”
His eyes heated again. “What?”
Sewanee paused. She wasn’t sure she remembered. “Uh. A thong.”
“What kind?”
“Black. Lace.”
“Grand.”
“Not really.”
“Take them off.”
She paused again. “Just like that?”
He tilted his head again. “Unless you want to stop?”
In reply, she let her fingers slowly slide up the side of her thighs, hiking her dress enough to reach the sides of her thong, but not enough to reveal anything beyond the joining of her legs. She watched him watch her slowly, methodically slide it down, sure she’d never forget the image of him, tall, strong, fully dressed, in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, standing on the white marble floor, lit by filtered neon.
“Can I assume your . . . state of affairs . . . still resembles our bottle of wine?”
She got the thong to her knees and let it drop the rest of the way to the floor. “Lay of the land. State of affairs.” She didn’t move. She waited for instruction.
“Not the kind of euphemisms you find in your books? Kick them to me.”
One moment of hesitation, but she did. “I told you, we don’t use euphemisms anymore.”
“Right, sorry, I forgot.” He picked up the thong. Fisted it. “Wet.”
She couldn’t speak. Words had left her.
He put it in his front pocket. Then, as if his sole intention were to torture her, he lifted his right hand to his mouth and licked the top ridge of the ring on his middle finger. Eyes never leaving hers, he eased the ring off and put it in the pocket with her panties. “I would ask you to open your legs.”
She did, happily.
He moved toward her. She pressed further into the window.
When he was standing in front of her, she tipped her head back to see him. He stepped closer. His right leg found a perfect stall between her open ones.
His now-ringless right hand slipped between them, under her dress, knuckles sliding up her left inner thigh, and continued upward until, without pause, his middle finger slid effortlessly inside her.
She inhaled.
He exhaled.
She bore down.
He crooked his finger.
She mewled.
He banged his left hand flat against the window beside her head.
She pulled him to her.
He pressed his chest to hers.
She pressed her lips to his neck.
He ground against her hip. Once.
She grabbed his ass.
He pulled back.
She wouldn’t let him.
He cursed.
She writhed.
He jackknifed his wrist, brought the heel of his palm right where she needed it.
And she shattered.
Under normal circumstances, this would be too fast, too foreign, too inappropriate, too embarrassing, not the way it was “supposed to be.” Yet, somehow, far beyond her ability to comprehend exactly how, something seemingly so much less became so much more. All the ways this was wrong were exactly what made it so right.
But there was no sense to be made of this now. Now, she was beyond herself. Beyond consciousness. Beyond the ability to register all that was happening.
The siren wailing thirty-five floors below. The blue light pulsing on his shirt. His cologne. The grain of his slacks under her palms as she mindlessly kneaded, urging him on. His inner thighs clenching around her leg. The heat in the suite redundantly kicking on. Gasping his name against his neck. The feel of him thick at her hip. His head dropping to her shoulder as he gave in. That groan. Her heaving. His trembling. How they slowly slalomed back to earth like leaves.
Consciousness returned the way a sunrise returned light to the earth. A moan, a sigh, a shudder, a laugh, an apology, an are you kidding, a promise to go slow next time, a so long as next time is right the fuck now, a chuckle, a disentangling, an unhitching, a Jaysus, you regressed me, a strangled right back atcha.
A step away.
A good stare.
A swallow.
Another.
A step forward.
A kiss.
More.
Chapter Eleven
“The Reveal”
SEWANEE HELD THE GLASS AWARD OUT TO NICK AND HE ARRIVED JUST in time to keep it from dropping to the floor. His hand cupped her elbow and he leaned in to give her an industry-standard kiss on her cheek. His jaw against hers nearly took her out at the knees. He pulled back, took one full moment to gaze into her eye, and everything passed between them in that second of infinity: confusion, shock, awe, happiness, betrayal–every goddamn thing–and then he, Nick, Nick, Nick turned to the podium and she, Sewanee, stayed rooted to the spot, afraid if she moved an inch she would go down. She stared at him. Under normal circumstances, this would be the appropriate thing to do. Give the honoree one’s full attention. In this circumstance, it wasn’t a choice.