Beautiful Stranger

lip.
    “I wanted to touch you,” I said, my hand moving down beneath her underwear. “Just like this.”
    Her body bowed beneath me, curving against my own to bend over the desk. “I want to feel how wet you are,” I said, my breath ragged, my voice low and rough. “How wet you are knowing that I came this morning while watching you.”
    My fingers slipped lower.
    She gasped.
    “Are you watching?” I asked, pushing a single finger inside. She nodded and I slipped in a second, my thumb moving in circles over her clit. “You’re so fucking wet ,” I said, my teeth dragging along her shoulder.
    “We . . . shouldn’t do this here,” she said.
    And still, she pushed farther into my hand. All around my steady rhythm, I could feel her begin to tighten, her breath coming out in tiny, sharp pants.
    With a guilty wince, I removed my hand and turned her to face me. She looked practically drugged, eyelids heavy, lips parted.
    “And unfortunately my two minutes are up.”
    I kissed her cheek, the corner of her mouth, and then each of her eyelids when she closed her eyes. And then I took my phone out of her hand and walked out of her office.

Three
    A stranger took video of me dancing.
    And then he found where I worked—because apparently he’s buddies with my boss —and I asked him to show me the video.
    Following that, I made him put his hands in my underwear —again, but this time in my new office —and proved to both of us how much the idea of him touching himself while watching the video turned me on.
    “Oh, dear God.”
    “That’s the tenth time you’ve said that in the past fifteen minutes, Sara. Come out here and spill.” My assistant, George, leaned against the doorway. “Unless it’s so scandalous I need to come in there and close your door.”
    “It’s nothing. I’m just . . .” I straightened the pens in a cup on my desk, tapped some papers into alignment. “Nothing.”
    He curved his lips into a skeptical smile. “You’re a terrible liar.”
    “Really. It’s a huge, gigantic, regrettable nothing.”
    George walked into my office and collapsed in the chair across from my desk. “Did this Nothing happen at Chloe’s engagement party on Saturday?”
    “Possibly.”
    “And was it of the Male Nothing variety?”
    “Potentially.”
    “Was the Male Nothing the slice of Max Stella that was just in your office?”
    “What? No!” I lied without blinking. I’d high-five myself later for that bit of unexpected smoothness. George was right the first time: I was a terrible liar. But apparently my shame over the Public Wall Sex Situation was enough to tap into as-yet-unknown skills. “And how do you know who Max Stella is?”
    George made careful study of local, hot men, but seeing as how he arrived only a week before I did—a New Yorker for all of thirteen days—I didn’t think even he could work that fast.
    “Let me ask you,” he began, “what was the first thing you did when you arrived and had settled into your apartment?”
    “Found the closest sources of wine and cupcakes,” I said. “Obviously.”
    He laughed. “Obviously. But because my goal is not to be an old plump spinster, what I do is check out the scene. Where are the fun places to eat—dance—party?”
    “To meet all of the men,” I added.
    He acknowledged this with a wink. “ All of the men. I find out everything I can, and in so doing, I also find out about the Who’s Who of the city.” He leaned forward and gave me a wide, bright smile. “In this city, Max Stella is a Who.”
    “A who ? How?”
    He laughed. “He’s a Page Six darling. City of London import a few years back. Brilliant VC mastermind, always fucking some hot celebrity or trust fund princess. Different flavor of arm candy every week. La la la.”
    Great. I’d managed to select the same slutty publicity hound make and model as my previous boyfriend. But here, not only was Max a well-known womanizer, he was a high-profile venture capitalist, whom I would no doubt cross paths with time and again for work. And who had video of me dancing like a stripper while I imagined his head between my legs.
    I groaned again. “Oh, dear God.”
    “Calm down. You look like you’re about to pass out. Have you had lunch?”
    “No.”
    “Look. You’re way ahead here. We only have four contracts that require any kind of attention and if what Henry told me about you is true, I’m guessing you’ve combed through them a hundred times already. Chloe