“Dinner tonight would be perfect,” Anna said and Ishook my head and tried to wrestle the phone from her. She twisted her body away from me and I grasped her legs and pulled them to either side of me as I sat up on my knees. I stroked the smooth skin of her stomach and watched her laughing and animated, her hair fanned out behind her. She looked fucking perfect. I didn’t want to share her with anyone.
“Seven? What’s the time now?” she asked, staring at me.
Without looking away, I pushed my thumb against her clit and I started circling it. Her hips started to move, suggesting my hands weren’t unwelcome. I pulled her further toward me, my tip nudging at her entrance, her eyes glazed.
“Five already? Can we make it eight?” She clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle a groan as I pushed in slowly.
“Okay, we’ll see you then. Gotta run.”
“Ethan” she screamed as she hung up. “Ethan,” she cried as I plunged into her again. I’d never get enough of her screaming my name like that, as if I were her god.
We were going to be late for dinner.
SEVEN
Ethan
Andrew and Mandy lived on the Upper East Side. My driver Rory was visiting his family in Ireland, so we took a cab.
“A driver is all well and good, but it’s being in the back of a cab that makes you feel like you’re in New York,” Anna announced.
“If you say so. Getting out of bed was your idea. Doing things normal people do. Are you happy?”
“I’m always happy when I’m with you.” She batted her eyelashes at me.
“Are you being sarcastic? I can’t tell.”
“And that’s how I like it, my friend.” She threw her head back and laughed. “But for the record, I wasn’t being sarcastic.”
I pulled her toward me. “So, what did you want to tell me?”
“You can’t ask me on the way to dinner. Let’s talk tomorrow.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s not meant to. I just need to catch you up with stuff. I’ve not seen you for three weeks and things happen.”
She was trying to cover up something, I could tell. Had she seen that loser ex-boyfriend of hers?
The cab came to a stop at road works two blocks from Andrew and Mandy’s apartment.
“So what? You won’t take us around the road works?” I asked the cab driver. He just shrugged and sat there. Looked like we were walking the last two blocks. “Jesus, it’s like minus twenty five out there.” I missed having a driver.
“Come on, we can keep each other warm with our body heat. Don’t be a brat,” Anna said as she climbed out of the cab. “It’s not even that cold.”
“Are you drunk? It’s artic, as you would say,” I replied as I joined her on the sidewalk.
“Stop whining and put your arm around me.” She grinned at me and despite a brief attempt at staying mad, I ended up grinning back at her. Her smile was infectious.
“Ethan?” A male British voice called out of the cold. Anna and I turned to face a couple wrapped up against the New York winter. “Hi.” The man in front of us pulled off his hat and stuck his hand out. “Oh, Anna. I wasn’t expecting . . . Hi.” It was Al, a junior corporate partner from the London office. Despite being in different offices, we were still subject to the anti-frat policy. Shit. He knew me. He knew Anna. In a city of eight million people, on the wrong side of the Atlantic. “This is my wife, Beverly.”
We all shook hands, and exchanged hellos.
“We’re here for the holidays,” Al said, clearly trying to explain why he was in the wrong city. I nodded, not knowing what to say.
“Have you had a nice time?” Anna asked. It was souncomfortable. The elephant in the room was sitting on my lap.
Beverly nodded.
