Chapter Four
ISOBEL
Boston
Checking my watch, I noted the time. Way too fucking early. That was the official time. But really, it was 6:42 am. It was still too fucking early to be awake, dressed—in hindsight, I should have worn something other than a pencil skirt—and waiting in the lobby of my apartment building for Adrian on a Saturday morning.
Saturday was the day I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in, and this conference ruined it. Usually, I’d wake up at 9:00, walk to the café down the street for a latte at 10:00, and spend at least two hours reading something I wanted to read instead of what I was paid to read.
I couldn’t complain. I got paid to do what I loved, but there was a difference between reading for pleasure and reading in editing mode. Half the time, once we got to the proofing stage, I wasn’t absorbing the content of what I was reading; I was just scanning for grammatical flow and spelling errors.
My phone chimed in my pocket at precisely 6:45, so I grabbed the handle of my luggage and walked toward the front entrance, where I could see a black sedan idling in the loading zone. At least he was on time since he made me wake up this early. Just because conference registration began at noon didn’t mean we had to be there at noon.
I would have been fine showing up at 2:30 and slipping upstairs to take a power nap before the arrival dinner started at 5:00 .
But clearly, Adrian was one of those obnoxious morning people.
“Good morning, gorgeous. You look nice.” He exited the driver’s seat and jogged around the back of the car, popping the trunk and meeting me on the sidewalk.
“Hmm,” I hummed, letting him take the handle from me to stow my suitcase next to his in the open trunk. His black leather messenger bag was neatly placed next to his sleek black luggage, not a scuff to be found. Knowing him, that thing was probably cleaned and polished every week. Mine was only wiped down if I spilled something on it.
“Ah, not a morning person,” Adrian chuckled while he stepped around me and held open the passenger door.
“Please don’t say something stupid like ‘your chariot awaits, milady.’ I don’t have the patience for it this morning,” I grumbled, bracing my hand on the door frame, climbing into the car, and dragging my purse and messenger bag with me.
Adrian closed the door and made his way to the driver’s seat, glancing over at what I was sure was a frown on my face.
“Wow, remind me not to try to talk to you before 9:00.”
“That’d be ideal,” I agreed. “Let’s just plan on that. You don’t talk to me until then, and I go back to sleep. Like I should be right now.”
“So, you don’t want the coffee I picked up for you?”
Glancing at the cup holders, I saw two paper travel cups with steam built up at the opening of the lid. “What kind of coffee?”
“Don’t sound so skeptical. I’m capable of being observant. It’s a skinny mocha latte with one pump of sugar-free vanilla and one pump of sugar-free caramel. Two Stevias.”
Adrian started laughing at my gob smacked expression. My shock at him, somehow, knowing my coffee order, was surely plastered across my face.
“Have you been stalking me? That’s creepy. Even for you.”
“Nah, I’m just that good,” he teased with a wink .
Narrowing my eyes, I looked down at the other cup, turning it to inspect the label, when his hand moved to cover mine, guiding it to the correct cup.
“I asked Andrea what you order when she does the coffee runs.”
“Still a bit creepy, but coffee is coffee, so thank you.” This kind of thoughtfulness from him wasn’t anticipated, but I’d take it.
“No problem. I was getting myself one and figured you’d appreciate it. Do we need to stop anywhere before we get on the highway?”
Turning to study his profile, I took in the neatly trimmed stubble, the crisp button-down shirt, then focused on the label of the other coffee in the cup holder to see if I could guess his order.
“Are you one of those morning people who only drink black coffee? Is that why you’re such a dick? Because you drink the coffee of serial killers and don’t load it up with fake sugar like a normal person?”
Adrian shook his head as he put on his turn indicator, pulled into traffic, grabbed his cup, and took a generous sip before glancing at me briefly. “No, I drink tea in the morning, with real sugar and heavy cream. No serial killer coffee for me. But it’s nice to know how much of a monster you think I am.”
Stunned at his confession, I picked at the label on my cup, suddenly feeling guilty that I aimed this much animosity toward him. We clearly had our differences, but he was being kind for once, and maybe I’d misjudged him a little.
“Sorry. I’m not much of a morning person.”
“Yah don’t say,” he teased with a smirk before returning his attention to the early morning traffic. “I never would have guessed that. You have such a pleasant demeanor before dawn.”
Thankfully, since it was ungodly early on the weekend, it didn’t take us long to get on 95 headed north out of Boston. Four and a half hours in a car with him would surely test my patience. The small space was filled with the aroma of his cologne tinged with a hint of something sharp, likely his aftershave.
I’d noticed before that he smelled nice, but to sit in an enclosed space concentrated with it was sensory overload. Add in the thoughtful coffee provisions, and I was at a loss. He’d dragged me out of my apartment way too early to harbor fond feelings for him.
“What are your thoughts on chocolate hazelnut croissants?”
My mouth watered at the suggestion. I was a slut for croissants. “Are you asking because you have some or want to stop somewhere to buy them? Because we’re less than a half-hour into an almost five-hour trip, which means we should probably keep driving.”
“Because I might have a paper bag tucked behind my seat with two. But if you don’t want one, I’m sure I can save it for breakfast in the morning. You never know if the continental breakfast will be dodgy at these things.”
Before he even finished talking, I was leaning over the console, my fingers reaching for the brown paper bag that was barely visible in the dim lighting of the car.
“So, what are you having for breakfast?“ I asked, opening the bag and holding it up to my face, the heady scent of fresh pastry laced with rich chocolate wafting into my nose.
“How experienced with hitchhiking are you ?“ He smirked, glancing at me. “Because if you steal my croissant, you’ll need to hitchhike the rest of the way. You might want to cover up the high beams under that sweater, or you’ll be sending the wrong message.”
“So that’s a yes to eating both croissants?”
“I brought you breakfast and coffee. Don’t test me. I’ll pull this car over and put you over my knee,” he chuckled, reaching over to snatch the bag from me.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Putting you over my knee?” He smirked while he pulled a croissant from the bag and placed it back on my lap. He took a large bite of his, talking with his mouth full. “I’m sure you’d like it more than I would, but sometimes all you need to put yourself in a good mood in the morning is a good open palm spanking.”
“You get spanked often?” Taking a bite of the flaky pastry, I tried to hold in a moan, but was unsuccessful in my attempt. “Oh my god, this is amazing.”
“Took you long enough to moan like that around me. You’re welcome.” Adrian shoved the rest of what was left of his into his mouth, moaning as he chewed. “Mmm. This is almost better than sex.“ He paused, licking his fingers. “ Almost . But to answer your question, no, it’s been a while since I had a good spanking.”
My eyes widened, not expecting that comment, but I wasn’t sure if I even remembered sex. It hadn’t just been a while. It’d been years. Probably nearing three if I had to narrow it down, and only if oral counted. I’d stopped keeping track after the first year.
It wasn’t that I was holding out or anything, but with my work hours, the thought of dating made me want to pull my hair out. I’d been there, done that, and had the divorce papers stowed in my safe to prove it. I wasn’t even sure how to use a dating app. My few failed attempts at dating another man had been from good old-fashioned talking to semi-intoxicated strangers in a dark bar.
Sometimes I wondered if I’d peaked early. My parents hadn’t batted an eye when I got married right out of undergrad, and my sisters were already married by twenty. At least I finished my degree first. Grant had been another English major at Cornell, and we’d been the cliche couple. Met the first day of orientation, dated all four undergrad years, and had the stereotypical proposal at Christmas during senior year. Followed by a small wedding the following summer where my parents complained the entire time that I dared to get married in New York instead of Iowa.
We’d been happy, but I hadn’t known anything different. It wasn’t until I started my graduate classes at Boston College, when he started talking about having a family, that things began to change.
Two years later—after endless nights of bickering because sex had become a chore, a few devastating miscarriages followed by a slew of negative pregnancy tests, and a graduate degree—Grant asked for a divorce. He wanted to cut his losses if I couldn’t provide the perfect family he wanted. Adrian often reminded me of a younger Grant, cocky, a little bit rude—the loveable asshole. Maybe that was why I disliked him so much. I’d been through his type once and wasn’t sure I needed a repeat. Not that he was interested in me like that. But someone like him…they had the potential to break me.
“You’re quiet all of a sudden. Should I be worried?” Adrian asked, staring out the windshield at the sun that’d started to just barely peek above the horizon line. “Was it the croissant sex reference? Although, on second thought, if you combined the two, you wouldn’t have to choose. But you would have crumbs in the sheets, so that might be a deal-breaker.”
“Just thinking.” I interrupted his rambling line of commentary. He could be witty when he wanted to, but the problem was, he never wanted to. He’d rather remain on brand and be a dick. “You might want to try it sometime. Especially when you’re about to start talking.”
“As long as you’re not plotting my murder, we’re good.”
“Not yet. But it’s early. Anything can happen,” I replied with a wink when he glanced over at me.
“Are you alright with stopping for lunch when we hit Brunswick? Or are you one of those people who power through a road trip without stopping?”
“Depends on who’s buying.”
“Considering we’re on a work-related trip, I’d say Vivid is buying. Sloane did say we have a daily stipend.”
“Well, I’m going to get some work done while you’re driving, if you don’t mind. I have a few proofs I need to look over.” And I wanted to avoid talking for now. Our conversations usually felt more like a boxing match than anything else, so it’d be better if we didn’t tempt fate.
“Go for it.” He reached over and pressed a few buttons on the touchscreen in the console, and soft rock music filled the car. Somehow, I knew he’d be a Springsteen man.
Disappearing into my tablet for a few hours, I didn’t realize how far we’d come until the car decelerated, and Adrian took an exit leading us toward the water. It was chilly, but still a sunny day, and the water sparkled as he crossed a bridge that took us over some half-frozen marshland.
“Where are we going?”
He smiled, nodding toward a building that looked like a fishing shack, suspended over the water with a questionable-looking dock coming right up to the road.
“I know we don’t always get along, but was it necessary to drag me out of bed before dawn and drive me to the middle of nowhere to dispose of my body? You could have at least let me sleep in.”
“If I were going to be doing anything with your body, it wouldn’t involve disposing of it,” he chuckled, pulling off along the side of the road onto the gravel shoulder. “I hope you like fresh lobster.”
“I do like lobster, but don’t feel like needing a tetanus shot to buy it.” Two fishing boats were moored at the side of the building with chipped paint and lobster cages stacked up on the deck. “Are they even open?”
He reached behind me, pulling his jacket off the back seat. “Yes.”
“Where did you find this place? Serialkillerlairs.com? This looks like a sketchy location to dump bodies from one of your authors’ novels.”
“Are you always this uptight?” His smile was teasing and a little disarming. Why did he have to be so damn attractive? It wasn’t fair. His face did things to my lady parts. It was the mouth that made me want to kick him. Repeatedly. In the crotch.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t answer mine.”
He shook his head as he pulled the handle on his door, stepping out and closing the door behind him.
I stowed my tablet in my bag, pulling out my wallet and the cardigan I’d tucked inside.
Before I could reach for the car door handle, Adrian pulled it open and extended his hand to help me out. At least I’d skipped the heels this morning, my sensible flats crunching on the gravel as he pulled me from the car.
“Thanks.”
“I’m not always a dick,“ he whispered, taking my cardigan from my hand and holding it open for me to put my arms into the sleeves. “Just most of the time.”
I shivered, not from the cold, crisp ocean air but the proximity of his large, warm body behind me.
“Maybe there’s a gentleman hidden in there after all. He’s just deep, deep inside.”
“ That’s what she said, “ he chuckled before he stepped away and gestured with his head toward the dock. I hadn’t anticipated him being a fan of The Office , but Adrian was full of surprises this morning.
“Or does she have to ask if it’s even in?” I teased, falling into step behind him. “There’s no shame if she does, but maybe your definition of deep differs from hers.”
He glanced at me with an amused smirk, not rising to take the bait. At least, I didn’t think he had, until he pulled open the wooden door to the building and gestured for me to enter.
“Trust me. She wouldn’t have to question with me. She’d know precisely how deep I was.“ Well, okay then. “Yelp. I found the restaurant on Yelp, not the dark web. People raved about the lobster roll,” he confessed while the door closed behind us. “And rumor is their blueberry crumble is orgasmic. At least according to one reviewer. She didn’t have the same flair for words as some of your authors, but it was a compelling story of their positive attributes, despite the outward exterior of the building not matching the caliber of the menu.”
Adrian’s positive attributes were starting to not match the dickish exterior, so maybe there was something to be said about trusting what was on the inside. I wasn’t even acknowledging his emphasis on the word she as if he meant me.
But I knew Maine was famous for two things: lobster and blueberries. So hopefully, I didn’t end up with food poisoning from the former, and the Yelp reviews didn’t lead Adrian astray on the latter.
As we reached the end of a narrow hallway, enormous glass paneled garage doors lined the wall that overlooked the water. The place was large and open, with high, sloped ceilings and slow-moving fans dotted throughout the dining area. Worn wood floors stretched the room, clearly restored.
It certainly kept the vibe of an old fishery, but it wasn’t as scary as it looked from the outside.
“Will this work?” Adrian asked, leading us to a small table with two chairs that overlooked the water.
“You’re full of surprises today,” I commented, looking out over the nearly frozen bay. Having grown up in a small town as flat as the water appeared outside and surrounded by cornfields, I was still stunned by the natural beauty of New England, despite having been in the region for over a decade.
“Maybe I’m just surprising you because you buy into the perception of others. Sometimes when you get to know someone beneath all the layers they hide behind, their personality isn’t what it seems.”
“Are we going to pretend that you don’t actively antagonize people in the office? Because if I were the only one who noticed it, you wouldn’t have half the staff on our floor referring to you as Dickhead.”
“I never said that. I’ll own up to being a dick,” he chuckled, sitting back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest. I hadn’t noticed it in the dark, but an enticing patch of dark hair peeked above the buttons of his open collar. “But despite my giant dick, there is more to me than meets the eye.”
While I would have expected him to be vain enough to wax or shave his chest, seeing it sent a wave of something I couldn’t quite identify through my system. But my physical attraction to Adrian had never been surprising. It was his behavior that’d formed my intense dislike toward him.
“I’ll take your word for it. You can keep the supposedly giant dork, I mean dick, to yourself.”
The server interrupted what I was sure would be a riveting conversation laced liberally with the word dick, telling us the specials for the day.
“The lobstah rolls are amazin’, but owah chowdah just won a few awahds this past summah at the local food festival. And the oystah plattah is top-natch.”
Even after living in Boston for nearly a decade, it still took my brain a second to catch up to the New England accent sometimes. Adrian smirked knowingly at my confused expression, sensing I was still trying to translate what she’d said in my head.
“We’ll take two rolls, two cups-a chowdah, and a small oystah plattah to share. Just a wattah to drink,” Adrian ordered without hesitation, dropping seamlessly into his natural accent.
I tried to contain my blush as she walked away, but he’d totally caught me.
“That shoulda been a piece of cake to you by now,” he teased, reaching forward to snag his glass and take a long drink. I watched his throat flex as he swallowed and then averted my eyes to the frozen waterfront outside while he licked the remaining moisture from his top lip.
“What if I don’t like oysters?”
He let out a loud laugh. “Who doesn’t like oysters? They’re like slippery little slices of ambrosia.”
“You probably just like them because they’re supposed to make you horny.”
“Now, who’s the crass one?” Adrian laughed, that annoying smirk out in full force.
“Well, the high zinc content and amino acids found in oysters are supposed to increase your dopamine levels, which increases libido, and I don’t think yours needs any encouragement.”
Luckily, the server returned with our food before I could throw out any more of the fun, useless facts I had crammed into my brain and filled every inch of the surface of our table with amazing-smelling Maine cuisine.
“I’m not sure I even know how to eat an oyster,” I confessed as she walked away.
“That’s half the fun,” Adrian winked, reaching toward the metal platter in the center of the table. He carefully picked up one of the small half-shells, taking a little fork from the side of the platter and slowly running it along the underside of the delicate meat in the center.
“First, you need to be very gentle with them. Oysters are meant to be savored.”
Goosebumps cropped up on the back of my neck at the lowered tone of his voice and how he looked at me through half-lidded eyes. It made me wonder if explaining oyster consumption was turning into some seduction routine. Or the more disturbing thought that this was part of his usual repertoire.
“When you pick one up…” I was mesmerized by the gentleness in his quiet voice as he leaned down and studied the oyster in his fingers. “… be very careful not to tip it. The liquid around the oyster is where half the flavor comes from. It keeps the center juicy, and you know how important it is that the center stays wet .”
Something was involuntarily getting wet at the low tenor of his voice.
“Then you don’t just suck it down like a Neanderthal and swallow, although that method does have its merits.” He winked with a gleam in his eyes .
“Are we still talking about oysters here?”
“Mind in the gutter, Isobel?”
“You know what you’re doing,” I laughed, his enjoyment at my squirming evident in his gaze.
“It’s not my fault you have a dirty mind. I’m just over here trying to savor my lunch.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Anyway, as I was saying, before your one-track mind interrupted me…” He brought the shell to his mouth, gently tipping it back and sucking the contents of the oyster into his mouth—humming as his eyes closed briefly. His jaw flexed, chewing once before swallowing, making eye contact with me as he returned the empty shell to the table. “Slowly suck it into your mouth and feel its weight on your tongue. Have it sit there for a moment—letting the flavor flood your palate—and when it explodes, swallow.”
“Sounds like your oyster might be short on the trigger if it explodes after just a moment.”
“Just pick up the oyster, smartass. I’ll help you.” Gently placing one oyster into my hand, Adrian’s warm palm covered the back of my hand as he pressed the tiny fork into my other. “Don’t stab it. Slide the tines underneath the edge of the meat and slowly scrape it loose.”
His larger hands guided mine in gentle movements until I felt the center give.
“Now, close your eyes and open your mouth.” He grinned widely when I frowned at him. “Just trust me for once.”
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and slowly parted my lips, waiting semi-patiently as Adrian lifted our joined hands to place the tip of the shell at my lips.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly parched.
“Are you ready for me?” he asked in a rough whisper, and I licked my lips, swallowing again as I let my jaw relax. “Good girl. Here it comes.”
This was not how I expected spending my lunch today when I was rudely dragged out of my apartment this morning under duress. I thought Adrian would be a jerk on the car ride to Bar Harbor, and I’d be forced to sit in angry tension with him in the car for nearly five hours.
Three hours into our trip, and I was being taught how to eat oysters in a strangely erotic display of skill inside a building I’d thought was a murder shed.
As I held my breath, waiting for him to tip the oyster shell, my mouth suddenly flooded with a rush of savory flavors I wasn’t sure I could describe properly. I kept my eyes closed, doing as he said and savoring the tang of the oyster meat on my tongue. He was right. The oysters were delicious.
“One bite,” he instructed, taking the shell from my hand and lightly touching my chin with his finger, encouraging me to chew.
Another burst of flavor spread through my mouth; the rich nutty flavor mixed with the saltiness, causing me to groan as I bit down.
“Swallow,” Adrian coaxed as I opened my eyes, almost startled by the intensity of his gaze when they focused on his across the table. “Fuckin’ amazing, right?”
Nervously lifting my napkin, I dabbed at my wet lips, nodding. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am,” he chuckled, grabbing another shell from the plate and quickly downing another before winking at me like the last two minutes hadn’t been some bizarre culinary foreplay. “Make sure to save room for that crumble. Rumor has it they make their cream fresh.”
And my mind plummeted back into the gutter at the other variety of fresh cream I knew watching Adrian teach me how to eat oysters had inspired. This unwanted physical attraction to him had become a nuisance once the dickish behavior was taken out of the picture. I had the feeling this trip would either cement my hatred—or at least major distaste—for him, or my physical attraction to him would turn into something else.