Today was a day I needed to pull out the big guns. I wasn’t ashamed to have utilized every resource available to me to my advantage. I played to win in all things, but I had never wanted to win anything as much as I wanted Melissa. Even more so than when we first met, I had to have her.
When we were kids there had been an instant attraction, and the allure of the unknown. This time around there had been twelve years of foreplay and our two recent encounters beforehand, and I already knew exactly how good it could be between us.
With each of our previous encounters, Mel had drawn up a of reasons why we could or shouldn’t be together, and as sure as I was of my desire for her, I had no guarantees that it would be reciprocated on her part, so I was putting all my chips on black to make her mine.
Speaking of black, I couldn’t help but think about what was going on under the black skirt and almost sheer white shirt Melissa was wearing. I was fairly certain that she had dressed that way to be modest and businesslike, and had no idea that she might as well have lit a match to my libido and watched it engulf in flames.
The outfit was smokin’ hot, and the thought of her walking around the office dressed that way, with her fuck-me heels, and that pencil skirt clinging to her curves made me feel faintly murderous. If I thought too hard about the black lace bra dimly visible through the thin fabric, and peeking from the opening of her shirt, I flipped from faintly murderous to distinctly homicidal.
“Melissa Reid. That’s new. Married?” I looked down at her left hand again, though I’d noticed she hadn’t worn a ring on the other occasions I’d met her. She shook her head mutely.
“Divorced, separated?”
“None of the above. Not widowed, either, before you ask. I’ve never been married.”
“Oh. So?” I did an internal happy dance, but schooled my features into a look as close to disinterest as I could muster.
“So why the name change?” she asked, preempting my next question.
“Yep. I liked Williams as a surname.”
“Reid was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name, and I guess you could say that I changed my name because I didn’t want to be found, but I didn’t want to be totally lost, either. Basically, I wanted to maintain a level of anonymity, while also holding onto something of my family.”
“That makes sense. So you’re not married, but what about a significant other?”
She looked wistfully toward the opposite side of the booth, not answering at first. When she spoke, it was quietly, and after inhaling and exhaling deeply.
“No, there’s nobody.” She shook her head, as though attempting to rid it of cobwebs. Then she took me by surprise.
“What about you? Married, divorced, seeing someone?” The look in her eyes told me that she wanted, no, needed to hear me say no, also.
“Nobody. Never been married, or even lived with anyone. I’ve just never really found the right person.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to wind them back in again, but of course I couldn’t. Jesus. Around her I really was no better than the dufus in the hallway asking her stupid and obvious questions.
It was ironic how no matter how far I’d moved on, how much of a master of my own destiny I’d become, there were people and scenarios that pulled me back to a certain time and place, like sliding down to the bottom of the board having reached the top in a game of chutes and ladders. Only this was real life, and getting back to the top of the board wasn’t simply a matter of rolling a dice and seeing where it lead me.
Isabelle brought our first course then, but it, and all the future courses were wasted on me. I knew the food was as delicious as it always was, but I could barely concentrate on anything other than Melissa. It was probably an ill-advised time to spend fifteen hundred dollars on a bottle of wine It could have been vinegar or cold tea, and I would have scarcely noticed.
If she was all the food and drink I was to ever have for the rest of my days, I’d be well nourished and content. She was all I wanted, and all I needed. At times I thought she felt the same about me, but other times, I couldn’t get a read on her at all, and I just couldn’t be sure.
Regardless, I practically had to sit on my hands throughout the meal to stop myself from reaching out and stroking her hair or something that was equally likely to come off as creepy to someone who might or might not want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with them.
With the food and three quarters of the bottle of wine dispensed with, I shifted nearer to Melissa on the bench seat, angling my body toward her, and bending my knee up to rest on the seat. As naturally as anything, she swiveled my way, looking up at me through heavy lashes.
I reached for the hand lying lightly curled in her lap, and as though I had every right to, drew it into my other hand, laying it there, the palm facing upward. With the index finger of the first hand, I traced simple and repetitive patterns in her palm. Neither of us spoke, as though hypnotized by the motion, and the silence between us was leaden with more unspoken words than the Library of Congress.
I couldn’t tell if the stuff between us, the extremely weighty baggage, was piling higher or dissolving, but either way, a distinct shift took place in that moment. Looking into Melissa’s eyes I was sure she felt it too.
Life was made up of moments. Some meaningful, some not. Some pivotal, some inconsequential. Some memorable, some forgettable. Some joyful, some regrettable. I took a facsimile in my mind of this one. I’d be referring back to it often. It was meaningful, pivotal, memorable and joyful. It was a new beginning after an old end.
I was the one to break the spell, though not with words. With the hand that had been circling Mel’s palm, I gently raised her chin, still staring directly into her eyes, before looking down slightly at the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as it became more erratic, signaling that her breathing was coming shallower and faster.
Her gaze didn’t waver, and as I raised my eyes again to meet hers, she was waiting for me. I wanted to smile, to do something to acknowledge the moment, but my features wouldn’t play ball. All I could do was stare, the naked desire ablaze reflected in hers.
I leaned forward, resting my forehead on hers, my breathing now mirroring hers in rapid stuttering jolts, each one tearing through my lungs as though I’d run a marathon. I waited for her to say or do something. To encourage me or warn me off. She kept deadly still. The onus was on me, to make a move.
I hesitated again, knowing we were headed for the point of no return, if we hadn’t already passed it. If we crossed this line, there was no going back. I waited a beat more, buying myself time to back out. To think reasonably and rationally about what I was doing, and act accordingly.
Screw that. The moment was there and then gone, and forward was the only direction we’d be moving, even if it felt far riskier than going backward. I tilted my head slightly, angling my lips to hers before lightly grazing hers with mine. Christ. I knew there and then that I should stop, that this wasn’t going to end well. I mean, who was I kidding? It had already ended badly for us in the past. Why would this time be any different?
In fact, things were so much worse now than they had ever been first time around. Back then we’d been optimistic, with our whole lives stretching before us like fields of freshly grown gardenias before they are hacked off at the stems. Now our lives were like a withered bouquet. Something that had once looked so bright and beautiful, and held so much promise was now a rotting shadow of its former existence.