Tease (Songs of Submission #2)(5)

“What’s the answer?”

“I’ve been fine. Thank you.”

“Just fine?”

He wanted more. He wanted a way into a conversation about what he and I did really well. At least, that was what I was reading. “Fine,” I said, “and a little aroused most of the time.”

He smiled a true and genuine smile. “I think I missed you.”

“You think?”

He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “I’m not going to pretend I missed you the way I’d miss someone I know very well. But, okay, here’s an example. I’m in the office of the Korean Minister of Tourism. This is the guy who can approve the hotel or send me packing if I say the wrong word. My Korean is fluent, but not nuanced, so I have to pay attention.”

I leaned forward as well. “You speak Korean?”

“I live in Los Angeles. Do you want me to finish my story?”

I wanted him to bend me over and f**k me, but instead I said, “Yes. Finish.”

“He’s rattling off numbers, and somewhere in there is a mistake that will cost me a fortune if I only pay attention to the total, but I have to translate the numbers and find the flaw. Like he’ll say the permit is one, the fees are two, something else is three, and it all equals ten, meaning the mistake is four. He considers that his bribe, which I’m not paying. But the numbers are bigger, and he’s talking fast so no one else in the room will get it. I can’t keep my mind on what he’s saying or who I’m paying because all I can think about ...” He paused as if he’d reached the important part. “All I can picture in my mind is spreading your legs.”

I cleared my throat to keep from smiling, but my face still split in a wide grin. For a second, I wondered if he hadn’t been trying to be funny, but when I saw his pleased expression, I knew I hadn’t insulted him.

“I wasn’t even thinking about sex,” he said. “I mean, I was, but just that moment when I put my hands on your knees and pulled them apart, and you leaned back and let me do it. I kept replaying it. That moment when you let me. Couldn’t add and subtract worth a dime. I’m sure I overpaid the man.”

My legs tingled, wanting the pressure of his hands between them. I pressed my knees together, waiting for him to do what he’d fantasized. “Well,” I said, “I’ve started sucking on ice cubes all day.”

“Ah. The porch.”

“I just smile until it melts. Debbie thinks I’ve lost my mind.”

He plucked a cube from his glass. “Maybe you have.” He reached out and put the ice to my mouth, brushing my bottom lip. I opened my mouth and circled around the edge. I flicked my tongue out, but he wouldn’t give it to me. A drop of cold water trailed down my chin, and he took the cube away, popping it into his mouth and crunching. “I want you,” he said.

My spine felt like a piano someone had just done scales down.

“I want to have you in ways that surprise me.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“But I think we need clarity first.” Nothing followed but him looking into his glass.

I leaned back and sipped my water. “Go on.”

He tapped his fingertips together and looked out the window, stalling. I wasn’t about to interrupt.

“I’ve imagined a hundred ways to say this. They all sounded like I was trying to hurt you,” he started.

“Unless your dick fell off in Seoul, it can’t be anything that bad.”

He laughed and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll say it straight. I love my wife. My ex-wife. Nothing will ever change that.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t love anyone else.”

I got it. We could like each other forever, but he wouldn’t cross that line into love even if I did. I considered myself fair-warned. I had to let him know I was good with that, but I wasn’t his doormat either.

“I don’t want your heart,” I said. “I want your attention for a few hours at a time. I understand I’m one of many women you carouse around with.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How much carousing do you think I do?”

“A lot.”

“Based on what?”

“Rumor. And pictures on the internet.” My face burned red hot.

“The rumors are based partly on fact, I admit,” he said. “But carousing’s only carousing if I take them out. The pictures on the internet, I had my clothes on?”

“Parties and stuff.” I couldn’t look at him. I felt silly accusing him of being a whore with so little evidence.

“I have seven sisters. Most of them have been there for me since the divorce.”

How many women had been in the pictures? Not a hundred. But I assumed they were like roaches. If you see one on the counter, there are fifty more behind the cabinets. “How many times will this sister thing bite me in the ass?” I asked.

He smiled. “They’re a slippery bunch. All older. And protective.”

“You’re lucky. I’m an only. I attach to friends.”

He put his glass down and slipped his icy fingers between my knees, but he didn’t part them. A chill went up my thighs, to my belly, where the heat I’d been tamping for weeks raged. I could have closed my mouth right then, said nothing, opened my legs, and let him do whatever he wanted.