Chapter 2. Lustful Night

He drove himself. Diana hadn’t expected that.

A man who made a room go quiet should have had a driver, but he drove a long black car through the city with one hand on the wheel, his index finger tapping a slow rhythm she couldn’t decode. City lights slid across the leather seats. In the dark window, Diana caught her reflection and barely recognized the woman looking back: bare shoulders, flushed cheeks, a stranger beside her.

“Rules,” she said, mostly to hear her own voice.

He glanced at her. “You have rules.”

“One. No names.” She turned toward him in her seat. “Tonight doesn’t have to be anything. I don’t want to look you up tomorrow and find out you’re somebody’s husband. Or a dentist.”

“I’m not a dentist.”

“That’s exactly what a dentist would say.”

His laugh was low and surprised, as if it didn’t get much use. “No names,” he agreed. “And no husband. No wife, no fiancée, nobody waiting up. You should know that before you decide anything else.”

She looked at him for a moment. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For answering...”

After that, neither of them said much. The silence wasn’t awkward. It was full, the way the air gets full before a storm, and every time he changed gears his knuckles came within an inch of her knee and didn’t touch it.

They pulled up outside a tower of black glass with no name over the entrance. The night doorman nodded at him and didn’t look at her, which she suspected was a professional courtesy. The elevator rose so smoothly her ears popped before she realized they were moving. It opened straight into a penthouse with all clean lines and low light: whiskey-colored walls, charcoal marble, a wall of windows full of the city.

It was beautiful, and it was controlled, just like him.

There were no photographs anywhere. No books left open, no shoes kicked off by the door. Either he had a very good housekeeper or he had never let anything in this room happen by accident.

He took off his jacket and laid it over a chair. Then he brought her a glass of water.

“You went pale at the wedding,” he said.

“It’s a talent. I reserve it for special occasions.”

He didn’t smile. “Do you still feel ill?”

Diana took a drink before answering. The room was quiet. No flowers, no crowd, no violin scraping at her nerves. She could hear the ice touch the side of the glass without wanting to cover her ears.

“Better. I don’t know what happened.”

“I can take you home.”

She waited for him to add something. He moved his jacket instead, clearing the chair for her.

Diana sat. She drank the water slowly, then asked for more. He brought it and opened a window at her request. For a while they watched the traffic below, and she told him about the rented dress: the deposit, the temperamental zipper, the shop assistant who had assured her nobody would notice the repair under the arm.

“I didn’t notice,” he said.

“You weren’t looking under my arm.”

That got the corner of his mouth to move. She liked being the one who had done it.

By the time she set the empty glass down, the frightening warmth had settled. She could think about tomorrow, her bus route, the fact that she was in a stranger’s apartment. She could also think about kissing him, and that thought survived all the others.

“I’d like to stay for a while,” she said.

His fingers closed once around the back of the chair. “All right.”

He stepped back from the chair. Diana had braced herself for him to take over. Instead he stood a few feet away, hands loose at his sides, and let her decide how close to come.

Easy.

The pressure flickered behind her left ear. Diana looked at his mouth. It hadn’t moved.

“Did you say something?”

His gaze lifted to hers. “What did you hear?”

The question made her hesitate. “I thought you said ‘easy.’”

His hand moved toward her, then stopped. For a moment he looked as startled as she felt.

“Maybe I need another minute,” Diana said.

He nodded, but his eyes stayed on her face. She watched him take a careful breath, as if he had something to steady too.

She let the silence last until she could look at him without hearing the word again. Then she came closer.

“You’ve been staring at me all night,” she said.

“You’ve been staring back.”

“I was checking whether you were a serial killer.”

“And?”

“Not sure yet.” She reached up and undid the top button of his shirt, then the next. Her fingers weren’t quite steady. The serpent’s tail traced down his neck and coiled across his ribs, black ink over warm skin. Beneath it, just left of his heart, sat a pale, puckered scar.

She touched it before she could stop herself.

His skin was warmer than she expected, warm like a sunlit stone. The scar was cooler, a narrow interruption beneath her fingertips, as if it belonged to a different man.

He let her explore for exactly one heartbeat. Then his hand came up to cradle her jaw, and he kissed her as if he had been waiting all evening for permission. It wasn’t gentle. It was deep and hungry and thorough, and when her back met the cool glass of the window, she heard herself make a sound she didn’t know she could make.

He found the zipper of her dress and stopped.

“Yes?” His voice was rough against her ear.

“Yes,” she said. “God, yes.”

The dress slid down and pooled at her feet. She wore peach lace underneath, bought on clearance and never worn, and the way he looked at her then, as if she’d done something astonishing just by standing there, made her bolder than she had ever been.

He lifted her and carried her to the bed. She wrapped her legs around his waist and laughed into his neck when he nearly walked into a doorframe.

“Smooth,” she said.

“I’m distracted,” he said. “It’s your fault.”

He took his time with her. He learned her the way she suspected he learned everything, with total attention: where she was ticklish, where a slow kiss made her arch, which sounds meant more. He didn’t rush. He kept listening to her until she came apart, shaking and astonished.

She lay there afterward, staring at the ceiling.

Oh, she thought. So that’s what it’s supposed to feel like.

He moved up beside her and brushed her hair from her damp forehead. He was smiling, and it wasn’t a smirk this time. It was softer than that, almost unguarded.

“You look surprised,” he said.

“Shut up,” she whispered, and pulled him down to kiss her.

He reached past her to the nightstand. She heard foil tear, a small, practical sound, and liked him more for it.

“If you want me to stop, say it,” he murmured.

Diana looked up at him, at the dark eyes that had followed her across a wedding hall.

“Don’t.”

He smiled against her mouth, and she felt it more than saw it. Then he was moving with her, slow at first, and it was nothing like what she was used to. It wasn’t a performance. It felt like a conversation in a language she hadn’t known she spoke. When she pushed against his chest, he understood at once and rolled them over, letting her set the pace. Watching him watch her, Diana felt powerful for the first time in a very long time.

Afterward the room was quiet except for their breathing and the hum of the city far below.

He drew lazy circles on her bare shoulder. She was drifting, warm and boneless, half asleep, when he spoke into her hair.

“Stay the night, Diana.”

Her eyes opened.

The ceiling was dark. His heartbeat was steady under her cheek.

She hadn’t told him her name.