Scandalized

Sixteen

Several hours, and a respectable number of drinks later, I leave Billy inside talking to colleagues and head out. There’s a line of cars about a block long outside the event, all idling at the curb. My goal is the string of Ubers waiting across the street, but a tall figure in a black suit catches my eye. She’s got a shock of wild red hair spilling around her shoulders. This still-surprising version of Yael leans against the front passenger door, reading something on her phone. As if sensing me in the crowd, she looks up, flicks a graceful hand for me to peel away and walk down the block toward her.

In front of her, I stop, smiling. “I didn’t tell you earlier, but your hair is awesome.”

She nods but predictably doesn’t say anything. I expect a lecture, an update, maybe some instruction for how to get back to the room without running into Alec along the way, or even how I should go home tonight. But to my surprise, she reaches out, opening the back door and gesturing for me to climb in. “He insisted.”

Alec is in the back, his face partially hidden in shadow. I want to ask what on earth he’s thinking, inviting me into his car right out in front of an Associated Press event. I’m not really a somebody, but we’re in a place where people who want to find out who I am can do it quickly and connect the dots to the LA Times story. Even if his part of it hasn’t gone public yet, Alec’s privacy is critical and there are at least forty people still here who would recognize Yael for who she is.

Yael climbs into the front seat and quietly tells the driver we’re ready to go. Silence seals up inside the car with us.

Alec’s hand comes over mine, but this is the only contact we risk. We’re otherwise upright, facing forward. We don’t speak. I think if I looked at him in that tux again, I’d immediately forget that Yael’s disapproving presence is right there, that the poor driver doesn’t want to watch me straddle Alec in the back seat. He bends his neck, looking down at his phone, typing with one hand, and I pull my Batphone out of my clutch when it vibrates.

I didn’t want to sleep without you.

I grin down at my screen, replying. I would have been really bummed to be alone knowing you’re so close.

Three nights left. I wouldn’t let one pass.

I squeeze his hand in reply, shoving down the tide of sadness that rises. Slowly, he pulls our joined hands onto his thigh.

His voice surprises me, rising out of the blank silence: “Did you have a nice time after I saw you?”

I glance at him and then Yael. She is undoubtedly the strict teacher and I am the unruly student, continually breaking her rules while the star student—my partner in crime—walks away clean every time. “I did, surprisingly. I usually hate those things.”

It was mostly hanging out with other press people, trading stories, digging for information. Fun, exhausting, and the usual—just in fancier clothes.

He slides my hand higher and leaves it at his upper thigh. In the darkness of the car, it’s an invitation.

I glance at him and he stares forward, offering only an amused eyebrow flick. So I arch only my pinkie, dragging it along the shape of his cock, half-hard beneath his zipper. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the jerk of his chest, his sharp intake of air.

I’m still worked up from seeing him across the room with celebrities and nobodies, everyone wanting a bite of his attention. I’m still worked up, too, from our stolen minutes together in the powder room.

“I did, too,” he manages after a long pause. “I think because I knew you were there.”

I widen my eyes at him, tilting my head: What are you doing flirting out loud, with Yael right there?

He grins, but it’s wiped clean when I stroke my hand higher again, dragging three fingers down his length now. He’s hard, and it’s his turn to give me a scandalized look. But really, he put my hand there. Was he expecting me to ignore it?

Like this—my hand offering only glancing, brief contact—we carry on bland cover conversation in the back seat as the driver follows the standard route back to Alec’s hotel. But instead of pulling up out front, he passes it, pulling the sleek black BMW down a tight alley, dark but for the occasional cone of yellow streetlight.

Parking in front of two heavy steel doors, the driver climbs out, opening the back door for Alec, rounding the car for me, and then proceeding to the service entry, where he swipes a keycard and opens it.

He returns to the car, but Yael follows us, sweeping inside with clear knowledge of where we’re going. This view of the hotel is industrial: walls scraped from wide carts, paint dented from small, everyday collisions with cleaning equipment. She leads us to a service elevator and presses the button for the tenth floor.

Alec takes my hand as we enter, and Yael pretends not to notice. Obviously, I am more charmed by his insistence that we are an item behind closed doors than I am intimidated by her disapproval, but her judgment sits heavily. We ride in stony silence to the top, exit in the same stiff quiet, and Yael says simply, “Be careful,” before she heads down the opposite direction to her own room.

Normally I might crack a joke about how much she seems to like me, about how I guess she knows I’m staying at the hotel now, about how I feel like I have to win over the surly father-in-law, but the air between us is so heated from the drive back here. All I can think about is the hard line of him against the sides of my fingers, his quiet I’ll see you later, whispered into my neck before I left the powder room, his intense, hungry presence now.

He passes the key over the reader, pushes the door open, and our energy snaps the second we’re alone. We seem to agree to deal with our own clothing as expediently as possible: With my eyes fixed on his, I’m unhooking the clasp at the back of my neck, letting my dress fall to the floor. He’s jerking the top button of his shirt free at his neck, unfastening the rest of them in a blur of dexterity.

I walk backward, kicking off Eden’s heels, pushing my underwear down my hips, and leaving them somewhere in the hallway. With a playful growl, he reaches for my waist as he kicks his briefs aside, laughing a sweet “Come here” into my mouth, and lifting me up. The slide of his hard chest over the soft curves of mine pulls him up short and he pivots, pressing me against the wall, pulling my legs around his waist. With a gasp he’s there, sliding into me in a single, long push. Alec exhales a soft sound of relief, and whispers, “Holy shit, you feel good.”

How can it only have been a matter of hours since I last felt him? It seems like an eternity. I want to take every feeling he draws out of me and translate them into touch: happiness, security, desire. I want to pour them into his body.

After only a few thrusts, I register that it’s different, that it’s so good I feel a paradoxical wave of desperation and euphoria. Trapped between his body and the wall, I already feel my world expanding and contracting with every breath. Alec is like velvet moving into me. And I’m wild; clutching his back with my hands, begging nonsensically because he’s gliding in with such soft skin over such unbelievably solid heat. He’s giving me everything already, but I’m greedy and want more. We’re hard and soft, rigid and wet,

God so wet. Everything feels slippery and urgent—