Beautiful Stranger

Will is cute?”
    I laughed, taking a final sip of beer and reaching for my clothes. “Yes, but you’re more my type.”
    “Posh? Gifted in the penis department? Godlike?”
    I looked over at him and laughed. “I was going to say you have the perfectly filthy mouth.”
    His eyes darkened and he leaned to kiss me. “Stay over. Please, Petal. I want to fuck you in the morning when you’re all sleep-rumpled and drowsy.”
    “I can’t, Max.”
    He stared at me for a long beat and then looked away, raising his bottle to his lips, mumbling, “He really did a number on you,” around it.
    I felt my smile fade. “It’s better when you don’t try to find meaning in a woman who wants sex to just be sex. Yes, Andy did a number on me but that isn’t why I don’t want to stay over.”
    I looked at him for a moment before remembering to pull my smile back in place. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with next week.”

    By the time I made it home, the high of being with Max had fizzled into a strange ache beneath my ribs. I tossed my keys and bag to the table in the hall andleaned back against the wall, looking into the inky darkness of my living room. My place was small but in the few short months I’d been in New York it had come to feel more like home to me than had the palatial home I’d shared with Andy for almost five years.
    But tonight, with the echo of music and sparklers bouncing off the buildings, and the sound of laughter and celebrations shouted from the sidewalks outside, my tiny space felt lonely for the first time since I’d arrived.
    Without turning on any lights, I stripped as I made my way to the bathroom and stepped into the cramped shower. I stood under the hot spray and closed my eyes, hoping the sound of water would drown out the noise in my head.
    It didn’t work. My muscles were tense and sore and the subtle ache between my legs made it almost impossible for my thoughts to not continually circle back to Max.
    I’d never been the type of girl to obsess over a man before, but that was definitely what seemed to be happening. Max wasn’t only gorgeous, he was nice . And I knew it was the sex that made us truly compatible. I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around my newfound obsession with being watched by him—maybe even also by others—but that need pushed up like steam beneath my skin: warm, and exciting, and impossible to ignore.
    And Max seemed to accept it, embrace it even, as easily as he did everything else.
    Where my relationship with Andy had been only for public display, Max seemed to have tapped into my unfamiliar desire to be watched while respecting my need for privacy. For as much as Max was the playboy and seemed to be wrong for me in every possible way, he was letting me experience something I never would have felt safe enough to try with Andy. Was it really that simple? Was I keeping Max at arm’s length because it was the opposite of everything I had with Andy? My relationship with Andy had false depth and lacked any spark. My relationship with Max was intentionally simple, and even seeing him from a distance made it feel like a torch ignited in my chest.
    I turned off the water, suddenly too warm. For a beat, I regretted not still being with Max. I’d squandered the chance to touch his skin, taste his sounds, and feel his weight over me all night long.
    But when I walked into my bedroom and studied my reflection in the mirror on my closet door, I looked suddenly unfamiliar to myself. I stood straighter, blinked less, watched more. Even I could see there was some wisdom in my eyes that hadn’t been there before.

Ten
    “I still don’t understand why you’re coming with me today.”
    I bit back a smile as I met Will’s annoyed expression in the mirrored doors of the elevator, ignoring the curious glances we’d earned from some of the other passengers around us. He hit the button for the eighteenth floor.
    My attention lingered on the label beside it: RYAN MEDIA GROUP . “You know how much I enjoy seeing you in action. Fish in a barrel or whatever it is you Americans say.”
    “First of all,” he said, quieter now, “you’re using that wrong, and nobody says that anymore. And second, you’re full of shit. You have a hundred other meetings this week; I know you’re swamped. Why on earth are you coming to this? It’s not anything I need you for.”
    “You’re right, technically I don’t need to be here, but I’ve seen you in these