Call Me Saffron (Greenpoint Pleasures) (18 page)

Panic clogged my throat. I gasped, stuttered in my stride. Walking down the street, breathing hard, pulling the damned suitcase behind me. The box of memories clutched to my chest. The box of proof. Love enveloped you. Love blessed you and comforted you and thrilled you and gave you a sense of belonging and rightness until love dropped dead of a heart attack and killed all that was strong in you.

But the thought of never seeing Dylan again, of walking away from him for real this time, it felt worse. Like a hole in my gut. Like a bottomless pit.
Love you like a gunshot wound.
 

It was too late. I was doomed. I loved him.
 

I was crying so hard I couldn’t see.
 

By the time I got to the narrow apartment building, I was drooping, looking down at the sidewalk, clutching the cardboard box and dragging the suitcase. A wanderer, a waif, a wreck, dripping tears down my chin.

Which is how it happened. I walked into a human wall where the front stoop should have been.
 

Dylan stood there, in my doorway.
My doorway.
Here. In Greenpoint.
 

Under an elegant wool coat, he still wore the sweatpants he’d had on when I left his apartment an hour ago.
 

“You’re crying.” He took the box from me and set it down on the ground. “Why?”

Because I love you. Because it hurts.
 

He brushed the wetness from my cheeks with his thumbs. “Because of me?”

I nodded. “If I let myself care about you…” I swallowed, tasting salt.
 

His fingers stilled, touching my cheeks and chin. Framing my face. “Do you?”

“So much. Too much.” I shook my head, a sharp shake, dislodging his fingers. “But if I let you in and you leave me, I don’t know how I’ll—”
 

He put his finger over my mouth, gently shushing me. “First of all, I won’t leave.”
 

I brushed his fingers aside. “You can’t promise that. You can’t know.”
 

“I can. I do. I’ve known for seven months. You shook me out of my self-pity and helped me remember how to relish life. Being with you was a revelation.”
 

I almost said
that’s sex,
but he stopped me.
 

“It wasn’t the striptease or the sex, though they were both…well…” His eyes tilted up, his mouth twitched. The warmth in his expression thawed places inside me I didn’t know were so cold before. “But mostly it was
you
. The way you sauntered into my living room and took over, even though it was obvious you were nervous as hell. The way you revealed something of your own pain to me that night even though you didn’t have to. Because you knew I needed to feel less alone.”
 

He smiled fully now, and it was beautiful the way it lit his face. “And then there’s the way you make me feel every time I see you walk into a room. Like the world is full of intriguing possibility. You make me feel like you and I are equally matched, in bed and out, sparring or comforting each other. Samantha Saffron Lilly of the three first names, I will never grow bored of you. I will never want to leave you. I’m sure of this.” He kissed me. On the nose.
 

“I love you too. So much it hurts.” I leaned into him, my head against his chest, my cheek against the scratchy wool of his coat. “I didn’t know it could feel like this. Now I know what my parents—” I broke off. Pulled away. Sat on the stoop, ignoring the cold against my butt.
 

Dylan sat too. “I’m not going to die, you know.”

“You will, though. Someday you will.” The words struggled to get past the tightness in my throat.
 

“And if I do, you’ll survive. Because you’re not your mother. You’re stronger than her.”

I blinked back a rush of heat behind my eyes, more tears on their way. “What if I’m not?”

“You are. Trust me. Anyone who built that sturdy a defense system? Is an amazingly strong woman.”

The way he looked at me, so tender, so knowing—I did the only thing I could.
 

I kissed him, tasting the salt from my tears and the chill on both our lips along with a promise of passion, tonight and every night. Without hesitating for a single moment, he kissed me back, wrapping his arms around me. I squeezed him tight. So close. My heart on a string. My heart pounding against his. My heart wide open.
 

Above us, I heard a catcall. “It’s about time, you two! But come up! Kiss on the couch. It’s warmer.”
 

I broke away from Dylan long enough to wave up at my roommate.
 

Dylan murmured against my hair, “She’s right, you know.”
 

“My bedroom is a mess. The apartment is grad-student casual. I can’t—”
 

“Do you think I care?”
 

I smiled. “I guess not.”
 

And I let him inside.

Epilogue

“Is that the last of them?” I closed the front door as Dylan’s work buddy and his date clattered down the hall toward the elevator, and surveyed the messy aftermath. It had been a great party, but I was ready for something different. I walked up behind Dylan, who was busy cleaning up paper plates and plastic cups, and slipped my hands into his jeans. He startled, as if he’d forgotten he now lived with someone else—well, if
lived with
meant
had just started
and
now
meant right this minute. Then he relaxed and sighed against me. “I thought they’d never leave.”
 

“Whose idea was this party, anyway?”
 

He turned and gave me a look brimming with amusement and meaning. “As I recall,
I
thought we should celebrate moving back in by throwing a raucous party of two. Naked. Right here.” He kissed me and slid his hands up under my silky party shirt.
 

I hummed my pleasure against his chest. “Why didn’t you veto me, then?”

“Because you’ve done a brilliant job with the apartment. I wanted to show it off. Fernando told me tonight that he’s going to give you more challenging work now that he sees what you can do when you’re let off leash.” He grinned. “His words, not mine.”
 

“Worth the long wait?” Dylan had to move out while the work was underway. He’d sublet a loft in Williamsburg. He claimed it gave him a chance to get familiarized with a new population of potential Juniper customers, and the fact that it was walking distance from my apartment was merely coincidental. He avoided my gaze as he said it, though, and his mouth twitched in a secret smile. I nailed him the next week by making him join our formerly all-female poker game. Jeanine won all his chips off him, Georgette psychoanalyzed him within an inch of his life, and Alanna teased him mercilessly while Annie peppered him with questions.
 

He passed all of it with flying colors. Which was when I told him yes, I would move in with him when this place was complete. He grinned and said how did I know he’d ask?
 

He pulled away from me now, folded his arms, and perused the space. “Hmm. Honestly? I think you left something out.”
 

“
Now
you tell me?” I looked around, but I didn’t have to. I knew every inch. The space was perfect. The new arch, the exposed wood of the crown molding, the tastefully remodeled kitchen that opened up to the dining room. I’d designed it all for Dylan. Everything I felt for him was in this living space.
 

So what was he talking about?

“It’s okay. I know how to fix it.”
 

I eyed him suspiciously. He looked serious, but the edge of his mouth twitched, a giveaway. Something was up.
 

He went down the hall to the linen closet and pulled something off the shelf, wrapped in brown paper. Curiouser and curiouser.
 

When he came back, he presented the package to me. It clattered heavily, like metal and wood and glass. “Think of it as a housewarming present.” Dylan’s gaze was warm, so warm.
 

I sat on the rug, ignoring the party debris around me, and tore open the package. Inside were three pictures. The one of me as Pirate Girl, one of my parents laughing together, and one of my grandparents squinting into the sun. They were all framed in old-fashioned cherrywood frames that suited them perfectly, but more—they’d all been restored. No creases, no stains. The ragged white line across my young pirate’s chest was gone. Healed perfectly.
 

I looked up at him, my gaze blurry with tears. “You did this.”

“Technically, our graphic design guy did it for me.” But he was beaming. “I thought this place should have something of yours. It’s yours now too, after all.”
 

“And you vetoed my coffee table.”

He winced, but it was for show. My old motley coffee table was a long-running joke between us. I’d told him at one point that I thought we should model the design of all the furniture in his—now our—apartment after it. He’d fired me on the spot but rehired me minutes later when I’d offered to model the furniture in the nude.
 

I stood, holding the pictures like they might shatter if I wasn’t careful. “Where should they go?” I looked around, but the answer was obvious. “The mantel.”
 

I carefully set the three of them on the brand-new mantel, one by one, then stepped back. It was overwhelming to see them. Here. In my home. Our home. And yet…they were from the past, and this was my present.
 

“There’s one more.” Dylan stepped forward and placed a final framed shot on the ledge.
 

It was of the two of us, standing in Brooklyn Bridge Park last summer, the lower Manhattan skyline behind us, our arms wrapped around each other. In it, we were looking at each other, grinning like buffoons. We didn’t look needy; we didn’t look lost. We looked like we belonged.
 

Jeanine had taken the shot, and afterward we’d all gone on a boat ride to picnic and ride bikes around Governor’s Island. A perfect late summer day.
 

Now, tonight, Dylan came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. “What do you think?”
 

I turned to him. “I think it’s perfect.” And it was.
 

And then I kissed him. Because I wanted to. Because I could. Because he was mine.
 

Author Note

Thank you for reading
Call Me Saffron.
I hope you enjoyed Samantha and Dylan’s story.
 

You may be curious how this story came about. In particular, why a call girl?
 

Some years ago, I found an anonymous blog written by a graduate student moonlighting as a call girl to make money. She wrote a lot about her clients, mostly about her interactions with them and why they sought her out. It was clear that many of them saw her as a friend and confidante, filling an emotional need, not merely a sexual one.
 

Then last year, I read a piece in an online magazine by a woman who had been a sex worker and was now going to school to become a nurse. When she told her friends, they all nodded and said it made perfect sense. She’d always been drawn to the helping professions. Sex worker or nurse—in some unexpected ways, the two are not so far apart.
 

This is where the
Greenpoint Pleasures
series originated. I’m fascinated by the idea that sex can foster intimacy whether you intend it to or not. Because I write romance, not erotica or gritty literary tomes, I’m specifically drawn to that emotional, psychological puzzle. My heroines are not jaded, experienced sex workers (except for Jeanine). They’re exploring their own sexuality, the intimate connection to another human being, and everything this brings up.

~*~

Although
Call Me Saffron
is the first in a new series, it’s closely linked to the already-existing
Greenpoint Artists
series. Alanna and Georgette, who make appearances here, are part of a small artists’ collective: four women artists—all friends—who share a studio space in Greenpoint. Alanna’s story is told in
Hold Me Tight
, currently available. Georgette’s story, tentatively titled
Dream of Me
, will be coming out in Fall 2014. The free prequel novella,
Draw Me In,
is also available.
 

For those who have read
Hold Me Tight
: the scenes with Alanna in
Call Me Saffron
take place in early December, after
Hold Me Tight’s
climax but before the resolution.

~*~

Annie’s story will be the second book in the
Greenpoint Pleasures
series, and will include the world’s most awkward phone sex scene. The release date hasn’t yet been set.

~*~

Want to find out when I have a new release?
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And please consider leaving a review on Amazon and/or
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. They help other readers find books, and help authors find their footing. I appreciate all reviews.

You can find more information about me and my books on
my website
.
 

~*~

Turn the page to read an excerpt from
Hold Me Tight
.
 

Hold Me Tight excerpt

Miles and Alanna were briefly lovers as teens. They both continue to be haunted by the profound connection they felt then, despite how badly it ended.
 

Alanna has just been hired as a graphic artist for the ad agency where Miles is de-facto creative director.
 

Working together, their old feelings return in a rush, driving them both insane with longing, but they can’t act on them. An ironclad company policy forbids fraternizing, and Miles is wary of trusting his heart to Alanna a second time.