The party was everything Lisa and I

The party was everything Lisa and I had always imagined it would be. Names I’d seen in print all my life were suddenly human beings eating quiches and drinking champagne right next to me. Entrepreneurs, state senators, the governor, federal senators…people whose names were almost myth-like to an ordinary, Starbuck’s barista like me.
We mingled until Miles felt we’d done it long enough, and then he led the way out to the dance floor, and we moved seamlessly into each other’s arms. He hadn’t touched me since that night. But it felt like no time had passed. His hand was warm on my bare back, my hip. He pulled me closer to him, tugging my body closer to his than was required to move in time with the music. I looked up at him and caught him watching me, his eyes hooded in that way I was beginning to relate to his level of desire. The idea that I was the thing he desired was enough to send my heart pounding like a hammer on steel.
I bit my lip, my habit stronger than my promise to Lisa that I wouldn’t chew my lipstick off. Miles touched my chin, tugging at my lip until he pulled it free. And then he bit it, nibbling it gently.
“Mine,” he whispered.
And I was. I was completely gone. I was his in any and every way he wanted me to be.
We danced for only a few minutes, but long enough to make it impossible for me to concentrate the rest of the evening. It changed everything. The meaning behind his touches, the accidental brush of his breath on my neck, the words he spoke when he introduced me to acquaintances. I was in a cloud, my only thoughts focused on things that were entirely inappropriate given the circumstances. I don’t know how I kept a smile on my face without giving away the fact that I had no idea who I was talking to, let alone why it was so important that I do so. I might have made a complete fool of myself for all I was aware.
The evening slowly wound down. Miles helped me into my shawl again, and we left side by side, dodging the reporters as we climbed into the limo. I curled up on the long seat, exhaustion suddenly washing over me. My cellphone buzzed, and I pulled it out to find a text from Lisa. Well, many texts from Lisa, actually. She wanted to know how it was going, who I met, and when I was going to tell her everything. I smiled as I sent her a quick response, promising to call her in the morning.
“Problems?”
I looked up. Miles was watching me. Again.
“Just Lisa.”
“She must be burning up with jealousy.”
“Sort of.”
He slid closer to me across the seat. “The two of you are such opposites.”
“You know what I thought when I first figured out who you were?”
His eyebrows rose. “What?”
“That she was more your type than I would ever be.”
“She was, but I think my type has shifted a little.”
“To what?”
He touched my jaw lightly. “To beautiful women who put up with my crap and still show up to these stupid events outshining every woman in the room.”
He kissed me, his lips impossibly soft as they brushed mine. A tease. Then they became hard, rough, as he devoured me with a hunger that felt like it had been building for a very long time. I responded quite unchastely, pulling him to me with a fire I couldn’t have hidden if I had wanted to. I was more like Lisa in that moment, losing every inhibition I might have harbored, responding to him with a driving need that was new, even to me. No one else had ever made me feel so wanton, or made me throw caution to the wind and forget about all the things my aunts had taught me about relations between men and women.
Miles’ touch woke something in me that no other man had ever done.
We kissed, our hands slipping into places that must have given the chauffeur quite a show. And when we reached the house, Miles swept me up into his arms and carried me into his bedroom for the first time, setting me in the center of the bed where he slept every night. And his hands, his lips, his tongue, did things to me that did more than awaken a long buried desire. It confirmed what I’d wanted to believe, but wouldn’t allow myself. It made me believe that he returned the feelings I’d been harboring for him. No man could be that gentle, that caring, and not have feelings.