“London, you just broke the oath.”
“I said ‘masturbation,’ a different word. And why are you calling me at four thirty in the morning? Are you requesting a long-distance high-five or someone to hear you melt down in mortification?”
“Maybe both?” I groaned. I didn’t even know how I felt; how could I possibly expect someone else to help me? “I don’t regret it, but I’m not sure where we stand right now. We’re not together, we’re colleagues. I’m actually not even sure we’re friends. Plus, he was drunk and I was mostly drunk and this morning I can almost hear him freaking out across the wall.”
“Freaking out as in he’s regretting it?” she asked, and I thought I could hear her sit up.
“I don’t know.” I chewed on my lip, considering. “I hope not.”
“But he’s into you, too?”
“Yeah, I mean. Yeah. As much as he can be this quickly? He went through sort of a bad divorce and it’s left him a little—”
“Ruby, I know this must have been your way of putting yourself out there, but what did you expect would happen?”
“Um . . .” I started, because to be truthful, I wasn’t really thinking at all in that moment.
I sighed. Was I thinking that he would realize he’d loved me all along and sweep me off my feet? That he’d admit to looking for me all his life and there I was, willing to get myself off in front of him the entire time? Um, probably not.
“I’m not sure really,” I said instead. “Maybe that it would be the first step.”
London yawned and I heard the sound of blankets being rearranged, as she settled herself back in bed. “That’s a hell of a first step, but make it work. Go into the office today, face him like the kind of woman who masturbates—sorry, sorry—in front of the love of her life and doesn’t regret a thing. You know I don’t have a ton of faith in the male population, but if he’s half the man you’ve described—because really, why else would you fall for him?—he’ll be smart enough to catch on. Go get him, Gem.”
Making last night the first step proved to be a bit more complicated than I’d hoped. It seemed Niall Stella was going to go out of his way to keep things exceedingly, frustratingly normal between us. He’d gone in early, and was packing up his laptop for a meeting when I arrived, head down and phone pressed to his ear. He acknowledged me with a small nod, a smile, and then he stepped out past me, into the hall for privacy.
In the handful of seconds it took me to walk around his chair and reach my own, I came up with at least twelve different ways to translate his small smile and semi-avoidance, each more insane than the last.
It was one thing to dissect everything he said in a meeting or to a colleague when there was zero chance it had anything to do with me, but this? There was no way he wasn’t also thinking about what we did last night. Everything had a meaning today.
I heard him talking, still just outside our office door. Was he waiting for me? He’d looked like he was packing up to leave; was he coming back in first?
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said into the receiver, his posh accent the only thing keeping his words from sounding clipped or flat-out annoyed. “The timeline we were given for estimated completion was a full six months before the date you’re giving me today. The alternative is unacceptable.”
My ears perked at this; I’d never seen or heard him sound angry before.
He was silent while he listened to the person on the other end of the line, and I had the strangest sense of his eyes on me. I unwrapped my scarf, slipped out of my coat, and hung it on the hook behind the door. His attention pressed on my skin and I shook my head, careful to let my hair fall forward and hide the warmth I could feel blooming in my cheeks.
“Tony, I’m not leading the Diamond Square project to be a yes man, I’m leading it because I know what the bloody hell I’m talking about. Tell them that, or better yet, let me. I won’t have any problem setting them straight,” he said, followed by the distinct sound of his exasperated sigh.
Tony. Gross.
I grabbed my notebook and turned to join him. “Everything okay?”
He nodded, but shoved his phone into his pocket, not bothering to elaborate about the call. “Aside from a meeting with some of the MTA engineers this morning, I’d like to visit some of the stations, see for myself a few of the proposed floodgate sites.” He gave me another polite smile.
Niall was back in his shell.
Nodding to the stairs, he asked, “Would you care to accompany me?”
The South Ferry station was one of the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy. With a street-level entrance of only one hundred feet above sea level, the tunnel was flooded in minutes. The seawater destroyed practically everything in its path, damaging wiring and equipment and filling caverns deep enough for workers to swim through. This was why we were here, to think ahead of Mother Nature and design a system that would prevent catastrophic damage like this from happening again.
Traffic whizzed by as I followed Niall down into the newly reopened station, my eyes on his broad shoulders as he descended the stairs in front of me. He looked Serious Business today. His expression had remained neutral throughout our cab ride to the station, conversation kept to a minimum. He wore a dark suit and darker overcoat, his brown cashmere scarf continually escaping the lapels of his coat and trailing over his shoulder behind him. There was purpose when Niall Stella walked.
A handful of engineers was there to meet us, and Niall introduced us both, taking the time to get each person’s name, and listening attentively as they took us from one end of the tunnel to the other. It was dizzying to see him like this—so knowledgeable and completely in his element—while simultaneously remembering what he’d looked like last night. In six months I’d amassed a catalog of Niall Stella memories, and the few unguarded ones I’d made since coming to New York seemed to eclipse them all.
Niall called me over to stand next to him, and I watched as he crouched down, took measurements, and inspected one of the proposed entrances. My brain was a mess of focus and inattention: I wanted to absorb everything around me, but having him so close after last night turned me into a complete mental maniac. Was he thinking about it? Was he pretending it didn’t happen?
A horrifying thought occurred to me: Was it even possible he didn’t remember?
He called out numbers or various notes while he worked, but it was noisy, the sound of trains and people making it difficult to hear him. I had to stay close, so close that his shoulder would occasionally brush against the side of my leg.
I assumed it was accidental, and tried not to react as goose bumps spread along my skin. But by the second and third time, I began to wonder.
“Ruby,” he asked me, looking up quickly. “Did you make note that this was the last of the stations to reopen?”
I nodded. Of course I had. But given how important it seemed to him, I took down the information again anyway, my pen stopping, tip pressed into the paper as I felt his palm wrap around my calf. It lingered there for only a moment, fingers trailing slowly up toward my knee, gripping ever so slightly, before they were gone.
Every nerve in my body seemed to run on a circuit, beginning at where he’d touched me and stopping just between my legs. I swayed on my feet, my nipples tight and my breasts heavy as an ache moved up my thighs.
My heart twisted. He remembered; he just had to wrestle his way out of his own head.
The more time we spent near each other, the more he seemed to unwind around me and his wordless flirtation slowly built over the rest of the afternoon: his hand pressed to my lower back as we left the station, his fingers quickly brushing the hair off my forehead as we stood in line for coffee, and, once, his thumb sweeping across my lower lip, back and forth and back and forth as our subway train moved through a dark tunnel.
I couldn’t breathe. Could barely remain upright.
When a seat opened up on the train and he urged me to sit down, he stepped close enough that his belt buckle was only inches from my face. In front of me was the long expanse of his torso, slim shirt tucked neatly into his pants. And, lower, the clear downward line of his cock against his thigh, already half hard.
Sweet Lord.
I reached up, hooking a finger through his belt loop as he gazed down at me, wordless and rapt.
When we rose from the station, he came up behind me as I stopped to get my bearings. His large hands curled around my hips and he pressed into me.
I felt him.
I mean, I felt him.
I lost my breath when his mouth came against my ear and he said simply, “We’re headed to the left.”
By the time we got back to the temporary offices I was ready to explode. I felt tight and swollen between my legs, the skin of my thighs slick and wet. My senses seemed to be dialed up to a ten, and even the most basic things—the lace of my bra brushing across my breasts—felt wanton.
But what I thought had to be leading up to something . . . didn’t. Instead of closing the door to our empty office and touching me—I didn’t care for one second that we were at work—he moved to his small desk and sorted through a few files while I stood there, hot and confused and speechless.
It was torture to feel this way. To be infatuated, to feel his interest grow but see him continually close back up after each tiny step of progress. I wanted to simply ask him, but worried that would close him up for good.
Beyond that, I ached. It was an entire afternoon of quiet, gentle foreplay and my body felt like a pitchfork struck against an iron beam. I was practically vibrating.
Our bathroom was private, thank God, and going into it I flipped the lock, taking what had to be my first real breath all day. I could still smell the faint scent of his cologne, as if it had somehow been burned into my senses. As I crossed the room to the small leather bench that sat just under the window, I let myself imagine how he would smell up close, with my nose pressed directly against his skin.
With that image in mind, I took a seat and slipped my panties down my legs as I imagined the warmth of that skin under my touch. My fingertips became his, and they skirted up my thigh and between my legs. If I listened closely, I could hear his voice as he spoke to someone on the phone. I pretended he was speaking only for me.
I was so sensitive, so wet, that the slightest touch, the graze of a fingertip over my clit had my hips rocking forward, wanting more. With my eyes closed, I listened to him talk, his accent curving the words into something that sent a current of awareness from my nipples to my *. I imagined him pushing those words into my neck; the rise and fall of his voice became the rhythm of him moving in and out of me. I imagined him just on the other side of the door, knowing that I was touching myself, and begging that he be the one to do it next time.
The very idea was enough to send me over the edge, and I came against my own hand, my body arching into the touch.
Only then did I notice how quiet the outside office had grown, and that I might possibly have been too loud. I could hear the even tick of the watch on my wrist, the faint hum of traffic on the street below, but no more voices, no footsteps pacing through the office.
Once my legs were steady, I stood and righted my clothes, moving to the sink to freshen up.
Stepping out of the bathroom, I crept into the hall, nearly crashing into him on the way out.
“Sorry!” I gasped, attempting to catch a stack of files as they scattered across the floor. “Let me get those!” I exclaimed, definitely emphasizing my growing undercurrent of embarrassment.
Niall ignored me, and bent to gather the papers himself.
I tried to avoid meeting his gaze, certain what I’d just done had to be written in flashing, neon ink across my forehead.
I smoothed my skirt and tucked my bangs to the side before I looked up at him. He was studying me, head tilted.
“What?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I am.”
“You’re flushed. Are you quite sure you’re not feeling poorly? I can certainly manage by myself today if—”