Finding North (Naïve Mistakes Series) (9 page)

I jabbed him with one of my extra forks (why were there always so many of these things at fancy restaurants?)

"Ow! And I know you'd probably gouge me to death with a fork. OK, OK, I'll tell you."

He took a large bit of chicken. "I closed...(
munch munch
)...and then...(
munch munch chew
)...and so...(
swallow
). OK?"

"Did nobody ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full?"

He sighed. "Ah, so that didn't work either, did it?"

"No!" Now I was getting pissed. I raised my eyebrows at him, tried the glare thing again but this time leaning forward with my elbows on the table. (OK, and maybe I was showing him some cleavage in the process, but I swear that wasn't my purpose.)

"Fine. I just hate talking about it because, well...people get all these preconceived ideas and things."

"Uh-huh?" (I wasn't buying it.
Spit it out, bud
.)

"I closed a partnership deal with Microsoft and Apple within three months of starting at FinSol, millions of pounds worth. Some of our software will be integrated into their future operating systems. It's a hush-hush deal. I mean, our name will be there in the fine-print, but it'll never really be known to your average Joe. Anyway, so they then tried to hire me."

"Who, Microsoft?"

"Both."

"Apple
and
Microsoft?"

"Yes."

Now
I
took a drink.

"So, FinSol raised my pay"
—he hesitated—"a little bit. They gave me a commission for the deal (I initially wasn't working on commissions but they were throwing everything at me)—"

"How much?"

"Huh?"

"How
much
?"

"Now you just sound like a gold digger."

"How
MUCH
?"

"A lot, is that OK an answer for you?"

"Fine."

"So, anyway, here I am. 'Gift of the gab' as they say, or whatever. Satisfied?"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Williams. Now don't you ever lie to me again."

"OK, so seeing as you pulled my deepest darkest secret out. Now it's my turn."

"
That
was your deepest darkest secret? You need a life!"

His eyes flickered briefly to the skyline, went cold, pensive. "I wish..."

I didn't push it. "Shoot," I said.

"Judging by your figure
— And don't get me wrong here. I just mention it because I know a bit about this—"

"Your, um, 'friend'?"

He cleared his throat. "Um, yes. So, judging by your figure, it looks like you've taken this whole weights thing quite seriously for some time. And you're only seventeen. But you don't plan on compete, or even plan on it. So what's the story with that? Most girls just do some cardio, skip the extra cream on their lattes and hope for the best. But you look a little too dedicated for someone who's only doing this 'for fun.'"

He had me.

I looked down at my plate, my mind started to drift, back, back,
way
back—

"Leora?"

"Um, yes, sorry, I was just..." I twirled my finger absently in the air. This was not something I wanted to talk about. At least not on the first date. (Who was I kidding, not on
any
date. I didn't even talk about this shit with Kayla. Not really.)

"Look," he said, "it's fine. Just..." Now
his
mind seemed to be drifting. Hell, we were a regular riot, the two of us! "...Just don't forget that the greatest of loves last until people are eighty. And people who are eighty are generally very ugly, or very fat, or both."

I laughed, sort of... It was like one of those "That statement is so fucking deep I could cry but I won't cry because it's embarrassing so I'll laugh instead" kind of laughs.

I could've said something funny or corny like:
Oh, you think I'm worried about love? My interest in you has been purely physical so far, Mr. Williams!
Or, even:
Love? No ways, I'm really wanting to become an actress. After school I'll be moving to Hollywood and I'm gonna find myself a fat producer who'll have me go down on him for a role in a big part. Fat producers only like shapely woman
.

But I didn't say either. He'd hit too close to the bone. I was wide open now, an open book. An open...target.

"Am I that obvious?" I asked, fidgeting with and looking at the napkin on my lap. "You know why I drink water instead of wine; that I have a calorie calculator built in to my skull like one of your financial software products in the upcoming iOS version but that I can't calculate your age for shit; that I work out because I'm so scared shitless of getting fat and being dumped and ending up like my mom with four husbands down the line and burying myself in a bottle of brandy instead of talking to her daughter when one of those husbands dies..."

And then it hit me. Paul's death.
My
stepfather. Not an entirely meaningful person in my life but someone who I
did
like! And my mom never being there.

Never.

And my weight. Looking at myself in the mirror when I was fifteen. Knowing I was going the way of all the other Italians I knew: Short, pudgy, round. And that gnawing, burning feeling inside me like I was so
goddamned
alone and I didn't have a fucking clue why!

And then I'd met Kayla. And she was alone in her own way. And we comforted each other. But I still kept pumping those weights, pumping them, pumping them!

The well of tears in my eyes had no more broken through the surface when I felt Conall's left hand by my cheek and his right seizing me by my waist. He'd come around the table. He lifted me. My chair fell back with a thud and he pushed me against the parapet and practically inhaled me into him as he kissed me (very unromantically I might add.) It was raw and primal.

I kissed him back. My face was wet by tears but I'd stopped crying them now. He buried his lips in my neck, pushed his pelvis against mine, squeezing me between him and the wall. It hurt. It hurt good. It felt real, alive,
here
,
now
.

Not in the past. Not anywhere else.

We were two wrestlers fighting for position. I slid my hands under his shirt and dug down his rippled back, tried to kiss his neck as well. I didn't think about me "level of experience" or what I was doing. I just did it. His lips moved unceremoniously around the bottom of my neck, to the other side. All I could hear was the wind in my ears, the vague and distant call of honking cars way down below (another world), and our panting breaths as we struggled for position, each trying to kiss the other more than the first.

He pushed against me, moved slowly side to side. I tried to widen my legs to increase the friction but I'd put on this damned bandage dress! (Fuck! Note to self for next time: Easier access clothing when with Conall.)

He stopped moving, held me back by the waist with both hands. My eyes were closed and I felt my mouth open and close toward him like a frickin goldfish!
Kiss me for fuck's sake
!

Eventually, my goldfish move left me unrequited and I opened my eyes. And would you believe that Mr. Fricking Williams looked
amused
by my actions!?

I punched his chest. (Whoa, baby. Note to self:
must
get a look at that chest soon.) "Jerk," I said, not meaning it at all, still feeling butterflies at the deepest pit of my stomach and still needing an itch scratched like a bite from a mutant mosquito on steroids. My body pulsed, throbbed,
thrummed
in every section, but especially low,
very
low.
He'd better not touch any part of my skin or I'm gonna rip his damn clothes off right here and now.

I took a
deep
breath. Exhaled. Pulled my hair back behind my ear. "I guess this means we're...dating?" I said, breathless.

"I guess it does," he whispered.

-1-

"Did you plan this all along?" I asked, my body temperature slowly cooling (although his hands at my waist were not helping very much. I was riveted to the spot, controlled. He knew exactly what he was doing.)

"Of course I did."
Uh-oh. Hot flush
. I exhaled again.

"You really know how to get a girl's juices going."
Damn it! Did I just say that?

His hands eased suddenly. Had I said something wrong? He cleared his throat.

"Um, yes, I guess..." He turned, pulled my chair back, helped me into it. He pulled his chair next to mine, sat.

I hitched my skirt back down, waited for him to explain the sudden change in sexual temperature. "Everything OK?" I asked after he sat down.

He took a sip of wine, smacked his lips. His face was serious now.

What the fuck is going on here?

For a brief moment I started to panic—an unreasonable panic that has nothing to do with anything logical but which clutches at your chest like dead men's fingers and tugs at your heart with an evil little thumb, tickling your deepest fear, and laughing balefully while it's doing it...

Conall pulled his chair quickly next to me so that he was sitting to my right.

"Hey hey hey!" he said consolingly. He held my hand. "Hey, relax. I
like
you, OK? Relax."

"Oh, I'm relaxed," I lied, trying to sound confident and certain of myself (two things I definitely wasn't.)

"Look..."

Oh great, here it comes: The "it was great meeting you but I don't think we're compatible" speech.

"How would you feel if I stayed an extra day or two? Or three. Or maybe even four."

My heart sank. I tried to act cool, but my lips twitched up into a smile. "I'd say"—
Think of something funny. Think of something funny!
—"could you pick me up at school tomorrow and hang around a little outside the stairs so my friends get all jealous?"

He gave a cough and a laugh at the same time.

"You OK?" I asked.

"Uh, yes, of course..." He grabbed my water.

"Hey!" I said, stopping his hand in mid-air. I eyed the water, and he understood immediately. "Bugger, lying to you is going to be impossible."

"Leora, I
do
like you. You're, well, intriguing..."

Screech! Halt! Huh? Did he just say I was "intriguing." Well, Mr. Williams, you have my attention now:

"I'd like to get to know you. I meant what I said about not being the kind of guy that has sex with a girl on the first date—"

"Technically, this is our second date, but continue."

"—or even the second date!"

Damn, I don't know how long I'll be able to wait.

"Look," he sighed.

"Damn it, just spit it out already!"

"You're young! That's all!"

And so the avalanche on Mount Everest began falling in my mind...

"I see."

"No, no!" He jumped up and kissed me, briefly (and lasciviously), but enough to get my attention. (If he was gonna kiss me every time I got worried about something, I could live with that...) "If I was seventeen or eighteen or, hell, even nineteen! Damn it,
twenty
, even, I don't think I'd have this cradle-snatcher thing going on in my head—"

"Um, now you're making me self-conscious..."

"Please, listen. I don't mean to be condescending but, put yourself in my shoes. Now, I don't buy into that 'You're too young to think for yourself' bull, and especially not with you. I mean, someone who can tell so well when someone else is lying is more than an adult in my books."

"You're scoring a few points... Carry on."

"If I was younger or you were older"—he lowered his voice—"I'd take you right now, rip your dress off with my teeth, tell the waiter to go home and..." He looked at the floor. I got the picture. My grip on my glass tightened. "But I'm not, and you're not. And so, I just think we should take it slow."

"How slow?"

"I don't know. Until we make sure this means more than the heat of the moment." (And boy was that heat
hot
!)

"So, no 'age' limit? I mean, you're not gonna do something corny and wait until I'm eighteen and only then pop my cherry
—" (Oh. Shit. Did I just...?
Fuck!
)

"Wh
—what?" he said.

OK, so now it was me that was going red. And even though I had no mirror, I know I must've looked like
fire truck. I turned to the skyline, mumbled: "Damn it. And if you thought I was a little girl five minutes ago..."

"No. I never thought you were a 'little girl.' Please, you're putting words in my mouth."

"I'm sorry. But, now you know. I'm as 'innocent'"—(Yes, I did make the air quotes)—"as you expected. Worse. I've never slept with anyone. I've hardly done anything with anyone, actually. So now the responsibility is even higher. No pressure." I figured I'd blown my chances completely.

"I haven't slept with that many women either."

"'That' many?"

"Yes."

"How many?" His mouth opened, closed. His face started going red. "
Don't
even think about it!"

"Three."

"Three?"

"Three."

"I see." Was that a lot? Was it not? If I went by Kayla's standards, this guy was practically a virgin himself. If I went by polite society in England's standard, the dude was a downright male
whore
!

"Well, I don't know how to judge that. You either haven't have had many third dates, or you suck at picking up girls. And unless I'm desperate and horny as hell"
—(I
was
horny, especially since seeing his Atlantic eyes, but he didn't need to know that)—"I imagine it was the former. Because you certainly knew how to pick
me
up, Mr. 'I'm so smooth I read yesterday's Financial Times at the coffee shop to look cool for the girl I'm picking up'" (Damn straight I did the air quotes!)

He blushed. "I always assumed American men my age have shagged half the country's female population."

"Pretty much. Some American girls as well."

"I see. And, for your information, I had business meetings all day on Saturday so I didn't get to read the FT. So when I saw it at the coffee shop I picked it up and perused it. I do recall that you were fifteen minutes late?"

"I was keeping you waiting."

"Oh, so you were early?"

Yes, very.
"No, I got there precisely at ten, then had my driver go around the block a few times."

He laughed, grabbed my hand and put it on his lap. "Can we just spend a bit of time together and see where this goes? If not, say the word. I'll be on that flight tomorrow."

"Will you pick up this 'little girl who thinks like an adult' tomorrow at school? I might be mature, but I still like giving Bianca Henshaw a bitch-slap every now and then. Especially because, in some very convoluted way, she was kind of responsible for what almost happened to my best friend on Friday night."

"She was?"

"No, she wasn't. But us mature girls always need some bitch to slap. And it helps if the girl is really a bitch. Look, are you gonna stand there and let me convince you of how childish I am by letting me keep talking like this or are you going to pick me up tomorrow?"

"Of course I'll pick you up. I had decided I would the moment you asked me. I was just admiring watching you babble and talk yourself into a hole. Oh, and I had actually already postponed my flight. If you had said no I was going to start stalking you."

Wow, that sounded sexy in a creepy scary sort of way. "Maybe I
don't
know when you're lying..."

"Oh, you do know. Just some lies are bigger than others. And the little lies have smaller tells than the bigger ones."

Little lies
. Hmmm. That was one of those statements of the "I have a confession to make" ilk that also put my heart into that same vice. But, anyway, what kinds of little lies could this guy have in his closet?

"Leora?"

"Yes, um, sorry..." I shook my head to gather my wits.

"So, does this mean that..." I bit my bottom lip, pulled him closer to me. He went the rest of the way and our lips met. He ran his hand up my thigh, then stopped, moved away. I tried to pull him back by his neck. He kept going away. I bit
his
bottom lip.

"Ow!" he mumbled. Only it came out something like: "
owmpflgr
!" I let go of his lip, smiled lewdly. Now it was
he
who forcefully.

"You were saying?" he said.

"I wanted to know," I said quietly, leaning forward, "if this meant I wasn't going to get my dress ripped off on this concrete floor. Because I've gotta say that that really fucking turned me on."

His gaze was stuck on mine, his mouth a little bit open with shock.
Score!
I'd gotten him back for that lamebrain open-mouthed look I'd had when he first saw me at the club.

Still he said nothing!

"Conall?"

"Um, yes, I mean, no! I mean..."

"You remind me of Hugh Grant, only sexier.
Much
sexier." Damn, where were these frickin lines coming from? They were just rolling off my tongue like I'd been saying them for years!

"Why is that?"

"Oh, you know, the accent helps. As well as the total awkwardness when you get put in a spot."

"It's called 'caught in a tiz' in England." He swallowed. "Look, can you give me your water or my water or someone's water
?"

I gave him the glass, he downed it.

He put his hands like cat-claws on my knees. Slowly—excruciatingly slowly—he ran his fingernails up my thigh, only slightly faster than a snail. I clutched the table-cloth with my left hand, held onto the back of the chair with my other. When he got to my dress, he continued pushing up, leaving four lines behind where his fingers had been.

My dress starting rising. I lifted off my seat by an eighth of an inch so it wouldn't catch on the chair. It was up to the top of my thighs and I started opening my legs (now that I could!) I heard myself give a small, unintentional whimper as my breath caught. Conall's head was at about my breast level. It inched down slowly. He moved one hand away from my leg, pulled his chair closer, sat with his knees around mine.

He slid his hands under my dress now that there was enough slack, maneuvered two fingers of each side under the straps of my panties, curled his fingers, pulled.

I whimpered again.

The only sound I could hear was my own breath, blowing like the frickin North Wind! My chest was heaving like someone who'd just run the four hundred meters.

He pulled again. I felt a breeze run through between my legs as my panties slid away. My whole body broke out in shivers because of it. Both our glasses fell on the table as I gave the tablecloth an involuntary jerk. My legs began to tremble lightly. I felt like I was doing an eighty-pound squat and this was the final rep in the final set!

Conall lifted his head, his fingers still on the straps of my panties, moved into my neck. Kissed it wetly, then moved his lips back and began to blow on the spot he'd just wet.

Oh holy mother of fucking mercy. My. God!

I let go of the cloth and grabbed the back of his neck,
pulled
him toward me! But he pulled back. Too strong! I yanked him to me. He took his left hand away from my panties and pried my fingers off his neck. My whole body was tense, a steel pole ready to snap from too much pressure.

When he got my fingers off him I searched for the nearest thing to grab. I grabbed the tablecloth again. His right hand moved slowly inwards, between my legs. I was so wet. He tickled my hair, caressed around the sides gently, just a light touch. I started to heave with uncontrollable breaths. He moved his finger slowly up, right onto the sweet spot. "Oh, yes," I groaned. I couldn't hold it in anymore. He put his left hand back by the strap of my panties, moved the fingers of his right away, pulled my panties back on, slowly, agonizingly slowly.

I was still trying to control my breathing fiercely. He eased his hands around and under my thighs and to my butt, gave an abrupt tug toward him. Moved his lips from my neck to my own lips. I devoured him, kissed his tongue, his lips, let my saliva melt into his and he did the same. He kissed at my cheek, then began to ease away.

My eyes were closed. I was breathing like I was doing fuckin yoga, just trying to stay calm, trying not to explode, because something inside me told me this guy was going to be too much of a fucking gentleman to take this all the way tonight.
The bastard!

I inhaled his scent into me as I felt his moist fingers ease down my legs, gently. I felt my dress being pulled back down again. Then his hands were over my thighs and dress, moving up and down faster as if to say:
We're done here
.