Discipline (15 page)

“And then what.” His low voice demanded my
answer, displeased with my brief pause. The forceful sound of it
made my breathing grow instantly ragged.

“You took my clothes and underwear and put
them all in my locker. And you lifted me by the back of my legs and
fucked me against it.”

“Christ.” The hand on Daniel’s mouth curled
and came down hard onto the table in the form of a fist. Our water
glasses jumped and I gasped quickly before shooting him a look of
surprise. His expression was unrepentant though, and the tone of
his voice was even more so. “I need to get out of here now.”

God, oh God
. I needed the same. And
yet somehow, my lips opted to continue tormenting Daniel. “You said
you’d tell me one more.”

A groan of pure agony rose from Daniel’s
throat. It was loud enough to catch the attention of our waitress,
who came scurrying over with confusion. “We’ll just take the
check,” Daniel said before she could even come to a stop at our
table. Once she was gone, he spoke again, gravel in his voice.
“Nina, I can’t be in public right now.”

“Then tell me fast.”

Daniel stared at me for several hard
seconds. His fingers curled back into a fist.

“When I got home after that first night I
saw you, I sat in the driveway for probably ten minutes. I was just
fucking amazed at the fact that I didn’t crash the car because all
I could see was your body in that dress the whole ride, the way
your curves pulled at it, at all those little holes on it. I saw
myself tearing that thing off a thousand different ways. I imagined
myself laying you naked on the hood of my car and burying myself
inside of you. Right there, right in the middle of Woodhill.” He
shook his head at himself. “And that night I dreamt about you.
About you wearing that damned costume, tangled up with another girl
and naked besides the little skirt.”

Clack
.

The waitress dropped off our check on a
little tray, freezing for a moment as she caught the end of
Daniel’s story. He didn’t seem to notice, putting down far more
bills than necessary before looking up at me with burning eyes. At
the hot, sweating mess I was. My legs couldn’t press together
harder. I could feel a thin layer of perspiration glistening on my
forehead. The waitress had gone but through the corner of my eye, I
could see her still watching us with fascination, her eyes still on
us as she leaned over to whisper to her coworker. We couldn’t have
looked more obvious and though I knew I should be embarrassed, I
couldn’t be bothered to care. All I could think about was freeing
myself from my dress and feeling Daniel’s hard body and bare skin
upon mine.

“Ready?” he asked, chair legs scraping
against the wooden floor as he quickly rose from his seat.

I didn’t even have to answer.

~

It was dark outside, the moonlight gleaming
against the bricks of the empty cobblestone street. It would’ve
been such a pretty, peaceful scene if I weren’t experiencing my
most desperate need for a cab ever.

Though I waited with my fingers outstretched
for all of a second before feeling Daniel’s arm wrap around my
waist and pull me back to the sidewalk, his mouth hot against the
side of my neck as his free hand slid hard down the curve of my
hips. Eyes closing, my head rolled back onto his shoulder the
moment I felt the swirl of his tongue against my burning skin. My
fingers tightened around his wrist as the sensation built up,
tingling in my neck before erupting and taking a dive straight to
the ache between my legs. I moaned something desperate and pleading
as he brought me into a shadow between two buildings.

“Come here.” His voice was low,
authoritative as he turned my body to face him. Cupping my jaw, he
tipped my face up, crushing his lips against mine in a kiss so
immediately deep that I felt my knees actually buckle beneath me.
But I didn’t fall. He held me up, his chest pressed against my
body, feeling harder than the brick wall behind me. My nails raked
against it, chills rippling up my arms as I felt the resistance of
his muscle against my curled fingers.

His tongue swept against mine as his hands
trailed down from my face to my neck, flattening below my
collarbones as he suddenly groaned into my mouth. He let his palms
slide down just a few more inches, right above my breasts before he
tore his kiss away from me. My eyes flew open as he hooked his
fingers into the neckline of my dress, grabbing frustrated handfuls
of the thin fabric before releasing me entirely.

“I’m sorry.” He took a few steps back from
me, his fingers clasped at the top of his head as he closed his
eyes and took a deep breath. I collapsed against the wall,
groaning.

“
Daniel
, why — ”

“Because I’m not used to having no control.”
His answer clipped my sentence. He let his arms drop back to his
sides as he stared intensely at me. “I need to feel like I still
have some kind of restraint left.”

I touched my stretched, wrinkled neckline,
my thighs hot as they pressed together. “Why?”

“Because I’ve already abandoned most of my
rules around you,” he laughed quietly, shaking his head. “You have
to let me keep at least one so I know that I’m not spiraling
completely out of control here. I want to. I know I could. Just
taking one look at you makes me feel like I could. But I need to
know that I still have a shred of discipline, even if it’s just for
myself.” Slowly, he closed the gap between us and touched my cheek
again, brushing a soft kiss against my lips. “I’m going to have
you, Nina. I need to. But before I do, you need to let me treat you
right.”

I swallowed my protest. “Okay.” My fingers
clasped behind his neck as his forehead rested against mine. “Then
when do I get to see you for a second date?” I asked, managing a
laugh amid my torment.

“I have a summer conference tomorrow and the
day after. In Woodhill. Want to meet me there?” he grinned.

“Um, yes but no. Absolutely not.”

He touched the dimple in my cheek as I
managed a smile. “Then I’ll meet you back out here in two days. I’m
driving over the second I get out of that conference.”

“What time would that get you here?”

“Late.”

I raised my eyebrows suggestively, which
made him laugh. “That works for me.”

CHAPTER
10

“Linh, why are you even dating this guy if
it’s not to help Nina get dirt on how to get into his friend’s
pants?” Adriana joked, tossing a cornichon at her.

“Stop throwing ingredients, Ade. We’re low
on everything,” Em scolded.

It was 8AM and Em and I were scheduled to
open the restaurant for brunch in an hour. But since Jenn had asked
us to go in early to make peach puree for the bellinis, we’d
invited Adriana and Linh to join us in the kitchen to basically
offer girl advice and free labor. Or rather, we’d dropped by Linh’s
Lower East Side apartment to drag them both out with us since Em
knew that Adriana had crashed there the night before.

“Well, I’m dating Mike because, you know,”
Linh shrugged, “I like him?”

“I know, sweetie,” Adriana sighed dreamily.
She cast a playful look at Em. “So, like, should we do a coin toss
to decide who gets Harry and who gets Marco? Because you know.
Quadruple dates.”

“All four of those guys would sooner kill
themselves than go on a quadruple date,” Em said.

I laughed. “Actually, that could be the
solution. Go on a date with Daniel and a bunch of other people so
I’m not tempted to jump his bones the second I see him.”

“Were you ever like this with Ben?” Linh
asked curiously.

I barely had to think about it. “No. I did
find him very attractive but I…” My shoulders slumped as I cut a
lemon in half. “I know that I was half blinded by all the sparkly
dinners and dresses. And my mom being in my ear, telling me that
Bens were hard to find and I had to ‘hold onto this one.’” I shook
my head, trying to laugh at myself. “I was so stupid.”

“You were eighteen. Any of us would’ve been
sucked into that,” Em said. She glanced at Adriana, who glanced at
the ceiling. “Well, except one of us. She prefers her frozen
margaritas and cheap booty shorts.”

“You know me too well.” Adriana blew her a
kiss.

“Anyway, let’s stop talking about this
psycho,” Em said, shaking lemon pulp from her fingers. “Maybe
change the subject to the other crazy person in your life.”

“Who?” I asked with a frown.

“Kelsey.”

“Em!” Linh and I scolded.

“I’m sorry! But come on, she went from zero
to sixty weird that night,” Em protested, Adriana nodding in
agreement. “Or maybe around twenty to sixty, since she’s always
been prone to those moods. Is she at least normal-ish again?”

“I have no idea. She’s been in Woodhill
since that night and she hasn’t texted me.”

“Yikes.”

“No, that’s good!” Adriana insisted. “You
better hope she stays there for a few more days too, or you’ll have
no place for it to go down with Daniel tomorrow.”

I hadn’t even thought about that.

“They could always rent a hotel room,” Linh
pointed out, though she immediately wrinkled her nose as the idea
left her lips.

“Mm, no.” Em shook her head as she began
dicing the peaches that Adriana had neatly pitted. “Considering all
the blue balls and walls between ‘em, I doubt they’d make it
through a check in process.”

I laughed and then gasped. “Oh no, you’re
picking up on Ade’s lingo.”

“I know. I can’t help it.”

“You love it.” Adriana tossed a wrinkly
peach pit at Em. “Anyway, Nina, where is tomorrow’s date so we know
what five block radius to avoid if we don’t want to see you two
getting it on in public?” she asked. “Not that I wouldn’t be kind
of curious.”

I made a face but laughed. “He chose some
crab shack all the way out in Red Hook. I’ve never heard of it, but
it’s apparently been around for a long time.”

“Crab shack?” Linh made a face. “That
sounds…
dirty
and… kind of unromantic? Maybe he’s trying
really hard not to be turned on by you tomorrow.”

Adriana squinted. “I don’t know. Nina
covered in crab guts sounds pretty sexy to me.”

“Honestly, I figured he was bringing me out
to the edge of Brooklyn so we wouldn’t have the comfort of my
apartment close by. So no option to… you know.”

“Hump like bunnies.”

“Yes, Ade. That.”

Em shook her head tragically. “Those poor
walls of yours, Nina.”

“Guess you can take the guy out of Woodhill,
but you can’t take the Woodhill out of the guy!” Adriana clucked.
“Speaking of wood though, he must’ve had one epic shower wank after
getting home last night. I’m so sorry, Nina, but I’m imagining it
right now and it’s glorious. Those forearms.”

“
Ade
!” Linh, Em and I scolded though
we couldn’t help bursting out in laughter. “And I see you’ve picked
up Harry’s lingo.” I nodded.

“Sure have, mate.”

Linh shook her head with mock disapproval.
“Tsk. I think Ade needs to pay a visit to Woodhill so she can learn
to be a little more proper.”

We all went quiet, staring at each other and
pretending to consider it before going, “
Nahhh
.”

“Fuck Woodhill,” Adriana declared. She held
the bowl of diced peaches over the food processor and overturned it
dramatically. “
Fuck
being ever so proper.” She dumped the
sugar and lemon juice in as well before hitting blend. As the noisy
blade whirred, she added one last thing that was no doubt vulgar
and Daniel-related, but none of us could hear. We laughed anyway,
pretty much able to guess the gist of it.

~

Before leaving for Red Hook, I confirmed
with Kelsey for a second time that she wouldn’t be back at the
apartment till Thursday.

No. Go ahead and throw some huge party
for your friends
, was her response.

Under normal circumstances, I would’ve
figured out a reply to gauge her mood and see if her text were some
sort of invitation to ask if she was angry with me and if we needed
to have one of our talks. In the past, Kelsey never liked admitting
to being upset when I asked. The routine was bearing with her
moodiness and clipped answers for about a week until being given a
sign that she was ready to hash things out. They usually came in
the form of particularly annoyed-sounding text messages.

But I didn’t respond today because I was
already running late to meet Daniel. Having imagined him picking me
up just as Kelsey came home, I’d told him to meet me at the crab
shack. I hadn’t considered that a subway ride there would take an
hour as opposed to twenty minutes in a car.

I’m so sorry! I’m going to grab a cab
right now
, I texted Daniel. He hadn’t been kidding about
leaving his all-day conference immediately. It was barely past 8PM
and he was already there while I was still on me knees locating my
other sandal. As tempted as I was to look like a vixen, flats were
my pick for the night. I’d never been out to Red Hook and my
imagination was giving me lots of sand and cobblestone for some
reason, so flat sandals seemed to be the proper choice. But they
looked beyond silly with my coral peplum dress so a minute before
leaving the apartment, I ditched the outfit and pulled on a
tie-front tank top and shorts, praying that I wasn’t for some
reason misinformed and this wasn’t somehow the world’s fanciest
crab shack.

It wasn’t.

I arrived to find my cab pulling up to what
looked like an old wooden house on stilts. But I was instantly
charmed. The view of the moonlit ocean didn’t hurt and neither did
the strings of lights hanging from the shack ceilings that I could
see from outside.

“Nina.” I felt Daniel’s hand on my hip just
as I heard his voice. I spun around, instantly flushing for some
reason. Maybe it was the way his smile widened the second I turned
to face him. It didn’t hurt that his slate T-shirt was deliciously
stretched across his muscles, creasing horizontally over his broad
chest.