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Authors: Julia Kent
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talks to someone named Grace, the cadence of their conversation quickly familiar to me. Scheduling helicopters and private jets may be out of my realm, but I know a logistics talk when I hear one. Grace is probably his executive assistant. Something about New Zealand, a reception, and then a return flight to the west coast pops up through their twenty-minute conversation.
I spend the time willing my heart to stay in my chest.
If I weren’t such a cheap date I’d knock back a shot of whatever is in the crystal decanter at my elbow, an amber liquid that looks good. But two drinks and I’m quite tipsy. Three and I’m drunk.
Four and I’m singing “Bad Romance” at full blast in a really cheesy karaoke performance. Whether there’s a karaoke machine or not.
Declan shoots me apologetic looks every so often, and I just smile without teeth. A shrug here and there helps communicate that it’s okay. I get it. And I do.
In fact, the phone conversation helps me to bring my overwrought self back to center. Business. This is business. I’m not on a date with him. We’re talking about a few million dollars a year that his company wants to spend for a specific value premise, and my company would love to receive that money to offer services.
That’s it.
This is a transaction. Not a relationship. And certainly not an affair.
“It’ll be at the restaurant?” Declan murmurs into the phone, then his face goes neutral but the skin around his eyes turns up a touch, like a smile without his lips moving.
Grace says something. Declan replies, “Good,” and hangs up abruptly. It would be rude if it weren’t shorthand. I’m sure Grace is doing a dance she and Declan know all too well, keeping the ship running smoothly through the careful discarding of unnecessary social expectations for the sake of ruthless efficiency.
He tucks the phone inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket just as the driver slows the limo, bringing it to a gentle halt. I look out the window. We’re here.
Except the entrance we use is most definitely not one for the hoi polloi . Wouldn’t want the unwashed masses rubbing elbows with the richie-riches, right? My own bitterness surprises me, and I have a hard time looking at Declan for a minute or two.
His eyes shift; he sees it, and wants to say something, but doesn’t. Instead, the driver opens my door and Declan’s hand comes out to take mine.
My heart seizes with the touch of bare skin on bare skin. Jesus. If the man can get me this close to an O holding my hands, I’ll stroke out if we ever make it to a bed, naked.
And there I go again…what is wrong with me? I don’t do this. I don’t think like this. Not only do I not randomly strip strange men naked with my mind and have little porno movies in my head about them, I don’t even think about one-night stands.
The only guys I’ve ever slept with were friends first. Good friends. The slow, leisurely meandering to physical affection and something more, carefully measured out and talked through is more my speed.
I like to take things slow. To reveal myself layer by layer to men. To dip a toe in the water and pull back. I’m the kind of person who gets into a pool one inch of flesh at a time, pausing to shiver and acclimate.
Declan is the sexual equivalent of doing a cannonball. At 4 a.m. In March in northern Vermont.
As I climb out, my torn skirt shows so much thigh I might as well have given birth.
Declan’s eyebrow arches with appreciation. Controlling my breathing is becoming a second job. I stand and he reaches for me again, his hand on my back, and he smells like cloves, cinnamon, and tobacco. Not cigarettes, though.
“Do you smoke?” I ask as he leads me to an enormous oak door that opens suddenly, a concierge standing there in full tux.
“No. That’s Dad’s pipe you smell. We were working late at the office.”
It’s cardamon and Bengal tea spicy yumminess. I want to brew him in hot water and drink him.
We enter a
I spend the time willing my heart to stay in my chest.
If I weren’t such a cheap date I’d knock back a shot of whatever is in the crystal decanter at my elbow, an amber liquid that looks good. But two drinks and I’m quite tipsy. Three and I’m drunk.
Four and I’m singing “Bad Romance” at full blast in a really cheesy karaoke performance. Whether there’s a karaoke machine or not.
Declan shoots me apologetic looks every so often, and I just smile without teeth. A shrug here and there helps communicate that it’s okay. I get it. And I do.
In fact, the phone conversation helps me to bring my overwrought self back to center. Business. This is business. I’m not on a date with him. We’re talking about a few million dollars a year that his company wants to spend for a specific value premise, and my company would love to receive that money to offer services.
That’s it.
This is a transaction. Not a relationship. And certainly not an affair.
“It’ll be at the restaurant?” Declan murmurs into the phone, then his face goes neutral but the skin around his eyes turns up a touch, like a smile without his lips moving.
Grace says something. Declan replies, “Good,” and hangs up abruptly. It would be rude if it weren’t shorthand. I’m sure Grace is doing a dance she and Declan know all too well, keeping the ship running smoothly through the careful discarding of unnecessary social expectations for the sake of ruthless efficiency.
He tucks the phone inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket just as the driver slows the limo, bringing it to a gentle halt. I look out the window. We’re here.
Except the entrance we use is most definitely not one for the hoi polloi . Wouldn’t want the unwashed masses rubbing elbows with the richie-riches, right? My own bitterness surprises me, and I have a hard time looking at Declan for a minute or two.
His eyes shift; he sees it, and wants to say something, but doesn’t. Instead, the driver opens my door and Declan’s hand comes out to take mine.
My heart seizes with the touch of bare skin on bare skin. Jesus. If the man can get me this close to an O holding my hands, I’ll stroke out if we ever make it to a bed, naked.
And there I go again…what is wrong with me? I don’t do this. I don’t think like this. Not only do I not randomly strip strange men naked with my mind and have little porno movies in my head about them, I don’t even think about one-night stands.
The only guys I’ve ever slept with were friends first. Good friends. The slow, leisurely meandering to physical affection and something more, carefully measured out and talked through is more my speed.
I like to take things slow. To reveal myself layer by layer to men. To dip a toe in the water and pull back. I’m the kind of person who gets into a pool one inch of flesh at a time, pausing to shiver and acclimate.
Declan is the sexual equivalent of doing a cannonball. At 4 a.m. In March in northern Vermont.
As I climb out, my torn skirt shows so much thigh I might as well have given birth.
Declan’s eyebrow arches with appreciation. Controlling my breathing is becoming a second job. I stand and he reaches for me again, his hand on my back, and he smells like cloves, cinnamon, and tobacco. Not cigarettes, though.
“Do you smoke?” I ask as he leads me to an enormous oak door that opens suddenly, a concierge standing there in full tux.
“No. That’s Dad’s pipe you smell. We were working late at the office.”
It’s cardamon and Bengal tea spicy yumminess. I want to brew him in hot water and drink him.
We enter a
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