Tease (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

Lil waited out front, leaning on a grey Bentley in a loading zone. When she saw me, she opened the back door.

“Hi. Uh…” I felt weird getting into the car without knowing where I was going or who was driving.

Lil spoke as if reading my mind. “I’m Mister Drazen’s driver. I’ll take you there and back. If you’re going to be out late, you can give me your car key, and I’ll take care of your car for you.”

“How?”

“Take it back to your house.”

“How would you get back to your car?”

Lil smiled as if I was a seven-year-old asking why water floated down, not up. “I’m not the only staff. Don’t worry. Please. I do this for a living.”

I smiled at her, broadcasting pure discomfort, and slid into the back seat.

I’d never been in a car like that before. Darren and I had taken a limo to prom, but it smelled of beer and vomit and the carpet was damp from a recent shampoo. I’d ridden in Bennet Mattewich’s Ferarri down the 405 at two a.m. He thought the ride bought him a blow job, but it almost bought him a slashed tire. We’d stayed friends, but he never took me out in his dad’s car again.

The Bentley was huge. The leather seats faced each other and it had brushed chrome buttons I didn’t understand without a crumb or speck of grime anywhere around them. The paneling was wood—real wood, dark and warm—and though the ride took about ten minutes, I felt as if I’d been transported from one world to another via spacecraft.

The car stopped on a dead end street in the most industrial part of downtown, somewhere between the arts district and the river. Next to the car was an old warehouse with a top floor made exclusively of windows. The side of the building facing the parking lot was painted in matte black with modernist lettering listing each tenant. No mention of a Loft Club or anything like it.

I’d seen enough movies to know I should wait, and Lil was at my door in two seconds flat, as if I was incapable of opening it myself.

“Go on in to the desk, and the concierge will take care of you.” She handed me a cardboard rectangle the size of a business card with a few numbers printed on the front. The word LOFT was printed on the top, in grey.

“Thanks,” I said. I walked up the steps and inside. When I showed the card to the Asian gentleman behind the lobby’s glass counter, I was still convinced I was either in the wrong building or the whole thing was a cruel joke.

He checked the card against something written in a leather book in a way that wasn’t rude but was somehow officious. I shifted a little in my waitress getup: a black wrap shirt and short skirt, from Target and the thrift store on Sunset respectively. I felt as though my clothes exposed me as an outsider or worse: a liar and sneak. But he looked up with a smile and said, “Down this hall behind me. Pass the first elevator bank and make a left. I’ll buzz you through the doors. There’s another elevator at the end of the hall. Take it to the top.”

“Thank you.”

My heels clicked on the concrete floors. I shrugged my bag close. I passed the first set of elevators and made the left. A pair of frosted glass doors stood in my way, and I noticed a camera hovering above them. A second later, a resonant beep preceded a click, and the doors whooshed open.

Beyond those doors, the hallway changed. The lighting was softer and came from modernist chrome sconces. The walls were a softer white, and when I got close, I saw the texture was silkier, somehow more nuanced. The oak and brass elevator didn’t look like a refrigerator, as most do, and it hummed in D minor and dinged in the same key before it whooshed open.

I stepped onto the floral carpet and hit the button that said
Loft
in block letters. The door closed, and the elevator took off without a sound. I closed my eyes, focusing on the force under my feet. The elevator’s movement somehow added to the pressure between my legs that maybe had more to do with the fact I was seeing Jonathan than the perfect speed of the vessel I stood in.

The doors opened onto a room made of glass overlooking the city. I could see the library, the Marriot, the whole skyline, and the miasma of smog hovering over it all. The marble floors had a gravitas all their own and were buffed to a shine that didn’t look cheap. The woodwork seemed to have gotten seven extra turns of the dowel.

The lobby was lightly populated with people speaking quietly. A clink of laughter. A klatch of young men in perfect suits. Leather couches. A chandelier as big as my garage. I couldn’t take it all in fast enough.

“May I help you?” The woman clasped her hands in front of her and bent a little at the waist. Her hair was twisted in an unremarkable bun and was an equally unremarkable color. She smiled in a way that was attractive but not stunningly so. Even though she wore a blue Chanel suit, her job seemed to be to appear as unthreatening as possible, and she was very good at it.

“Hi,” I said. I smiled because I didn’t know what else to do.

She noted the card I’d crumpled in my hand. “May I?”

“Oh.” I was so nervous I was being an ass. I was entitled to be there. I was invited. I had no reason to feel unworthy just because I didn’t know where I was. I handed her the card and stood up straighter, no thanks to my thrift store skirt and two-year-old shoes.

She thanked me and looked at the card. “Right this way. My name is Dorothy.”

“I’m Monica. Nice to meet you.”

She gave me a courteous smile and took me down halls and byways. When I noticed how many outer walls had windows, I remembered how the building had looked from the street. Places all over the city looked mysterious and inaccessible from the outside, and that warehouse was one of them.

Finally, Dorothy stopped in front of a door. “If you need anything, I’ll be your concierge. My number is on the card.”

She gave me a white card the size of a playing card, then opened the door.

“Thank you.” I didn’t know if I was supposed to tip her or say anything in particular, so I just slipped in. Dorothy clicked the thick wooden door shut behind me. Two walls were made of windows. A third wall made of shelves included wine, glasses, a bucket of ice, and a wet bar. The fourth wall had a huge oil painting that looked like a Monet or a damn good copy. The Persian carpet looked real. Antique couches flanked a six-foot long coffee table cut from a single tree.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I spotted a bottle of Perrier and two glasses on a small table on the opposite side of the room, against a window, and walked over to it. The leather chairs next to the table were worn in the right places and their arms were bolted with brass studs. An envelope with the word “Monica” printed on the front balanced between the two glasses. I slid the note out. Printed on the club letterhead, which was embossed with silver, was,

Five minutes late – Jonathan
.

I looked at my watch, then poured myself a glass of water and waited in the chair, humming and looking at the skyline. I was looking forward to seeing him and feeling his touch, the curves of his body, the heat of his mouth on mine.

When the door opened, it startled me. I stood up, still holding the short glass of bubbling water.

Jonathan tucked his phone away with one hand and carried a briefcase in the other. I’d only seen him at night, naked or in casual clothes and late day scruff. I’d never seen him clean-shaven and wearing a three-button herringbone tweed jacket with a windowpane white shirt and a tie the color of coal. A black silk square stuck out of his left chest pocket. Matte black cufflinks. All that was really nice. It brought out the shape of his body: straight, tall, with shoulders that didn’t need padding and a waist that didn’t pull his front buttons.

“Hi,” I said.

“You came.” He seemed genuinely surprised and placed his briefcase on the short table by the couches.

“Lil didn’t tell you?”

He stepped toward me. “She doesn’t answer the phone if she’s driving, which is most of the time.” He stood a foot from me, and I felt his gaze on my face. “And in a way, I didn’t want to know.”

I leaned into him, breathing a little heavier, just to take him in. “I have a gig later.”

“How much later?” He seemed to lean forward, too, though I couldn’t tell if it was a physical lean or the spear of his attention.

“Later.”

“Would you like to sit down?”

No, I didn’t. I wanted to put my body all over his. Instead, I sat when he did.

He poured himself a glass of Perrier and leaned back. “How have you been?”

“You had a driver pick me up to ask me that? You could have sent me a text and gotten the same answer.”

“What’s the answer?”

“I’ve been fine. Thank you.”

“Just fine?”

He wanted more. He wanted a way into a conversation about what he and I did really well. At least, that was what I was reading. “Fine,” I said, “and a little aroused most of the time.”

He smiled a true and genuine smile. “I think I missed you.”

“You think?”

He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “I’m not going to pretend I missed you the way I’d miss someone I know very well. But, okay, here’s an example. I’m in the office of the Korean Minister of Tourism. This is the guy who can approve the hotel or send me packing if I say the wrong word. My Korean is fluent, but not nuanced, so I have to pay attention.”

I leaned forward as well. “You speak Korean?”

“I live in Los Angeles. Do you want me to finish my story?”

I wanted him to bend me over and fuck me, but instead I said, “Yes. Finish.”

“He’s rattling off numbers, and somewhere in there is a mistake that will cost me a fortune if I only pay attention to the total, but I have to translate the numbers and find the flaw. Like he’ll say the permit is one, the fees are two, something else is three, and it all equals ten, meaning the mistake is four. He considers that his bribe, which I’m not paying. But the numbers are bigger, and he’s talking fast so no one else in the room will get it. I can’t keep my mind on what he’s saying or who I’m paying because all I can think about ...” He paused as if he’d reached the important part. “All I can picture in my mind is spreading your legs.”

I cleared my throat to keep from smiling, but my face still split in a wide grin. For a second, I wondered if he hadn’t been trying to be funny, but when I saw his pleased expression, I knew I hadn’t insulted him.

“I wasn’t even thinking about sex,” he said. “I mean, I was, but just that moment when I put my hands on your knees and pulled them apart, and you leaned back and let me do it. I kept replaying it. That moment when you
let me
. Couldn’t add and subtract worth a dime. I’m sure I overpaid the man.”

My legs tingled, wanting the pressure of his hands between them. I pressed my knees together, waiting for him to do what he’d fantasized. “Well,” I said, “I’ve started sucking on ice cubes all day.”

“Ah. The porch.”

“I just smile until it melts. Debbie thinks I’ve lost my mind.”

He plucked a cube from his glass. “Maybe you have.” He reached out and put the ice to my mouth, brushing my bottom lip. I opened my mouth and circled around the edge. I flicked my tongue out, but he wouldn’t give it to me. A drop of cold water trailed down my chin, and he took the cube away, popping it into his mouth and crunching. “I want you,” he said.

My spine felt like a piano someone had just done scales down.

“I want to have you in ways that surprise me.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“But I think we need clarity first.” Nothing followed but him looking into his glass.

I leaned back and sipped my water. “Go on.”

He tapped his fingertips together and looked out the window, stalling. I wasn’t about to interrupt.

“I’ve imagined a hundred ways to say this. They all sounded like I was trying to hurt you,” he started.

“Unless your dick fell off in Seoul, it can’t be anything that bad.”

He laughed and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll say it straight. I love my wife. My ex-wife. Nothing will ever change that.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t love anyone else.”

I got it. We could like each other forever, but he wouldn’t cross that line into love even if I did. I considered myself fair-warned. I had to let him know I was good with that, but I wasn’t his doormat either.

“I don’t want your heart,” I said. “I want your attention for a few hours at a time. I understand I’m one of many women you carouse around with.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How much carousing do you think I do?”

“A lot.”

“Based on what?”

“Rumor. And pictures on the internet.” My face burned red hot.

“The rumors are based partly on fact, I admit,” he said. “But carousing’s only carousing if I take them out. The pictures on the internet, I had my clothes on?”

“Parties and stuff.” I couldn’t look at him. I felt silly accusing him of being a whore with so little evidence.

“I have seven sisters. Most of them have been there for me since the divorce.”

How many women had been in the pictures? Not a hundred. But I assumed they were like roaches. If you see one on the counter, there are fifty more behind the cabinets. “How many times will this sister thing bite me in the ass?” I asked.

He smiled. “They’re a slippery bunch. All older. And protective.”

“You’re lucky. I’m an only. I attach to friends.”

He put his glass down and slipped his icy fingers between my knees, but he didn’t part them. A chill went up my thighs, to my belly, where the heat I’d been tamping for weeks raged. I could have closed my mouth right then, said nothing, opened my legs, and let him do whatever he wanted.

“I have something else to say,” I whispered.

“Tell me.”

“I’m a musician. It’s what I do. You can’t interfere. Even for the best sex of my life, you can’t get in the way of one rehearsal.”

“That’s the last thing I’d do,” he said.

“That also means if I start feeling as though my heart’s getting shredded, even if you’re being a pure gentleman, it won’t matter. We’re done. Even if you haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t have time for it.”