Nick’s voice had a distant quality to it, telling me a story he had once been told. I had noticed before that he was good at telling other people’s stories.
“So he stepped out of his car, and beckoned as if he were some great old king, something whose want was law, and it came, all of it, the mullioned windows, the marble floors, the glass blued by age and the books with the demons still sealed inside them. He didn’t even have to ask, all he had to do was want, and there it was waiting for him. The history was his, the ghosts were his, and all of it waiting for the … the soul that would come in to make it perfect, make it shine.”
“His soul,” I guessed, but then I corrected myself. “No. Daisy’s. It’s for her.”
Nick laughed a little, not looking at me.
“Of course. It was all only ever for her.”
If he had said it bitterly or angrily, I would have had some defense against it. Instead there was a longing and sorrow there that I had not learned to guard against, and I reached up, taking his face between my palms and turning him back to me.
“Come here,” I said, and I pulled him down for a kiss.
“You didn’t want—”
“I changed my mind. I’m allowed to do that. You are too.”
That messy entangling anger had gone out of him, leaving him sweeter and more pliable. I didn’t mind the sadness; he wore it like a girl might wear a becoming if old-fashioned veil. It left him open in a way he hadn’t been before, raw and pretty and intriguing.
He put his back against the tree and I leaned up on my toes to kiss him. He set his hands on my shoulders almost tentatively at first, but after a few moments, he clung to me. He was going to leave small finger-tip marks on my skin, and the thought made my heart flutter a little, made my breath come faster. The kiss went on until my lips felt bruised, and his hand reached for the hem of my dress, tugging it up so he could palm my bare skin above my stockings. He traced his fingers under the strap of my garters, plucking at them restlessly until I nipped at his chin.
“You can get a little more serious than that today,” I told him, and with a slight groan he reached down to cup me between the legs, making me rock against him with a pleased sound. He buried his face in my hair, and I tugged his shirt open, nuzzling at the base of his throat.
I could feel his cock harden against my hip, and deliberately I pressed against it, making him swear softly. Something about the way he swore, foreign words, words I didn’t have a hope of understanding, made me laugh.
“Poor Nick,” I murmured with false sympathy. “Are you feeling quite overwhelmed, darling?”
“Every day of my life,” he retorted, and to my surprise, he took me by the shoulders and pushed my back against the tree. For a moment, a spark of uncertainly singed me, making me wonder if despite all the precautions I had taken, despite all of Nick’s fine recommendations, I had made a mistake after all.
Between deep kisses, he was still rocking up against me, and now my dress was flipped up to my hips. I did a quick check; we were out of sight of both Gatsby’s mansion and Nick’s own little house, and if that didn’t satisfy propriety, I didn’t know what did. He was stroking me with the confidence he had earned in the weeks after finding me on the street in front of the Bijoux, a sweet sure touch that I had shown him, his mouth laying a line of soft kisses down the side of my throat. I raked my fingers hard up his arms and his shoulders and then up over the back of his neck, making him hiss. He could always take at least a little bit of rough treatment, and while I suspected that I didn’t give him the kind of rough he liked best, it still made his eyes close in pleasure. He pressed his face against my neck, his hands still moving as if they belonged to someone else.
“Oh I believe I love you,” he said, and I laughed again at that. I liked to hear it, I liked to laugh at it, and it made me wonder what Daisy would say about it when I told her later. I liked my secrets, but there were some that were for the telling, and I dropped a fleeting kiss on his forehead.