Knitting in the City 01 Neanderthal Seeks Human (39 page)

I picked at the plastic of my desk calendar with my thumbnail and felt nothing but contrition.

I closed my eyes, “I’m sorry.”

His voice was less irritated, “
Why are you sorry?
”

“I just-” I hesitated, letting my forehea
d fall into the palm of my hand.

I couldn’t tell him the truth.

I couldn’t tell him that I was sorry for exhibiting poor, wine-induced judgment and sleeping with him- because I wasn’t. I wasn’t sorry. I was glad I’d been inebriated because it allowed me to do something that was so very, very unwise. I was glad my judgment had been impaired.

I couldn’t tell him that I left because I was an idiot who was confusing fant
astic sex with depth of feeling.

I couldn’t say
I was hoping for a future with him. I couldn’t admit I was desperate for it. 

So I lied.

“I kept thinking about the plane ride with everyone, and you, and I don’t think there is a handbook for this, but if there is then please send it to me, because I didn’t want to say something wrong in front of everyone. I mean, we haven’t talked about how this is going to work, us working together and you being you and me being me- and I- I don’t want to jeopardize my working relationships with the team here-”

He interrupted me when I paused to take a breath, “
Janie, Janie- it’s ok. Ok? I understand
.”

I stopped, hesitated, bit my bottom lip, wondered what he understood because I wasn’t even sure that I understood. “You do?”

“
Yes. I do. I know you like… labels and defined expectations. I can do that- for work. We can put in place some sort of agreement which defines expectations and such at work.
”

“So you think we need one too?”

“
Yes if it will make you feel more comfortable and definitely yes if it keeps you from disappearing again.
”

I blurted before my brain could stop the words, “Why are you even interested in me?”

I closed my eyes again, scrunching my face, as mortification (from me) and stillness (from him) greeted my question. My self-recrimination was swift:
Don’t ask that question, he may not have an answer…

I heard a soft ‘
click-click
’ then silence.

I opened my eyes and unseeingly looked at the report on my desk, “Quinn?” there was no answer; I swallowed thickly, “Quinn? Are you still there?”

“That’s not a conversation I want to have over the phone.” Quinn’s voice came from my left.

My head shot upward and I looked for and found the source of the words. Quinn was there, leaning against the frame of my office door, his phone still in his hand. I slowly lowered my phone to the desk as I stood. My face decided to give him a
stupid shy smile, it was an uncontrollable response to his presence.

“Hi…” I breathed the word.

“Hi.” His smile was unhurried and the warmth in his eyes was doing strange things to me, like making me want to bite him.

He stepped in the door, closed it, and locked it. He set down a bag and slipped his phone into his pocket as he entered.
He was wearing a white dress shirt, patterned tie, but no jacket. We gazed at each other; I was afraid that he might dissolve, prove to be a figment of my imagination if I moved or spoke. I didn’t want him to disappear.

Then, as though it were the most natural, expected thing in the world, he crossed the room to where I stood and kissed me. It was a kiss that immediately told me he missed me and that he’d been thinking abo
ut kissing me all day.

The kiss, also, made me want to bite him.

After he was satisfied, he straightened slowly and tipped his head to the side; his eyes were half lidded as he openly studied my face. I gazed up at him, another shy smile claiming my features through no conscious decision of my brain, and allowed myself to appreciate the sight. 

“You’re not wearing your glasses.” His tone was conversational but his voice was deep, rumbly, quiet, intimate. I loved it.

“No, they were taken.”

“
Taken?”

“Long story involving a turtle.”

He smiled at me, his eyes full of man-mirth, “A turtle? Really?”

“Yes.” I breathed him in. He smelled good. I loved it.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“I’m meeting my knitting group at seven
.”

“I didn’t know you knit.” He lifted his eyebrows.

“I don’t.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly higher, “Oh… ok. Well, how about later?”

I answered truthfully, “I was planning to sort my comic books based on level of second wave feminist influence.”

“As opposed to first wave?”

“Yes, well, Susan B. Anthony laid the foundation for those who have come after. It’s all really interrelated but she didn’t have direct influence over late twentieth century comics.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, a very reluctant looking smile claiming his mouth.

“Why? What are you doing tonight?” I asked dreamily. In that moment I felt like such a weak girl.

He met my gaze again with a heavily lidded one of his own, “I was hoping to show you one of the reasons why I’m interested in you, because there are many.
But, if you need to sort your comic books, then I guess I could just show you now…” his hands slid down my arms to my waist, hips, then bottom. He didn’t so much as rest them there as firmly plant them on my body and press me to him while caressing my backside.

The movement made my insides explode; I felt a nuclear blast of awareness so keenly I almost lost my breath.

I said, “Oh.” because it was all I could manage.

He grinned and dipped his head; he kissed me just behind my ear then down my neck. I, of course, angled my head to the side to give him better access.

And then, I lost consciousness- and by lost consciousness I mean Ida woke up and asserted her dominance.

~*~

It’s true.

I had really hot sex in my office with my boss on my desk.

That happened.

I’ve experienced these singularities before, these surreal moments where some combination of the lighting in the room, the situation, the smell, the people I’m with, and the clothes I’m wearing make me feel like I’m in a movie.

Standing in my office, simultaneously trying to adjust my undergarments and hair and buttoning my shirt, Quinn in my peripheral vision, I felt very much like I was in a movie.

Nothing about the moment felt very plausible.

“I need to come into the office more often.” I could hear the playfulness behind his words but I didn’t smile. My palms itched to touch his bare skin and my heart fluttered in my chest.

We’d just finished mauling each other in my office
, literally on my desk; and, already, I couldn’t stop thinking about when I’d get a chance to climb all over him again. It was not a feeling with which I had any experience and the intensity was somewhat troubling.

“I know where we should go to dinner tonight,” his voice came from someplace behind me, I guessed he was standing by the window, “but we’ll need to change first.”

My fingers began to tremble and, therefore, I stopped buttoning my shirt. Placing my hands on my hips I leaned against my desk and ducked my head. I allowed the coppery spirals to curtain my features and tried to absorb the fact that last night and several minutes ago were real events in my life. They were allowed to be my memories.

I brain repeated:
That happened. That happened, that happened, this is happening.

And this time, I couldn’t blame the wine for my impaired judgment.

I heard his steps cross the room. Through the filter of my curls I spied his black leather shoes stop directly in front of me. He paused then tucked my hair away and behind my ears. The infinitely gentle gesture maybe made me feel cherished.

“Hey.” He said.

I glanced at him through my eyelashes and we stared at each other. His tenderness- of his voice, touch- filled me with the acute need to invade the silence.

I cleared my throat, met his gaze fully, wanted to say something that would ease the growing discord in my Bermuda triangle of brain-heart-
vagina; finally I decided on praise and honesty.

“For the record, that was really enjoyable.”

His lips quirked to the side as his gaze moved over my features, “Is there a record? Have you been keeping a log?”

I nodded, “Yes. I keep a log of everything. Data is immeasurably valuable
, which is why there are such stringent data access policies for medical research.”

I noted that his eyes abruptly affixed to mine
in the middle of my statement, “You- do you-“ he licked his lips, “You actually keep a written log of every time you’ve had sex? ”

I frowned at him, he must’ve tossed his kippers, “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t write it down. I keep a running log in my head- you know, of things I liked, didn’t like. Things you liked, or seemed to like. That kind of stuff.”

He slow-blinked, “Oh.” His eyes moved between mine, plain bemusement was an unusual expression for him.

Growing uncomfortable under his stalwart scrutiny, I dipped my chin,
once again not wanting to meet his gaze directly. It was, perhaps, too soon to share my freakish tendencies with him.

However,
it abruptly occurred to me, perhaps it was
exactly
the right time to be sharing my freakish tendencies with him. Perhaps now was precisely the right time to send him running, which he would inevitably do, before I
really
changed and started zealously pursuing him to get my next Quinn-fix.

Before some Quinn-related biochemical process, likely methylation, flipped on all the
girl-gone-wild genetic markers of my DNA.

“It’s like shoe sizes.”
I volunteered, studying him closely.

“Shoe sizes.” He slow-blinked again, “What are you talking about?”

“Well, they only make so many shoe sizes. If your feet are larger than the largest shoe size then you are considered to have freakishly big feet.” I touched my thumb and forefinger to the buttons of my shirt, ensuring they were all completely fastened and rigidly buttoning the last two. “You should know that I have similarly inescapable freakish attributes.”

Quinn immediately smiled but then suppressed it; he cleared his throat, “Well, what about clowns? They wear freakishly big shoes.”

“So?”

“So- big shoes have their place.”

“Yeah. In the circus…” I crossed my arms, “You know, with the freaks.”

He mimicked my stance, “You are not a freak.”

“You should know this about me before this, whatever this is, gets out of hand. I am, indeed, a freak.”

“Define ‘
out of hand’
.”

My cheeks flamed at how he made the colloquialism sound sordid.

Regardless, I straightened my spine and attempted to come across as reasonable, logical; “You know, before this turns into something… else and you think I’m one way and I’m actually another way.”

“Janie, you’re not the only one in this room who is freakish.”

Blush, meet nose and ears. Nose and ears, meet blush. You will be spending lots of time together.

“No you’re not. You’re a falcon and I’m an ostrich.”

Looking very predatory, he narrowed his eyes, “First, you are using too many analogies today and-”

I interrupted, “See?
” I pointed to myself with both hands for emphasis, “Freak!”

He ignored me, “
-secondly, I can totally see the similarities between you and an ostrich.”

This surprised me; I thought he would try to defend me against my own insults.

“I- uh- you can?” It was my turn to slow-blink.

“Yes.” The slow-sexy-grin gradually claimed his features.

“Because I’m a strange bird who buries my head in the sand?”

He laughed as he rubbed his chin lightly, “No, because you have long legs, large eyes, and-” his eyes moved over my hair, “a lot of plumage.”

Unthinkingly, I reached for the dreaded crazy-town curls and twisted the bulk of them, hoping to calm their chaoticness, to no avail.

He smiled at me.

At me.

The full force of his smile felt almost painful.

“So, about dinner…”

“I- uh- can’t go out with you tonight.” I was somewhat surprised by how normal my voice sounded. “You know, I’m meeting my knitting group. I told you before, before we- before you-” I huffed.

Quinn titled his head to the side, his smile
receding, and he lifted his large hands to cover my shoulders. It was so strange to think that he could, and would, just touch me. That it was now suddenly ok and expected because the seal had been broken, the line had been crossed.