"Yes, Nathan," I seethe. "Normal people exchange phone numbers and then they communicate with one another."
"You're mad that I never asked for your number?"
"No." I turn to walk back towards the club's entrance. "I'm mad at myself for ever thinking I could do this."
"You can do this." He pulls on my elbow, stopping me in my tracks. "I can do this."
I don't turn. I can't. I don't want to look at him when he tells me that it will work and that we just need to go up to his room to talk it out. If we do that, I'll be on my knees with his cock in my mouth within twenty minutes. I have no barrier of resistance when it comes to him. His body is irresistible to me and the only way to stop wanting it is to walk away.
"I can't fuck you anymore," I whisper the words. "I just can't."
He pulls me back around so I'm facing him. "You don't mean that."
>
"It's just sex." I exhale sharply. "We had sex for a few weeks and now it's done."
His jaw tightens. "You can't end this. I shouldn't have acted like that with the other guy in the club."
I wince at his words. He truly thinks it's all just about how he reacts to other men. He doesn't understand that I'm becoming attached to him. That I want him in ways he'll never want me.
"It's not about the other guy." I feel spent. "We can't keep talking about this."
"What's it about then?" He pulls his hand through his hair and I realize he's feeling just as anxious as me.
"You can have any woman you want, any night of the week." I motion towards the club, its pulsing music drifting into the hotel lobby. "All you have to do is leave your suite, come down here, buy a beautiful woman a drink and you're in bed with her an hour later."
I know I sound defeated but I don't care. "I came here that first night looking for exactly that. I just wanted a man for one night. Something anonymous and intense. I wanted what you gave me."
"I wanted that too," he offers meekly.
"Something changed between then and now." I feel my heart pound as the words leave me. "I don't know how to explain it."
"Try." He shifts nervously from one foot to the other. A group of women walk past us and his gaze is locked on me. He doesn't pull his eyes away from my face.
"I've never met anyone like you." I laugh at the broad scope of that understatement. "Before you, I hadn't ever been with a man who could make me feel so many things."
The edge of his mouth curls in a small smile and I curse inwardly. I don't want him to take pleasure in this. I don't want him to see our experiences together as some sort of accomplishment.
"I don't know anything about you. I don't know how old you are or your last name. I think you're a lawyer because you're wound up so tight," I pause to smile at him. "I have no idea where you live or what you like to eat for dinner or what makes you happy beyond coming in a woman's mouth. I know nothing."
He stares at me, not making any effort to respond.
"I moved here from a very small place in Connecticut. I loved the same boy for a long time and one day I woke up and realized that I needed more. I wanted more so I came here." I point at the floor as if my journey from home has brought me right to this spot in the universe. In many ways it had. "I can't keep riding that elevator every Wednesday night at ten o'clock to the eighteenth floor to get into bed with you."
"Jessica," he whispers my name and then silence fills the space between us.
"You get angry if you think I'm going to be with another man, yet you can't even share the simplest details of your life with me." I press my hand to my chest to quiet my pounding heart. "I need to move on."
"It's Moore." He approaches me.
"What's Moore?" I cock a brow in response.
"My last name." He crosses his arms over his chest. "My name is Nathan Moore."
"My name is Jessica Roth," I offer back.
"Jessica Roth," he repeats it. "I knew it was going to be something beautiful.