Dirty Read online

  “Not today,” he said. “Today I have only one.”

  “Well.” I pretended to try and get up from his lap. “I’d better get out of the way so you can see her, then.”

  He laughed, squeezing me gently. “Are you hungry? I thought we might hit the Sandwich Man. Grab something and take it to the River Walk? It’s a nice day. How much time do you have?”

  “As much as I want. One of the perks of being VP,” I told him. “I get to take long lunch breaks.”

  He made an impressed face. “Ah, well, what do you know, I happen to have nothing scheduled for this afternoon, which means I can take as long as I want, too.”

  We smiled at each other, and I saw the desire in his eyes at the same moment I felt it flare in mine. His gaze shot to the door. “It’s not locked.”

  “Are you expecting anyone to come in?”

  “No.”

  His hand slid between my knees, then up higher. When he found the bare skin of my thighs above my stockings, he gave a little groan.

  “You’re killing me, Elle. You know that? Killing me.”

  “That’s not good,” I said. “I don’t want to do that.”

  He shifted my weight on his lap, and his erection pressed my thigh. “See what you do to me?”

  I leaned against him. “Very impressive.”

  His hand moved higher and around my hip to tug at my panties. “Why do you bother to wear these when you come to see me? You know I’m only going to take them off.”

  “Next time I’ll remember.”

  He laughed. With coordinated efforts we undid his pants, removed my panties, sheathed him. The arms of his chair were open so I could slide my legs through and straddle him.

  He fucked me hard and fast, but I’d been thinking about him all morning and didn’t need much but a few strokes from my hand to get to the edge. He looked down between us, at my hand touching myself, my skirt pushed up around my hips, and he licked his lips before looking up to meet my eyes again.

  “I love it when you do that,” he murmured.

  “This?” I rubbed my clit in slow circles as I rocked against him, my breath catching.

  “That,” he agreed. “That you don’t need to wait for me to guess what you want, you just…ah, fuck, Elle.”

  We came together and he pulled me close as I put both my arms around him. We stayed like that for a moment, breathing hard, and then I extricated myself from him and pulled a small package of baby wipes from my bag to use.

  He watched, amused. “You think of everything. Did you know we were going to do that when you said you’d meet me here?”

  “I didn’t know for sure, no.”

  “You’re just always ready.”

  I grinned at him. “Dan. C’mon. Is there any other reason we get together? Should I not assume this is going to happen?”

  The moment the words left my mouth I knew they were wrong. Something perhaps meant to be thought, not spoken. His grin faded, brilliant blue-green eyes shuttered, and he looked away.

  “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  I’d hurt him, but wasn’t sure how to fix it without acknowledging that something was wrong. Ignoring it was easier, and that’s what I did.

  He was quieter than usual on the way to the river. We stopped at the Sandwich Man and picked up sandwiches and drinks before walking the last block to cross Front Street. A lot of people had the same idea, a nice lunch in the fresh air. We had to walk a distance before we found a bench. We walked the way in silence I pretended was normal.

  By that time I didn’t have much appetite, but I unwrapped my food anyway and shook a little packet of mustard before tearing it open and spreading it along the turkey. Dan had ordered a sloppy steak sub with grilled onions and peppers I could smell from my seat.

  “Whoa,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Someone’s going to need some gum.”

  He looked up at me without smiling. “Why? You planning on kissing me?”

  I should have expected him, at some point, to get sick of me, but when it actually happened it felt like he’d taken an inch of flesh from some tender spot and twisted it. I looked quickly down to my sandwich. I put aside the empty mustard packet and put the roll back together, but I didn’t eat.

  Dan looked out toward the water. The Market Street Bridge bustled with cars, and the trees on City Island had turned green. On a nice summer day like today, the carousel and the kiddie train would be in full gear. Maybe tonight there’d be a baseball game at the stadium. Maybe I should ask him to go there with me, try the batting cages. Eat ice cream. Ride the carousel.

  I didn’t ask him to do any of those things. Those date type things. I could have. I even wanted to. I just…didn’t.

  Dan chewed. Sipped his soda. Swallowed. Wiped his mouth and fingers with his napkin. He ate without getting sauce or grease on his clothes, and I surreptitiously admired him. I had to struggle not to drip mustard on my skirt. I’d already splashed iced tea on my shirt.

  We’d often sat in silence before but it had always been companionable. Comfortable, I realized with growing dismay. I’d grown comfortable with Dan, and today, we had become worse than strangers. We’d become people who had almost, but not quite, become friends.

  I drank my tea but couldn’t force the sandwich down my throat. I crumpled the napkin in my hands, shredding it. Small shreds of paper littered my skirt, and I brushed them away.

  “I didn’t mean it,” I said finally. “What I said before.”

  “You meant it. Besides,” he said with a shrug. “It’s true. Isn’t it?”

  It should have been true, but I knew it wasn’t. “I’m sorry, Dan.”

  He shrugged again, not looking at me. His eyes scanned the Susquehanna River, wide but not deep, its gray-green surface ruffled today by the breeze. He wrapped up the remains of his lunch and tucked it back into the bag, sucked the last of his soda until the straw crackled along the bottom, and put that in, too. He tossed it in the trash basket next to the bench.

  “Ready to head back?”

  I hadn’t even eaten more than a few bites, but I nodded and packed it all up to toss. The trash basket was made of metal mesh, interlocking octagons formed by the intersections of the metal. I counted 123 of them before I turned back to him.

  “Ready.”

  Dan had put his hands into his pockets and undone his suit jacket. The breeze pushed his sandy hair back from his forehead. The tree overhead cast dappled shadows on his face, looking in profile so different than full-on. I saw small lines at the corner of his eyes I’d never noticed before.

  I didn’t know his birthday, or if he had siblings, or where he’d grown up. I didn’t know his favorite color, or if he’d played sports. I knew how he tasted and smelled, and I knew the length and girth of his penis, the curve of his ass, the pattern of freckles on his shoulder, the number of hairs surrounding his nipples. I knew he liked to laugh and that he could be kind or demanding, or kindly demanding or demandingly kind.

  “My favorite flavor of ice cream is teaberry.” As I said it, the flavor carried on memory burst on my tongue. “You can’t find it many places, but that stand over there on City Island has it. And waffle cones.”

  One eyebrow raised, he glanced over his shoulder at me. “Yeah?”

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  I didn’t deserve for him to give me an inch, and he didn’t. It made me respect him more, that he didn’t trot after me like a puppy expecting a treat. He looked back over to City Island. The breeze flapped his tie. Today it featured Sponge-Bob Squarepants.

  “Maybe we could go there sometime,” I offered. “Get some?”

  He looked at me again, and I saw in his face he wasn’t going to buckle. But I liked that about him, that he didn’t let me walk all over him. That he wasn’t willing to let me use him. That he was willing to push me.

  “Maybe we could,” he said.

  I gave him a tentative smile. One step forward. He couldn’t know how much courage it took, but