Double Dare

"How did you come to get into this line?"

"Oh I don't know, interest in music, teenage yen to be a musician, next best thing." He moved the candle that stood between them to one side. "Do you like the place?"

"Yes. It's a good sister club to The Hub. An older but more petite and mysterious sister."

"It's funny you think of it as female. So do I."

"That's because it makes you want to come inside," she answered provocatively.

He laughed, flashing his teeth at her in genuine amusement. She felt a warm glow of pleasure because she had made him laugh.

"Do you think it needs many changes?"

She looked around the place again. "I see it bathed in blue light, it would compliment the rough stone walls."

He nodded and encouraged her to go on.

"Whenever I think of Paris it is suffused with blue light, every scene. It's partly because that's the way it's most often depicted...ads and everything. It's always blue light, it's almost a tradition. L'heure bleu."

"And?" he said, astutely sensing there was more.

"Well it's about twilight. It whispers of the long pleasures of the night to come. It has an intimacy."

"You are a very visual person Abby."

She nodded, he was right. "I see everything in images, I think. I remember everything as a series of stills." Some of them were projecting in her mind as she looked at the light casting shadows down one side of his face. She was seeing him that first time in his apartment. Remembering how he had looked as he brought her again and again to climax. "The images come back to haunt me..."

Her fingers were against the strap of velvet on her shoulder. As they fiddled there the material lifted and she felt the velvet tug against her nipples. They were painfully hard. She reached for her glass with both hands and looked down at the table. "But the atmosphere ... it would be good to retain that?" she added, distracting herself.

"We could do that," he replied.

She noticed the "we" and looked at him. They stared at one another silently for a moment.

"I suppose you'll have to be here a lot?"

"At first, yes."

"Can I get a job behind the bar? I'm thinking of change in career." She was only half joking.

He shook his head. "I'd become an alcoholic."

They were still feeling each other out and she wanted to know where she stood with him, but didn't feel able to ask outright. It was as if he was holding something back. Something crucial. Would it always be like this, would she never really know this enigmatic mystery man who had her so fully entranced?

He seemed to sense her unsettled feelings. He caught her hand and pulled on it teasingly. "We haven't seen much of Paris."

"You don't have to though, there's just something about being here."

He nodded in agreement. "Next time?"

"I make no promises." She paused and saw the look of concern on his face. "I may not emerge from the bedroom for long next time either."

He reached over and laced his fingers into the straps of her dress. "You are such a tease."

"I'm not teasing." She locked her hand around his upper arm. She was desperate to get closer, to give and take. "Zac I want you."

Urgency raced between them.

They left the club and headed for the Metro station, where the rush of warm air down the tunnel made her feel dizzy with desire, she looked at him and laughed softly as her body wavered in its wake.