Part 16 (1/2)
In the changing room Annika asked me where I was staying in New York.
”Oh, that's the funny thing,” I said, as I pulled on my jeans. ”I was only in London for the summer. I live here.”
”That is funny,” she said with a smile. ”Isn't that the way of things? One of the other girls in the troupe, Hayley Williams? You'll meet her. She and I were in a production of The Nutcracker when we were thirteen years old. But she went to a different high school from me, I totally lost track of her, and then one day, boom, there she is, right next to me in warm-up exercises. At first I wasn't even sure it was her! We kept looking at each other like, 'don't I know you?' So funny. So you really haven't known Jasper long?”
”No.”
”Well, I know he's weird and there are all kinds of non-disclosures you'll have to sign, but he's fair, pays well, and the gig is good. Which is better than I can say for some of the jobs out there. Also, he'll really help your career if you want. And best of all, he'll never hit on you.”
I almost laughed at that. I managed to keep a straight face. ”He won't?”
”No. I know it's weird. Every dance company I've been in has been totally incestuous, which is perfectly fine, but you know, there are always people in the business who think that it's okay to lech all over the dancers, like because we're in skintight spandex we're there to be hit on. Jasper not only doesn't do it; he doesn't let anyone else do it. Not what I expected from a rock star.”
”Huh. Maybe it's because he knows what it's like to be hit on all the time.”
”Probably. That's the other thing I should warn you about, though I'm guessing if he brought you here you know it already. Lots and lots of dancers have crushes on him. Heck, I think everyone who works for him has at least a tiny crush. But make a move and you're gone. He's not open to it at all. Honestly, at first I thought maybe he was gay. And yet, the male dancers who have tried got treated the same way. Don't. I know it's hard, especially with some of the s.e.xy dances we do. Just don't get the wrong idea from it. That's my advice. Don't go there.”
”I'll keep that in mind,” I said, trying to look as wide-eyed and innocent as possible.
A knock came on the door, then Roland's m.u.f.fled voice. ”Annika? Still in there?”
”Coming!” She shouldered her bag. ”Want to get something to eat with us?”
”Um, let me check my messages.” I picked up my own bag and dug out my phone.
Out in the studio a gaggle of preteen dancers, their hair in buns, was arriving. There was no sign of James. I checked my texts and wasn't surprised to see one from him.
6pm. Hotel where you met RM.
That was it. A time and a place. I wondered where he had gone in such a hurry.
Then I saw who was waiting by the door, talking to Annika and Roland. Ferrara Huntington. She turned and left before I caught up to them.
”You coming? There's a diner around the corner,” Annika said.
”Sure. I have some time before I have to be anywhere.”
Shortly before six I walked into the lobby of the hotel, wondering if James was expecting me to go up to the room or what. Would he be in the same room as before? It had been 624, hadn't it? Or was I getting it mixed up with the address of the gallery?
It struck me then that if I wasn't getting things mixed up, the number probably meant something to him. Before I could flail too long trying to figure out what to do, Stefan waved to me as he stood up from an upholstered chair and crossed the polished marble floor to greet me, European style, with a kiss on each cheek. ”This way.”
He led me back out to the street and down a bit, to a two-seater sports car that flashed its lights at us as he pressed a b.u.t.ton on the key fob. I opened my own door as he took my bag and put it in the trunk. The bucket seat felt like a giant leather-gloved hand cupping my a.s.s. The fact that I was wearing bike shorts might have had something to do with it.
”Is it supposed to feel like that?”
”Pardon me?” He started the engine.
”Never mind. Is the town car in the shop?”
”No. I'm just giving it a rest. This one has to be driven every so often or it's not good for it. And besides, it's fun.” He zipped out of the parking s.p.a.ce. ”Too bad we're only going a short way.”
He turned onto Park Avenue and headed uptown, but we hadn't gone very far before he turned toward Central Park. We went a block south and turned again, spiraling toward our destination the way the one-way streets sometimes forced a car to do.
I was expecting to pull up to a high-rise building, or into a big parking garage, but no, the garage door that faced the curb was built into a brownstone. Maybe five or six stories tall, brick, with a wrought iron doorway, not all that different from a lot of the small apartment buildings in the city.
The door went up and we pulled into a single-car garage. As I got out of the car it dawned on me how rare a private garage was in this city. Almost unheard of.
The entire building was a single mansion. Stefan led me from the garage through a pantry and into a grand foyer. He gestured around. ”This is the place. Not really much to see in this room, though.”
”Not much to see!” There were two sculptures in the room, one of which was clearly one of James's gla.s.s works. The other I thought I recognized as the work of Rodin, a nude woman cast in bronze. ”Is this really a Rodin?”
I heard James chuckle. He came down the staircase, barefoot, wearing chocolate-brown pants that looked too luxurious to be called pajamas, slung low on his hips, and nothing else. ”It's a bronze cast of one of his originals, yes. The model was a young woman named Camille.”
”Wasn't she his apprentice?” It had been some years since I'd studied anything about Rodin.
”And companion,” James said, and something about the way he said that, or maybe it was the pantherine way he was padding across the floor toward me, brought that delicious sensation flooding back into my nether regions. Without taking his eyes off me, he said, ”Stefan. We won't be needing you for a few hours.”
”Yes, boss.” Stefan disappeared through the door we'd come through.
James reached me, took the bag from my shoulder, and set it on the floor. ”The decision I'm trying to make is whether to take you right here, right now, and then play with you at my leisure once the edge of my hunger is off, or force myself to wait.”
I could feel the hardness of him against my stomach as he pulled me close. ”If I know you, you'll force us both to wait.”
His laugh was rich and low and he bent to kiss me while still chuckling. ”Too true,” he breathed into my hair. ”But you test my self-restraint like no one else ever has. So tell me, which would you choose, if you were given a choice?”
”Didn't you say we should embrace 'and' instead of 'or'?”
”I did. That would mean... taking you right here and forcing myself to wait?”
”Take me but let's not come,” I whispered, as if Stefan might be listening. Ha. As if he hadn't heard us doing every possible thing in the seat behind him already.
”Since you ask so nicely...” James said, and thumbed the waistband of his pants over his erection. They fell to his ankles in a velvety heap, and I fell upon his c.o.c.k with my velvety tongue. I couldn't help it. Gorgeous doesn't even begin to describe it. And him standing there in that grand foyer? He was like a third work of art, each muscle over his ribs perfectly sculpted. I ran my fingers down his torso as I sucked him into my mouth, my fingertips skating down the plane of his abs to the creases of his thighs.
He sank his fingers into my hair with a groan, and held me loosely as I bobbed back and forth. Then his grip tightened and he drove deep, hard enough to bruise my lips and deep enough to make me cough once, and then pulled me abruptly free. Keeping his grip, he bent down to kiss my mouth tenderly, the contrast between his gentle lips and the brutal thrust of his c.o.c.k making me gasp.
”Strip,” he whispered, and let go of me.
As I pulled my s.h.i.+rt over my head, he lay back on the parquet wood floor, watching me with his hands folded behind his head.
I wasn't wearing much, so it didn't take long before I was standing naked before him.
He beckoned me with his crooked finger, then gestured, making it clear he wanted me to straddle his face. I put one foot on either side of his head and squatted down, rewarded instantly by the wet suede of his tongue licking up and down my seam. I was already meltingly wet-had been since the moment he'd come down the stairs, really-so this was more about pleasure than preparation.
He disengaged his mouth and slid a long finger inside me, looking up my torso, between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and into my eyes. ”I feel like I want you more and more every time I have you. Like the more deeply I fall for you, the more intense the craving becomes.”
”I feel exactly the same way.”
”Then get on my c.o.c.k, now.”
I shuffled backward, onto all fours above him, and reached back with one hand to guide the tip of him into me. Being able to have him without a condom had never felt more like decadence, more like luxury, than at that moment. I sank onto him about halfway down his shaft, then had to wriggle my hips to open myself up enough to take him.