Flying (11 page)

“You live in Chicago?” she asked.

He nodded and waved a hand at her glass. “Another tea for the lady. Can I at least make it a Long Island? In honor of my trip to New York. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and it won’t be canceled. Or, I know. How about a Manhattan? Even better. Corey, get the lady a Manhattan.”

Matthew’s smile transformed him, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him she didn’t want the drink. He was tired, she thought. Not drunk, at least not too much. When the drinks came, he clinked his glass to hers.

“What are we toasting to?” Stella asked.

“Bad weather.”

She laughed and breathed in the aroma of liquor without sipping it. She’d never had a Manhattan. “Don’t you want to toast to better weather?”

“Nope. Because if the weather was better, your flight wouldn’t be canceled, and we’d never be sitting here having this drink.”

“Ah.” Stella stared at her glass but didn’t lift it to her mouth.

“Don’t you like it? I can get you something else.” Matthew was already gesturing at the bartender, but Stella shook her head.

“No. It’s not that. I’m just not a big drinker.”

“Oh.” He studied her, then leaned a little closer. “Friend of Bill’s?”

At first, she didn’t know what he meant. Then she laughed. “Me? Oh. No, no, nothing like that. I just...”

But there was no explanation for it that could come out here, in a bar, with a stranger. There didn’t really seem to be a valid explanation at all. Certainly not that she couldn’t drink, if she wanted to. That she had some kind of drinking problem. She had no idea why she cared if this stranger thought she was an alcoholic, but all at once, it mattered that she prove the idea wrong. With sudden determination, Stella sipped and let the liquor warm her mouth for a second or so before it slid down her throat to settle in her belly. It rose in her cheeks too, and she didn’t need to see her reflection in the mirror behind the bar to know she was flushed.

She wasn’t prepared for this, but it was happening anyway.

They drank together. He charmed her, bit by bit, and if he was hitting on her he was so impressively subtle about it that Stella second-and third-guessed herself when she flirted in response. When she leaned a little closer, his eyes widened, just a little. His smile got a little bigger. He didn’t lean in to her, but he bought her another drink, and his eyes never left hers when they were talking. He asked her questions, simple ones about her opinions on pop culture, music, television, the bar’s decor. Nothing too personal. He gave her his entire attention but didn’t stare so intensely she worried he was going to put her in a well so he could make a suit out of her skin—and she’d met a disturbing number of men in her turnarounds who’d made her feel that way.

Her second plane
was
canceled, just as he’d warned. Stella was sure Matthew would be gone by the time she got back from making the arrangements to leave tomorrow morning, along with the phone calls to her boss, to Tristan and to Jeff when her son didn’t answer. She tried to pretend she wasn’t disappointed when she went back to the bar and saw his seat empty. She also tried, without success, to pretend that when she saw him standing by the door with his coat on that she wasn’t relieved and excited too.

“I don’t like to brag,” Matthew said, “but I was right, huh?”

“You were. How about yours?” She scanned the flightboard quickly, but couldn’t find his flight.

Matthew didn’t even look around. “I won’t be flying tonight.”

“I won’t be leaving until tomorrow, ten-thirty in the morning. It was the first flight they could get me on.” She shifted her bag on her shoulder. “I guess I might as well see if I can get a room.”

“You don’t want to do that,” he said with a shake of his head and a solemn look. “I have a better idea.”

Stella forced her breath not to catch. She’d done this so many times before, played this game, danced this dance, but now she felt as if she’d forgotten the rules. She might stumble on the steps. “Oh?”

She thought if he kissed her she’d turn her head so his mouth hit her cheek and not her mouth. If he touched her, she would pull away. One late night she’d fucked a man in a bathroom stall. Once she’d let a different man get her off under a table in a sushi place. She wasn’t shy, she wasn’t a prude...but those times she also hadn’t been Stella.

Matthew didn’t kiss her. Didn’t touch her. He didn’t even take a single step closer to her. “Sure. You can stay at my place. It’s not far from here at all. And I don’t have bedbugs. Do you want to come home with me, Stella?”

She ought to ask him what made him think she was the sort of woman to go home with a man she’d just met, except somehow he’d know she was. Or maybe just hoped she was. Maybe he could smell it on her, like a perfume.

Stella looked into his eyes, and though earlier she’d been not quite certain if he was flirting with her, there was no mistaking the gleam of desire in his gaze now. He had brown eyes, more like hazel. She imagined herself reflected there.

She opened her mouth to say no, but instead said yes.

* * *

Matthew, as it turned out, had taken a cab to the airport, so she didn’t have to worry about driving with him in the icy rain after he’d had more drinks than she could keep track of. His apartment wasn’t far, just as he’d promised, and though the frigid wind took her breath away and nearly knocked her over between the cab and the foyer, inside the building was delicious and warm. Beautiful too, with a lovely art deco feeling to the decor.

Matthew nodded at the doorman. “Evening, Herndon.”

“Evening, sir.” Herndon obviously knew how to be discreet, because he gave Stella a polite nod, then let his gaze slip away from her as though she were invisible.

In the elevator, both of them faced the door and stood with at least a foot of space between them. If he kissed her, she thought, she wouldn’t open her mouth. If he touched her, she would put her hands on his to keep them still before she put some space between them.

The door opened. Matthew let her go first, then pointed to the left and down the hall. His key slid into the lock with a metallic click that sent a rush of sudden, trembling emotion all through her.

This was real.

This was
her.

Before it could overwhelm her, this understanding that she really was going to go inside a stranger’s apartment, Matthew got the door open and ushered her through. He closed the door behind them, locked it and tossed his keys into a small bowl set on an ornate table just inside the door.

If he kissed her, she thought... But he didn’t.

“Let me hang up your coat. I’ll put your bag here too.” He opened a narrow door, a closet, and tugged on a string to light a bare bulb. There was just enough room for her things.

For one panicky moment, Stella almost didn’t let him take her coat or give him her carry-on. In the bars when she was looking for a hookup, her suitcase was her anchor. Her excuse to leave if she wanted to. Here and now, there’d be no “oh, sorry, have to catch a plane.” No quick escape, and it would be even longer to leave if she had to fish around for her belongings before she did.

“Stella?”

“Oh, sorry. Right.” She shrugged out of her wet, cold coat and let him put her bag on the floor beneath it, but out of the way to avoid any dripping. Her purse too. She rubbed at her arms with a nervous laugh. “Chilly.”

“Come into the kitchen. It’s usually warmer there. Hungry?” he asked over his shoulder as she followed him down the narrow, high-ceilinged hall and into the kitchen.

“Starving, actually.” She put a hand on her stomach, which was jumping with nerves as well as hunger.

He smiled. “I can make something. Nothing fancy. Spaghetti? Garlic bread?”

Oh, exactly the right thing for an intimate interlude. She laughed, wondering again if she’d misjudged him. “Sure. Sounds great. What can I do to help?”

“Salad in the fridge, if you want to put that together.”

They moved together expertly, stepping out of each other’s way as he puttered with the pot of water and she rinsed the lettuce and cut the tomatoes to add to a large stoneware crock he handed her from the cupboard. He poured her a glass of wine she wasn’t sure she wanted after two iced teas and an equal number of Manhattans, but she took it anyway and sipped. It was good, even to someone who didn’t usually like wine.

They ate together from mismatched plates and flatware at an antique-looking table in the small dining room. Matthew kept her glass filled. His too. He twirled a fork of spaghetti and held it out for her. Later, when Stella did the same for him with a bite of the cheesecake he’d pulled from the freezer to thaw during dinner, he circled her wrists with his fingers and held her hand steady while he bit the dessert.

He didn’t let go.

If he kissed her, she thought, she would slide herself onto his lap and straddle him. She’d taste wine and garlic and cheesecake on his tongue and it would be delicious. She would rock her cunt against his cock and urge his hands to grip her ass and hold her closer.

If he kissed her.

He let go of her wrist, but not her gaze. His tongue touched the center of his bottom lip for a second. He blinked, blinked again, something faltering in his gaze. He’d snagged her with it before, but now he was letting her go.

“Stella...”

She never gave them her real name, and this was one of the reasons why. When she was someone else, it didn’t matter what they said or did, all those men who didn’t know her. It didn’t matter who they thought she was. Maria, Lavinia, Suzanne, Amy, Lisa, Karen, Debbie.

“Shhh.” She shook her head, willing him not to say anything else. She didn’t want to hear him tell her this had been a mistake, that she should go, or worse, that she could stay anyway. “Matthew. Shh.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, brow furrowed against some small pain. When he opened them she saw desire, but also something else. Guilt, she thought. Anxiety of some kind. It alarmed her enough to push back a little, the legs of her chair squeaking on the tile floor.

“I want to kiss you so much right now,” Matthew said in a low, rough voice on the edge of breaking. He blinked rapidly and licked his bottom lip again. “I just...want...so much...”

This she understood. This she knew. Stella drew in a breath, mind racing even as her heart thumped faster. “So kiss me, Matthew.”

He gave his head the smallest shake, not quite a denial. More as though he’d found himself not unwilling, but incapable. His fingers gripped the edge of the table. Stella got up carefully, making sure not to scrape the chair on the floor any more than she had done. Now he had to tip his head to look up at her, though he didn’t otherwise move. She took a step back, then another. Matthew stayed motionless except for the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

“I’ll get a cab,” Stella said quietly. “Thank you for dinner. It was delicious. It was nice...meeting you, Matthew.”

The words felt stale and sour, certainly not sincere, but this was awkward enough without her trying to escape without at least an attempt at civility.

In the hallway, she let her hands shake as she tugged her still-damp coat from the hanger and lifted her bag. She screamed when she straightened and closed the closet door to find Matthew directly on the other side. He looked as startled as she was, and he caught one of her flailing arms to keep her from knocking into the mirror hung on the wall next to the closet.

Babbling words rose to her lips, a string of some senseless apologies on a stutter of breath. The adrenaline rush of fear pushed her heartbeat into an even faster, unsteady rhythm. Made her light-headed and spinny, her feet slipping a little on the wet floor.

“You scared me.” She put a hand on her heart, fingers slightly curled, and gave a self-conscious laugh.

“I’m sorry.” He ran a hand over his head, his hair too short to rumple, though she got the idea that maybe he was used to wearing it longer, that he was accustomed to pushing it out of his eyes. “I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not.” She pressed her palm against her chest for another moment before touching his arm. “Really.”

They both looked down at the touch of her fingertips on his bare skin. He was warmer than she’d expected, or maybe it was because she was so suddenly chilled. Her nipples tightened, and she was sure he could see them. The crisp, curling dark hairs on his skin tickled her knuckles. She wanted to let go, she knew she should let go, but as Matthew stepped closer and pulled her into his arms, all Stella could do was hold him tighter.

“I want to kiss you,” he murmured with his mouth all at once so close to hers that every word he spoke sent a shivery breath across her lips. “I just...”

Stella didn’t waste more time with words. She moved against him so there’d be nothing for him to do but let his mouth press hers. It was as sweet as it was strange, that first kiss. It lasted a few seconds before he broke it, eyes closed, not moving more than a breath away. She didn’t have time to count even a heartbeat before he was kissing her again, harder this time, but not rough. Her mouth opened as her hands slid up and over his firm chest to link behind his neck.

He tasted as good as she’d imagined, maybe better because she’d been so sure she wouldn’t find out. He backed her up a step, then another, his mouth never leaving hers. The wall pressed against her back, Matthew’s body a delicious counterpressure at her front.

Whatever had stopped him before had gone away. His hands moved over her breasts, belly, hips. One centered on her lower back as the other cupped the back of her neck. His tongue stroked hers.

This kiss ended with them both panting, breathless. He stared into her eyes, and she was close enough now to see the green ripples in his irises and the thick black fringe of his lashes. He licked his mouth again as he tilted his head to angle his mouth toward hers, but he stopped just before kissing her again.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I want to.”

She never wondered what the men thought when she went with them to their hotel rooms or to shadowy corners. She never cared. She wasn’t interested in knowing them any more than she assumed they wanted to know about her. Already she’d spent more time learning Matthew than she had any man since... Well, since Craig. And all of that in the past few hours.