[If you missed last week's installment, here's where we left off in part II]

"I hope we can do this again some time," Marco said to her as they sat in front of her apartment. His car was still running.

Again sometime? She fumbled around then, like she was looking for something. Should she ask him why he wasn't coming in? Should she touch him? Should she insist, like an Italian mother, that he accept the hospitality of the hostess or risk insulting her?

What she said was, "You have somewhere you gotta be?"

"Well, it's kind of late, don't you think?"

Two single, urban adults, she thought, couldn't possibly consider 11 p.m. on a Friday night late. It sent her into a yarn spin: He's married. He's got a live-in. He wants to get home before she does. She couldn't even bring herself to consider that he wasn't interested in her. She had felt his lust, hadn't she?

[And now for part III]


And then her mind reloaded his words "kind of late don't you think?" She grasped at his "don't you think," taking it for an opening. Calling to mind a femme fatale she'd seen in a recent movie, she fell into the role.


"No, no. It's not late. Come in. I insist."

She forced out the "insist" with great command. Still, she was nervous. The situation appeared to be like her fantasies -- but it felt more like desperation. She was a blond, leggy, confident, attractive female with all the right body parts in all the right places -- what was not to love? Falling into bed with a guy had always been -- well, as easy as letting go. She never thought how much risk there was to calling the shots. She felt breakable.

Marco agreed to come in, and she sighed relief. But the situation had thrown her balance. She dropped her keys. No, not intentionally. Klutzily. And though he was standing right next to her, he didn't move to pick them up. She was aghast. He seemed to have tossed out the Predictable Suaveness manual.

OK, she thought, I can do this.

But when she handed him things, he didn't take advantage of the chance to touch her fingers or make body contact or press in close. He wasn't getting it. Instead, he seemed remote.

As if he were just counting the polite minutes till he could leave.

Casually she told him to take off his jacket. He did. She got the sense that he'd pretty much do whatever she requested. But it was no thrill; it felt like being humored.

She had him sit, so when she served his drink, bending over from across the table, her breasts hung down against her dress, creating a peek-space so that he could see cleavage and the smooth tops of the mounds. She chatted, moved around the kitchen, snuck two shots of liqueur on the sly for courage, sat down next to him holding a third shot, boldly brushed his face with her fingers and commented on his smile.

She could feel that he liked her still, that his smile was genuine. He returned thoughtful questions to everything she said. But the weight of the conversation was on her. Marco had stopped talking about himself, stopped tossing out new subjects, stopped looking her over. Stopped being in control. It put her on edge.

As she "accidentally" touched him, crowding his space with her scent, so close an electrical field bristled between them, she was getting more and more hot for him. She looked him over, his head inclined downward towards his glass, and pictured intimate contact, his, her private parts, naked, touching. And then blending in one wet draw. From an intimate taste -- skin to skin, tip to tip -- to a deep swallow. Him inside her.

But here at the table, he remained, oh, so remote. The words Ice Prince crossed her mind. She'd heard guys use the phrase derisively for certain types of women. Ice Princess. She understood the meaning behind it, like how shut out you felt. You felt unwanted, and then suddenly you found yourself saying things like Ice Prince in your head.

"Is something wrong?" she blurted. No, sheer frustration spewed it out.

"Wrong?" He seemed surprised. She found it irritating. Yeah wrong, as in the temperature between us went from sixty to zero in under eight seconds.

"You seem a little distant," she answered.

"Me?" he said. "No. I just -- I just uh, well, I don't want to bore you with all my stuff."

"Bore me?" she asked. "You're not boring me."

No, a confident guy who knows you're into him doesn't just freeze up because he might "bore you." You invite a guy into your house, he's not thinking you just want to pick the lint of his jacket and send him home. Was he trying to be sarcastic?
She tried to recover. She didn't. There was a major disconnect going on.

And suddenly he got up to leave.

"Where you going?" she asked. The irritation crept into her voice.

"I should probably get going," he said.

"You got an appointment with the president?" she asked. She sounded like an animal to herself. A gutter cat snarling over some nasty bit of trashcan fishbone.

He smiled. Oh, it was a cute smile. Not a wounded dog smile or a gotta run, babe smile. Pleasant smile -- absolutely killing.

"You're not boring me," she said, blocking his way. She could almost feel how he would skirt around her to get out, how they would tangle awkwardly. It would be unattractive and crude. A blunt rejection. On Monday she would be mortified. She would dread accidentally bumping into him at the magazine. She would dread staff meetings.

But now, she didn't care about any of it. Now, she absolutely determined that she would make him want her.

If she had caught the slightest whiff that he was turned on -- like maybe his glance lingering that extra telltale instant on her bare ahoulders -- she would have started pulling the sleeve of her dress down. And then the black knit weave would slide off her shoulder and down her arm. And the fleshy part of her breast would push into the open. She would almost hear the drool gather under his tongue as the dress marked the round pink of her areola, crossed the nipple, which would pop lithely free and jiggle at him before the chill air made a pit that pointed his way, begging for his tongue.

But he showed no desire. He put on his jacket.

"There's no need to do this," he said to her, freeing and straightening the tucked in bits of his jacket collar.

No need? What the hell did need have to do with anything?

She pressed her hand against his chest and slid one leg between his two so that her thigh just touched his crotch.

"You're not leaving," she heard herself saying. She wasn't feeling in command or sexy, or turned on. She was feeling angry, desperate, reckless, and wanton.

"I'm not," he repeated. Like she had simply made a correction on his outline.

"No, your not."

He smiled again. She couldn't read it. Not smug. Not sad. Was it accommodating? How degrading.

"Take your jacket off," she said. He gave her a quizzical look.

"Take it off," she repeated.

He did. Slipped off his jacket and held it at his side.

She nodded for him to toss it on the table. Again, he did.

Then she pushed him back with her hand, back against the wall and with her thigh felt the loose softness of his genitals. He let her guide him.

"Bore me?" she said. "You don't want to bore me?"

"Well, not if I can help it," he said. He gave her an intense look that she couldn't read at all. As she held him there against the wall, she realized she was doing things from her fantasy. But they felt in no way the same. She pressed him there, by his chest, feeling spurned and then boldly, she moved one hand to his neck, the other to his crotch, just to see what he would do. Not to enjoy, to see how far she could push him.

He closed his eyes. In a good way or a bad way, she didn't know. Her lower hand felt something stir.

"Lift your arms," she said. "I'm going to you."

[Conclusion next week . . .]