Dance With Me (6 page)

“Next question,” he said. He knelt with his knees on either side of one leg, and pinning her arms over her head with one hand, slipped the other into the waist of her panties. His fingers hovered over the silk of her hair for a moment, his fingertips just grazing her mound. She squirmed under him, her breath coming in short sharp bursts, her heart threatening to beat out of her chest. Then he parted her lips. She gasped as he slid his fingers into her slick opening. He was breathing heavily, his eyes glazed with want as he slid them out, and found her pulsing nub.  “Do you want to come first?” His voice was low and controlled, but barely. He rubbed the tiny bundle of nerve endings. “Or second?”

“Both,” she moaned as she closed her eyes, overcome with pleasure. “And third, and fourth.” His fingers worked her rhythmically, and she pressed into him, spreading her legs wider. She could feel the pressure mounting, demanding release.

“Greedy,” he breathed into her ear. “I like it.”

His voice triggered her orgasm, and she came, the wave of pleasure cresting as he rubbed her harder, faster. She bucked against his hand, arching her spine, pushing his fingers deep into her cavity.

When she opened her eyes, panting, he was looking down at her, his green eyes on fire with lust.

“No more questions.” She pulled her hands out of his grasp and reached for his fly, desperate to feel him inside her. This time, he didn’t stop her.

She pulled down his zipper and released his hardness in all its thick, engorged glory. She ran her hand down the length of it, cupping the tight sac underneath. He shuddered, looking at her from beneath half-closed lids. Releasing him, she wriggled out of her panties and pulled her dress over her head. She reached for him again, but he stopped her.

“Wait. I want to look at you. Lie down.” His cargo pants dropped to the floor as he stood up and stepped out of them. As his gaze drank her in, her eyes traveled over him, his broad shoulders, rippled inky chest, the long, lean muscles of his legs, and the thick rod of his desire. She needed him inside her, now. She spread her legs, letting him know.

With his gaze not leaving her, he slid on a condom and tossed the wrapper to the floor. Then, kneeling between her legs, he entered her, slowly, gasping with pleasure. She pulled him in, luxuriating in the sensation of him filling her. It felt so right, she wondered why she had resisted him at all. He pulled out halfway and thrust in again, and again, and again. With each thrust he rubbed the already sensitized bud of her pleasure, sending a pulse of sensation throughout her body. She wrapped her legs around his waist tighter and he pushed into her harder and faster. She felt her opening tightening around him as she started to come, waves of sensation coursing through her. She was a boat on a heaving sea, spiraling down in a vortex of pleasure. Then he was coming, too, heaving against her, his breath coming in short gasps. He collapsed on her, hot and damp with sweat.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him and gave him a tight squeeze before letting him go. He slid out of her and lay back with a groan. They were both breathing heavily, their chests rising and falling in counterpoint. Sherry felt like she had taken one too many hits off a helium balloon and didn’t dare to open her mouth for fear her voice had gone high and squeaky. She lay beside him with her eyes closed, letting her body return to normal functioning. Alexi moved next to her, removing the used condom, then was still again. She opened her eyes.

Raising himself on one elbow to look at her, Alexi said, “Well, that wasn’t bad.” His expression was neutral except for the laughter dancing in his eyes.

“On a scale of one to ten, a solid five,” she agreed.

He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, looking from eye to eye. “Perhaps we need to practice.”

“Uh-huh,” she nodded, smiling. “We need to rehearse. A lot. Maybe without the condom next time.”

His eyes lit up with a hungry light. “I had every medical test known to humankind done to me before I got my work visa, so you are safe with me.”

“Good to know. Same here. Clean as a whistle. And on the pill.” She wrinkled her nose. “Trading medical information. How sexy is that?”

He leaned down and kissed her, softly. “When it is coming from these delicious lips, anything is sexy.” He studied her face, his own serious. “Now, Sherry. I am used to endless rehearsals, but perhaps you need some time?” He kissed her again, more insistently this time, pressing his tongue into her. She felt a throb deep in her core.

Lifting herself up onto her elbows, lips still locked with his, she rolled him onto his back, straddling him. She tightened her thighs around his waist and ran her hands over his chest. His nipples were tiny knots under her palms. He arched his chest against them.

“Oh, you like that, do you?” she breathed.

“Yes, I like that. A lot.” The stiffening she felt against her echoed his words.

“Well, in that case.” She bent over him, licking one nipple into a hard point. He groaned. Beneath her, he was full to bursting again. Inching her way backward, she trailed her tongue down the center of his body. Dipping the point of it into the well of his navel, she felt him shudder. She started to go lower, but he stopped her with a hand on her head. She looked up at him.

“I guess we have finished our game,” he said. His green gaze was filled with lust and something else that Sherry couldn’t quite place, or didn’t want to. Something softer.

She shook her head. “We’re still playing. Only now, I’m asking the questions again. Starting with, do you like it when I do this?” She took him into her mouth, sliding down the length of him.

“Yes.” His hand was still on her head. “Oh, my God, yes.”

Chapter Eight

Sherry practically skipped into the office the next day, she was so happy. She was a hot air balloon, floating high on desire and hormones. Humming, she started her laptop, her barely touched venti latte growing cold in its paper cup beside her.

“Somebody got laid,” Kim muttered as she hobbled past Sherry’s desk. Her cast was wrapped in emerald satin to match her blouse. “Hope she calls.”

Sherry rolled her eyes at Peter who raised his eyebrows above his glasses. “Well?” he asked. “And please don’t tell me it was Glenn.”

“Glenn, schmen.” She shook her head, unable to wipe the smile off her face.

“Not the dancer?” Peter leaned in closer.

She nodded her head. “I mean, the article’s filed. It was in this morning’s paper. So what’s the harm, am I right?” Taking a sip of her cold latte, she leaned back in her chair. “Ethically, I’m in the clear.”

“So I was right.” Peter grinned. “About the love blooming in your cheeks.” He swung side to side in his chair.

Touching the back of her hand to her cheek, she remembered Alexi doing the same. “Love? I don’t know. Lust maybe.”

“Hm. So you’re taking this new party-girl image quite seriously. Getting drunk and falling into bed with your subjects. Sleeping with players.”

“He’s not a player.”

“That’s not what you told me before.”

“That was a misunderstanding. He’s not like that. He’s different. Kind of serious, but not serious, if you know what I mean.”

Peter nodded thoughtfully, then shook his head. “Of course I don’t know what you mean. You’re spouting random nonsense. Much like a person in love, I might add.”

She swatted his arm. “Like me. Serious about the important stuff. Like work. But not serious, serious.” She frowned, pursing her lips. “He likes to have fun. Play games. Serious games.” She smiled, touching her lips with one finger, remembering.

“Utter, utter nonsense.” Peter confirmed. “This is so much worse than when you started with Glenn. And so much better. At least he’s not married.”

“There is that.” Sherry’s phone pinged with an incoming message.

“That must be your Don Juan now.”

“Romeo, actually.” Sherry swiped the message open.

Tonight. No more games.

A smile played over her lips as she thought about what to write back.

“Sherry, Fed Ex for you.” It was Charlie, the guy from the mailroom. He hitched up his perpetually falling down chinos with one hand, flipping her the cardboard envelope with the other.

“Thanks, Chuck.” Both Peter and Charlie were watching her as she tore into it, reached in and pulled out a key.

Charlie shrugged, unimpressed, and pushed his cart to the next desk, but Peter let out a low whistle.

“Serious, indeed.” He tapped the vase of peonies still dominating Sherry’s desk. “Day one, flowers, day two the key to his apartment.”

She was trying and failing to keep the smile off her face. “Yeah, well, I introduced him to my family last night, so…”

Peter’s eyebrows sprang to his hairline. “Has the real Sherry Wilson-Wong been abducted by aliens? Meeting the family sounds a bit serious for Miss Married to My Job?”

Leaning back in her chair, she turned the key over in her hands. “It’s not what you think. The key is just, you know, for convenience. His performance finishes at ten. He doesn’t get home ‘til eleven. What am I going to do? Hang around back stage waiting for him like a ballet groupie?”

“Does such a thing exist?” Peter looked skeptical.

“You’d better believe it. I’ve got some stiff competition.” She tucked the key into her pocket. “And as for my parents, I actually invited them last night hoping they’d scare him off, but…” Throwing up her hands, she tried to rein in her smile. Her face was starting to hurt.

“Well, you don’t seem to be interested in scaring him off anymore.” Peter tapped his lips with a pencil, scrutinizing her. “In fact, I would say you look downright keen. I haven’t seen you smile like this since Frank asked you to cover the 2012 elections.”

“Weird, isn’t it? Probably just the sex.” She turned back to her laptop, but she could feel the key in her pocket like it was alive. Eleven o’clock couldn’t come soon enough.

“Wilson-Wong!” Frank’s voice boomed across the newsroom. She looked up to see him standing in the doorway to his office with his arms crossed. He tilted his head inside, beckoning her. His expression was sour and tired like a grizzly bear with indigestion, but that was nothing new. Calling her into his office, however, didn’t bode well. It was part of Frank’s management style to deliver both praise and reprimands for the whole newsroom to hear. The only time he called people into his office was to deliver news so bad there was the possibility of tears. Had he gotten wind of her unique interview technique?

Clearly thinking the same thing, Peter pressed his hands to his face, eyes wide, mouth open, like Edvard Munch’s painting,
The Scream
.

“Shit,” she said, standing up reluctantly. On impulse, she grabbed a peony and tucked it behind her ear as she moved toward her boss’ office. In a show of solidarity, Peter thumped on his chest with one fist.

“What’s up, Francis?” She leaned against the doorframe in a sultry pose, hoping for a smile.

Sitting behind his desk, he glanced up at her. “Shut the door. And take the damn flower out of your hair. You look like an extra from
South Pacific
.”

She did as instructed, putting the flower between her teeth instead. He gave her a blank stare. She removed it, gulping. This wasn’t good.

“Come here and look at this,” he said.

Looking over his shoulder at the extra-large monitor, Sherry tried to make sense of the bar graph on the screen. “Geez, Frank, this screen is bigger than most New York bathrooms.”

“You wait ‘til you’re my age. Then we’ll see how funny it is. Now shut up and look at the numbers. These ones in particular.” He pointed at the tallest bar.

“Yeah, so?”

“Clicks on the article you wrote about the ballet guy.”

Her eyes darted around the screen. The bar was easily double the height of the second-most clicked on article. “That’s a lot of clicks,” she said.

“Damn straight.” He leaned back in his chair, looking at her. Sherry couldn’t be sure, but she thought she detected the hint of a smile at the corners of his lips. “And we sold a record number of actual papers. Mostly in Chelsea. Probably fanboys who wanted a clip for their scrapbook. But still.”

Sherry sank down onto the edge of his desk. “Did you bring me in here to congratulate me, Francis?” She reached out with the flower, tickling him under his chin. He grabbed it out of her hand.

“Does that sound like something I would do?” He tossed the blossom onto his desk and ran a hand over his head. “What is with you anyway?”

She opened her eyes wide, the picture of innocence. “I don’t know. Woke up on the right side of the bed?” she said. Or just in the right bed. A snapshot of Alexi flashed through her mind. His face on the pillow, eyes closed, his naked body stretched out beside her.

Frank narrowed his eyes. Looked from her face to the flower on his desk. “Who are the flowers from, anyway?”

“A new friend.” It wasn’t a complete lie.

Frank didn’t buy it. “No wonder they’re going under,” he said. “Although, why they’d send flowers after you publicly questioned their solvency is beyond me. The strange thing is, if my numbers are right, the amount of money they get in donations is more than the Metropolitan Opera and the NYC Symphony put together. That’s why you’re here. I want you to do another piece on the ABC. I want to know where those donations come from and where they’re going. My guess is, not just to pay for flowers for hacks like you.”

“Wait.” Sherry felt her pulse quicken. “You want me to do an exposé on the ABC?”

He nodded. “You’ve got a week. I’m pulling all your other assignments.”

“God, Frank. That’s amazing. But what about Kim? Isn’t this more her bailiwick?”

Her boss stared at her unblinking. “You’re shitting me, right? More of this right-side-of-the-bed crap? I give you your first major investigative piece, one that could score you all the accolades your ambitious little heart desires if you play it right, and you’re suggesting I offer it to your sworn enemy. I could almost laugh.” He let out a noise that sounded more like the bark of an unhappy dog.

She smiled, weakly.

“Kim’s great at what she does, but an investigative reporter, she’s not. Besides,” he flicked the screen, “you’ve got the source. Pump him.”

Sherry felt the heat rising to her cheeks at his choice of verb. “Right.” She stood up to go so quickly she knocked a pile of papers off his desk. Bending down to pick them up, she saw the article she had written about Alexi, one of the publicity stills for
Romeo and Juliet
beside it. She gathered the papers up and dropped them on her boss’s desk, turning to go before he could see her flaming cheeks.

“Right. I’m on it,” she said.

“Wait.”

She stopped in the doorway, hair curtaining her face from view.

“Look at me.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and looked at him as if nothing was wrong. His eyes scanned her face. He picked up the flower and twirled it between his hands.

“If we got any conflict of interest issues, you better let me know. Now.”

Sherry thought of Alexi, his sea-glass gaze, his smile, his body over her, under her, inside her. Then she thought of the pentagon-shaped crystal Pulitzer Prize with her name on it. Sure, he was an inside source, but he wasn’t her only one. There was Kat. There was Sergei. They had both been there longer, knew a lot more. Ethically, investigating the company that her lover was employed by wasn’t the cleanest, but this was a big break, and she had been in the reporting game long enough to know that opportunities like this didn’t come around often. Maybe even less often than sexy Ukrainian dance gods.

“Come on, Frank,” she said, flashing him a breezy grin. “Does that sound like me?” She turned and shut the door behind her.

Leaning against it, she rubbed her lips together. She felt super-charged with adrenaline. Her heart was pounding, and her palms tingled. It was her reporter’s intuition. She’d felt it when she first walked into the ABC, the scent of a hidden truth begging to be uncovered. This was the reason she had gotten into journalism in the first place. If she could break this story, if she could get to the root of it, find out where the money was going, it would be huge.

Alexi’s face popped into her head, eyes closed, mouth open, gasping, as she went down on him. She felt a tingling in her jeans. Ignoring it, she crossed her arms over her chest and walked toward her desk with a determined stride. Under her breath she muttered, “Business before pleasure.”

She spent the rest of the afternoon on the internet and on the phone, researching donors. Having narrowed her list down to the biggest and most regular contributors, she tried to arrange with their assistants—because people who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars never answered their own phones—to meet with them. Sergei had jumped at the idea of an interview, of course, but she also managed to score one with Robert Colville, ABC’s press-averse director, on seriously false pretenses. Telling him she was planning on ripping open the guts of his company for the public to scrutinize wouldn’t fly. But if he had read the piece about Alexi, he might suspect why she was really there. And if he was in any way involved in a diversion of funds, getting real information out of him would be as easy as catching a butterfly with chopsticks.

At eight o’clock she ordered takeout and got up for a stretch and a bathroom break. Peter had long since left for home, along with most of the other staffers. Even Frank’s office was dark. She guessed he had to have some kind of life, though in nearly six years of working under him, Sherry had yet to guess what shape it might take. Frank wasn’t much for small talk.

She had just finished washing her hands when the ladies’ room door swung open, hitting the wall behind it.

“Bitch!” Kim spat, her over-full lips twisted in an ugly sneer.

“So I’ve been told.” Though her heartbeat had kicked up a notch, she’d be damned if she let Kim know she was the slightest bit ruffled. She turned her back on her enraged colleague and grabbed a paper towel.

“Ballet is
my
beat.” Kim hit her hand against her chest for emphasis.

“I guess you should have thought of that when you were racing up the subway steps in your Loubies.” Sherry wadded the paper into a ball and tossed it at the bin, missing. Shrugging, she turned to look in the mirror. She’d have to get Alexi to show her how he did it.

Kim lurched toward her. “I’m not talking about that piece with the Russian dancer—”

“Ukrainian,” Sherry corrected.

“That was supposed to be a one-off. Now I hear you’re doing an exposé of the ABC, like you’re freaking Anderson Cooper or something. What did you have to do to get that? Blow Frank?” Kim was so close that Sherry could smell the jumbled mixture of all the products Kim used, like an explosion at Barney’s cosmetics counter. She had unusually large pores, Sherry noticed. Too much yang, her mother would say.