DIRTY[COMPLETED]✔️

chapter Three

“Daniel Stewart.” His name, embossed in fine black script upon heavy, cream-colored card stock. Expensive, elegant, without a hint of the whimsy he’d shown me in Sweet Heaven. So much and so little to be learned from a business card.
I waited a week before I called him.
“Next time,” he’d said, as if there could be no doubt there would be a next time.
That easy confidence set me back, but more than that was the realization I wanted there to be a next time. I wanted to see him again, wanted to feel his hands on me, wanted to come with him inside me, as he’d said.
I wanted all those things, and the wanting frightened me. Knowing his name, where he worked, glimpsing that part of his life from something so intimately anonymous as his business card, all of it had me tossing and turning each night in my bed. Solace came from my hand, a finger gently circling my clit as I imagined his face and the scent of him. I came hard, alone, gasping and unfulfilled, and knew there would be a next time, just as he’d said, even though it took me seven days to give in.
His secretary took the call and passed it on. I imagined a tone of smugness, curiosity, jealousy. Was he fucking his secretary? Did she imagine me as a client, colleague, sister, lover? She asked only my name and if Mr. Stewart would know what this call was in regard to, and when I answered yes, she put me through without hesitation.
“Elle.” His voice, warm, like honey dripping into tea. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Were you?”
My own office door was closed. I sat back in my chair, the curling cord of my ancient phone tangled in my fingers. I closed my eyes.
“I was.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking,” he said, his voice sending a slow shiver of delight down my spine, “that you weren’t going to call me.”
That made me smile a little. Surely he’d had no doubts? “You knew I would.”
“I didn’t.” I heard an answering smile in his tone and pictured the upcurve of his mouth. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“I haven’t.”
“So you’ll be coming to meet me for lunch today.”
The assumption was no more forward than what he’d said when he handed me his card, and there was no sense in playing coy. “Yes.”
“Good.”
He gave me directions to a restaurant, though I knew how to get there. I wrote anyway, my pen making smooth marks that belied the unsteadiness of my hand. I hung up the phone, uncertain of how the conversation had ended, and looked to see that I had written his name, over and over, in handwriting that looked like it belonged to a stranger.
“Daniel Stewart. Daniel Stewart. Daniel Stewart.”
�
La Belle Fleur had a pretentious name but good food, nonetheless, and was central between both our offices. It took me fifteen minutes to get there in a cab. I’d told my secretary to reschedule my afternoon appointments.
“Miss Kavanagh?” The ma�tre d’ smiled as I pushed through the double glass doors and into the small foyer. “You’re meeting Mr. Stewart?”
I must’ve looked surprised, because he cast his eyes around the small, wood-paneled area and lowered his voice as though he were revealing the chef’s recipe for a secret sauce. “He described you perfectly. And told me to expect you.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “I see.”
He beamed, a small, spare man with a head of perfectly groomed hair and a tiny mustache to match. “Right this way.”
I’d eaten at La Belle Fleur dozens of times. Clients liked its nice atmosphere and good bar. Colleagues chose it because the food was decent and reasonably priced, despite the fancy decor. I saw several faces I recognized, and I smiled and nodded as I passed.
Every step I took was a triumph over my shaking legs. Dan’s name echoed in my head as I followed the ma�tre d’ through the maze of white-cloth-covered tables toward a smaller back room, the doorway half-hidden by an embroidered screen for privacy.
“Mr. Stewart has booked a table in our Jolie room.”
And there he was, Daniel Stewart, at a small table in the corner. He stood when I came into the room. Today he wore a dark-blue suit, a pale-blue shirt and a tie with a hula girl imprinted on it. He didn’t approach me, made no move to touch me, not an awkward social half hug nor a handshake, and I found myself both grateful and disappointed.
“Hello.”
Foolish to feel shy after what he’d done to me at the Blue Swan, more foolish still when I knew I’d let him do it again in a heartbeat. We stared at each other across the elegantly set table, until the ma�tre d’ cleared his throat to draw my attention to the chair he’d pulled out for me, and I sat. Then we stared a few more moments until at last he spoke.
“I wasn’t sure you’d show up.”
I dropped my gaze and studied every bead of condensation on my water glass before I looked up at him. “I wasn’t sure I would, either.”
“I’ll have a glass of merlot,” Dan said as the waiter appeared. “The lady will have a glass of the cabernet. We’ll both have steak salads with the house dressing and fries.”
Then he sat back in his chair again and looked at me as though he were waiting for something. I had an idea of what it was. I sipped my water before I gave it to him.
“Should I be flattered or offended at your assumption you know what I wanted?”
“I know what you want, Elle.” His smile, slow and easy, spread across his face. It reached his eyes. It made me smile back at him.
“Do you?” I knew this game, had played it before. I always won. They never knew what I wanted.
Dan nodded, his eyes moving over my face as though memorizing every line and curve. Then, without leaning closer or lowering his voice, he said as though discussing the weather, “You want me to put you up against a wall.”
I looked at him, my fingers tightening on the wet sides of my glass. Slippery. Cold. It would have felt delicious to put them to my forehead, or the base of my throat, against the heat rising along my skin. I kept them on the glass. I swallowed, throat dry, but didn’t drink.
There was no sense in denying it, but I would have, had he said the words with a leer or even if he’d moved closer to create a sense of intimacy.
“After lunch” was all he said, and I knew in that moment I had, at last, met my match.
�
We spoke over our food, sipping our wine. He asked me questions about myself. He had an easy way of drawing out information, a subtle use of interest and follow-up to make it easy to give him what he wanted. He didn’t push, didn’t pressure, didn’t judge. He asked about my education, my job, my hobbies, and I answered. He didn’t speak again of what I might or might not want him to do to me. It didn’t matter.
By the end of the hour, I was so turned on, the simple act of crossing my legs made me shiver at the way my panties pulled across my clit. My nipples rose rock hard inside the satin and lace of my bra, which shielded them from poking through my shirt but stimulated them mercilessly. I was so wet my thighs slid across each other. My hands shook with wanting, and I fisted them on the tablecloth to keep him from seeing.
“Now,” he said at last, when the waiter had taken away our dishes and left the check. “You’re going to go to the ladies’ room.”
His eyes kept me locked in place; after a moment, I nodded. “Yes.”
Dan smiled. “I’m going to pay the check.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll wait for me, because that’s what you want.”
Again, I answered yes, the word nearly unintelligible from the hoarseness of my voice. I got up from the table, for a moment unsure if my legs would hold me. I steadied myself with a hand on the back of my chair. I laid my napkin on the table. I took my purse, and I went down the short hall toward the ladies’ room.
It wasn’t empty when I went in. I smiled at the woman who smiled at me, but my face must have shown some sort of strain because she gave me an odd glance and hurried through washing her hands. I washed mine, too, for something to do while I waited.
My heart hammered, the beat of it loud in my ears. I splashed water on my cheeks, my throat, the insides of my wrists. I placed my hands flat upon the sink and looked at my flushed face in the mirror.