Risk Tolerance #5
“Excuse us,” Aleksandr says to the woman. “Give my regards to your father.”
Sitting down, Lili watches the woman return to her table. She looks back over her shoulder at Aleksandr once with confused
interest.
“Pretty,” Lili grumbles.
Aleksandr smiles as takes his seat beside her. “Like you said, it’s not as if this is a date.”
“Funny, I think I still have your come dripping down my thighs,” she snaps back.
Under the cast of amusement, his gaze darkens. “Good,” he says. “Take your underwear off.”
Lili stiffens. “Absolutely not.”
Aleksandr leans back, surveying the dining room. “Let’s play a game, then. That younger waiter either thinks this is a date,
or you’re my daughter.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We look nothing alike.”
“Take the second bet, then, if you think your odds are better. He thinks this is dinner with your father.”
Lili snorts. “You’re exaggerating.”
“I’ll prove it. When I do, your underwear comes off.”
Catching the sommelier’s attention, Aleksandr gestures, perfunctory and confident, for another bottle of wine. One of their
waiters—young twenties, earnest—is over fast with a fresh bottle.
“Anything we’re celebrating tonight?” he asks, uncorking the wine. “We have a lot of families with us for graduation.”
“Master’s thesis,” Lili volunteers.
“Congratulations!” he replies with a warm, genuine smile, as he fills her glass.
“We’re so proud of her,” Aleksandr says. Lili shoots him a stern look.
“Out to dinner with Dad to celebrate?”
Aleksandr’s victorious grin is absurd. “Yes, I had to take advantage.”
Under the table, Lili kicks him, aiming high, but he grabs her ankle, unperturbed and smiling. “Please let us know if there’s
anything else we can do for you,” their waiter says, oblivious, as he finishes pouring their wine. Aleksandr strokes Lili’s
ankle. “Anything to make the evening special, anything at all. Your next course will be right out.”
As soon as the waiter’s gone, Aleksandr lets go of her ankle. “Off, Lili.”
“That was cheating,” she hisses.
“We didn’t establish any rules. Off.”
Lili grimaces. She shoots a look around—hates losing—but slips her underwear down her thighs. Snatching the scrap of lace, she stashes it in his pocket and scowls, crossing
her legs.
Under the table, Aleksandr’s hand comes to her knee. “Thighs open.”
“Don’t be a sore winner,” she hisses.
“Don’t be a bitter loser.”
“That wasn’t fair,” she fumes.
His grin grows. “Only play games you know you can win, Lili.”
Lili has always loved challenges. She finds she likes this challenge—likes him—more than she should.
Throughout dinner, she forces herself to keep her smile strong, responses clever, laugh sharp, and thighs open, daring him.
It is excruciating: making conversation, interacting with the staff, keeping her heart rate level against the buzz of laughter,
bright eyes, fresh plates, wine. All the while, the weight of his hand is warm on her thigh, fingers tracing patterns across
her bare skin, pushing higher when their waiter returns to clear their plates.
“Lili?”
“What?” Blurring, she’s unclear on what the waiter must have asked, expectant look.
“Dessert, Lili,” Aleksandr repeats patiently. “Would you like dessert?”
“No—no dessert,” she grits out, as his hand moves higher again, unseen under the table. “No, I’m fine.”
As soon as they’re alone again—just a moment, still surrounded by so many people—she slumps back in her seat. It’s dim under the secretive glow of candles, and she feels keyed to every flicker of his glance, each brush of his fingers, every calm inhale.
“Aleksandr,” she breathes.
“Yes?” He tilts his head, examining her. Feigning curiosity, but with a knowing gleam.
His calm infuriates her.
Grasping his wrist, Lili pushes his hand further up.
“Take me home,” she whispers, almost angry with arousal. “Now.”
It’s fast—a wave, the check, an authoritative scrawl of his signature. Standing up, the hem of her dress falls past her knees
again. Aleksandr’s much larger hand takes hers, fingers slipping between her own, leading her out of the restaurant.
It starts to rain again as they wait for his car to come around. Lili musters a laugh, looking up at the dark sky, heavy clouds
churning. Rain falls over her face, soft but she can feel her hair starting to unravel in its humidity.
“No break, huh?” she comments ruefully, glancing at Aleksandr.
It’s not entirely clear or kind, the way he’s looking at her: an intent, intense focus that doesn’t quite resolve. It resists
interpretation as lust, and she can’t understand it through the haze of alcohol.
“What?” Lili says, curious. “What are you looking at?”
A sudden hint of tension tightens in his jaw. He glances down the street as the car arrives.
“Nothing.”
They’re in the car—Aleksandr waving his driver aside, holding the door open for her instead—before she can let that faint
twist of unease curl into more.
With a gentle hum of acceleration, the Maybach pulls into traffic. Settling against the leather, Lili shifts closer towards
Aleksandr. There’s a lull of alcohol in her, letting her head loll slightly. Smoothing her hand over the front of his shirt,
she toys with the buttons.
It’s slow. A delicate, strange anticipation threads through Lili, as he glances down to her mouth. Tension gathers in her
shoulders, a source she can’t quite place. Maybe she should ask him to drop her off at her place, she thinks. Maybe she should
head home. Her lips part, hesitating, wondering—
Leaning down, Aleksandr kisses her, lips just barely brushing hers.
There’s a quick flick in her periphery, as he draws the partition up, and then his hand is sliding up her leg, broad enough to cover her whole thigh.
His fingers slip inside of her, and her gasp falls into his mouth.
“Wait,” she whispers, “your driver—he can still hear—”
“Be quiet then,” Aleksandr says. “I’ve waited long enough.”
She’d never thought of restraint—discipline—as dangerous, but whatever restraint he’d exercised at the restaurant—absurd,
annoying, antagonizing—tightens into something darker. It’s exacting, unfair: touching her like this. She’s wet and warm and
aching, and he starts edging her into incoherence.
Every drag of his fingertips. Every brush of his knuckles. This lightness of his touch feels severe. With slow circles, he
brews agitation inside her, like what she felt alone in his apartment, beaten under the heat of showers, caught in the hurricane.
But he doesn’t—he doesn’t let her have anything.
Each time her thighs begin to shake—there, there, the taste of some release, almost there—Aleksandr draws his fingers away, touch lightening to something so faint it feels painful. So careful to not let his ring
brush against her, excruciatingly mindful to not let enough friction build. A booming thud of blood rushes to her head, a
slow-fast spiral of pleasure rising and receding along her spine.
Every time the car stops at a red light, the muffled noise of standstill downtown traffic, nighttime crowds, Lili wants to
scream.
Clumsy, she finally tries to reach for him, palming at the outline of him in his trousers.
She hears the shape of his laugh, cold. It makes her crave difficult things: dark, brutal—release, roughness; bleach that
could wipe away the buzz of half-complete thoughts: Why isn’t he touching her more?
“What’s wrong, Lili?” His voice is so low it draws a further ache in her abdomen. “Is there something you want?”
A dangerous tightness has slipped under the shape of his vowels and slope of his consonants, she registers distantly. Confused
and overwhelmed, she buries her face in the crook of his neck, trying to breathe.
A grip instantly tightens in her hair.
“No,” Aleksandr reprimands, pulling her head back. “You’re going to have to use your words.”
She attempts to say something, she does, but words are hard—words are disappearing—words, words—
Just a bit harder, his hand moves just a little faster, the flex of his fingers barely conjuring friction with how wet she
is. The hitch of her soft moan breaks into a sob. Kept on edge for too long, pleasure starts slipping away from her. She tries
to catch it with the curl of her toes, tears rising, the seize of her fingers in his shirt.
“Words, Lili,” he growls. She’s never noticed, not really, how he says her name—intimate, like he’s undressing her—but now
laced with this tight heat of near-anger, this harsh texture of almost-bitterness, like she’s done something wrong.
Before she can gather her voice—before she can gather the strength retreating to the edges of her and assert that he will give this to her, she hasn’t done anything wrong—the car slows to a stop. A frustrated sound escapes her throat.
A suit jacket is thrown over her shoulders. Rain gleams on wet pavement, a hand in hers, the balance of her heels on cobblestones.
Pressed into his side, she can’t see much beyond the blur of what she’s trying to hold onto in her body.
The elevator dings open, the familiar loft, comfort of that wide-open room. Led down the hall, into his bedroom, with the
relief that finally, they’re here, finally home.
Her body seems to follow a few seconds before her mind, or a few seconds after: distilling, drifting—disoriented with frustration—disconnecting,
then jolting back, sudden and sharp, in time to the hot, hard press of his mouth against her skin, leaving open-mouthed kisses
on top of her breasts—
Silk slips off her shoulders, and her dress pools at her feet. She’s reaching for him, but he won’t kiss her lips. Alcohol,
the looseness of her thoughts, the skip of shame and neediness cloud into something noxious—why doesn’t he seem to want her
like she wants him?
“Sasha,” Lili whispers, grasping at his name. She’s enough, isn’t she? She can ask this, can’t she? “Sasha, please . . . kiss
me—I need you to—”