Chapter Five
Z ack thought he felt his phone buzz. He shoved his hand in the pocket of the ridiculous dress pants he was wearing, but his phone was still.
Another phantom buzz.
She’s not gonna call, moron. Tell your downstairs brain to chill out.
Grace Song wasn’t going to call for a repeat performance. It had been a one-time thing. An amazing thing. But one time was better for both of them.
Zack had more baggage than he could carry, and he wasn’t about to ask someone else to come walk along with him while he tried to complete the impossible task. It was way better to just trudge along, dragging it behind him. Ignoring it all and forging ahead with his...life.
He looked around the room, at the exhibition of art. Great art. Women in black dresses and suits, men in black suits, too. The uniform didn’t vary much. It was New York, after all.
This was the kind of thing Marsha said he had to do because...image, inroads, connections, blah blah, he’d stopped listening after that because he’d seen a Sabrett hot-dog cart and he’d immediately wanted that more than a high-powered art career. With relish, thanks.
Of course, eating hot dogs wouldn’t pay his bills. Unless he could become a competitive eater. There was merit in that.
Then maybe he could go back to doing art in the barn on his property.
There’s nothing to go back to.
His life was depressing as hell. Which was the thing that sucked so much about loss. Even when the knife edge on your grief dulled, you were still missing something.
Almost a decade and his house felt too empty. He had a feeling it was one of those things that just left a hole. Though, in his case, he thought it might have left a lot more. He felt hollowed out, on a good day.
Sex with Grace had filled him with heat, and that had been a whole lot better than the emptiness. So instead of paying attention to the exhibit, he was hoping his phone would ring.
But it wasn’t going to. Because she had more sense than he did. Or rather, more sense than his penis.
Not that that was a feat, by any stretch of the imagination. That body part wasn’t known for being the most discriminating. And since his had been on sabbatical for six years...well.
His pocket buzzed and he jerked to attention, reaching down inside again and curling his fingers around the phone, tugging it out. Thank God. It was ringing. And it was a New York number.
He answered it.
“Hi.”
“Zack?”
It was Grace. It was her. He resisted the urge to drop to his knees and give thanks in the middle of the gallery.
“Yeah,” he said, trying to sound casual.
“I know I shouldn’t be calling you.”
“I didn’t think you were going to.” Not that he was complaining.
“Well, I wasn’t. Then I thought...a one-night-stand is awfully...you know...dicey. Maybe...maybe... You’re probably busy.”
“Nope,” he said, looking around the room, counting all the very important people. There were a lot of them. “Not in the least.”
“Good. Good. Um...121 West 72nd Street. My place. It’s small but it’s...there’s a bed.”
“That’s all we need.”
He disconnected the call, gave a halfhearted goodbye to anyone who might be relevant, then slipped out of the party as quickly as possible.
It took way longer to get across town than he wanted. In the end, it probably would have been faster and cheaper to walk, even though there had been a cab right out front, but he didn’t like the idea of hoofing it down the streets of Manhattan with a hard-on that probably looked like a crowbar pushing against the front of his jeans.
Not that it was much better to have something like that while in a cab, but at least he could sit down and pretend it wasn’t happening.
He drummed his fingers on his thigh, impatience and arousal coursing through him. Why the hell was there traffic at ten at night? If people were out in Pine Ridge Falls at this hour they were just parked in the bar.
He let out an exasperated sigh, and was about a second from getting out and walking, when the cab stopped in front of an older-looking building with an open convenience store on the bottom floor.
He handed a large bill to the driver and got out, shutting the door harder than was strictly necessary. Then he took his phone out of his pocket, and selected her number out of the recent-call list. “How do I get in here?” he asked.
“Oh! Zack?”
“No. Candygram.”
“You have to go to the door, it’s next to the store.”
He looked around and saw what she was talking about. “Okay.”
“And I’ll buzz you in. I’m in 3B.”
“Great.” He heard the buzz and tugged the door open.
“The elevator is rickety,” she said.
“I’m good with the stairs,” he said, hanging up.
He was surprised how old the building was. Surprised that Grace didn’t live somewhere with a shiny lobby and more frills. Though, he did know that rent was inflated beyond reason here. Still, he’d never had a reason to look for a place in the area, so he had no idea just what that meant in a practical way.
The stairs were narrow and drafty, dirt pushed deep into the grooves between the steps. It was obviously clean overall, but not scrubbed deep. Another testament to the age of the building. It would never sparkle.
He found himself fascinated by it. The architecture. The lines. It was rooted to the earth in a way other buildings didn’t seem to be. Like it was created rather than built.
And that made him think of a potential piece. A collection.
Unusual for him to get any inspiration here. Typically, he needed to be home. Closer to all the past’s poison. He had to kind of wallow in it to feel enough to work sometimes.
Dammit. He was some kind of clichéd tortured artist. What the hell was that? He blamed it on eating fricking paté at all these parties. Back at home that crap came out of a cat-food can.
Which was not what he wanted to be thinking about right now. He wanted to be thinking about Grace. About her soft skin. Her glossy hair. The way it felt to slide deep inside her body.
Yeah, that was better than paté.
He knocked on the door with the correct number/letter combination, then heard locks jiggling before it opened to reveal Grace, hastily tucking her hair into a bun.
“Are you primping?”
Her eyes rounded. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“I’m going to take it down, you know.”
She leaned into the door, her posture a poor attempt at casual. “Yeah but... I don’t ever wear it down so...so it seemed like I should pin it up.”
She was wearing a purple dress that formed to her slight curves, a black ribbon tied around her slender waist. She had stockings on. He had some serious opinions on which kind they should be.
“No need to dress for me, darlin’,” he said. “But I do appreciate it.”
“You are...in a suit,” she said, looking him over slowly.
He looked down. “Oh. Yeah. I was at a thing.”
“You said you weren’t busy.”
“I wasn’t. I was bored.”
“You were bored.”
“Industry stuff.”
“So you left an important industry event to come here and witness the lowest low my personal restraint has ever experienced?” she asked, arching a brow.
“Are you going to invite me in or do I have to stay in this incredibly narrow hallway all night. Because I have to admit, that’s not exactly what I thought you called me over here for.”
“Oh, yeah.” She moved away from the door and waved her arm, as if ushering him in. “I actually just needed my garbage disposal fixed, and my super was busy. So-o...”
“If that’s a euphemism for your lady parts, it needs work.”
She clapped her hands and laughed, bending at the waist, then dropping her head forward and shaking it. “You’re ridiculous. We’re ridiculous. All of this is ridiculous.”
She straightened, running her fingers under her eyes and blinking rapidly. “I wasn’t supposed to call you.”
“I shouldn’t have answered.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around the apartment. It was different than the rest of the building. Fresh, bright white paint on the walls, with matching, immaculate rugs over dark walnut floors. There were floral arrangements all over the damn place. And framed, matted paintings of flowers. Somehow it all managed not to look frilly. Just a little simple beauty in an otherwise clean space.
“I’m glad you did. Because I would have felt like a leper.”
He walked toward her, his stomach tightening with each step. Then he put his hand on her cheek, curled his fingers around the back of her neck. “You’re certainly not a leper.”
“That is...not a great romantic compliment.”
He frowned. “It’s really not. I’m out of practice. Let me try again?”
She licked her lips and nodded.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay. You’re beautiful.”
That earned him a blush. “Thank you.”
“And you smell nice.”
“Also good.”
“And I think I’ve been hard since you left the other day.”
Her lips folded in and her smile widened, like she was trying to hold something back. “One too far,” she said.
“I sensed it might have been. But then I went with it.”
“Your instincts are broken, don’t trust them.”
“Now that is the damn truth.” He leaned in and kissed her then, because he knew that it would be better than anything he could say next.
Because she was right, he didn’t know what to say. He sucked at this. But he remembered how to kiss. At least, he seemed to remember how to kiss when she was in kissing range. And more to the point: he wanted to kiss her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, arching into him. The way she responded...it made him feel more alive than he’d felt in longer than he could remember. Everything, even sex, had been just going through the motions after his daughter died.
And there was a point where he just hadn’t bothered.
But this was new. It was like fresh grass. All bright and new. The same as what had come before, but entirely different somehow, too.
All terrible metaphors aside, Grace was the first thing he’d felt with his whole body in way too long.
He wrenched his mouth away from hers and tugged down the zipper on her dress, revealing a black lace bra and matching panties. And the stockings were indeed the kinds with lacy tops, held up onto her slender thighs as if by some blessed sexual magic.
He loved those. And he’d forgotten how much until this moment. Simple pleasures that he hadn’t even let himself think of in far too long. Blue skies, birds chirping and stay-up stockings on a woman in a thong.
Life was beautiful. Right now. With Grace’s bare skin beneath his hands and her name on his lips.
He kissed the curve of her neck, ran his tongue along the line of her collarbone. She tasted so good. So damn good. And he needed her now.
“So why did you call me?” he asked. He probably shouldn’t be asking.
“Like I said. One-night stands seem cheap...sordid.” She shifted. “Okay, it didn’t seem cheap and sordid. I guess that’s the thing. I expected it to. But it didn’t. And in the end, I just wanted you again. And... I’m so obsessed with not making mistakes. I’m sure I’m making one right now, but I’m enjoying it. So...so why not?”
The question hung between them, unanswered.
“Tell me you have condoms,” he said, “because I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Oh! Right.” Grace jumped away from him and walked to counter. And he watched her butt the whole way. She was still wearing heels. A fantasy that he just didn’t deserve. Because he had nothing to give her other than this.
So give it to her good.
Well, that was a solution that appeased his libido anyway.
Grace started rifling through the little plastic bag on the the counter, pulling out a candle, a package of mints, a bottle of hand soap and, finally, condoms.
“Did a little shopping before you called?”
“The condoms started this whole thing. I was not going to call you. I wasn’t even tempted. Mostly. I mean, I was, but I sitll wasn’t going to. But then I was walking down the aisle for things...nonsexual things. And I saw...well, they’re ribbed,” she said, her eyebrows arching. “I’ve never, never tried that before.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. And then I...sort of thought of the fact that there are a lot of things I haven’t tried and maybe I needed more than just once with you.”
His gut tightened as he watched her tear into the box. She rummaged inside and produced a strip of condom packets, tearing one off. She looked at him, expectation gleaming in her dark eyes.
“So there are these,” she said.
“And?” he asked.
“Go ahead and...take it out.”
“Take it out?”
“Your...your...take off your clothes,” she said.
“What is it you want to see, baby?” he asked, suddenly desperate to hear something raw from those pretty, polished lips.
“I...”
He wrapped his hands around himself, squeezed his erection through his pants. “What?”
She looked down, red staining her cheeks.
“Say it,” he said, “or you don’t get it. And I know you want it.”
She looked up again, her eyes meeting his. “Your cock,” she said, drawing in a sharp breath immediately after.
“I like hearing you talk dirty,” he said. “And because you did what I asked...” He worked at the belt on his pants, hoping she didn’t notice the trembling in his fingers.
Hard to play it cold and commanding when he wanted her so bad it was a physical ache.
He tugged himself free, shoving his pants halfway down his hips. She licked her lips, like she’d done earlier. A nervous tic, maybe. But it sent a shot of pure heat all the way down his spine.
He reached out and took the packet from her hand. “We don’t need this just yet,” he said. He pushed his pants down the rest of the way, then looked for a place to leave the condom.
There was a little table by the entry door. Polished wood with spindly legs and small, balled feet at the ends of them. He put the condom there, right next to the white vase. Right on a doily.
“Why don’t we need it yet?” she asked, standing there, looking confused and sexier than anyone had a right to.
“Because. Things moved a little bit fast last time and I didn’t get to do something. I regret it.”
“What?”
He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her, pushing his fingers beneath the waistband of her panties, cupping her butt. Squeezing her. Then he kissed her throat, the valley between her breasts. And as he moved lower, he brought her panties down with him, until they were around her ankles, and he was kneeling in front of her.
He braced his hands on her hips and tugged her forward, pressing his mouth to the tender skin just above the dark hair at the apex of her thighs.
She shivered and he tightened his hold on her, kissing her again, this time just beneath her hip bone, before moving back.
“This is what I want,” he said, sliding his tongue between her slick folds, over her clit, then deep inside her body.
He groaned, moving his hands so that he was holding her ass. It had been too long. Too long since he’d indulged himself this way. Since he’d tasted a woman. Given her pleasure while he took his own.
And even that was simplifying it too much. Because in the moment, how long it had been since he’d been with someone else didn’t matter. He could have done this to another woman yesterday and it wouldn’t have made Grace—her scent, her flavor—any less intoxicating.
She forked her hands through his hair, tugging, the sharp pain sending another throb of arousal through his body.
“Zack.” She said his name like a prayer. Or a curse. He wasn’t sure which. And it didn’t really matter.
He increased his efforts, licking her, sucking her, and she tugged harder on his hair. He moved his hand, pushing his fingers between her thighs, pushing one deep inside her body.
A sharp, shocked sound escaped her lips. He lifted his head. “Should I stop?”
“No!”
He chuckled and lowered his head, tasting her long and deep, and she shivered beneath his tongue. So perfect. So intense. Her response was enough to make him come then and there. But not yet. No, not yet. He needed to be inside her.
“I could do this all day,” he said, sliding the flat of his tongue over her sensitized flesh and blowing lightly on her damp skin.
“I would...die,” she said, breathless, her legs starting to wobble.
He braced her, held her up, kissing her deeper, working his tongue inside of her until she cried out, her hands moving to his shoulders, nails digging deep into his skin.
“Can’t have that,” he said, as out-of-breath as she was. And he hadn’t even gotten his. “You’re too damn pretty.”
“Is that the only reason I’m of...any use to you?” she asked, still panting.
“Hell no.” He stood up, keeping his hold tight on her, lifting her off the ground. Then he saw the condom on the table. “I need you for all kinds of things.”
He moved her to the table. “Put your hands on the doily, darlin’.”
She obeyed, but shot him a look. “You need me for sex,” she said.
“Same reason you need me,” he said, positioning himself behind her, reaching for the condom. “What else would need some big, rough cowboy for? Certainly not for work events. You just need to use me. For your own personal satisfaction.”
“That’s true,” she said. “I’m using you, too.”
“We’re using each other. And that doesn’t have to be cheap or dirty. It’s pretty damn hot really.” He rolled the condom onto his length and guided himself to the wet entrance to her body, testing her slowly. “Bend over just a little more,” he said.
She obeyed, and he pushed in deeper. He swore. “You’re so tight.”
“You’re just big,” she said, her voice shaky.
He put his hand on her hip, then slid his palm over her stomach and down between her legs, running his fingers through her folds. “Okay?”
“So...good. I didn’t even know... I didn’t...” He thrust his hips forward and she moaned in response. “I didn’t know it could be so good.”
Then he couldn’t say anything else. All he could do was give in to the desire roaring through his body. All he could do was chase his release, each thrust bringing him closer.
“Harder,” she said, the word a near growl.
“Like this?” he asked, pulling her back against him as he pounded into her.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Don’t be careful. Just...you don’t need to be careful.”
So he wasn’t. He stroked her in time with his thrusts, until he couldn’t hold on anymore. That he’d had this much control was a damn miracle. And it was all gone now.
He pressed his forehead to her shoulder, bracing himself for the release that was about to hit. But there was no preparing for it.
She let out a hoarse cry, her internal muscles tightening around him, and that was the end of his restraint. He swore, holding onto her so tightly he thought he might leave a bruise. She moaned again, shifting her hands on the table, dragging the doily—and vase—to the side, and tipping it and its contents onto the floor. “I hope that wasn’t expensive,” he said, eyeing the shards of porcelain on the floor.
She laughed, the sound unsteady. She moved away from him. “Careful, don’t have shoes on.” She still did. She still had the shoes, her stockings and her bra. “I’ll get a broom. Stay back.”
She ran a hand over her flushed cheeks and walked back into the kitchen area and he couldn’t help but watch her butt.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Bathroom?”
“That way.”
She gestured to the hall at the other end of the living room. He found his way and disposed of the condom, returning just in time to see her sweeping up the last of the vase.
“It was my Nai-Nai’s. Poor Grandma, she loved this vase.”
All the blood drained out of his face. “Grace...”
“I’m kidding!” she said. “Sorry, bad joke. And my grandmother is alive, in one of those really nice assisted-living places. The vase was from Target.”
Grace felt like she’d made a huge misstep with Zack just now. Which was great since she was still knocked loopy from having sex in her entryway. Like that. She’d never done it like that before. It was intense. And amazing. And then she’d ruined it with a dead-grandma joke.
“I’m sorry, Zack. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He shook his head. “No. It’s not...it was a joke.”
He still looked stunned. And a little pale. “You don’t look okay.”
“I understand how much things can mean to you after you lose someone,” he said. “If I would have broken your grandmother’s vase because I was an impatient jerk who bent you over what is...a damn nice but delicate-looking table, I would have felt like a giant moron.”
“It’s fine. I’ve never had anything like this. Where...where it seemed easier to do it like that because walking to the bedroom is too hard. I’m...enjoying it.”
“I’m glad you find me enjoyable.”
“Specifically I find your...male member enjoyable.”
“Oh, back on such formal terms,” he said, shaking his head. “You were on a more familiar basis with my...member.”
Her face heated. “Well, that was... I was in the moment. Have you eaten?”
“I nibbled on some cold shellfish. And yeah, nibble is all I got for that. Tiny, slippery cold... I haven’t eaten.”
“Would you like to stay? And build up your strength so that you can do—” she waved her hand “—all that to me again?”
She couldn’t believe she was inviting him to stay, but honestly...she’d been consumed with not putting a toe out of line for years. For always. Since high school, and college, and then onto her job, where she’d kept her head down and just tried to be...what she thought she was supposed to be. Which was a lot of hard work. And she’d had relationships, but they’d just been a nice addendum to her work life. Like whipped cream on your latte. Sure, it was good, but without it you still had a latte.
Losing David had been like losing whipped cream. Except by then she’d been kind of tired of him. And she was never tired of whipped cream, so maybe that was a bad example.
Not tired of him in an active way. It’s just...when he’d said it was time to end it, it had seemed right to her, too. That wasn’t normal.
Maybe she was dysfunctional. Possibly a cyborg. She’d long suspected. She’d even been accused of it a time or two.
But hard work and doing right were important. Those values had been instilled in her early, and success in those things didn’t come by accident. She’d wanted to show her parents that they didn’t have to worry about her. That she was going to do things...perfectly. That meant good grades, that meant while she was getting established very few things could take a higher priority than her job.
Right now, though, her job was causing her stress. And orgasms were...a form of stress release.
“How long are you here?” she asked.
“Two weeks,” he said. “I have the exhibition and before that about a million meetings and cocktail get-together thingies.”
“You sound enthused.”
“I’m not.”
“What do you like to eat?”
“Stuff that is too big for a toothpick.” He bent down and picked up his pants, then put them on without putting on any underwear. Oh, my. That would be fun later.
He was so hot. All hard abs and pecs, sprinkled with a light dusting of brown hair. For a moment she forgot what they were discussing.
“Right um...pizza? Thai? Indian?”
“Indian would be good,” he said, sinking onto her white, Victorian-style settee. He looked...almost comical on it. So big and masculine and dark against the floral velvet.
“Great, I’ll put in an order.” She walked into the kitchen and pulled up her favorite restaurant on her phone and placed a quick order. “Done.”
“Nothing better than food delivery through an app. We don’t have that living out in the sticks so I live off delivery when I travel.”
“Yeah, I try not to talk to people if I don’t have to. I have to talk to people all day in my business so...”
“So you avoid them later. Good plan. That’s what I do six months out of the year, not in a solid chunk, mind you. Then for the other six months I do things like this. I was in Paris two months ago, and went all through Europe. I have to go again soon.”
She laughed. “Oh, wow. You have to go?”
“Yeah. London.”
“I think that sounds amazing.” She rested her elbows on the kitchen counter and looked at him. “You don’t seem thrilled.”
“I am. I mean... I don’t know.” He took a deep breath and looked away from her, staring straight out in front of him, at nothing. “Sometimes I think my give-a-damn is busted.”
This probably pertained to his ex-wife. And she bet that was off-limits for them, since they were just having sex. And apparently eating takeout.
“How did you get into art?” she asked, a safer question. “You really, really don’t seem like the type. You’re too...”
“Country?”
“Grounded. I think of artists, particularly of the modern variety who are successful, and I think of...whimsy.”
“Whimsy?”
“Yes.”
He spread his arms out wide, the muscles in his forearms shifting. “Am I not whimsical?”
“Not so much, cowboy.”
“What about the fox I drew for you? Wasn’t he whimsical?”
“All right,” she said, smiling when she thought of the sketch. “He was kind of whimsical. What medium do you normally work in?”
“I do a lot of metal work. Iron. Welding.”
“Oh, that makes sense.” It accounted for his physique, that was for sure.
“I’m basically a glorified blacksmith. But I make animals and people rather than armor and shoes for...animals and people.”
“I think that’s amazing.”
“Gives me something to pour a lot of physical frustration into, that’s for sure.”
“It’s more interesting than being a financial advisor.”
He tilted his head back, his eyes meeting hers again. “Then why are you a financial advisor?”
“I’m good at it. And I do enjoy it. I want... I want to be successful.”
He nodded slowly. “You know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I’ve never cared if I was.”
“And you are,” she said. The downstairs buzzer went off. “Bet that’s the food.” She walked to the door and hit the intercom button. “Yes?”
A voice crackled through the speaker. “Ms. Song, I have your dinner.”
She pushed the button to open the door, then looked back at Zack. It was funny. Sometimes he just seemed like a man’s man. Steady, not taking much too seriously. Like he was a guy who didn’t care about much with any great depth.
And then in a flash she would witness a moment of deep, aching sadness that she didn’t think matched anything she’d ever felt in her whole life.
She was seeing it now. And it made her wonder if it was there all the time, kept under everything else, but there.
It was terrifying to her. She wasn’t sure why, only that it was.
There was a knock at the door and she jumped. “The food.” She turned and went to the door, took the order and paid as quickly as possible. Then she went into the kitchen and started setting the boxes out on the counter. “Oh, good. Paper plates and plastic utensils in here. And...want to open a bottle of wine?”
“That would be good.” He got up from the couch and walked into the little kitchen, filling up the space even more alarmingly than he’d filled up the couch.
“Everything for that is in the cupboard by the fridge, including the aerator.”
“Aerator. That’s pretty fancy considering we have paper plates.”
“Yeah, well, we’re celebrating,” she said, dishing rice, chicken tikka masala and naan onto their plates.
“What are we celebrating?” he asked, turning the corkscrew, then tugging the cork out before pouring the wine. He’d skipped the aerator but she wouldn’t be shrewish about it.
“Good sex,” she said. “Which is a lot rarer than you might think.”
“Yeah?” he asked, tipping the glass of wine up to his lips.
“I’ve never had it before you.”
He snorted into his wineglass and sent several droplets of dark red over the edge of the glass. “Really?” he asked, coughing.
“I’ve had okay sex. I’ve had orgasms but...you know I can give those to myself. Have been for six months now. Batteries are cheaper than men, I find.”
She didn’t know why she was telling him this stuff. Normally she’d be embarrassed. But the guy had just bent her over a table so there wasn’t really much to be embarrassed about at this point.
He poured a glass of wine for her, and handed it over. “Where do you eat?” he asked.
“The couch,” she said. “That’s what the coffee table is for. This place is the size of a goldfish bowl so I find less furniture is better.”
They took their plates into the living room and he sat on the couch. She eyeballed it, and the little wedge of space left for her. David hadn’t taken up so much space, that was for sure.
She let out a breath and sat down next to him, their thighs touching.
“So tell me about the previous sex, which was bad,” he said.
“Uh...not bad. Just...not remarkable. I had a boyfriend in college who was young. You know what I mean by that.”
“Fast?”
“Very.”
“And after that?”
“Two years of celibacy, followed by David. Who I was with for five years. I lived with him for a while. Which I think was kind of the beginning of the end. He was like a fixture, and so was I. And you stop looking at fixtures, especially when you’re busy. And you?”
He took a bite of his rice and looked away. “Before you, I hadn’t had sex in six years.”