“Yes, but that’s more like theideaof me than… Never mind,”he trailed off. “Look, we don’t have to have sex, we can just cuddle.” He’d said this with his right hand wholly between my thighs. That he wasn’t touching my underwear was a calculated tease.Cuddle, my ass.
“Okay,” I said, my breathing labored. “Here’s the plan. We’re going to go upstairs. We’re going to fool around. We’renotgoing to have sex. And you’renotgoing to spend the night. Deal?”
“Deal.”
The rooms at the Crosby Street Hotel were finely done: individual, warm, eclectic. Unexpected patterns juxtaposed in soothing colors. Dressmaker mannequins as art. The light was low when we entered, the mood inviting. Fitting for a tryst.
“I like this,” Hayes said, laying his jacket neatly over the arm of the sofa and stooping to remove his boots.
“You’re getting awfully comfortable.”
“Am I not allowed to be? Is that not part of the deal?”
I laughed at his inquiry. He was clearly more used to this than I. Being physically and emotionally naked before someone whose middle name you did not know. I did not want to calculate how often he did this.
“Last bit.” He smiled, emptying his pants pockets onto the coffee table. An iPhone, a wallet, lip balm, and a pack of gum. Noticeably absent: a condom. Or perhaps it was in his wallet. Or his jacket pocket. I was overthinking this.
“I want to see the view. Do you want to see the view?” I stalled, making my way across the room and opening the curtains, unveiling the floor-to-ceiling industrial windows. There was something extraordinary about Manhattan at night: twinkling lights and indigo sky.
I stood there for a moment, my hands pressed against the cool panes, wondering how I’d ended up here with the boy from Isabelle’s posters. And what that would mean for our relationship going forward. She would hate me, and yet still…
“You nervous?” Hayes approached me from behind, his hands running the length of my arms.
“No,” I lied.
“Don’t be nervous, Solène. It’s just me.”
Yes, that was precisely the problem.
His closeness, which had felt so reassuring on the balcony at the Four Seasons, felt reckless here. I was suddenly aware of his height, his power. The fact that maybe I was no longer in charge.
He sensed it. His fingers slipped in between mine, holding my hands while my nerves settled. And then, when enough time had passed, he wrapped his arms around me, drawing me in closer. I could feel him—all of him—pressed up against my back.
“Hiiii,” he said, and I laughed. “You good?”
I nodded, meeting his eyes in our reflection in the glass. “I’m good.”
“You sure?” He leaned forward then and kissed my bare shoulder.
“Sure.”
“Good.” He kissed me again, and again. And again. His mouth moving over my shoulder, toward my neck, to the crook just behind my ear. He breathed me in, and I could feel it in my toes. His mouth, his tongue, his teeth on my flesh. His hand moving up over the sequins of my top to stroke my throat, angling my head toward his. He smelled of soap and Scotch, and he tasted… warm. I turned to him, devouring his mouth. And oh, the feel of his hair in my hands: thick and smooth and substantial. I probably pulled on it a little too hard.
We moved to the bed.
Hayes seated himself on the edge and had me stand in front of him. “I just want to look at you,” he said. We stayed there, my hands in his hair, his hands at my hips, running to and fro over the material. “God, you are so unbelievably sexy.”
I leaned over to kiss his dimples. They had been beckoning since the Mandalay Bay. The mileage he got out of a muscle flaw… “I bet you say that to all your fans’ mums.”
He laughed, his hands sliding down over my ass, along my thighs, to the hem of my skirt. “Not so much, no.”
I could feel the coolness of his rings at the back of my knees, teasing. I had not planned how far I’d intended this evening to go. I wasn’t certain if there was a protocol for postdivorce sex. Second date? Third? I assumed the etiquette was different than it was in one’s twenties. The need to be respected in the morning seemed less dire. Maybe none of that mattered anymore. Maybe it was all about the thrill. And surely rock stars played by different rules. We were pioneers out here, Hayes and I. Forging new territory. Making up shit as we went along.
“You know,” he said, his hands rising, hot against my skin, “I find this skirt really flattering. Truly. But I think I would like it better on the floor.”
I laughed then. “Well, that would be convenient, wouldn’t it?”
He nodded, his mouth finding mine.
