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ould get his fingers inside her. Silky and hot and perfect. He sucked on her neck and she came on a keening cry, bowing forward, hands gripping his wrists, then rocking back into his chest making a song of his name.
Over the way, the couple had changed positions. The woman stood, palms planted on the window glass. Her blouse was open, her tits spilling from black lacy bra cups yanked aside. Her blue skirt was flipped up over her back and the man thrust into her from behind. The woman’s eyes were closed, but the man still watched Zarley.
“More, Reid. Please more.”
Now who was greedy? He wouldn’t take Zarley like that. He wouldn’t share her that far. The woman’s mouth was open, she panted and pushed back against the man, tossed her head so her hair flicked about. She was going to come hard too.
He released Zarley long enough to ditch his sweats and drag a dining chair in front of the window. He placed it so his back was to the window and Zarley could watch through the window. He sat and she kicked her shorts off and straddled him. He forgot about the other couple when Zarley lowered herself onto him, kissing him with soft, slack lips and a hand tight in his hair as comets zipped across his vision.
The chair had rungs and she used them like stirrups to ride him, hands on his shoulders for leverage, eyes locked on his. “You’re so goddamn fucking sexy, Zarley.”
She bounced on him. “You make me feel it. I love it.” She pulled his head down for a kiss that made his feet lift from the floor. She’d said it, not him, but he’d take it. His spine was shot through with electric sparks that zapped him every time she bore down. In the park, he thought he might die if he couldn’t have her, now he might die from having her.
She didn’t look out the window, she never broke eye contact. He had no breath, no thought beyond the ache of heat and shock she generated. He felt the pull of her in his gut, in his thighs, in his chest, in his shins, and enough power arched up his back as his balls drew tight to blow the top of his head off.
He came first, holding her hips to stop her drawing off, unable to contain his shout. She followed, shuddering and gasping, her teeth clacking, then collapsing into him.
When it was over and he could breathe normally and she was limp and draped across his chest, he turned his head to check the window.
The room was empty, but in condensation on the glass someone had drawn a heart. The sight of it made Reid’s clench. He’d never wanted to hold on to something as badly as he wanted Zarley, or feared he wasn’t up to the challenge.
The ordinary domesticity that followed was welcome, it gave his head the chance to clear. It would be too easy to spook her with feelings he didn’t have a firm hold on. Zarley cooked and they ate and while he cleaned up, she checked her messages. There was a one from Madame Amour offering a choice of performance times. It was hard to tell which of them was more excited. She chose the first time offered, which gave her two days to finalize her routine, music and costume. She made him promise to keep her busy in the meantime.
He had no trouble with that instruction.
Unlike the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, where they went the next day, was fantastically civilized. No cameras allowed. You could experience the art as it was meant to be viewed, or you could watch the woman you were in love with take it all in with curious delight.
He loved her. That’s what the fear and the joy and the safety he felt with her told him.
He watched Zarley move from room to room, from painting to painting, mood to mood and knew he’d want to watch her for the rest of his life. He was in love with her. Had been from that first night he’d watched her dance, but he hadn’t understood it then.
Still didn’t.
He had no idea what loving a woman meant from a practical point of view. From a purely selfish point of view it meant he couldn’t keep his eyes or hands off her. He wanted her smoky voice in his ear and her commentary in his life. He wanted to hold her when she slept and chase after her when she was awake. She was an adventure and he was on it. She was a disturbance in the routine of his life and he needed her as his new habit.
But what did she need?
A job, a chance, a degree, a place to live, a future. And she didn’t see him playing a part in any of that, not if she wouldn’t let him pay for an airfare or a fancy meal.
She stood in front of Degas’s bronze, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, unconsciously patterning the sculpture’s stance, feet turned out, hands clasped behind her back, chin up.
“Isn’t she wonderful?”
She might’ve been talking to herself. He stepped in close behind her and she leaned her weight into him. He touched his knuckles to her cheek. “She is wonderful.” He was talking to himself and to Zarley, and to anyone else who could decode how he felt about his little pole dancer, could tell him what to do with his feelings, how to make them into something solid that didn’t need sex or money or privilege to explain it away.
She was so struck by the ballerina figure she let him buy her a desktop-sized copy in the gift shop. He’d have bought her the original if it was possible.
She cooked again that night, then she played around with music, working routines in her head, going over dance and acrobatic moves that didn’t depend on a pole. It was disjointed, repetitive, and her focus was introverted, as if he didn’t exist, but he watched her with a tightness in his chest he didn’t know how to release.
If he told Zarley he loved her, would he push her away? Did you go from a thing to girlfriend to beloved so quickly or was this his failing, his lack of emotional maturity. He needed Sarina but he dared not ring her for this. What would Sarina tell him to do? Not brood on it, that’s for sure. Not get weird about it, which is what he was doing. Let this fester any longer and Zarley would be all over him to account for himself.
He quit any pretense of reading and simply watched her move about, humming to herself, eyes focused outside this room, well beyond him and his tight chest and his asinine indecision.
He was deep inside his own head when she spoke. “I need a sexier costume.”
The pieces she’d brought were laid out in the room. The red leather was over the back of a chair. The snakeskin hung on a hanger off the curtain rail. “Can we buy something?” They’d passed a lingerie shop and though he’d suggested they go inside, he’d passed an excruciating half hour not knowing where to look. He knew better than to offer to buy her something then, especially after the ballerina, but now he wasn’t sure.
She pulled the band from her hair. “Yes. I can have one expensive night out with you or something amazing from that shop.”
