Chapter 13 Melbourne
MELBOURNE
ALEXANDER
When Sage comes in at nine p.m., Julian and I are playing chess.
I wish I were kicking his arse, looking like a genius, but we’re matched in skill.
As points go, we’re even. But the look on Sage’s face as she strolls over and folds her arms—gazing at the board, then me, with disapproval—makes me feel I could lose more than the match.
“Ain’t this a pretty picture,” she says with sarcasm.
I ignore her sour tone and offer a smile. “How was your day, my seraph?”
She doesn’t reply, watching Julian as he studies the board. I can’t tell if he’s ignoring her or lost in thought. Priya appears just inside the doorway of the small second bedroom, looking out and sizing us up.
She balances one foot on the opposite calf in a yoga-like pose. “Hey, Sage.”
“Oh, hey,” Sage responds. Her tone is light, but more embarrassed than aloof, like she wants to say more but is afraid to. She plucks my king off the board and tickles my earlobe with it. “Gonna take a shower. You should join me, honeybee.”
Julian looks up from the board with a scowl. “Hey, put that down.”
Sage backs away with a lazy smile and underhand-tosses the piece to him, forcing him to catch it against his chest. “Just gave you a win. You’re welcome.
” She saunters toward the primary bedroom, and I can’t resist watching that round little arse of hers.
She throws a bit of extra hip sway into it as if she knows. “You coming, Sandy-boy?”
“At your command.” I tip a helpless shrug at Julian as I rise and follow Sage to the bedroom.
The moment I’m through the doorway, she grabs me by the front of my shirt and yanks it open, sending a stray button flying. She pauses to look out into the living room as if remembering other people are here, then swings the door shut.
Smoothing a hand down my gaping shirtfront, she winces. “Sorry ’bout that. I’ll buy you a new one.” With an exhausted sigh, she goes and flops down at the foot of the bed.
“No need, pet. I’ve plenty more.” I sink my hands into my pockets and watch her stiff posture. “But… a suggestion?”
She looks up, expression flat and defensive.
“Rather than putting on a ridiculous show”—I nod sideways toward the closed bedroom door—“and announcing a communal shower on which you most certainly don’t plan to deliver, why don’t you go talk to Priya and clear the air? The tension is—”
“Urrrggghhh,” she moans, flopping back onto the bed and throwing her arms wide. “Not now, for fuck’s sake. I’m tired, okay? I’ll bury the hatchet tomorrow. Right now I just want, uh…” She peeks at me, then drops her head again, sighing. “Like, no stress.”
“I wonder if you’re not making things harder for yourself unnecessarily.”
“I wonder if I asked your opinion,” she returns, sitting up. She pries off her still-tied shoes and flings them toward an untidy pile of clothing in a corner.
The level of wreckage in this bedroom is as if Sage has been squatting here for weeks: clothing, shoes, books and magazines, food wrappers, empty cups, styling tools and products, and—inexplicably—a dented papier-maché bust of Saint Nicholas, wearing a pair of Sage’s sunglasses.
I open a hand at it, changing the subject so Sage doesn’t get stroppy and ask me to leave. “Story there?”
“Saw it in the trash outside a vintage store. They were just throwing it away!” She stands and heads for the en suite. “I gotta rinse off, honeybee. Make yourself at home.”
While she’s off-key belting out Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun” under the spray, I indulge in a bit of snooping.
The magazines—battered copies of Startling Stories and Weird Tales—were clearly bought at whatever vintage shop was discarding the alarming St. Nick.
There’s a half-finished newspaper sudoku puzzle.
Protein bar wrappers and empty alkaline water bottles. So many rumpled clothes.
Hanging off a wardrobe pull is a red satin brassiere, which I pick up to check the measurement. As I’m grasping the tag between my fingers, Sage’s voice pipes up behind me.
“Thirty-six double-A, babes. Small boobs, but a sizable rib cage.” She thumps a fist against her chest. “Strong as an ox.”
Her hair is piled on top of her head, secured with a clip shaped like a slice of lemon, and she’s wearing a white cotton camisole and men’s boxers that read THE FAMILY JEWELS amidst a pattern of silver-glitter gems. The shirt fabric is so thin that for a moment I can’t tear my eyes from the tea-rose outline of her areolae and nipples.
She does a slow catwalk toward me, shoulders held regally. Her scrubbed skin is faintly pink. She stops inches away, and a tempting whiff of piquant, soapy warmth hits me.
“I had a fun idea just now in the shower,” she tells me.
“You may not want to know where my mind went when you said that,” I tease.
“Oooorrrrrrr… that may be exactly where I wanted it to go.” She runs a finger along my shirt placket where the button is missing.
Glancing at my eyes to gauge my response, she shifts the fingertip to my skin, tracing down my sternum.
“This is a nice chest you’re always showing off with your disco-level unbuttoning habits. ”
“Saucy girl. ‘Disco’ indeed.”
I move my left hand to her hair, open the jaws of the hair clip, and drop it. Sage’s eyes go wide, and her breath catches.
“Is this allowed?” I comb my fingers through her steam-dampened tresses. “I’m not sure what you want tonight.” I brush my knuckles along her tattooed neck and her eyes drop closed. “Pleasure? Or just to take the piss with Priya and make her think there’s something between us?”
She sways a little on her feet and grasps the front of my shirt. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what you want?”
She fixes me in the beam of those coppery eyes.
“Don’t know if there’s something between us.
” She pushes my suit jacket off and steps close, pressing against me.
Those delectable nipples of hers prod my torso, and desire rolls through me.
My body is electric with the urge to pick her up and carry her to the bed, and my cock goes into high alert with a potent sensation like a good, strong stretch.
“I think maybe what I want,” she tells me, “is for people two floors in either direction to be envious of the time we’re having.” She lifts her arms and drapes them over my shoulders, caressing the hair at the nape of my neck.
“Disingenuous theatrics. You’re playing a dangerous game, sweet Salvi, teasing me if you’ve no intention of following through.” I don’t like how the words sound like a threat, but I’m too self-conscious to qualify it and admit that what I mean is You’re playing a dangerous game with my heart.
Fortunately, she laughs, then affects a wide-eyed pout. “Who says I won’t fuck you senseless?”
I grab her narrow hips and pull her against me. “You’re a brat.”
She looks pleasantly startled. “Goddamn, Sandy. Just what are you packing down there?” She takes a half step back, her hungry gaze raking me.
“So, back to my idea in the shower.” She angles toward me and whispers, “I want to give you a lap dance.” Whatever my face does makes her laugh.
“What, have you never had one? Don’t tell me you’re one of those boys who’s uptight about strip clubs. ”
“I’m… No, it’s not that. I’m just surprised. Though maybe I shouldn’t be. You did say, back in the airport in Bahrain, that you plan to torture me.”
She gives a mock-indignant scowl. “You think I’m going to be that terrible at it?”
“On the contrary, I think you’ve found the way to break me, as promised.”
“Hmm, maybe so. But more than anything I want to show off how good a dancer I am, after weeks of you teasing me about being graceless just ’cause I can’t tap dance.
” She drops her voice, parodying me in an accent so Northern that it’d dull the edge of a pocketknife.
“‘Clumsy as a fuckin’ buffalo, you’—I believe that’s how you put it. ”
I can’t suppress my laugh. “I don’t sound like that!”
She taps the tip of my nose, singsonging, “You do when you let your guard down…”
“Fuckin’ hell.”
“See?” She points at me, grinning.
Seized by a wave of ease with her, I grasp the hem of her shirt. “I like you, Salvi. I do feel unguarded when I’m with you.” I move one thumb to caress the taut curve of her waist. “I hope you feel similarly. Whatever we’re to be. Friends, or…”
I’m not sure what “more than friends” might be, so I leave it there. Julian warned me that Sage’s lovers have a short shelf life. The thought makes me sad, and I wonder if I should tap the brakes on where we’re headed.
The deed done, I may find myself on the next flight out of Melbourne. Would it be better if we stay in a holding pattern of perpetual sexual tension, like television shows that drag out an attraction between its lead actors for years, knowing that consummation will kill the series?
Her hands creep up the back of my shirt.
“I don’t need to know if we’re gonna ‘be’ anything.
I like uncertainty. Risk. Living in the moment.
” Her short nails curl against my spine.
“Would I do my job as well as I do if I couldn’t roll with surprises?
Now…” She prods me backward toward the wing chair and shoves my solar plexus.
I collapse onto the padded velvet seat. “Sit, and stay.” She bends at the waist, whispering, “Good boy. Time for you to get a treat.”
Fuck—my will all but goes liquid after she says it. My heart hammers and all I can do is grip the chair arms, in a figurative sweat of anticipation for what she’ll get up to next, the delicious bossy thing.
“I’m in your hands, mistress,” I tell her.
She studies me a moment longer, then goes to her bedside table and powers on a Bluetooth speaker before picking up her phone and scrolling. A familiar bass-heavy pop song starts up, and Sage wanders back my way.
“Gimme your shirt,” she commands with a smirk.