20. Thursday
CHAPTER 20
THURSDAY
D rew was wrong. She wasn’t wrong that often, but it did happen occasionally. And this was one of those occasions. Because Daniel was definitely having a fling. With a friend. It was a friendship with benefits. Other than the benefits of friendship itself, because obviously friendship has inherent benefits.
The point was, he was being the very opposite of “feelings forward.” He was being…feelings backward. He was playing it cool. Keeping it casual. He was, in short, extremely chill.
Drew, meanwhile, was in the middle of a mystery divorce that she refused to talk about, which was extremely not chill behavior, so he probably shouldn’t be taking her opinions on relationships as gospel at the moment.
Because Drew was wrong.
For example, after his run (et cetera) with Maggie on Monday morning, he didn’t linger. He didn’t stick around for coffee, even though they had time. He could have, but he didn’t. Same thing on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he did brew some light roast, but he really needed the caffeine. Plus, never sticking around for coffee wasn’t very friendly. Friends have coffee together in a friendly way all the time. And after coffee he refrained from texting her the meme he saw of the girl smirking in front of a burning house, this time photoshopped to look like the girl was holding a marshmallow on a stick. He did save it to his camera roll though, just in case it was ever relevant.
On Thursday, he stayed for coffee again, but he didn’t ask about how she was doing getting the Blue Harbor books to balance, which he wondered about at least as often as he dealt with his own invoices, and which she hadn’t once mentioned to him since that first night. It wasn’t his business, professionally speaking, and he had boundaries. Chill, relaxed boundaries. His boundaries were the emotional equivalent of wearing jeans to the office on a Monday.
At 10:03 on Thursday night, when his phone pinged just after he’d turned on an episode of Chopped, he very casually waited until the first commercial break before stretching an arm out to grab his phone off the coffee table. There was, after all, no one in particular that he thought or hoped it might be. It could have been anyone.
It was Maggie. A person he was casually glad to hear from.
Truth or Dare?
He felt the knot of fling-appropriate lust tighten in his chest, which was famously the place that lust lived. He rubbed at his bare breastbone. Truth or Dare. He was supposed to pick Dare. Those were their unspoken rules. And, in his experience, good things happened when he picked Dare. She must have something in mind, and he was almost certainly interested in whatever it was. But he was equally interested in what would happen if he broke the rules, just a little. Maggie did appreciate a challenge.
He typed back his answer.
Truth.
Almost immediately, the ellipsis danced on the screen, like she’d had the conversation open on her phone, waiting for his reply. And then it disappeared, and there was nothing.
Daniel vaguely registered Emmy Award Winner Ted Allen introducing the next chef, something about an Asian fusion concept in Nevada, before he heard a knock at the front door. He looked up from his still silent phone and out the window to his porch. The light was on, and he could see a few moths fluttering around it, flirting with danger, but that was all. He pulled himself off the couch and went to answer.
“McArthur.”
She stood there, hair a slick dark auburn, still damp from a shower. She was wearing cotton shorts and a thin, white tank top. She was definitely not wearing a bra.
“Busy?” she asked. Her tone was detached, but her body was almost vibrating. She held her keys and her phone in one hand like she’d barely remembered to grab them on her way out the door. Daniel had seen her sweaty and exhausted after a hard run, he’d lathered soap onto her skin in the shower, but somehow this was the most naked she’d ever allowed herself to be with him. Her beauty was so sharp it carved her initials into his heart.
In a casual way.
“Yeah, a little,” he tried to keep his face serious, to at least make a half convincing pantomime of being inconvenienced by her unannounced visit. He could feel his lips twitching with the effort. He was so fucking happy to see her. Here. Wanting to be here. He nodded his head toward the television light flickering over the carpeted space. “You know, catching up on the culin—” but she’d ducked under the arm he had braced on the door frame, smoothly sliding the remote out of his other hand, and clicked off the TV before he had time to close the door behind her.
“Good.”
“So, Truth. What deep, dark secret do I have to confess?” Daniel asked, turning back into the now dark living room.
Maggie slipped off her sandals, walked herself over to the kitchen, dropped her keys and phone on the counter, and opened the refrigerator.
“By all means, make yourself at home,” Daniel said, trying very hard not to sound like he meant it. He also briefly tried not to stare at her ass as she bent to reach inside the refrigerator. Until he realized that not only was this a completely acceptable situation in which to stare at Maggie’s ass, she would probably be disappointed if he didn’t.
“Beer?” she called over her shoulder.
“Truthfully?” he asked, like he might get off easy. As if there was ever any getting off easy with Margaret McArthur.
Pun intended.
“Alright, no beer for you, Becker,” she said, standing and shutting the refrigerator door with a thud. She was probably buying time because she had only come ready with a Dare. But the delay was making him antsy, giving him time to realize the power he’d given her. She could demand the full truth from him. About anything. They both knew he wouldn’t lie. He wondered whether Maggie was as afraid of other people’s Truths as she was of her own.
“Fine, yes, beer please,” he amended, mock chastened.
She shot him a look over her shoulder, and then pulled a second bottle from the refrigerator and set them both on the counter.
“Opener?”
“Drawer to your left.”
She fished it out, uncapped the lagers, and handed one to Daniel before perching on the round kitchen table and taking a heavy swig. She sat far enough back that her long legs dangled over the side. Her thighs pressed against the wood, soft and strong and begging him to dig his fingers into them. Her back arched slightly as she tilted her head to drink, pushing her breasts forward. The barely-there fabric of her tank molded over her hard nipples. She looked, briefly, like a modern marble.
Daniel took a swig of his own beer before Maggie could catch him staring.
“So,” he prompted, when the cold liquid had washed away the top layer of his lust-induced haze. “What do you want to know?”
She looked at him, considering, as her fingers scratched at the label on her bottle.
“You have a fantasy. Involving me.”
She paused long enough that Daniel thought that maybe that was the entire question. He opened his mouth, surprised and relieved to be able to give an easy answer: Of course he did. He had several.
Seeing that he was about to respond, Maggie smirked. “That’s not a question.”
Damn.
“What is it? Describe it.” She sounded almost academic, like one of his college professors demanding a more thorough analysis of a particularly evocative passage.
Daniel took another swig of his beer. Now who was buying time?
“Have you ever heard of Chekhov’s gun?” he asked, after a long moment.
“You were there when I got rid of Aunt Peg’s entire Garden & Gun collection. I didn’t read them in advance.” Maggie’s fingers on the now distressed label had stilled.
“It’s a literary principle.”
“Business major,” Maggie said, gesturing towards herself with the mouth of the beer bottle.
“Ok, so Chekhov was a Russian playwright.” Daniel paused briefly to make sure she was following. Maggie nodded. “And his most famous advice to writers—I’m paraphrasing—is: Don’t hang a gun on the wall in Act I if you aren’t going to have a character use it in Act III. It’s a metaphor. Basically, don’t introduce something early in a story, like a gun, that isn’t relevant to the narrative later. It doesn’t have to be a literal gun. Although in The Seagull it is, actually, a literal gun. Trigorin enters?—”
Blessedly, Maggie interrupted before he could get any deeper into the plot summary. “This is very educational, but, for future reference, it’s best not to rely on my knowledge of literary devices for your dirty talk.”
Daniel felt his cheeks heat. “In my head this sounded less didactic and more…hot.”
“I’m sure it did. So. Now I’m familiar with Chekhov’s gun.”
“Yeah. Yes. Ok, the point is…” Daniel took a breath. He was more or less an open book. And not an especially interesting one. But this was, for some reason, a little hard to get out. “Chekhov’s necktie.”
“You’re right. This is very hot,” Maggie deadpanned.
“Hey, I’m being vulnerable here.”
“Of course. I’m sorry. Please elaborate.” Maggie swept her arm across the empty space between them, giving him the floor.
“Last week, for Game Show Night, I was wearing a tie, and when I took it off it…seemed like a wasted opportunity.”
“A wasted opportunity,” she repeated, like he was telling a riddle. She set her beer down on the table beside her with a dull clink. Now he had her full attention. She meant business. “Spit it out, Becker.”
Yes. He should spit it out. He wasn’t embarrassed, exactly. Not of what he wanted. And, actually, he was pretty sure that Maggie would be into it.
Daniel’s throat was suddenly very dry. He had the strange sensation of standing at the top of the lifeguard tower, waiting to jump into the lake. He knew it was relatively safe, but when he was standing with his toes over the edge, it still looked like a long way down.
He took a final swig from the bottle, now damp and rapidly warming in his hand, and made himself look at Maggie. He expected to find the glint of a challenge in her eyes, a teasing smile on her lips, but what he saw was…something else. Her expression was almost gentle. A soft place to land.
“I liked it, that first night, when you held my wrists down and I’ve thought about—what if you tied them. Together. Or, to something. Like, with a tie. A necktie.”
Maggie didn’t blink for a long moment. And then she did, and her expression shifted almost instantaneously to one that Daniel was much more familiar with: lips quirked up to the side, eyes wide, eyebrows slightly raised. It was just to the left of cocky. Which was a real linguistic coincidence because that expression had an instantaneous effect on…well…
“Chekhov’s necktie,” Maggie said. Riddle solved.
“Yeah.” Daniel’s voice had been scraped over gravel. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Ok.”
“…Oh…kay?”
She held out a hand, palm up. “Bring it to me, please.” Maggie sounded like she was agreeing to meet for lunch sometime next week.
It took Daniel a moment to process what was happening. Half an hour ago he’d been settling in for a quiet evening of cutthroat culinary competition and now… The relief of the telling and the anticipation of the doing were a heady mix. His limbs felt floaty and his skin sang. His stomach did some sort of flip.
“Unless you were thinking another time?” Maggie asked lightly. “I have some other suggestions for the evening.”
“No, I—I’ll be right back.”
* * *
As a rule, Maggie took what people freely offered and never asked for more. It kept things light. It kept her unencumbered. And it had always been enough. But, for some reason, she’d asked for an extra little piece of Daniel Becker. A small thing, really. But, now that she had it, she felt desperately protective of it. Like a treasure made of blown glass.
She shouldn’t even have been there, really. Definitely not sitting on Becker’s kitchen table. Probably not in North Carolina at all. For once, Maggie simply hadn’t thought anything through, and this is where it had gotten her.
Except, just then, her chest tight, limbs buzzing, she couldn’t seem to wish that she was anywhere else.
Becker returned with the tie in less than a minute. She’d forgotten that it was paisley. She almost laughed, it was so incongruous to see him walking toward her, shirtless and barefoot, wearing navy pajama bottoms, with a pale blue paisley tie clutched in one fist. She didn’t laugh, though. He still looked a little unsure— not of himself, but of her. And they couldn’t have that.
This was her rodeo now. And it wasn’t her first. Although the first knots that she’d ever used on another person had been ones she’d learned as a camper rock climbing at Blue Harbor. How charmingly full circle. (She made a mental note to tell Becker this later. He’d like that.)
Maggie slid off the table and met Daniel halfway to the bedroom. Nose to nose, she brushed a hand across his collar bone and grazed her fingernails down his solid arm until she reached the hand holding the tie. She slipped the silk from his grip and draped it around her neck like a scarf. Her gaze remained locked on his. He looked back at her open and curious and brave.
“Tell me if it’s too tight, and I’ll loosen it. Tell me to stop, I stop. I’m in charge, but you’re in control. Does that sound good?”
He nodded, and then, belatedly, rasped out a “yeah.”
The trust in his warm brown gaze wasn’t a small a thing after all. She hadn’t meant to ask him for so much. It made her breath catch. She would try to take care of what he was giving.
“Excellent.” Maggie shook off the intensity of the moment and slipped on power like a favorite coat. Its weight was a comfort, and she knew she wore it well. Her shoulders relaxed. “This is going to be fun.”
She let a hint of mischief slip into her smile, and Becker smiled back, looking more solid than he had a minute earlier.
Maggie turned and stalked back to the kitchen table where she pulled the nearest dining chair onto the living room carpet. The chair was an antique, made of a dark wood, with turned legs and a curved Windsor back. Good. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to. Those spindles were about to come in very handy.
“Sit, please,” she said, already moving to close the curtains across the front window. When she returned, Becker was seated, knees wide, strong forearms resting lightly on his thighs. He looked up at her, eyes bright, all hesitation gone. She was in charge.
God, she wanted to straddle him. But first things first.
Maggie stalked around to the back of the chair and let her hands rest on Becker’s shoulders, fingers grazing the thin skin over his collarbone, feeling his chest rise and fall. When his breathing evened out, she began to slide her hands slowly downward, teasing through the sparse curls on his chest. Bending forward, she brushed over his firm stomach until her cheek was next to his, and her fingers just barely dipped below the waistband of his pajama bottoms. She felt him shiver under her featherlight touch as she skimmed her way back up, but he didn’t move.
“Good,” she murmured, straightening.
Then she crouched behind the chair, tracing her right hand over the gentle hill of his tricep and past the delicate skin of his inner elbow. Wrapping her fingers firmly around his forearm, she guided it around to the back of the chair and held it there while she repeated the motions on his other side. When she had his wrists aligned, his right above his left, she slid the tie from around her neck and went to work.
Maggie took her time. She let Becker feel the slide of the silk over the delicate skin of his wrists, the pressure as she pulled the fabric taught. He had asked her for this. He was yielding his strength voluntarily. She wrapped and knotted until his wrists were bound together and tied securely to the spindly back of the chair.
“How’s that?” she breathed past his ear before she stood to examine her work.
Becker rolled his wrists and tugged at the knots, testing them. “Good,” he confirmed, his voice husky.
“Good,” she repeated, and with one hand, she gently turned his face to the side, up to meet hers. She bent just enough to kiss him, tasting the slight tilt of his lips before they parted for her. And then she took his mouth like she needed the air from his lungs to breathe.
She forced herself to pull away, somewhat startled by how hard it was to do. But they’d barely begun, and Becker wouldn’t be comfortable restrained this way forever. She did take a moment to note with satisfaction that his pajama bottoms were stretched significantly more tightly across his lap than they had been when he’d sat down.
Maggie moved to face him. “Let’s lose the pants.”
“Happy to.” Daniel looked up at her with an impressive amount of innocent charm, considering the circumstances. “But you’re going to have to lend me a hand.”
Maggie rolled her eyes and bit back a smile. Then she hooked her fingers into the drawstring waistband. “Up,” she ordered. He canted his hips toward her obligingly, and she freed his erection from the soft fabric, dragging the pajama bottoms down his legs and onto the carpet before kicking them to the side as she straightened.
She took a step back, just to appreciate the view of Becker, seated there, his body bare, wrists bound, more or less at her mercy. He was all paradoxes. Vulnerable and powerful. Satisfied and wanting. And, by the looks of it, thoroughly enjoying himself.
“Now you go,” Daniel said as though it were her turn in a friendly game of HORSE.
“Mmm,” she pretended to consider. “If you ask nicely.”
He grinned. “Pretty please.”
Maggie wasn’t much for a strip tease. She pulled her tank top off over her rapidly frizzing curls and slid her shorts and underwear down her legs with a notable economy of movement, then dropped the lot of it to the ground and kicked it backwards out of sight.
“Jesus,” he said appreciatively.
“Aren’t you Jewish?”
“So was he.”
A fair point, but this wasn’t the time for debating theology.
Instead, she straddled him, trapping his erection between their bodies. She brushed a single finger up and down his length and rubbed her thumb over the bead of moisture at its tip, spreading it across the sensitized skin. And then she kissed him, her mouth hot and hard and unrelenting on his, while she tangled the fingers of one hand in the curls at his nape and continued her teasing with the other.
She kissed him until she could feel his groans reverberating across her tongue, until his body was a spring, each muscle coiled tight with potential.
And then she stopped.
Her hand on his length stilled. She leaned away, far enough to meet Daniel’s gaze. He looked back at her, lust-drunk, panting like they’d just reached the top of Whippoorwill Hill.
“You don’t come. Until I say so.”
She caught the split second that her demand registered, his eyes widening in surprise, then narrowing. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly, trying to regulate his breathing, working to recover the control she required of him.
“It’s not very polite,” he said, his tone ironic, “to throw a party in my living room and tell me not to come.”
Maggie let herself smile. “Unfortunately for you, I’ve never been very good with etiquette.”
And then she returned to her task of making his pleasure as excruciating as possible for as long as she thought he could bear it.
Finally—finally—long after Daniel had broken their kiss so that he could tip his head back and make a study of the ceiling beams, when his shallow stuttering breaths became so rapid that they ran together, when she’d lost count of how many times she’d walked him just up to the edge, but never over it, Maggie simply stood and stepped away.
It took a moment for him to collect himself enough to even look at her. When he did, his eyes were hazy with thwarted lust. He was clearly fighting the urge to squirm in his seat, desperate to touch himself, unable to find relief. It was, very possibly, the single hottest thing she’d ever seen.
And Maggie was beginning to feel a little desperate herself. The insides of her thighs missed the coarse rasp of his. Her nipples ached to be touched after so many incidental brushes across his chest as she’d kissed him. And, god, the moans he’d poured into her mouth had shot right to her core. It was time to put them both out of their finely honed misery.
“Condoms?” she asked, and almost laughed at the relief that flooded his expression.
“Bathroom. Bottom drawer.”
* * *
She left him there, balanced on the sweetsharp knife’s edge of pleasure and pain, utterly helpless. Daniel had never felt anything close to this excruciating combination of denial and indulgence, control and release. He was drunk on it.
Maggie was probably only gone for half a minute, but his sense of time was warped beyond meaning. He had the wild thought, as she walked toward him, silhouetted by the bathroom light she hadn’t turned back off, that she looked like something out of a Raymond Chandler film, a femme fatale, lithe and powerful. And dangerous.
“I changed my mind,” she said matter-of-factly as she approached, pinching a foil square between two fingers.
Daniel’s thoughts were thick and slow. “You changed your mind?”
“I want your hands on me.”
“God, yes,” he rasped.
Holding the packet with her teeth, she made quick work of her own knots, letting the tie slide to the floor as Daniel rolled first his wrists and then his shoulders. He had hardly registered the growing stiffness in his joints until he’d been released, and he certainly couldn’t bring himself to care about it now. He stood, turning to face her, and slid the chair to the side so that there was nothing between them. They stayed there for a long moment, breathing in the calm before the storm.
And then, like the first flash of lightening, Daniel closed the gap. He reached for her, and the relief of having his hands on her washed over him like rain. Holding her to his chest, he lifted her until her feet lost contact with the ground. She squeaked, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
The friction as he carried her to the bedroom was almost too much, but he made it, and, when he tossed her gently onto the mattress, she landed with something between a gasp and a groan. He took the packet she held out to him, ripped it open, and rolled the condom over his straining erection.
When he looked up, her eyes were crinkling at the corners, which usually was a good sign, but he hadn’t done anything intentionally funny.
“What?”
“Well, it’s just optimistic. Since I still haven’t given you permission to come.”
He groaned, aiming for exasperated but, if he was being honest, landing closer to pathetic.
She smiled beatifically. “You have to ask for what you want.”
“Maggie. I can’t take it. Please.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Becker. I’m sure you could. But, since you said please…Ok.”
And then she was hooking a smooth leg around his and pulling him down to her smart mouth and he was suspended over her, braced on a forearm, one hand buried in her copper curls while his other indulged in exploring every inch of the body it had been aching to touch all night. He was kissing her, wild and needy, tangling his tongue with hers, only breaking away to drag his lips across the silken skin of her throat. Maggie was moaning. He could feel the rumble of it like thunder against his lips. And then he was inside her, around her, over and under her, absolutely lost to the frenzy of sensation as the storm of them raged on, tumultuous and fierce, until they were both wrecked on each other’s shores.
In a casual way.