Beautiful Stranger (12 page)

Although I still craved him uncomfortably much, knowing that I would hear from Max eventually let me shut off wondering how or when it would happen for most of the week. But when lunch rolled around on Friday, and he still hadn’t contacted me, it occurred to me that if Max wanted to end things he might just decide to not text me. We had no rules for how to let this go, or how to back away gracefully. In reality, the way I’d set it up meant that the most graceful way to back
out would be to simply disappear. There was something comforting about an arrangement that was so tenuous it could just evaporate.

Still, I wanted to see him again.

I put my phone in my desk drawer, determined to not take it with me to the afternoon team meeting. But ten minutes into discussions about a lingerie marketing campaign, and with the memory of Max slipping my skimpy lace panties down my legs still playing on a loop inside my head, I found an excuse to get up and go back to my office to retrieve it.

No message. Damn.

Returning to the conference room, I found Bennett flipping through slides at lightning speed. It was okay for me because I’d seen the deck beforehand, but I could tell the newly arrived junior executives wanted to throw up their lunches.

“Slow down, Bennett,” I came up and said to him quietly.

He snapped his attention to me, his temper barely tied down.
“What?”

I swallowed. Colleagues or not, he still scared the hell out of me. “I think you clicked through the marketing segmentation too fast,” I explained. “You just finished it yesterday, when these guys were on a plane. Let them digest it.”

He nodded tightly and looked back to the screen.
I could almost feel him counting to ten in his head as he let them read the slide, and I looked across the table at Chloe. She was watching him, biting down on her pen to keep from laughing. I doubted Bennett had any sympathy for the RMG employees who had just uprooted their entire lives and were expected to have memorized seventeen tables of market figures in twenty-four hours.

“Good?” he asked, clicking to the next slide without waiting for an answer.

Catch up or catch the next train.
That’s what I’d overheard Bennett saying to a new marketing associate named Cole.

My phone vibrated loudly on the table and I picked it up, apologizing under my breath for the interruption. Thank the universe for Bennett Ryan and his endlessly entertaining, impatient perfectionism; for two whole minutes I’d forgotten to wonder if Max was still interested in meeting.

New York Public Library has some fascinating volumes. Schwartzman Building. 6:30. Wear a skirt, your tallest heels and skip the pants.

I grinned down at my phone, thinking Max was a pretty lucky bastard that all I would need to do was remove my panties before meeting him. When I looked
up, Chloe still had her pen between her teeth, but this time she was watching me, eyebrows raised.

Looking back to Bennett, I studiously ignored her stare, but I couldn’t seem to lose my giddy grin.

There were altogether too many iconic buildings in New York. Every building seemed familiar or laden with history. But few were as immediately recognizable to me as the New York Public Library, with its lion statues and hulking stairs.

I’d seen him four times since the first night we had sex, and even though this was a planned meet-up, I still felt like the breath had been kicked out of me when I spotted my beautiful stranger. He stood far above everyone around him, and as he searched the crowd for me, I took a few seconds to just drink him in.

Black suit, dark gray shirt, no tie. His hair had grown out in the last couple of weeks and although he kept it longer on top, I liked it messy like this, imagined tugging on it with his head between my legs.

He cut quite a shadow on the steps, as people parted around him.
I want to see you naked in daylight,
I thought.
I want to see pictures of you with me in full sun.

Max found me then, and I was totally busted for ogling him. A knowing smile spread across his face and he hooked a finger at me, beckoning.

When I drew closer, he teased, “You were staring.”

I laughed, looking away. “Was not.”

“For someone who so enjoys being stared at in her most intimate moments, you’re awfully shy about being caught playing the voyeur.”

I felt my smile shrink a little as something ached beneath my ribs. I spoke before even really planning to. “I’m just really happy to see you.”

This clearly caught him off guard. He recovered with a bright smile. “Ready to play?”

I nodded, oddly nervous despite the rush of heat that spread across my skin. We’d had an audience of a hundred mirrors last week, but had otherwise been entirely alone. Here, even at six thirty on a Friday night, the library was bustling.

“This looks interesting,” I mumbled, turning to lead us inside when he pressed two subtle fingers to the small of my back.

“Trust me,” he said, leaning forward to whisper, “this is right up your alley.”

Once inside, he moved in front of me, walking ahead as if we were simply two strangers passing through the library entryway and headed in the same direction. As I followed his lead, I noticed a few people watching him; a couple pointed and nodded to each other. Only in midtown Manhattan would an investment whiz playboy be immediately recognizable.

I followed him, admittedly paying more attention to the fit of his jacket across his wide shoulders than to where we were headed.

Slowing, Max asked, “How much do you know about the New York Public Library, Sara? This branch specifically?”

I searched my memory for details I would have picked up from movies or TV. “Other than the opening scene in
Ghostbusters
? Not much,” I admitted.

Max laughed. “This library is different from most in that it relies heavily on private philanthropy. Donors—such as myself,” he added with a wink, “take a special interest in certain collections and give generously—very generously in some cases—and are sometimes granted small perks in return. Quietly, of course.”

“Of course,” I repeated.

He stopped, turning to smile at me. “This is the room most people would recognize, the Rose Main Reading Room.”

I looked around. It was warm and inviting, filled with hushed voices and the muted sounds of footsteps and the turning of pages. My eyes moved to the ornate ceiling painted to resemble the sky, the arched windows and glowing chandeliers overhead, and for a beat wondered if Max planned on taking me on one of the large wooden tables lining the cavernous and
very busy
room.

I must have looked unsure, because Max laughed
softly beside me. “Relax,” he said, placing a hand on my elbow. “Even I’m not that bold.”

He asked me to wait while he crossed the room to speak with an older gentleman, who I got the impression knew exactly who Max was. The man glanced at me over Max’s shoulder and I felt myself blush, quickly looking away and back up toward the painted ceiling. Only a few moments later, I was following Max down a narrow flight of stairs and into a small room filled with row after row of books.

Max knew exactly where to go, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he came here a lot, or if he’d scouted the location sometime during the week. I liked both ideas, actually: the Max who was as intimate with the library as someone who worked here, and the Max who had been thinking about this as much as I had.

He stopped in a quiet corner, in a narrow, crowded row of books. It felt like the stacks pressed in on us from both sides; the tight quarters gave me the strange illusion of the walls closing in. I heard a cough and realized that there was at least one other person in the room with us.

Anticipation thrummed low in my belly.

Max lifted a book from a shelf without even really looking. “Do you read smut, Sara?”

I knew when he laughed a little at my reaction that my eyes must have nearly popped out of my head. I wasn’t a prude, and I wasn’t closed to the idea of erotica; I’d simply never gone looking for it. “Not much.”

“Not much? Or not any?”

“I’ve read some romance novels . . .”

He was already shaking his head. “I’m not talking about soft-focus covers with sweaty bare-chested men. I mean books that tell you how the woman feels when the man penetrates her. How she aches when he slips his tongue inside her. How he describes her flavor when she asks him to. I mean books that describe the
fucking
.”

My heart began to drill beneath my sternum at how casually he talked about things that made me want to close my eyes and squirm. “Then no. I haven’t read anything like that.”

“Well, then,” he said, handing me the book, “I’m happy to be here for this momentous occasion.”

I glanced down at the cover. Anaïs Nin.
Delta of Venus
. I knew the name and, like everyone, I knew the reputation, too.

“Great, let’s check this one out.” I flipped it over, looking for some kind of bar code or number. But the volume was leather, with heavy gilded pages. Obviously a rare edition. “Take it with us . . . ?”

“Oh no, no, no, no. One can’t actually check out the books at this library,” he began. “And, besides, where would the fun be in that anyway? The acoustics in here are so lovely, with the wood, and ceilings and whatnot . . .”

“What? Here?” My heart drooped a little. As much as I loved the idea of reading something racy with Max
nearby, I loved the idea of being completely wild with him tonight even more.

He nodded. “And you’re reading to me.”

“I’m reading you erotica in
here
?”

“Yes. And I’ll probably feel the need to fuck you in here, too. You got to be loud last week. But this week”—he brushed some hair off the side of my face, lips pursed—“not so much.”

I swallowed heavily, unsure whether this was exactly what I wanted to hear or whether it terrified me. His hand spreading across the back of my neck was soothing. His palm was warm; his fingers were long enough to wrap almost to my windpipe.

“You did only give me Fridays, and no beds,” he said. “Circumstances being what they are, I want to do something with you I know with absolute certainty you’ve never experienced before.”

“And you?” I reconsidered why he knew this room so well.

He shook his head. “Most people aren’t allowed down here at all. And I can assure you, I’ve never fucked a girl in the library before. For as much of an expert at this as you think I am, most of my adventures are in a limo on the way to drop someone off somewhere. I’m more of an arse than a slut, if I’m being introspective about it.”

There was freedom in his determined bachelorhood;
I didn’t have to pretend that this meant any more than it did. And even though it was only sex, and even though he was the first man I’d been with whom I really didn’t need to
know
at all, I had craved his touch all week long.

I reached up and pulled his face close to mine. “Fine with me. I don’t need you to be a nice guy.”

He laughed into a kiss. “I’ll be quite nice to you, I promise. You’ve so far refused the back of my limo or a quick shag at my place. You’re making me break all of my habits.”

We were invisible from across the room, thanks to the books surrounding us, but if anyone walked down to our dark little corner, we’d be exposed. Something inside me began to ache in that heavy, sweet way that caused my spine to arch and my heart to pound wildly.

Max stepped forward and bent to kiss me, starting with the corner of my mouth, humming at the contact and smiling.

“I’m following your rules, but it does mean I’m hard all the time. I deleted the video, but I’ll admit I regret it. You’ll let me take some more pictures tonight?”

It took so little from him to make me feel like I was no longer solid, but turning into a warm, honeyed ooze. “Yes.”

He gave me a smile that made me fear for a beat that I’d handed a slice of my soul to the devil. But then he kissed my jaw, whispering, “You know I’d never show
anyone. I despise the idea of another man seeing you like this. When you leave me, the next poor bastard will need to figure out all on his own how to please you.”

“When
I
leave
you
?”

He shrugged, eyes wide and clear. “Or end this. However you choose to describe it.”

“I half wondered this Friday if you’d simply not text. If that’s how it would end.”

“I think that’d be pretty shite,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “If either of us wants to end things, let’s have the courtesy to say it, right?”

I nodded, surprisingly relieved. I suspected that even though I’d made the deal with myself to keep this about sex, if it ended I would still miss it—miss him. Not only was Max an amazing lover, he was also
fun
.

But he was a player, and took this just as seriously as I did . . . which is to say not at all.

“Now that that’s settled . . .” He turned me to face the stacks. Reaching around me, he opened the book, flipping to a specific passage, and then moved my hand to hold it open. With him pressed behind me and a shelf in front, I felt completely hidden, like I was buried in this hulking man. Or maybe sheltered.