Tease (Songs of Submission #2)(11)
Author: C.D. Reiss

That was ridiculous. I had a right to be there. I gathered my things and got out of the car. As if on cue, the woman turned and stepped off the porch, tapping something into her phone. As we passed each other, she glanced at me, but she got the phone to her ear in time to avoid greeting me.

“That was awkward,” I said as I stepped onto the porch.

“Not really,” Jonathan replied. “Or, I mean to say, not yet.” He wore a sweatshirt and jeans, but not old, grey things. He wore designer clothes that were new at the edges and fit as they should, bringing out the beauty of his body without showing an inch of skin.

He looked behind me at the Fiat as it pulled out.

“Your assistant?” I asked.

“One of them.” When the Fiat got into the street, he clicked a button on his remote box, and the gate slid shut. He leaned on the door jamb. “How did your gig go?”

“Fantastic. We’re about to land a very good agent.” I suddenly felt exposed, standing out on the porch again in a sleeveless, button-down shirt dress and heels.

“Oh, really.” He put the remote on a table by the door.

“Really.”

My dress had a fabric belt on sideseam loops. He pulled the bow loose and yanked the belt off. “Can you unbutton that thing and tell me the rest?”

“Is there some superstition about me entering your house with my clothes on?”

“I prefer you without them. And I like fresh air. Come on, I want to hear about your career.” He wrapped the belt around his hand, which was muscular and square with a little hair on top.

I slipped my top button through the hole. “You want me to undress or tell you about the agent?”

“Yes to both. Tell me how it went.”

I slipped the next button through, exposing the space between my br**sts. “I almost screwed up the entire thing. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for the first song.”

“My fault?”

“No. Actually…” I didn’t want to bring up his sisters or my ex-boyfriend. Not with me getting down to my belly, and him watching the buttons’ progress. “The agent wanted to go out tonight and talk about things.” I finished the last button and stood in front of him.

“You could have gone.” He stepped out of the doorway, reaching for the split in the dress. When he touched my throat, I lifted my chin. “We didn’t have definite plans.”

“He wants to ditch Gabby. I can see it. I’m not ready to tell her, and if we went out with him, she’d know.”

He ran his hand down my body, only touching what the open dress revealed. “You think you can protect her from getting ditched?” He slipped his hand into the front of my panties. He stopped before he hit my growing wetness, but the electricity of his touch under my clothes made me gasp.

“Probably not for long.” I stepped toward him. He pulled the dress off me. I unhooked my bra and let it drop to the floor.

Again, I stood almost naked before him. He unwrapped my belt from his hand, put it around my neck, and used it to pull me toward him. Our tongues and lips met. He let go of the belt, leaving it draped over my shoulders, and moved his hands under my panties, onto my bare ass. He grabbed it, pulling me to him, grinding me against his erection. I slipped my hands down his shirt, and he pinned them behind my back.

“I have a call with Seoul in seven minutes,” he whispered in my ear.

“You couldn’t make yourself come in seven minutes.”

“That a challenge?”

“You tell me.”

We kissed again, and he let my wrists go to hitch my legs up around his waist. He pushed me against the doorjamb, moving our hips together in a rhythm.

“Actually,” he said, “I don’t think I can get you upstairs in seven minutes.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

He smiled, his face close to mine, where I could see every crease in his skin, every freckle, every thorn of stubble. His scent was everywhere around me. I wanted to fall into him. As if hearing my thoughts, he pulled away from the doorway, carrying me with my legs still around his waist. He shut the door behind us as he carried me to the stairs, kissing me. I wound my fingers in his hair. He bumped into a chair, then a bannister. We fell onto the soft wool carpet of the stairs, him on top of my nearly naked body, our hands everywhere, our hips joined in a fabric-sheathed tease.

His phone rang.

“Oh, no,” I said.

“There wasn’t going to be a good time.”

“Don’t answer it.”

He looked right at me as he slipped the phone out of his pocket, smiling as if he knew he was tormenting me and felt nothing but sweet delight. He answered the thing, right there on the stairs, after putting his finger to his lips.

He said something I’d never be able to repeat, his Korean was so fast. His face hovered so close to mine I tasted his breath as he had a conversation I couldn’t understand. The corners of the stairs bit my back, and the pressure of his hips on mine hurt, sending shocks of pleasure up my spine.

He put the phone to his chest and lifted himself off me. “I’m on hold. Get upstairs.”

We ran up the stairs and into the room we’d been in two weeks before, laughing like teenagers. He landed on top of me on the bed, still fully clothed against my naked skin. He kissed me with his phone to his ear, putting his free hand on my breast, groaning into my mouth when I ran my hands under his shirt.

“Hey, Tom,” he said into the phone. He put his finger to my lips and got off me, leaving me spread out like a bear-skin rug. I sat up.

“Yes,” he said, his eyes on me. “I heard. Janice told me half an hour ago.” I considered getting up and making myself a sandwich or something. I closed my legs. Who knew how long he would be? From his tone, it sounded urgent, but that could mean an hour or five minutes. If I left, I could still catch the guys for a drink, and I could glaze over the thing with Testarossa if Gabby was tipsy enough.

Jonathan put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down. He grinned and spoke into the phone. “They’re insane. The Seoul Hilton is two miles away. If the North Koreans want a target, they already have one.” He put his knee between my legs and parted them. I gasped, and he put his finger to his lips. Part of me thought he was being rude, disrespectful, and deserving of a desertion, but part of me found the third person in the room exciting, yet safe.

I reached for his belt, and he let me feel his erection through his clothes, but no more. “I am not taking five stories off it,” he said. “I’m taking exactly zero stories off it. This whole Pyongyang alarm is a scam. Tandy Burton from the Hilton paid them off to give me a hard time.” He tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear and used both hands to spread my legs wider, bending them at the knees. He nodded at something Tom said. Tom couldn’t see us, but he was there. Jonathan lay beside me and slipped his fingers under the crotch of my underpants, sliding his finger along the length of my wetness. I bit my lip so the man in Korea wouldn’t hear me.