Was that surprise in his voice? I couldn’t tell. I went for the obvious answer. “I’m putting these on.”
His gaze came back up to my face. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sarah,” he said. “We aren’t even close to finished.”
Twenty-One
Aidan
* * *
If I was being painfully honest—and at this point, I had no choice—I went into the bathroom mostly to collect myself. To gather my wits and get myself together. To take a breath and be Aidan again.
Except I wasn’t Aidan. Or was I? We hadn’t planned this far—I hadn’t planned this far. I’d planned the seduction, but like an idiot I hadn’t thought about what would come afterward.
The seduction itself had nearly pulled me to pieces.
I’d never had an experience like that with any woman. Samantha, playing Sarah, was fucking amazing. She was confident and sexy, raw and vulnerable. She played a game of deception, while underneath I could sense all of her exposed nerves. The combination was brilliant, erotic, and so explosive I’d nearly broken character a dozen times. It had taken every ounce of self-control I had not to throw the whole game away.
But I hadn’t. Because she liked the game, and so did I. The question was, now that we had both come and she was naked on my bed, were we still playing it?
Part of me wanted to go out there as Aidan and take her in my arms. Ask how she was feeling, if she was still okay. Talk to her about what we’d just done and how we’d done it.
But even as I cleaned up, then ran a hand through my hair as I looked in the mirror, I knew that would be the wrong move. There was a reason for this game—a reason beyond our own pleasure, that was. It was the only way to keep our other relationship, our work relationship, alive.
In short, if I ended the game now, on Monday Samantha would quit. And that was unthinkable.
So, John the art dealer it was.
I walked back out of the bathroom to see Sarah—I had to think of her as Sarah—sitting on the edge of the bed, naked except for her bra and her shoes. Her hair was onl
y slightly mussed, her makeup—that black eye makeup, so bold and so unlike her—still in place. Her knees were pressed together, a decorous pose for a woman so naked, and she was holding her black panties in her hand.
As if she was leaving.
That was when I realized—Sarah leaving my room after a quick fuck was definitely not part of the game.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
She looked up at me. In that look, I knew that she was as lost as I was, that she didn’t know how the game went now either. For some reason that gave me confidence. She was looking for me to take the lead, so I would.
“I’m putting these on,” she said, her voice neutral. Waiting for me to give her a signal.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sarah,” I said. “We aren’t even close to finished.”
There it was: my signal. If she wanted to end the game, all she had to do was put her clothes on and walk out. I wouldn’t stop her.
There was the briefest flicker in her eyes, which gave me satisfaction. Then she blinked. “You’re awfully confident that I’ll want another round,” she said.
I smiled at her. I raised my hands and began unbuttoning my shirt. “You loved it.”
“You were adequate.” But her expression gave her away, her hungry eyes, as they followed every move of my fingers, taking in my skin as I unbuttoned the shirt.
“I don’t see you leaving.” I pulled the shirt off and dropped it, started on my belt. “In fact, I don’t even see you putting those panties on. So drop them.”
Her eyes moved down me. “I’ll do it if you drop your pants first, John.”
Did she put the slightest emphasis on that last word? Maybe. I didn’t care. I was John now, the art dealer who had started his evening having a lonely drink at a bar and ended it unexpectedly lucky. John was impulsive, a man who didn’t make many plans but always followed a streak of luck if he found one.
In short, he was the opposite of me. He wasn’t the icy cold Man in Black, who never made a move without thinking it through. No, John improvised. He took chances on pieces of art that spoke to him. He took chances on beautiful women in bars who were far, far out of his league. As a result, what had started out as yet another lonely night was turning into one of the best nights of his life.