Entry-Level Mistress (6 page)

With a look across the office.

This wasn’t me.

By the time the car stopped in front of a modest-looking brownstone on the quaint, brick-lined Charles Street, the bottom floor of which was taken up by an antique shop, I wanted to run. Toward him. Away from him.

Instead I slid my leg across the seat and placed my heel on the uneven brick. The night was warm, the first hint of Boston’s usual humid summers heavy in the air. I stood, straightened my dress, thanked the driver.

There was no past anymore, only the powerful present. And there were just a few feet between me and Daniel Hartmann.

The street echoed with the indulgent noise of people enjoying a good meal, and I glanced toward the sidewalk patio of a restaurant. Its patrons seemed to sense they were being watched and they, in turn, watched me.

Watched me walk the eight steps from curb to door, which then swung open.

And there he was. Completely and unfairly gorgeous. Casual in his dress shirt, slacks and bare feet.

Well-shaped, well-tended, masculine bare feet.

“Hello,” he murmured, stepping back.

“Hello,” I returned, moving past him into the narrow hall. There was a slight breeze as the door shut behind me. While he locked it, I looked up the steep, old staircase before me, the flights winding upward. I rested my left hand on the thick, round newel post. There was nothing at all extraordinary about this hall. It hadn’t been modernized or refinished. The only thing that distinguished it from any of the brick walkups my college friends had lived in was the clean, unchipped paint.

“I wasn’t entirely certain you’d come.”

“No?” I asked, and started to turn to face him. His hand snaked around my waist, pulling my back against him, so that my hand fell to my side, brushing against his thigh. Even the slightest sensation, skin against fabric, shot through me like electricity. I loved how he was taller than me, how he folded over and around me, how I could lose myself in his touch and trust that he would hold me up.

“I wasn’t entirely certain that you should come,” he amended. Maybe I shouldn’t have. But it was hard to pay attention to the thin shred of doubt when he was lifting my hair. The feel of his fingers on my scalp was exquisite. Then his mouth found the back of my neck.

I shivered under his lips, his tongue.

Three days ago, I could never have imagined this was where I’d be, with
him
of all people. Held by him.

I pushed the thoughts away. Focused on his other hand splayed across my midsection, holding me in place. I lifted my own hand to cover his. To cover
part
of his. Then to stroke his skin. My fingertips tingled with sensation.

“Let’s go up,” he whispered and I took a step backward, up the stairs, not breaking eye contact. I smiled. He laughed and moved quickly toward me. I stepped back and up again, and again, watching him stalk me. The moment exhilarated and every inch of my skin was alive with anticipation. My heart beat fast in my chest, as if this were really a chase, as if I didn’t want him to catch me. Then he was fast, a blur of motion, pushing me against the wall and filling up my world with him and his kiss.

He let go and stepped past me. I followed him up the stairs, swiftly, nearly pulling him back down, and we played that way, pushing and pulling, kissing and breathless up the rest of the flight of stairs until we reached the top.

We tumbled into the room and I gasped, pulling away from him. The walls were covered ceiling to floor in art. Not the large commissioned pieces that hung at the office but an eclectic collection of smaller, framed work. I walked around slowly, staring, trying to take it all in.

“You said you have a buyer,” I prodded. “And the ex-girlfriends of course.”

“Right, these are actually a few pieces I’ve picked up on my travels. Just random artists.” I arched my eyebrow in question. He shrugged. “I like to give people a chance.”

“Then … ”

“The loft is where the other pieces are.”

“You have another place in Boston as well?” I felt stupid, like I was missing something rather basic here, but everything was so overwhelming—the art, him … Then I remembered the photographs I’d seen of him “at home” in magazines. That must have been the loft.

“I have a home for show, for the girlfriends and the parties, and then I have this. For me.”

I tried to make sense of that. He’d separated out his life: the part that was public, and the part that was truly private. Interesting that his girlfriends seemed to be part of the public life.

“I thought you might like this better.”

I let out a disbelieving laugh and started toward him, my heels clicking on the old wooden floor. I came in close, studied his face and slipped my hand up his chest, and then around his neck.

He was sharing all this with me. Despite everything that lay between us. I could take it as a taunt, a dare to strike at him just as leaving me alone in his office might have been. And perhaps it was a taunt. Only, it was something more too.

“Who are you, Daniel Hartmann?”

The corner of his lips quirked up slightly, but I didn’t really want an answer in words. I wanted to know him the way I knew the shape of clay or metal or marble or any of the surfaces with which I worked.

He picked me up, almost effortlessly, and I held onto him, wrapped my legs around him. I could see my shoes behind his back.

“I’m the man who is about to take you upstairs and strip every piece of clothing off of your body.”

Oh. Okay.

“What about dinner?”

“It can wait.”

He let me down. Lifted his chin, indicating the next flight of stairs. I turned, shot a smile over my shoulder and then ascended. He was right behind me, his hand resting on my hip, sliding sometimes down, sometimes up, teasing over me until I wanted to kick off my heels and run. I paused at the landing. I felt the heat of his body as he stopped himself just before colliding into me.

“Is there anything we need to talk about?” I asked on a breath, trying to be sensible, at least in one aspect. “Diseases, anything?”

“I’m good,” he said, moving closer, wrapping himself over and around me again. “You?”

“Yeah, me too.” And thank goodness because what if he had said something else? And could I really trust him to tell the truth? Maybe it was because I was cloudy-headed with lust, but for some reason I felt I could. That same reason that had me here, about to sleep with the one man in the world I could actually call an enemy.

Intelligence felled by lust?

He reached out beyond me, twisted the knob of the door to the right. It swung open, and he stopped me in the threshold, trapping me between his arms. God, this was hot. I liked him being a little bit more in charge. This was so different from the other guys I’d dated. I lifted my face to his, took his kiss with a sort of fearful hunger. Then I turned my head away for air, and his kiss didn’t end, just moved lower, his dark head bent to my neck. His bedroom looked sparse, nearly unfurnished. There was a low platform bed, neatly made, with a thick rug at the foot. One standing lamp. Stacks of books around the room. But there were no proper bookshelves, no desks, nothing on the walls. Only a window that looked out toward the Charles River.

I felt his hand at my thigh, tugging up on my skirt. I rested my head back against the doorframe, let him take control and enjoyed the sensation of his fingers over my stocking-clad legs. In college I’d only ever worn thick, opaque tights to keep warm in the winter, but now I was appreciating these delicate, sheer bits of fabric. The sensation of skin on skin was one thing but feeling his touch through that thin barrier had its own pleasure.

Desire sharpened within me and I twisted in his grasp, restless and wanting more. His hand was on my bare thigh, thumb snaking below the lace of my garter strap and I sighed at that touch. Then his attention shifted, his hand sliding back down, his head lifting. I rolled my head to meet his darkened gaze.

“Let’s get you out of this.”

I stumbled into the room, stopped, my back to him and let him unzip the long line of interlocked metal. I shivered when he brushed my hair away and kissed me on my newly exposed skin. He slipped my dress off my shoulders. It slid down to the floor. I stepped forward, out of the pool of fabric around my heels. My hair brushed my skin as it fell back in place. I didn’t feel like myself. I was every woman who had been at this moment, seductive and seduced, anticipatory yet tense. And wearing sexy lingerie I’d only worn once before, for a burlesque costume party. But as I turned, I knew that Daniel saw the set of matching black lace exactly the way I wanted him to.

I tilted my head, studied him, planned out how I would unbutton his shirt, unfasten his belt, his pants. He stepped forward with sudden intention. I backed up.

The air was charged and thick between us. He stepped forward again, and I stepped back. And then again. Until I stumbled against the bed at my heels. He was at my side in an instant, catching me. In his arms, I fell back, dizzy and laughing.

Then he was kissing me. Everywhere. How could he possibly be touching me everywhere all at once? My whole skin tingled with sensation, radiated with pleasure. His hands on my thighs again—I felt the snap of my garter straps unfastened.

I jolted out of my passivity, reaching for him, for his face, his mouth, pulling at his clothes. I tossed my careful plan to the side as I pulled his shirt from beneath the waistband of his pants.

The skin of his back was warm, smooth and taut over his muscles. Where my fingers led, my mouth wanted to follow. I wanted to taste everything about him.

He pulled away. For a moment I stared at him in confusion but then, as I watched him shed his clothes with lightning speed, the confusion changed to appreciation. He was even more beautiful naked than in his bespoke suits. He was hard and gorgeous and—

“You are just ridiculously hot, Daniel Hartmann.” The words were blurted out before I even realized I said them. But it didn’t matter because that tall, delicious nakedness was looming over me, sliding my thong out from under my garter belt, over the stockings, leaving it with a toss on the floor.

I watched him as he studied me and then I looked down at my own nearly naked body, the object of his desire. I felt beautiful in a way I’d never known before.

He reached past me to the far side of the bed. I heard a slight rustling, the distinct metallic crinkle of a condom package, and anxiety bloomed with me again. I was a stupid idiot and could only be grateful for his thoughtfulness. I was so caught up in the moment, so caught up with him, that for the first time ever—

“Emily,” he whispered, breaking me out of my thoughts. “I want to taste you.”

I wanted to cry but he was kissing me again, this time the curve of my breast above my demi-bra. The touch of his lips on my skin was light, gentle. Testing. Aroused by both sight and touch, I watched his tongue flick against my skin the instant before the sensation seared through me.

Then his gorgeous, chestnut-haired head moved further away, down my body, leaving a trail of fire behind. His shoulders parted my legs. His fingers touched me first, stroking. He looked up, his eyes dark and his face almost boyish and eager to please. And then, he touched me with his tongue.

He wasn’t the first guy to go down on me. Despite what my eighth grade human development teacher warned our all-girls class about, boys these days know they need to at least make an attempt, even if most of those attempts are sloppy, aborted efforts. But this was way past try; this was a skilled manipulation of my body and I reveled in it. With each lick, each caress, he found the places that pleased me most and discovered the rhythm that turned pleasant into astonishing. I threw my head back on the bed and gave in to the rising tide, focused on that build, on the swirling colors of it, on—

I bucked against his mouth and hands uncontrollably, felt him move, hold onto my hips even as I shook and trembled. And then he was sliding over me, inside me, and I gasped at the sharp fullness of my highly sensitized body.

I watched his expression as he slowly moved his body over mine—his eyes closed and lips pressed together in intense focus. This man, this
stranger
I was sleeping with, was Daniel.

Daniel Hartmann.

Terrified and aroused I wrapped myself tightly around him, around the warmth of his body—a long, hard, lean body, which was far more real than any imagined concept of him I’d ever had before.

•  •  •

While he ordered delivery from the restaurant on the corner, I peered at the closest stack of books. All nonfiction, history, biographies, politics and economic forecasting. I shifted a bit, looked at the next smaller pile. Hemingway, Schulberg, Fitzgerald, Huxley. Were his stacks all grouped similarly, or had he merely been in an early twentieth-century phase when he’d created this one?

He hung up the phone, and then crawled over to me, wrapped himself around me.

“I was revisiting,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “People often set up this false dichotomy, as if you have to like either Hemingway or Fitzgerald. Or you need to abandon them both entirely.”

I knew exactly what he meant. It was one of those strange conceits of English classes to set up Fitzgerald and Hemingway in opposition. The same way people felt they had to be faithful to either Toyota or Honda.