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He plucked my hand from his chest, this time brushing his lips over my knuckles, causing me to shiver even in the humid night. “Trevor.”
Towards the end of the evening, I extricated myself from the company of a particularly loquacious industry photographer, who was intent on explaining how perfect I would be to model all-natural organic fiber dresses his friend was releasing next year.
I feigned enthusiasm while thinking that the entire line sounded itchy. Still, I didn’t want to offend him, so I took his business card, letting him kiss the air around my face European style before I left, and it couldn’t be soon enough. Because I had felt a certain set of eyes on me the entire time, and when I slid my gaze over to where he stood a dozen feet from the music stage, Trevor was watching me with that hooded gaze.
I nibbled my bottom lip, considering my next move. During our brief conversation, he’d mentioned being involved in antique art, meaning we were unlikely to ever cross paths professionally.
He was only here in the first place because the investor and he knew each other from deals in the art world they had worked on. That meant I was free and clear to accept whatever attention Trevor offered me without affecting my career.
He had certainly caught my attention and, more importantly, my curious interest.
And he wasinteresting. Despite the joking manner in which he had declared it earlier, Trevor was mysterious. When I asked about all the color theory talk, he had given me the antique art line and refused to elaborate further, expertly turning the conversation to my career.
He seemed surprised that I had moved out to Dallas alone from my small hometown, commenting about how he had been absolutely correct in calling me ambitious. I had preened under the praise, especially since it was about something other than my body, which is the first thing most men wanted to investigate about me.
This time I approached him, and he let me as if he had known all along that I would find my way back to him. His smile was slow and contagious, and I felt my own lips twitching as I reached him.
“You know,” I said under my breath but still loudly enough to be heard over the acoustic set being played on stage, “if you give me your address, I can mail you a signed headshot since it seems you’re my biggest fan here tonight.”
“I’d surely cherish it all my days. How’d you get here tonight?”
The lightning-fast change of subject left me reeling, but only for a second. “My manager called me an Uber. I assume you arrived by private jet?”
“Helicopter, actually,” he parried right back. No one would ever doubt Trevor’s quick wit. “Let me drive you home.”
“I don’t think I know you well enough for all that,” I answered hesitantly. The wordyesjumped to my tongue immediately, and I had to swallow it down.
He gave me a look of approval before checking his watch. “It looks like I have about an hour to make the transition from stranger to trusted acquaintance. How about it? Get to know me,Rachel, and then if you like what you discover, you can decide if you know me well enough or not. And I insist that if you do let me escort you home, you let a few friends know you’re having someone drive you. I want you to feel safe with me.”
I had to admit, he was smooth as silk, and I took him up on his offer. Trevor told me just enough to have me hooked, name-dropping all his favorite places around Dallas before giving me the floor to tell him mine, coaxing every minute detail out of me while keeping his answers subtlety surface level.
Naïvely, I didn’t notice, letting him lead me from subject to subject. I liked how he picked my brain and adored how he wanted to knowme,not how an article of clothing would fit my body or who my favorite co-star was. I’m always surprised by how many times someone asks me that question.
That isn’t to say that he didn’t appreciate me physically, though. From the first brush of my hip with his knuckles to the brief touch of his hand on my bare shoulder as he opened the car door for me, Trevor seemed to find little opportunities to touch me, but never in a way that set off any alarms in my head. I had watched his face, eyes fixated on my long tan legs as I folded them into his Mercedes, and knew he wanted this to be more than a fast friendship. I didn’t object to the idea, either.
He dropped me off outside my apartment, and I half-expected him to invite himself up, but he didn’t, simply walking around the car and opening the door, helping me out with my hand in his. I didn’t miss the stroke of his thumb over the pulse in my wrist or the way he pulled me forward so gently that it was completely my choice to close the space between us.
I kissed that mysterious man goodbye, just a chaste press of my lips to the corner of his mouth, but there was so much potential burning between us that I knew it wouldn’t be long before he had me beneath him. The idea of it made embers start to burn in my belly.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven p.m.,” he told me when I broke the kiss, keeping our bodies pressed together. “I’m going to do this thing right, Rachel.”
It was a surprisingly sweet declaration, so much so that I ignored the subtle insistence that he was taking me out the next day, no matter what. I nodded and walked upstairs to my apartment as slowly as I could without it being obviously intentional, just so he could watch the entire time.
I don’t remember much about the dinner he took me to the next night, at some pricy steakhouse where he had gotten us a private table towards the back. Now that I look back on it, I can clearly pinpoint the times he turned the conversation away from himself and back to me; my hopes, dreams, wishes, loves, and hates, making sure never to spend too long talking about himself. It’s a red flag now, but back then, it was so refreshing to have someone genuinely interested in me and not what I looked like in a particular set of lingerie. I let it all slip by without hesitation.
Truth be told, I was exceedingly lonely. I still am, but at least I have come to terms with it now. Then, I was craving those kinds of conversations, soaked in all the times he made me laugh, each subtle little touch that seemed to be building up to something monumental. God, if only I knew then what I know now.
That night, I invited him upstairs with me. Throughout dinner and the long walk in the park he had treated me to afterward, Trevor had put his hands on me with increasing frequency until I was sure it would drive me insane. His large hand rested my lower back, the warmth of his body heat radiating through me, and I played into all of it wholeheartedly.
Once we were inside my place, I expected things to explode between us. Maybe a frenzied make-out session against the wall or a mad rush to the bedroom with clothing flying off as we went, but it didn’t happen like that. Instead, Trevor took me gently in his arms and stared at my mouth, his approach to foreplay just as long and drawn out as his public seduction over the last two days. His kiss was careful, methodical. Skilled, but not sating the need thrumming inside me.
Trevor peeled my clothes away, both his words and the soft press of his mouth on my skin giving me praise. He was still completely clothed as he cupped my tits, plucking at my nipples as he kissed my mouth, feeding more and more into the sensations building inside me. I had just reached the point where I was going to demand he take me back to the bedroom when he knelt before me. Without preamble, he hitched one of my legs over his shoulder, causing me to have to grab onto his shoulders for balance, and when he lowered that frustratingly patient mouth between my thighs, any annoyance at how long he had taken dissipated into thin air.
Later that night, both of us beneath the blankets of my bed, he looked into my eyes and said, “A man would willingly die, and die happy, for this.”
Now, back in the reality of my present day, in another bed he and I shared but that I now occupied alone, I thought of his urn downstairs in his office, enormous and gaudy gold and black, and I was full of doubt. Doubt about why he had chosen me, doubt about why I had fallen for it all, and most of all, doubt that he had actually died happy.
And finally, doubt that he would die willingly, that this had been expected.
