Chapter 13: The Shoe

The last time he had been on the phone when I arrived, I had ended up on my knees in his bedroom because he told me to wait there. I wasn’t interested in repeating the wait. I wanted to leave him as wrecked as the Uber had left me.

I stayed on the ottoman, close enough that my knees bracketed his shin, and decided the apology could wait until he did not have a witness in his ear. Just like the last time I was feeling playful and, for once, he was in a position where he was limited in what he could do in response.

I knew he had to leave for the meeting, so he couldn’t do anything about me until he got back. I wanted him to walk into that room hard and useless, thinking about the woman who had just gone to the mall for him, come to his house, and tied his shoes.

He was saying something about a revised number and that the client needed to see a face.

I rolled my hips like I was settling, which was a lie, and let the skirt ride. His eyes flicked down, froze for a moment, and then flicked back to a point past my shoulder, the way people look when they are trying to avoid something that will distract them from remaining professional. I smiled at him and made sure he saw me. It was the smile I use when I am about to be a problem.

You are going to get him fired, the mirror-voice said, delighted. Or promoted, hard to tell with men.

I spread my knees another inch. The tiny piece of fabric that was my thong was still soaked from the car. Cool air hit it, and I rubbed the leg he had parked between mine, slow, thumb tracing the muscle above the new shoe, not quite sexual and then obviously sexual, and watched his mouth fight a grin.

He mouthed crazy.

I mouthed you love it.

He almost laughed into the phone and turned it into a cough. “Sorry. Allergies. Go on.”

I cupped my breasts through the blouse and pinched, lightly, just enough to make my nipples stand harder against the cotton. His gaze dropped and stayed. I tipped my head and gave him the innocent face, the one that has never once worked on Amber and was not working on him either.

“If you keep looking at me like that,” I whispered, barely a sound, “Ray or whoever is going to think you had a stroke.”

He put a finger to his mouth. Quiet. His eyes were not quiet. They were having a wonderful time.

I undid two more buttons. The blouse fell open enough that he could see the inner curve of both breasts and the fact that I had not bothered with a bra. I stood and started to sway my hips in a little dance, badly and on purpose, a little shoulder, a little hip, straddling the leg that was still bent, his new shoe planted on the ottoman. He grinned so hard he had to look at the ceiling to keep his voice level, and mouthed sorry again, like the apology could cover the meeting and the fact that he was enjoying this.

This is still a joke, I told myself. You can stop at the joke. You are a funny woman who ties shoes and then goes home.