Story 20-chapter 3
I stared at her, breath sighing out as I remembered how to breathe. My neck tingles where the heat of her lips cooled.
“Too easy,” she giggled, watching me through smiling eyes. “I broke you.” “Um,” I agreed. “Nuh.”
“Drink up,” she cooed, and gulped the last of the drink, shuddering again.
Discomfited by the sudden tightness in my pants, I fidgeted, trying to be subtle in spite of what happened. Finally, I thumped her with my shoulder, trying to stop her laughing.
“Knock it off!!”
“Oh come on, you’re adorable when you’re all shy and embarrassed,” she cooed, still laughing. I shoved her again, tipping her sideways, and used my hands to straighten things out while she sat up and brushed bits of deep fried squid off the bench.Exclusive content © by Nô(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.
I was taking a victory sip of my scotch when she finished her clean up and lurched into me in retaliation. I fought to minimize the splash but still gold droplets ran down my chin.
“Dammit woman, that’s good scotch you’re wasting.” I lurched into her again in mock anger, but she swung back into me before I could see if I’d spilled on my clothes. We were both laughing as the shoving match continued.
I tried to tip her, twisted to get both hands against her upper arm, for leverage, and she was putting most of her effort into bracing against the bench behind her to keep upright. I had started to make faces at her when she stopped, and so I froze.
I watched her watch me for a minute. Her eyebrow went up in an exasperated look, and she gestured downward with her chin.
I looked between us for something that had spilled and saw nothing and glanced back at her in confusion. She pursed her lips and leaned a little away from me, and then back, allowing me to notice what I hadn’t felt when I’d grabbed her.
“It’s your fault, for spilling my scotch,” I said, releasing the offended breast. “But I apologize anyway.”
She snorted away the apology. I caught the waiter’s eye and waved my tumbler in the air. I pointed to the tumbler and held up two fingers. He nodded smartly and headed off, earning himself a pretty good tip just for figuring out what I meant.
“Come here,” she told me, “you’re still wearing your last one.”
“Your fault!!” I insisted.
“My fault, fine. Come here.” She hooked her arm around me and tugged.
Gingerly I let her gather me against her side.
“What are you going to do?”
“Cleaning you up,” she said, the last word cut short as her lips pressed against the underside of my chin.
“Ohhh,” was all I replied, as she trailed kisses down my throat to the collar of my shirt. I felt the weight and heat of my sex as she serviced me and I wished she’d use her hand on me again.
“There,” she said, straightening. “All better now.” And then she began to slide away from me.
“Where are you going?” I asked her as she stood and straightened her clothing.
“I’m going to the lady’s room, if you must know. Some of that scotch hit me too.”
“I could help you with that,” I offered in a rasp.
“I just bet you could,” she grinned. “But I’ll be right back.
”
She caught me watching her walk away and then disappeared around the corner, leaving me sighing slowly.
“Wow,” I said out loud. The warmth in my blood wasn’t coming from the scotch. I tilted my glass to dump the last splash into my mouth, and probed for droplets left behind with my tongue until I saw our waiter returning.
I munched on calamari while he collected our empty glasses, and sipped water to clear my palate. A few minutes later, she returned.
“Fall in?” I teased on my way to another sip.
“Ass,” she replied, shimmying back to me in the booth. “You should be more polite. Gentleman, remember. Oh, right, what am I saying? Of course not.”
“Listen, you,” I started, waving my hand for emphasis. And then my hand slipped into her hair, and I pulled her startled face to mine, and kissed her.
Her mouth moved against mine, some wisecrack no doubt, but I just kept kissing her, and then her lips were answering mine. Her hands came to rest on my chest as my tongue flickered against her upper lip pressed between mine.
Her lips parted slightly, but I pushed no further, just softly kissing the outline of her mouth. A hint of alcohol flavored her breath as it mingled with mine.
With a low moan, she pressed another kiss against mine and then pushed me away. I watched her and tried to ignore the thunder of my pulse, in my chest and my groin. She was breathing as hard as I was, her head bowed on her neck. Her hair left her face in shadow.
“I–” I started to explain myself, but she held out a hand to halt me. I subsided and waited as she drew one more deep breath and then looked up at me, her mouth still slightly open, as if she’d forgotten to close it. The tableau held for a long moment in which there was nothing else in that place but her and me.
I think she was about to say something, but that was when several of the servers arrived in our little corner of the place, singing their tuneless lungs off, and carrying a sparkler-skewered piece of cupcake.
Protesting that they must have made a mistake, I turned to her in confusion, to find that she still wasn’t meeting my eyes and was smiling as she drank.
I turned back to the chorus just as they arrived. The song ground to a halt, and a young lady cajoled me to stand up on my chair.
Looking icy daggers at my Benedict Arnold, I stood up on my chair as the girl announced to the amused patrons of the lounge that today was my birthday.
I tried to explain that it wasn’t my birthday, and the girl nodded knowingly and shouted to the lounge that I was really shy about it so they wouldn’t announce my age.
I started to climb down when the girl added, at volume, “‘Cause today he just turned REALLY, REALLY OLD!!!”
She was looking at me with the pleased eyes of a cat with a mouse as the server offered me a hand to step down, handed me the cupcake, and startled me with a peck on the cheek before the crowd of them dispersed into the darkness.
By the time I’d returned to my seat, she was laughing out loud.
The server offered me a hand to step down, and handed me a cupcake. The woman responsible for the madness was looking at me with the pleased eyes of a cat, as I took the offered cupcake in hand.
And she started laughing at my startled expression when the little waitress pecked me on the cheek as they all dispersed into the darkness of the lounge.
“It isn’t my birthday,” I said.
“Nope,” she agreed. “Not for a few months yet. But they don’t do this for ‘We’ve been great friends for five years and today is the first time we’ve met.’ I thought the moment deserved something to make it memorable”
“I think we achieved something memorable just a little before they arrived,” I said, quietly.
“That’s quite true,” she agreed. She sipped her scotch and then laughed some more. “Anyway, you should have seen the look on your face.”
“Bite me.”
“I would,” she said, “but I’m not sure I’d remember to come up for air.”
“You feel it too, huh?”
“Yeah,” she admitted, almost ruefully and then stayed silent as she finished her drink.
“What’ll you have now,” I asked.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that maybe I should call it a night.”
“What? Now?” I asked, upset that I’d offended. “I’ll behave, I promise. I didn’t mean to push like that.”
“Oh babe, I’d go to bed after you’d gone off-line and imagine kisses like that. And honestly, by any sane measure, I’ve been teasing you pretty badly. It isn’t you. It’s me. I wasn’t sure I was going to come tonight, remember?”
Suddenly she laughed.
“Look at you, just biting down on your lip. Go ahead. Say it. You’ll feel better.”
I shook my head, sober with the sudden end of our evening.
“You’re sweet, you know that. As much in person as you ever were online.”
“You’re really going?” I asked sorrowfully. She slid outward along the curved bench. “We haven’t even eaten.”
She nodded and stood.
I slid out and hugged her tightly. Time passed.
“We’ll meet again, babe,” she breathed in my ear.
“You owe me a nude, Pigeon,” I whispered in hers.
Laughing, she swept back out of my arms and swatted me in the shoulder.
“You are such a pig,” she exclaimed. “But watch your mailbox. Who knows?”
She leaned in and kissed my cheek.
“Finish eating, and go back to your room.”
“I’m done,” I told her. “And I want to walk you to your car.”
“I want to remember you here. It’s nicely opulent. A beat-up Camry doesn’t have the same charm.”
“Are you sure? You don’t have to go yet,” I insisted.
“I have to go,” she repeated. “But thank you. Thank you for not wanting me to.”
I reached out and held her hand for a second. She smiled at me again, and turned away. I watched her until she left my view. And then I settled the bill and headed to the elevators.