I moved around the desk to stand behind her. She was still tense but she leaned back against me, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. I pulled my phone from my jacket and found the video, pressing play and holding it up for her to see.
With the volume up, the beat of the music played from the small speakers. She appeared on the screen, dancing with her arms above her head, and just like the first time I watched it in person, I felt myself begin to harden.
“That right there,” I said against her neck, “is when you wondered whether I’d notice your dress hitching up. In’t it?” I pressed my hips against her backside, leaving no question as to what she was doing to me.
I set my phone on the desk in front of her, placing my hand on her waist. “And there,” I said, nodding to the video again. She picked up my phone and looked at it more closely. “The way you looked at me over your shoulder, that’s my favorite part. That look on your face, it’s like you’re dancing just for me.”
“Oh God,” she whispered. I hoped she was remembering what it felt like, what it was like to have me watch her.
And then she picked up my hand and moved it slowly to the hem of her dress, which she lifted to her hip. Her skin was smooth beneath my palm, and I slipped my hand to her stomach, the muscles of her abdomen quivering under my touch.
“Were you dancing for me?” I asked, needing the reminder.
She nodded, pushing my hand lower. Christ, this woman was a tangle of contradictions.
“What else did you think about?” I asked. “Did you think about my face between your thighs, and my mouth?”
She nodded again, biting her lip.
“I wanted to touch you,” I said, my hand moving down beneath her underwear. “Just like this.”
Her body bowed beneath me, curving against my own to bend over the desk. “I want to feel how wet you are,” I said, my breath ragged, my voice low and rough. “How wet you are knowing that I came this morning while watching you.”
My fingers slipped lower.
She gasped.
“Are you watching?” I asked, pushing a single finger inside. She nodded and I slipped in a second, my thumb moving in circles over her clit. “You’re so f**king wet,” I said, my teeth dragging along her shoulder.
“We . . . shouldn’t do this here,” she said.
And still, she pushed farther into my hand. All around my steady rhythm, I could feel her begin to tighten, her breath coming out in tiny, sharp pants.
With a guilty wince, I removed my hand and turned her to face me. She looked practically drugged, eyelids heavy, lips parted.
“And unfortunately my two minutes are up.”
I kissed her cheek, the corner of her mouth, and then each of her eyelids when she closed her eyes. And then I took my phone out of her hand and walked out of her office.
Three
A stranger took video of me dancing.
And then he found where I worked—because apparently he’s buddies with my boss—and I asked him to show me the video.
Following that, I made him put his hands in my underwear—again, but this time in my new office—and proved to both of us how much the idea of him touching himself while watching the video turned me on.
“Oh, dear God.”
“That’s the tenth time you’ve said that in the past fifteen minutes, Sara. Come out here and spill.” My assistant, George, leaned against the doorway. “Unless it’s so scandalous I need to come in there and close your door.”
“It’s nothing. I’m just . . .” I straightened the pens in a cup on my desk, tapped some papers into alignment. “Nothing.”
He curved his lips into a skeptical smile. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Really. It’s a huge, gigantic, regrettable nothing.”
George walked into my office and collapsed in the chair across from my desk. “Did this Nothing happen at Chloe’s engagement party on Saturday?”
“Possibly.”
“And was it of the Male Nothing variety?”
“Potentially.”
“Was the Male Nothing the slice of Max Stella that was just in your office?”
“What? No!” I lied without blinking. I’d high-five myself later for that bit of unexpected smoothness. George was right the first time: I was a terrible liar. But apparently my shame over the Public Wall Sex Situation was enough to tap into as-yet-unknown skills. “And how do you know who Max Stella is?”
George made careful study of local, hot men, but seeing as how he arrived only a week before I did—a New Yorker for all of thirteen days—I didn’t think even he could work that fast.
“Let me ask you,” he began, “what was the first thing you did when you arrived and had settled into your apartment?”
“Found the closest sources of wine and cupcakes,” I said. “Obviously.”
He laughed. “Obviously. But because my goal is not to be an old plump spinster, what I do is check out the scene. Where are the fun places to eat—dance—party?”
“To meet all of the men,” I added.
He acknowledged this with a wink. “All of the men. I find out everything I can, and in so doing, I also find out about the Who’s Who of the city.” He leaned forward and gave me a wide, bright smile. “In this city, Max Stella is a Who.”
“A who? How?”
He laughed. “He’s a Page Six darling. City of London import a few years back. Brilliant VC mastermind, always f**king some hot celebrity or trust fund princess. Different flavor of arm candy every week. La la la.”
Great. I’d managed to select the same slutty publicity hound make and model as my previous boyfriend. But here, not only was Max a well-known womanizer, he was a high-profile venture capitalist, whom I would no doubt cross paths with time and again for work. And who had video of me dancing like a stripper while I imagined his head between my legs.
I groaned again. “Oh, dear God.”
“Calm down. You look like you’re about to pass out. Have you had lunch?”
“No.”
“Look. You’re way ahead here. We only have four contracts that require any kind of attention and if what Henry told me about you is true, I’m guessing you’ve combed through them a hundred times already. Chloe hasn’t even received any furniture for her office, her assistant isn’t even in New York yet, and Bennett’s only chewed out three people today. Clearly, nothing is on fire here that requires your attention. There’s plenty of time for you to slow down and get some food.”