Professed Read online

  I’m fairly sure Lucy flips Isaac the finger because he flips it back.

  I let my anger and the sting of that Armani cologne subside. Lucy takes an absinthe for herself from a passing tray and toasts me. She raises her mask, and I see her cheeks are sweaty and flushed. She gives me that polished, coy, Greenwich debutante smile of hers and winks. I feel the clink of our glasses but can’t hear it over the thumping music. Absinthe, it tastes like liquid licorice, but not like Good & Plenty. More like that really good Australian “soft eating” licorice, like somewhere between salty, bitter, and sweet. It’s strong, super strong. As soon as it hits my stomach, I can feel this isn’t your ordinary 80 proof. I like it, quite a lot, and the sweet green sludge at the bottom of my glass slides down my throat in a minute.

  Meanwhile, Isaac and his over-amped testosterone levels have become distracted by a girl with orderly hot-roller curls, a D-cup, and a spray tan. That’s more his type. God bless.

  Slowly, I let my eyes slide back over to the blond, who’s now unhooking my bra from twenty feet away. “Who is he?” I ask Lucy, into her ear.

  She shrugs. “Don’t know. But so sexy!”

  No kidding. So sexy. I feel the heat come up into my cheeks as he starts approaching again. Lucy takes this as her cue to slip away, and my pulse picks up immediately. The way he looks at me, it’s paralyzing. It’s so steamy, it’s so greedy. So determined.

  The music drops down a bit, and he comes up alongside me. The air between us thickens somehow. He doesn’t say anything, not out loud, but the way his pants brush against my leg, the way his thigh presses against my hip, it says everything. It says I want you. Bad.

  I look up at him and say, “You’ve been watching me.”

  “Yeah,” he says, breaking into a big, sincere, contagious smile. A dimple on his right cheek. Mercy. “I can’t stop.”

  My vision seems to wobble when I look into his eyes. I have an irresistible urge to reach up and touch that jawline, the only part of his face that’s exposed, to see what his skin feels like, to see how rough that stubble is, to feel each whisker pass under my fingertips.

  So.

  That’s exactly what I do.

  As if my hand isn’t mine, I watch it move through the air, and find my palm against that sharp jaw and my thumb resting on his cheek.

  Holy God! Naomi! Steady on! I snatch my hand away. What is happening? No wonder everybody lost their minds drinking absinthe. I turn away horrified. Next thing I know, I’ll go insane and end up talking to empty swimming pools in the middle of winter. Absolutely zero impulse control! I press my hand to my side and say, “God, sorry. I don’t know…”

  His eyes seem sad. I can see he’s a good bit older than I am, and I become absolutely sure he must be a professor. But a young one. Or maybe a grad student? I know I don’t know him, though. I’d never forget those eyes.

  He gives me another smile. I see that he’s got a slight chin dimple too. I feel my heart constrict.

  “I’m Ben,” he says.

  “Naomi.” I extend my hand to shake his.

  What does he do then? Lowers his head to my hand and kisses it.

  My other hand instinctively moves to my chest, and I gasp. He presses his fingers to the inside of my palm and lets them linger there about three seconds past what would be acceptable in any situation but this one. “Are you a professor here?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Not exactly.” And that’s when he puts one hand on the small of my back, sliding it along the satin to hook his fingers around my waist.

  Exhaling, I try to regroup. I can’t. His stomach is perfectly flat, not an ounce of fat on him at all. I've got an urge just to slide my fingers along that place between belt and shirt.

  Inhaling deeply, I try to place that smell. It’s familiar, it’s clean. It’s Irish Spring.

  Mayday, mayday!

  The music is still low, and we’re close enough and deep enough into cloisters not to have to yell.

  “What about you? A professor?” he asks. He’s leaning down towards me, and I’m momentarily held hostage by the way his neck looks, so lovely and suntanned next to his crisp white shirt.

  “Law student!” I say.

  Why did I say that? Absinthe, has to be the absinthe. Or the fact that if I’d said, Just a junior! he’d step away from me like I have a rampant infectious disease.

  He knits fingers deeper into the ruches in the fabric at my side. His hand is strong and firm, and his thumb nestles just perfectly along the curve of my back. The heat of his legs passes through his pants against my thigh. I want to share that heat. I want to know that heat.

  The shudder starts just above my belly button and ends at the tips of my fingers.

  Maybe it’s the absinthe, maybe it’s the Irish Spring, I just don’t know, but that’s when I grab his hand and lead him to the dance floor. At first, he resists me. Not a natural on the dance floor, which I like. Tentative, not too cocky. But I slip my fingers between his and squeeze. Please.

  “I’m shit at dancing,” he says.

  I get up on my tiptoes and whisper in his ear, “I'll show you.”

  I feel his throat quiver against my cheek as he groans. “You will, huh?”

  I nod. “I'll show you just what I like.”

  And with that, he’s mine. He pulls me close to his body. I can see him studying my face, just as I’m studying him. I place my hand on the back of his neck, hanging on tight. Above us, the DJ’s got one hand up, telling us, Hold, Hold, Hold. He’s spinning two records at once: one, this mind-blurring backbeat, maddening, industrial, and the other Gregorian chants, now on a tight loop: Spiritus sancti spiritus sancti spiritus sancti.

  Keeping it low, keeping it fierce. Keeping us on the edge.

  Sanctiiiiiiiii...

  Whump, whump, whump.

  The DJ lowers his hand, lowers his head. The beat is just about to drop.

  I get close to his ear. The bottom drops out of everything, it gets dead silent. My stomach presses against his belt, and I whisper, “Ready?”

  He yanks me close… “Fuck yes.”

  And we’re off. He keeps his head lowered to keep his face near mine. Immediately, everything in me is rushing for him. So much desire in those eyes, so focused here in the middle of all the chaos. The DJ, he sets that beat where all the magic happens. A sweet spot, the right speed to move your hips and be human in a way nothing else lets you be. Sex right through the air.

  Ben and I start out close and only get closer, every second learning each other through touch and feel. Satin, suiting, belt loops, hems. Buttons, zippers. Seams. Fingers, jaw, thumbs, ribs.

  I’ve never danced with anybody like this in my life. He doesn’t let go, and neither do I. I’ve never felt anything so sensuous, so connected. There are a hundred people on this floor, but minute by minute they all fall away. Beat to beat, we get closer. I get the feeling that the DJ is playing just for us, we’re that couple that people move aside for. I’ve never been part of that couple before. But I am now.

  When the DJ breaks between songs, Ben grabs two absinthes off a passing tray.

  “Careful,” he says, even as he hands me one.

  “Or what,” I say in his ear, “we’ll go insane?”

  He tips his head, like maybe it’s already too late.

  “You’re a fantastic dancer,” I tell him.

  “You are. I’m just hanging on for dear life.”

  Whump. Whump. Whump. A new, slower beat starts. Ben puts the glasses on a stone ledge behind me and grabs me again.

  That’s when Isaac reappears, trying to cut in. All squared shoulders and slim-cut trousers, puffed up with protein shakes and too many B vitamins. I feel the hot bile in my throat.

  But Ben hangs on to me. Into my ear, he asks, “Want me to get rid of him?”

  “I can handle it,” I say.

  Ben nods. “Just checking.”

  Apparently, however, I can’t handle it because it’s not about me, suddenly. Is
aac puts his hands on Ben’s shoulders, gripping the suit fabric in his fingers. Isaac is the perpetual brawler. Too much liquor, hair-trigger temper, always ready to throw a punch. In my arms, I feel Ben stiffen.

  Isaac actually takes off his mask, all alpha male nonsense, “That’s my girl.”

  I wave a finger at him, Not your girl!

  That’s when Ben reaches up and puts one hand on Isaac’s shoulder. Not aggressive. Just firm, solid, confident. He leans away from me, into Isaac’s ear. I can feel Ben’s voice under my fingertips on his chest, but I can’t hear him. Isaac’s eyes are right on me at first, hot and mean, but then they move to the floor. Like the game has changed. Everything seems to slow down. It’s like watching a rutting moose get stopped in his tracks. Isaac relents, raising his hands to say, Take her. And then he steps away.

  Ben seizes me tight in his arms and spins me off in another direction, candlelight streaking behind him.

  When the music drops down again, I get up on my tiptoes and ask, “What did say to him?”

  But he just smiles, like I really, really don’t want to know.

  “What did you say?”

  I see his eyes narrow behind that mask. Just a little. He pulls me right to him, fingers moving past the small of my back in a possessive grab of my ass. As he shifts my panties an inch, I feel the wetness begin to rush out of me. It would be inappropriate it if wasn’t so exactly right.

  His fingertips press into my bare flesh. “I said I want you, and I don’t fuck around. So that was that.”

  Now this here? Is a man. “That’s mutual.”

  “I get the feeling you don’t fuck around either.”

  “Never ever.”

  He pulls me to the corner, where it’s quieter and more still. I try to catch my breath, but being so close to him isn’t making it easy. I gather my damp hair in my hand and pull it off to the side, letting the cool air hit my neck.

  From a waiter he grabs a fresh bottle of water and pours some into his palm. Then he lifts his mask and splashes it on his face. It’s then that I get my first good look at him. He’s just gorgeous. Sparkling eyes, rugged cheekbones. Dark blond eyebrows. With that water on his face, it’s like he’s just stepped out of the pool. Too late for mayday. This ship is sinking fast.

  After placing the mask back on, he drizzles a little more water into his hand. With his palm cupped, he presses his palm to my neck and the water spills down my chest.

  Shit. Oh shit.

  Now he’s pushing my hair away from my ear slightly. His lips just brush my skin, making my eyes flutter shut. Into my ear now, he says, “I’m going to kiss you. I don’t think you could stop me if you tried.”

  With his lips on mine, his stubble grates against my cheek. At first, the kiss is warm and gentle and respectful but then increasingly searching and urgent. When I kiss harder, he takes it as permission to go further and further. Hot breath from his nose warms my cheek. I hold on to his neck, feeling his hairline under my fingertips and his jaw with my thumbs. The music goes silent in my head. I try to keep up with him, try to kiss him back and he lets me in, but he’s overwhelming me.

  Grabbing me by the ass again, he presses me up against the wall kissing me harder. He hoists me up against the stone, causing me to cinch his waist with my legs. He’s hard and massive, and the base of his cock compresses my clit right through my panties and his fly, making me groan. I hang on to those sexy shoulders. But it’s then I realize we’re not against the wall. We’re against an emergency exit door. The handle is just below my ass.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” I ask.

  “Fuck yeah I do,” he tells me.

  And that’s when I thrust my hips backwards against the handle, both of us laughing into a new kiss, through the ear-splitting screech.

  4

  She’s a five-alarm fire. The emergency exit swings open, and I drive her into a stone stairwell. The stones are damp from rain, and warm air blows through a vent at my feet.. I taste her mouth again. Absinthe, whiskey and Everclear have nothing on this woman. Nothing. She’s 1000 proof, and she’s ruining me.

  “I have always wanted to do that,” she says. Her eyes are shining, even down here in the dark with only the street lamps way above us. Those eyes. Dark blue with a black rim around the edge.

  “Yeah? Fuck the rules.”

  “Fuck them every which way,” she says, more serious now. Eyes narrower.

  “You’ve got a mouth on you.”

  “Sailor’s daughter,” she says, laughing just a little again.

  I press her to the wall, pulling her into my hardness more and more each time. I need her to fucking feel it. I need her to know it. She’s making me reckless, she’s making me wild. She’s making me want in a way that I’d forgotten I could or ever did.

  “Why do you taste like heaven?” Like lemonade on a hot day.

  “Do you like it?”

  Do I like it? I’m so hungry for her I can’t even think. There is no time. There is no philosophy. There’s just being. There’s just her and me right here together.

  She slides her mask off, and I see her whole face for the first time. Those cheeks, the way her long black eyelashes graze them when she blinks. She’s got this lovely, adorable nose, and a splash of freckles across her face. Her lips are a perfect natural pink. She doesn’t take her mask all the way off. Instead, she just leaves it on her forehead, her hair a messy tangle to one side.

  Now she slides my mask off. When she exhales, staring at me, her cleavage catches the light of the street lamps above. “Hello.”

  Her breathing is heavy. So is mine. I explore that face I hadn’t gotten to see. She is so much hotter than she was before. That face seals the deal. A body is a body, but beauty is the whole. I want to see what beauty like this looks like in ecstasy. I want to see that beauty roar.

  I force her to the other side of the stairwell, against a wrought iron door. The iron thumps against the stone, as I slide my hands down her legs. I hoist her up higher, and I press her to the door spreading her thighs. The smell of her now, the part of her I want so bad it makes me ache. Not just lemons. Honey and warmth and ocean water.

  “I know this is a dirty thing to say.” My voice is raspy and hoarse. “But I want to get inside you. I need to feel you.”

  “The cops will catch us,” she says. She’s laughing a little again. She’s full of cute giggles.

  I grind my hips hard against her pelvis. I hold her there with my hands, my thumbs digging into her hipbones. I watch her eyes. I’m lost in her and I’m not even inside her yet. I slide my fingers alongside those panties and feel her lips. So hot and already slick. I start to dry-fuck her right there in the stairwell. It’s like I’m possessed. Me. In there. I have to have it. I have to have her.

  She’s after something in her purse. I hear a click and a rattle. “They’ll give us a ticket for screwing in public and ignoring emergency signage.” I watch her tear open a condom wrapper with her teeth. God damn it.

  “Don’t fucking matter,” I say, unzipping my pants.

  She slides it on, and I make sure it’s all the way to the base. I’m going to need it that way, the way I’m planning to take her. Slowly, I press into her, finally getting as close as I need to be. Her gritted-teeth moans just make me want her more. The way she thrusts her head back drives me deeper and deeper.

  At first, I've got a fighting chance of hanging on, of finding my rhythm with her. But then she rakes her nails down my hairline, onto my neck. She unbuttons my shirt and claws my chest. She pinches my nipple hard, all the time with her head back and her eyes closed. She whispers a slow, steady stream of fucks.

  “You’re going to make me come,” I tell her.

  “Won’t be the last time,” she says.

  Boom, I’m gone. Just gone. Busted apart in the rush of lemon, her whispers of yes yes yes, and her soft black hair.

  5

  Even before he’s finished coming, he begins massaging the edge of my clit
with the pad of his thumb. Not touching it directly, but easing me into it, working me up and up.

  “I’m close,” I whisper, because I was turned on the minute I saw him, and that was hours ago. And oh God, does he ever know what he’s doing, holy man alive. I press my head into the iron door behind me, hanging onto it with one hand and onto his neck with another. I’m on the brink of tumbling down into my orgasm when he slows.

  Whimpering. That’s the only word for the sound I’m making.

  “Listen, come back to my hotel with me. I want to do this right.” His face is impossibly sexy in this dark light, those eyes not even gleaming, just shadows under the far-above streetlights. “What do you say?”

  Oh yes, yes, God, yes please. I nod—I can hardly do anything else. He lowers me down, pulling his still-hard cock from me as he does. He lets his length slide along my clit, and my body actually buckles with desire for more of him. I have to steady myself on the iron door behind me. Then I slide the condom off with one hand. He takes it from me and slips it in a dumpster.

  As we begin to walk up the stone steps to the street, I realize my feet are absolutely killing me. I hadn’t realized before, and I hiss as the edge of Lucy’s shoes cut into a new blister.

  “Sorry,” I say, stepping out of them on the sidewalk.

  He runs a hand down my arm. There’s a sheen of sweat all over me, and he must be able to feel the goose bumps. He takes off his jacket, puts it on me, and then lowers down into a crouch, facing away from me.

  “Everything okay?” I ask him. Somehow I think he must be looking for a contact or a dropped wallet.

  He turns over his shoulder smiling and pats his back with one hand. “Hop on.”

  “Piggyback!” I whisper.

  “Giddy up, beautiful.”

  I hesitate for one second exactly, and then use a stone planter as a stepstool. There is something intensely erotic about the feeling of my legs around his waist, about the way his hipbones support my knees, the width of his shoulders in front of mine, the way he carries me so effortlessly along, the way his coat feels on the skin of my arms. I position my face right next to his, and I find he’s smiling.