Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Tonight, I don’t care about any of them.
Candace slides her hand along my forearm, her touch barely there, but she presses a single fingernail to the vein at my wrist, as if marking her claim. “You’ll come to the afterparty, right?” she murmurs. “The real party?”
I let the silence draw out, just to see her squirm. “Maybe,” I say. “Depends on the guest list.”
She grins, all teeth. “If you’re there, everyone else will definitely come.”
She moves off, hips moving in that exaggerated metronome reserved for high-end trophy wives. I watch her go, not because I want her, but because it’s habit. I’m supposed to want her. I’m supposed to be the kind of man who fucks women like her, on principle.
But the truth is, I don’t want anyone in this room. I want the blonde with the big breasts, and innocent blue eyes who let me wreck her in the alley. I want to see her again, to hear the sound she makes when she finally lets go, to have her bend over and pull her cheeks open once more, allowing me to pleasure myself in her body one more time.
A handclap interrupts my reverie. It’s the provost, a slick Midwesterner in a plaid bow tie, holding a microphone as if he’s about to auction a cow. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he bellows. “If I could have your attention for a few brief words—”
I fade out, letting the rest of the crowd turn as one organism. While he bloviates about tradition and community and the ‘unparalleled generosity of Mr. Thomas Moreland,’ I scan the edges of the room, searching for something I can’t even name. The feeling is like being watched, or like the memory of being watched, sticky and unshakable.
A tray passes within reach. I take a single oyster on the half shell, shucked fresh and floating in a lake of mignonette. The server is young—maybe nineteen, face scrubbed, hair pulled into a taut bun under her starched white hat. She doesn’t meet my eyes, just bows her head and moves on.
I pop the oyster and savor it. The taste: brine, iron, ocean. For a moment, it’s enough.
Then I see her—across the ballroom, near the bar, in a knot of other waitstaff. My jaw drops, and I startle for a moment, the oyster forgotten. It’s the blonde. My mystery woman. It’s only a glimpse because she’s got her back to me, but I’d know that ass anywhere. The memory replays, hot and sharp: the feel of her anal walls, the sound of her voice, the way her hole clenched around my cock as she gasped and came for me.
She turns, just for a second, and our eyes lock across the crowd. Electricity flows between us like a live wire. Suddenly, there’s only the two of us in the ballroom, everyone else fading to nothing. Her lips part, startled, and her lashes drop for a moment. Maybe it’s fear, or maybe it’s just as hungry as mine. I can’t tell.
I set my glass down, careful, so no one sees my hand shake. The rest of the world blurs to static; all I can see is her, alive and real and in arm’s reach. The paradox of want: the closer it gets, the harder it is to breathe.
She looks away, tries to hide behind another girl, but it’s too late. I see her. She knows it.
I think about crossing the room, grabbing her by the wrist and hauling her into some side room, but I can’t—not yet. Not with all these eyes. Instead, I linger at the edge, watching, building the tension between us like a wire drawn tight. She glances back, flushes, looks down. Perfect.
When the speeches end, the room swells with chatter, glasses clinking, nervous laughter. A succession of women approaches me: a junior partner at a law firm, a Swedish exchange donor, an elderly art professor who winks at me with something like maternal pride. I do my job, smiling, nodding, being gracious. But every cell of me is tuned to the blonde. What the hell is she doing here?
But then, I catch a glimpse of her once again, and finally notice her uniform. Oh shit, she’s a caterer, dressed in the black and white outfit they ask all caterers to wear. At the moment, she’s circulating with a tray of champagne flutes and cheese puffs. She moves with poise and grace, naturally hypnotic. Once, she comes so close I can smell her—vanilla and sweat and a faint undertone of wildness, the same scent as last week. She doesn’t look up, but when I reach for a glass, I let my fingers graze hers.
The shock is instant: a jolt up both our arms, the way static jumps from skin to skin in the dry winter air. Her hand trembles. I imagine what I could do to her if we were alone.