He stood up, reached his hand down to help her up.
She told herself he was being gallant. As opposed to helping the elderly. She placed her hand in his; at the contact a shivery thrill zipped through her.
They didn’t talk as they made their way through the now-dark and empty market. There was nothing to say. The niceties had been exchanged, the foreplay initiated. What mattered from this point on had more to do with bare skin than baring questions.
The doorman at Meghann’s building did his job wordlessly. If he noticed that this was the second young man she’d brought home in the last month, he showed no signs of it.
“Evening, Ms. Dontess,” he said, nodding.
“Hans,” she acknowledged, leading—Oh, God, what was his name?
Donny. As in Osmond.
She wished she hadn’t made that connection.
They stepped into the elevator. The minute the door closed, he turned to her. She heard the little catch in her breathing as he leaned toward her.
His lips were as soft and sweet as she’d thought they would be.
The elevator pinged at the penthouse floor. He started to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let him. “I’m the only apartment on this floor,” she whispered against his mouth. Still kissing him, she reached into her bag and pulled at her keys.
Locked together, they centipeded toward the door and stumbled through it.
“This way.” Her voice was harsh, gruff, as she led him toward the bedroom. Once there, she started unbuttoning her blouse. He tried to reach for her but she pushed his hand away.
When she was naked, she looked at him. The room was dark, shadowy, just the way she liked it.
His face was a blur. She opened her nightstand drawer and found a condom.
“Come here,” he said, reaching out.
“Oh. I intend to come. Here.” She walked toward him slowly, holding her tummy as taut as possible.
He touched her left breast. Her nipple immediately responded. The ache between her legs graduated, deepened.
She reached down, took hold of him, and began stroking.
After that, everything happened fast. They fell on each other like animals, scratching, humping, groaning. Behind them, the headboard banged against the wall. Her orgasm, when it finally happened, was sharp and painful and faded much too quickly.
She was left feeling vaguely dissatisfied. That was happening more and more often. She lay back onto the pillows. He was beside her, so close she could feel the warmth of his bare flesh alongside her thigh.
He was right next to her, and yet she felt alone. Here they were, in bed together, with the scent of their sex still in the air, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him.
She rolled over and moved closer to him. Before she quite knew what she was doing, she’d cuddled up alongside him. It was the first time she’d done something so intimate in years.
“Tell me something about you no one knows,” she said, sliding her naked leg across his.
He laughed softly. “I guess you live in Bizarro World, where they do everything backward, huh? First you screw my brains out, then you want to know me. In the bar, you were practically yawning when I told you about my family.”
She drew away from him, pulled back into herself. “I don’t like to be ordinary.” She was surprised by how okay she sounded.
“You’re not, believe me.”
He pushed her leg aside and kissed her shoulder. The brush-off. Frankly, she preferred it without the kiss.
“I gotta go.”
“So, go.”
He frowned. “Don’t sound pissed off. It’s not like we fell in love tonight.”
She reached down to the floor for her Seahawks nightshirt and put it on. She was less vulnerable dressed. “You don’t know me well enough to know whether I’m pissed off. And frankly, I can’t imagine falling in love with someone who used the term ‘ball handling’ as often as you did.”
“Jesus.” He got out of bed and started dressing. She sat in bed, very stiffly, watching him. She wished she had a book on her nightstand. It would have been nice to start reading now.
“If you keep bearing left, you’ll find the front door.”
His frown deepened. “Are you on medication?”
She laughed at that.
“Because you should be.” He started to leave—almost breaking into a run, she noticed—but at the door, he paused and turned around. “I liked you, you know.”
Then he was gone.
Meg heard the front door open and click shut. She finally released a heavy breath.
It used to take weeks, months even, before men began to ask if she was medicated. Now she’d managed to completely alienate Danny—Donny—in a single night.
She was losing her grip. Life seemed to be unraveling around her. Hell, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d kissed a man and felt something more than desire.
And what about loneliness? Dr. Bloom had asked her. Do you like that, too?