I leave the bathroom wearing a fluffy white robe since I don’t have any other clothing aside from my work clothes. Peter looks incredible, but I try not to fixate on how huge his biceps look bulging through that shirt. I don’t want to get in trouble with this man again. Peter sets the table like this is a real date. I can’t remember the last time I experienced anything that romantic.
“I already opened the wine,” he says.
“We shouldn’t get anywhere near a bottle of wine,” I warn Peter, who should honestly know better considering what happened to us at the bar.
“Fair point,” he says. “You might be pregnant.”
“Excuse me?”
I am pretty sure that I’mnotpregnant. Although when he makes the accusation, my stomach does an annoying little flip and I can’t pinpoint the exact date of my last period.
“Never mind,” Peter says. “I’m tracking down who slipped pills into our drinks. So if you’re worried about this criminal getting away with it, they won’t.”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
Peter pulls out my chair and I sit down. Dinner. I’m having dinner in a hotel room with Peter and even if technically I feel fully in control over myself, I’m out of control in an entirely new way. I shouldn’t be hopping into any type of interaction with a man after the shit I’ve been through with my ex-husband. I should be enjoying my newly single life and continuing to build my career.
This strange magnetism with awhite Italian manof all people really makes me feel strange all over. I know the kids these days have an open mind and that racial tensions have eased in some ways over the years, but the idea of being up ina white man’s hotel room like this brings up all kinds of strange anxieties.
Like… is it just the sex he’s here for? And if he is… shouldn’t I be down with that? Peter has an incredible body, a gorgeous face, we’re the same age and I’m not getting any younger at least. He just isn’t the man I would have pegged as my type and this feels like a mid-life crisis, I don’t want to suddenly start questioning my fundamental attractions.
Is this really what I want? A rich white guy to steal me off the streets and drag me back to his hotel room? After all the shit I’ve clawed through to get my own success, I feel like I should be stronger than this.
But dinner smells amazing.
“Bon appetite," he says. “The salmon here is some of the best.”
The delicious smell of herbs, spices, and butter on the salmon nearly makes me cum on the spot. Roasted asparagus would normally do nothing to entice me, but I’m starved and suddenly all my senses are heightened. Everything on the table smells delicious and Peter looks sexy too.
I start eating so I don’t have to look into his eyes again or acknowledge the fact that he’s staring at me with a gaze that I want to pretend isn’t lustful. The way my ex-husband ignored me made me feel like the days of men experiencing any type of desire in my presence were over. He made me feel like I was old and ugly, just because of the constant comparisons subtle and overt to the younger women I eventually found out he wasn’t just looking at.
I wasn’t just naive. I thought he would change. I believed so many things that just seem like they were all lies designedto keep black women trapped, even when we get that financial, outward success we were taught would save us from getting into messes like this.
“Your team works well.”
“We can’t talk about work.”
“Fine. Your mouth looks hot wrapped around that fork.”
I take the salmon off my fork while glaring at Peter, who seems mightily entertained by his crude comment. What does he mean ‘my mouth looks hot’and why does such a crazy statement like that cause a bizarre tingling between my legs? It’s Peter. Something about Peter has me in an absolute chokehold.
“Did your cousin commit the crime they accuse him of?”
“Does it matter?” Peter asks. “I have committed no such crime.”
He smirks and there’s something deeply unnerving about that smirk. I already feel like I’m breaking with common sense by allowing Peter to kidnap me and feed me salmon at a hotel. It doesn’t sound outwardly wicked, but when he looks at me with evil mafia eyes and a smirk while talking about murder, I want to push and find the darkness I know can’t be buried that far beneath the surface.
If the man I knew since I was basically a kid and spent decades of my life with could betray me, why the hell should I trust this man who openly flirts with the wrong side of the law? Could life really be so contradictory? I’m not the type of person who ever thought that way before.
“What about you?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because. You might want diplomacy.”
“I want the truth.”
