The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

the thick, pale carpet of the sitting room. In the darkness, the low couches and the heavy walnut coffee table created obstacles that made her move even more slowly and carefully. The hairs standing up on the back of her neck told her that André was navigating the room just as slowly a few steps behind her. She drifted towards the tall windows that faced tree-lined Sixty-Third Street; the lights along Madison Avenue were just visible through a corner of the glass panes. André caught her wrist and spun her towards him, and she forgot all about the view outside. She was too busy taking in his thick eyelashes, the shadow of stubble under his olive skin, the half-amused arch of his eyebrows that was echoed in the turn of his lips that were moving steadily, inevitably, closer to hers.
    He kissed her softly the first time, then again with more intensity, and then she felt the magic in her blood catch fire as he drove her back against the window with so much force that she briefly wondered if the glass would crack. His tongue parted her lips as his fingers found the hem of her top again. This time, when he found it, he pulled it up roughly, breaking their kiss just long enough to pull the scrap of green silk over her head and drop it somewhere behind him. Fortunately, the rest of their clothes could come off while allowing their mouths to stay locked, and for a long moment Jane found herself pressed between the cool glass behind her and André’s smouldering body in front of her, both touching every inch of her bare skin.
Not mine,
she reminded herself,
Ella’s. Who cares who’s scandalized?
    But André apparently had a bit more of a sense of decorum left. He whirled her away from the window, twining his leg around hers so that she lost her balance and her weight was entirely in his arms. Then he set her down on the nearest taupe couch, and followed her body hungrily with his own. He entered her immediately, without hesitation or warning, but she found that her body was fully ready for him, and her back arched so hard that she thought she might leave the couch entirely. Then he was driving her back down into the thick fabric of the cushion, his mouth roaming across her neck and collarbone as he thrust. Her hands glided across his back, and then she felt a sudden spasm of heightened pleasure and her fingernails bit into his skin as her back tried to arch up again. He caught her wrists deftly, one at a time, and pinned them gently above her head.
    In the darkened room, she could still see his even darker eyes and the hint of a smile on his lips. Acting on impulse, she drove one heel into the back of the couch and flipped him, their still-interlocked bodies free-falling to the ground. He grunted a little as his back struck the plush carpet, but the smile was still in place, and she pulled herself upright to straddle him, her body shining in the moonlight, her now-freed hands winding ecstatically in her own hair. He came with a final series of powerful thrusts, and the change of the rhythm triggered shockwaves in her own body, and she leaned down again, kissing him helplessly, until they passed.
    After a long few minutes, she rolled to the side, separating from him. He stayed where he was, breathing deeply, but his hand snaked out and circled her wrist again, this time in a much firmer grip. ‘Don’t go far,’ he murmured forcefully, and then released her.

Fourteen
    J ANE KEPT HER oversize sunglasses on until she reached the door of her Greenwich Village apartment. When her retinas were assaulted by the sun streaming through the living room’s massive wall of windows, she wished that she had kept them on, but she reminded herself that she had earned every stab and throb of her hangover and soldiered on.
    ‘J— Ella!’ Dee squealed happily, poking her head out from the kitchen. Jane winced at the noise, but the smells wafting through the doorway made her cautiously optimistic about her ability to keep food down.
    ‘You will not
believe
the day I had yesterday,’ she told Dee, keeping her own voice intentionally soft. ‘But before I go there, is there coffee? Mine’s gone.’ She waved her empty Starbucks cup pointedly: the venti Americano had lasted her about two crosstown blocks in traffic. ‘Next time I’m
so
just taking the subway. But changing trains in these shoes – have you
seen
these shoes? They’re—’
    She eventually stopped rambling when she realized that Dee was waving frantic complex signals