right.”
“You really made this yourself?” If I wasn’t so wowed by him, I’d probably seize the opportunity to say something snarky, like most women love chocolate, so you just played the odds. But I feel no such destructive impulses.
“Yes, ma’am. And I can do even better. You’ll have to stick around.” Another big smile. His eyes sparkle and the skin around them crinkles again. I now understand how sharing a great meal can qualify as foreplay. I will never again mock those articles touting the merits of aphrodisiac menus.
I’m definitely planning to stick around.
We demolish the dessert. Oscar selects a new bottle of wine and we arrange ourselves on the leather couches in his living room. His free hand—the one not holding his drink—reaches across the space between us and touches my arm. Every tiny hair on my body stands on end as he starts to rub his hand down my forearm to my wrist and back up again. There’s something skilled about the way he does it expertly, yet almost absent-mindedly at the same time.
He wordlessly takes my glass, sets it on the table, places his own next to it, cups my face between both his hands and leans in to kiss me. His lips barely graze mine and it takes an immense amount of maturity and self-control to keep from launching myself into his lap.
Evidently Oscar lacks comparable maturity and self-control. Before I have time to muster the will to re-commandeer control of the situation, his mouth is on mine and he’s easing me back into the couch. I slide down along the slippery leather until I’m more reclined than seated. He kisses my neck and ears and something inside me stirs. I suddenly can’t remember why I wasted the summer dejected over Brendan. Oscar moves my hair out of the way and his lips graze the back of my neck. His ex-wife must have been insane to leave him for another man.
He whispers, gruffly, in my ear, “Stay the night.”
“Mmmm.”
Oscar smells faintly of some cologne I can’t name and his mouth tastes slightly of the dessert wine, which now sits abandoned on the coffee table. His hand runs down my side and finds its way under my sweater. He kisses me again, and when he pauses for air, he murmurs, “Let’s move to the bedroom.”
And while every fiber of my being is eagerly saying, “Yes!” I force myself to focus on my unfit-for-company underwear, or at least on the reason I wore it.
“Not tonight.” I kiss him again because I don’t want him to get the idea that I’m not interested. Because I so am. I’d love to tear off all our clothes and spend the night in his bed, but I’m not going to risk becoming a one-night stand. He’s too extraordinary. If I want to keep him interested, Angela counseled, it’s imperative to extricate myself from date number two with him wanting more.
SEVEN
When we pull up in front of Angela’s building, her doorman is having a heated exchange with a very Nordic-looking man in tweed. He looks about forty years old, and his face has turned red with fury. When the doorman notices us, he asks his adversary to step aside. The Nordic man continues to freak out and steps closer to the doorman, so his nose is inches from the other man’s face. He starts screaming, in a pronounced Germanic accent, that he has friends in Washington, and that he will have the doorman’s pathetic self deported back to Puerto Rico if he doesn’t let him pass at once. I see spit flying from his mouth, illuminated in the darkness by the portico lamps. The doorman stands his ground.
Oscar, who of course has no idea that the crazed Teuton must be my best friend’s date, laughs out loud. “Puerto Rico is a U. S. territory. We don’t deport there. Not that your doorman looks Puerto Rican to me.”
“He’s from Brazil, actually.”
Oscar double parks and gets out to open the door for me. As if on cue, a window several flights up flies open. Angela leans out, waves her phone maniacally, and screams, “Reiner! If you don’t
“You really made this yourself?” If I wasn’t so wowed by him, I’d probably seize the opportunity to say something snarky, like most women love chocolate, so you just played the odds. But I feel no such destructive impulses.
“Yes, ma’am. And I can do even better. You’ll have to stick around.” Another big smile. His eyes sparkle and the skin around them crinkles again. I now understand how sharing a great meal can qualify as foreplay. I will never again mock those articles touting the merits of aphrodisiac menus.
I’m definitely planning to stick around.
We demolish the dessert. Oscar selects a new bottle of wine and we arrange ourselves on the leather couches in his living room. His free hand—the one not holding his drink—reaches across the space between us and touches my arm. Every tiny hair on my body stands on end as he starts to rub his hand down my forearm to my wrist and back up again. There’s something skilled about the way he does it expertly, yet almost absent-mindedly at the same time.
He wordlessly takes my glass, sets it on the table, places his own next to it, cups my face between both his hands and leans in to kiss me. His lips barely graze mine and it takes an immense amount of maturity and self-control to keep from launching myself into his lap.
Evidently Oscar lacks comparable maturity and self-control. Before I have time to muster the will to re-commandeer control of the situation, his mouth is on mine and he’s easing me back into the couch. I slide down along the slippery leather until I’m more reclined than seated. He kisses my neck and ears and something inside me stirs. I suddenly can’t remember why I wasted the summer dejected over Brendan. Oscar moves my hair out of the way and his lips graze the back of my neck. His ex-wife must have been insane to leave him for another man.
He whispers, gruffly, in my ear, “Stay the night.”
“Mmmm.”
Oscar smells faintly of some cologne I can’t name and his mouth tastes slightly of the dessert wine, which now sits abandoned on the coffee table. His hand runs down my side and finds its way under my sweater. He kisses me again, and when he pauses for air, he murmurs, “Let’s move to the bedroom.”
And while every fiber of my being is eagerly saying, “Yes!” I force myself to focus on my unfit-for-company underwear, or at least on the reason I wore it.
“Not tonight.” I kiss him again because I don’t want him to get the idea that I’m not interested. Because I so am. I’d love to tear off all our clothes and spend the night in his bed, but I’m not going to risk becoming a one-night stand. He’s too extraordinary. If I want to keep him interested, Angela counseled, it’s imperative to extricate myself from date number two with him wanting more.
SEVEN
When we pull up in front of Angela’s building, her doorman is having a heated exchange with a very Nordic-looking man in tweed. He looks about forty years old, and his face has turned red with fury. When the doorman notices us, he asks his adversary to step aside. The Nordic man continues to freak out and steps closer to the doorman, so his nose is inches from the other man’s face. He starts screaming, in a pronounced Germanic accent, that he has friends in Washington, and that he will have the doorman’s pathetic self deported back to Puerto Rico if he doesn’t let him pass at once. I see spit flying from his mouth, illuminated in the darkness by the portico lamps. The doorman stands his ground.
Oscar, who of course has no idea that the crazed Teuton must be my best friend’s date, laughs out loud. “Puerto Rico is a U. S. territory. We don’t deport there. Not that your doorman looks Puerto Rican to me.”
“He’s from Brazil, actually.”
Oscar double parks and gets out to open the door for me. As if on cue, a window several flights up flies open. Angela leans out, waves her phone maniacally, and screams, “Reiner! If you don’t
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