RainStorm

My respiration wanted to speed up and I
    controlled it, not wanting her to see.
    "Maybe I am a threat to you," she said, her voice even. "Not because I -want to be, but because of the situation. So? You're a professional.
    Do what you have to do. Eliminate the threat."
    She took a step closer, close enough for me to smell her, to feel
    something coming off her body, heat or some electrical thing. I felt
    another adrenaline rush spreading through my chest and gut.
    "No?" she asked, looking into my eyes. "Why? You know how.
    Here." She reached down for my hands and brought them up to
    her neck. Her skin was warm and smooth. I could feel her pulse
    against my fingers. It was beating surprisingly hard. I could hear her
    breath moving in and out through her nose.
    I hadn't meant to bluff, but somehow I had. And now she was
    calling. Fuck.
    But she wasn't completely sure of herself. There was that rapid
    pulse, and the sound of her breathing.
    And of mine, I realized. I looked for some way to regain the initiative,
    regain control of the situation. But looking into those blue
    eyes, seeing her face framed by my hands encircling her neck, her
    expression simultaneously fearful and defiant, I was having trouble.
    She lowered her arms to her sides now and tilted her chin
    slightly upward, the posture maximally submissive, and yet, somehow,
    also mocking, insolent. I looked down at the shadowed hollows
    of her clavicles, one side, then the other, and was almost
    defeated by the thought of how easy it would be to sweep my
    hands down over her shoulders, catching the material of the dress
    on the way, bringing the garment and the lingerie beneath down
    to her wrists and belly in one smooth motion, exposing her breasts,
    her skin, her body.
    It was there if I wanted it. I knew that, and I knew this was by
    design, our moves to be choreographed on her terms, where she
    would offer what I wanted like a kind homeowner offering milk to
    a starving kitten, maybe petting the little stray on the head while it
    greedily lapped at the leavings.
    I was suddenly angry. The feline imagery helped. I removed my
    hands from her neck and took a careful step away from her. My
    mouth had gone dry. I picked up my Laphroaig. Took a swallow. Sat
    back down, as casually as I could.
    "I was right about you," I said, leaving her standing there. "You
    really can't help yourself. This is all you've got."
    Her eyes narrowed a fraction, and I knew I was right. I'd competed
    against guys like this in judo. They had one money move, a
    technique that always worked for them, but if you could get past
    that one, if you could survive it, they were off their game and
    couldn't recover.
    "What's it like?" I went on, feeling more in control now. "Can
    you even talk to a man without trying to give him a hard-on? What
    are you going to do a few years from now, when your pheromones
    start to dry up? Because there's nothing more to you. Maybe there
    was, a long time ago, but there's nothing left now."
    Her eyes narrowed more and her ears seemed almost to flatten
    in an oddly feral attitude of anger. Good, I thought. I needed that.
    "Are you going to sit down?" I asked, gesturing to the couch.
    "I'm not going to fuck you. And I'm not going to kill you. Not
    here, not now. It took all afternoon to get rid of that guy from the
    elevator, and I'm not going through that again tonight."
    She smiled in a way that made me wonder if she had just imagined
    herself killing me, and dipped her head toward me as if to say, All right. Touche.
    She moved back to the couch and finished what was in her
    glass. I picked up the bottle to pour her another. She raised the glass
    as I did so and I noticed that both our hands were shaking. I knew
    she saw it, too.
    "Why don't we call that one a draw," I offered.
    She smiled and took a swallow of what I'd poured her. "I think
    you're being generous," she said.
    "I'm being honest."
    She smiled again, a little more brightly this time. "You're good,
    you know. Exceptional."
    "Yeah, so are you."
    She took another swallow and looked at me. "It would have
    been interesting to see "what would have happened if we'd met under
    other circumstances."
    "You want it to be more interesting than it already is?" I asked.
    We both laughed, and the tension broke.
    Then we were silent for a moment, maybe collecting ourselves,
    adjusting to the new dynamic. I decided to try to keep things comfortable
    for a while, thinking it would be useful to make her feel
    good