Driftwood Deeds (3 page)

I sat back down and placed my palms onto the glass. They were shaking a little, puckering around the joints and warm enough to leave a trace of moist condensation. I heard his footsteps before I could question the positioning at all, and my hands were the first place his eyes landed on. He smiled, then he walked around me and just like that I could feel my cunt pulse against the leather ottoman.

“Why did you put your hands on the table?” he asked quietly and I stared at them too.
Because he had said so.
The realization made me quiver, my mouth opened but no sound escaped. Paul Archer squatted down next to me. He ran a finger along my jaw and smiled.

“That’s okay, we’ll find out later. I remembered.” From his other hand, he produced a small dish of biscuits, simple digestives with a chocolate coating. “I had some hidden away.”

He retreated to his side of the table, smiled and sat down again. I took one conscious breath, trying to remember the last time I had spoken as much as a word. I managed a smile and reached for a cookie.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. 

“Paul,” he suggested and then his mouth curved into a crooked, attractive smile. “Or... Sir.”

I was back to having trouble breathing with the sudden wash of pulsing need between my legs. My eyes went wide, and he reset his glasses, smiled pleasantly and reached for a digestive himself as though nothing of consequence had been said.

IV

“It’s okay, I’ve read your review of
Secretary
,” he said after a while, and I looked up from my biscuit, revealing the blush that colored my cheeks as I made my lips curve into a vaguely mocking smile I didn’t really feel.

“And you made choosing me sound like such a sophisticated research process...” I said, casting my eyes down as I managed a chuckle that picked up life when he joined in and his eyes sparkled with mirth.

“Oh, it was. This was a bonus, just information to store away somewhere in the back of my mind.” 

I bit my lower lip and our eyes met over our mugs of tea. 

“It was very insightful,” he continued. “I liked how you expressed your disagreement about its placement under comedy.”

His praise was like fire in my veins, too. I must have smiled and agreed and just like that, we talked about movies and I felt safe again because it was my chosen subject, something I could talk about at length without feeling inferior, younger or silly with those hot flashes reminiscent of my teenage years. And yet, at all times I was under the impression that he knew this very well and gave me a few minutes’ respite to gather myself quite deliberately. It felt natural at the time, but when I had finally relaxed and was speaking more animatedly, with my hands in the air, gesturing and laughing, we found our way back to
Secretary
and this time, it didn’t make me blush. He extolled the characters and their portrayal, and while I was still nodding in avid agreement, he tilted his head just an inch or so.

“Did it make you curious when you watched it?” he asked and where repetition made the shock easier to bear, it still soared through me with unexpected force.

I nodded, only once. Then quickly recovered. “I think... That’s the charm, it would make most people wonder, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not sure, actually,” Paul disagreed openly for the first time, his brow was wrinkled in thought before he smiled. “A lot of people think it’s comedy.”

I had to laugh and his eyes shone. I don’t know how long we looked at each other like that but when I blinked, he raised his brows.

“Come here,” he said in that quiet voice that carried easily and seemed to fill the entire room. It wasn’t a question and I didn’t answer. Drawn up by the force of his will, I got to my feet and walked almost numbly around the table. He had not moved and he only looked at me once, before he indicated the spot on the floor next to him. I felt my face pulsing heat into my cheeks, and my cunt contracted and swelled against the panel of my knickers.

“You know what to do,” he said and I felt strangely humbled by his quiet and friendly confidence. It was this more than anything else that had me sink to my knees. Because it made him smile like that. He reached over and smoothed his hand over my cheek, freeing it from any stray strands; then his thumb found my lips and he traced them slowly, taking his time with his careful exploration. I couldn’t quite suppress the way my thighs trembled and my hands fidgeted in my lap, but he didn’t seem disturbed by it.

“Tell me what made you most curious, Iris.” 

I swallowed and thought about it, the images mixed with the warmth of his body right next to mine, the rough texture of his hands and fingers—worker’s hands even though he was a writer. 

“I...” my voice failed me and I looked down at my own hands. For the first time, he seemed momentarily displeased. He clicked his tongue and then moved the knuckle of his index finger under my chin, lifting my gaze back up at him. My cheeks felt on fire. 

“When he... bent her over the table,” I breathed. It must have been an unintelligible mass of whispered consonants but he let me get away with it, smiling and patting my cheek.

“There you go. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

I shook my head, even though it had been, and my heart was still drumming in my chest as though trying to burrow its way out like a sledgehammer. And before I could compose myself, he went on, “When he spanked her or when he came on her ass?”

My breath caught audibly in my throat and this time I know my eyes were wide as saucers. A few times, my mouth opened and closed without expelling any sound at all, but when he raised his brows, I quickly whispered, “Both.”

“Good girl.” He smiled, and his hand tightened gently on my cheek. It felt like a long time that he let me rest there, but maybe it was just the pressure that started to bear down hard on my knees. However long it was, I did calm while he stroked my hair and face. 

“Do you want this?” he asked after a long time, and where his voice had been demanding before, so much so that the mere tone had been enough to make my cunt ache, he was quieter now. He was the man with the charming way of resetting his glasses, the one who loved broken things. “I won’t go on if it’s not what you want, what you really want...”

I stayed on my knees and watched his face.

“If I ask you something will you tell me truth?” I asked. I realized that my throat was raw from silence.

“Of course,” he replied without any hesitation. He reached over the table for my tea but it was empty and so he handed me his. I cradled it between my hands and sat back on my heels, watching him. He was so handsome, his strawberry blond hair falling into his face just at the height of his prominent cheekbones, his strong jaw slack and without tension. I took a deep breath, gulped down some tea and when I spoke again, it was a little easier.

“Did you manipulate me here?” Our eyes were locked and I trusted he knew what I meant: on my knees by his side. He narrowed his brows in concern and then raised them.

“I don’t think so,” he said quietly. “I hope I did not. Do you feel like I did?”

“I don’t know.” If anything could still shock me, it was that this strange and jarring exchange should make me want him more, should make my breasts and clit tingle and should make me lean in closer as though I could land on his lap by sheer force of need.

“How could you know? You don’t know me.” He reached over and brushed a finger over the bridge of my nose. He touched my lips and a tiny, nasal sound filled the air between us as I whimpered.

“As it happens,” he went on, still thinking about it, “the qualities I look for in an interviewer easily coincide with the ones I find attractive sexually. Dedication, honesty, open-mindedness... intelligence. Curiosity.” 

I swallowed.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

My mouth opened but I needed a moment to gather my thoughts and then my words. I drew up my shoulders and bit my bottom lip. “I suppose in the end, it only matters in my head.”

“Everything only matters in your head.” He smiled. “That’s why it matters. If this weighs on you, you won’t enjoy all the rest we could do the way I want you to enjoy it. It matters.” Put that simply, I found myself staring at him again and then I nodded.

“I’ve never done this before—I mean, this... like in
Secretary
,” I knew the right words but I couldn’t say them yet. 

He nodded, smiling still. “It does require a certain amount of trust, which because I haven’t earned it yet must feel a little bit like a loan you are asked to hand over to someone you hardly know. But especially the first time, nerves and fear may heighten the sensation—it isn’t all bad. And like with everything, you start slowly and… if you allow me to be frank, Iris, I can see how much you want to try.”

I blushed but he didn’t seem perturbed at all. He just smiled and brought his index finger to my nose.

“This little thing was almost a foot further away a few minutes ago.”

It was only then that I realized my strange posture, leaning close, almost at an unnatural angle where his position hadn’t changed at all. My lips quivered until he touched them too.

“You have hardly closed your mouth at all. It is open, and you are breathing through it, shallow and warm. I would not push if it weren’t for the way you are reacting. Do you understand?”

I nodded and he pushed his finger between my open lips. Another tiny, strangled noise escaped as he opened my mouth further, pulled back my lips and touched my tongue. I did want it, all of it. Him, now, and just like in
Secretary
.

 “Do you know what a safeword is?” 

I nodded, unable to speak with the careful exploration of my mouth. Of course I knew what a safeword was. 

He ran his finger along my gums and over my teeth, pushed under my tongue and curled it up as though he wanted to make sure he did his due diligence in finding every single spot, in marking my mouth with his salt and seawater taste.

“Good. But we don’t need one, today. You say stop, I’ll stop what I’m doing. You say no, I won’t do whatever I’m planning. You shake your head and I stop. Okay?”

Again I nodded, my eyes were wide as saucers and he smiled, gently touching my chin with his free hand. He tilted up my face, opened my mouth wider and then brushed over the tiny ridges along the roof of my mouth until he reached the soft palate and I snorted out tiny gagging sounds. He pulled back and let me rest for a second before going for the same spot again, while I tried to mash my heel against my clit, but with too many socks and fabric in the way, I could hardly feel anything. 

“You can always ask me to stop and we’ll reassess, okay?” This time, he pulled his finger from my mouth. It was slick and shiny with my saliva. 

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Okay.” 

Our eyes met for a long time as he smeared saliva onto my lips and a sweet smile blossomed on his face, crinkling the lines around his eyes. It occurred to me that he hadn’t even kissed me yet.

V

“There is one more thing,” he said, hand cupping my cheek. For the first time, his eyes erred just to the side of my face and he inhaled a deep breath. His smile was quick, a tiny flash across his features that left little lasting impression. 

“Yeah?” I asked, trying not to sound like the cliché of a woman who’d just had her breath taken away almost literally. 

“I put a lot of stock in honesty, in being upfront,” he said. 

I nodded quickly. That much was obvious. When the pause began to stretch into seconds I raised my brows. “You can ask me anything, I’ll tell you the truth. I like honesty, too.”

That made him smile, tender again, he petted my hair and that warmth spread through my stomach.

“Oh, no. I don’t have any concerns about you—you’re a good person. A sweet person. And you are trustworthy. That’s why I have to be upfront. I’m not a bad person either, Iris, but I am feeling rather old these days and probably more jaded than absolutely necessary. I am in no position to promise you anything…” 

His hand had slid down from my face and he looked at me, lips so crooked, he would almost not be handsome anymore if by now his appeal had not lain in his voice and his gestures and his almost shocking frankness.

“I am a film trope, a bit of a cliché. I want you. I want you so much, but you are whole and good and if that is not enough for you, then you have to tell me. You have to protect yourself.”

I was acutely aware of the ache in my knees, the unfamiliar pressure, the heat between my legs and I tried. I genuinely tried to step back emotionally and consider the situation. But his face was so handsome when he looked sad, beautiful in an entirely different way and before I knew what I was doing, I reached up and brushed my hand over his cheek, too. The first touch burned into my fingertips, that rough, weatherworn texture, the hint of a scruff that was a world of difference to my own face.

“That’s what you said,” I told him quietly, more calm, more daring than I felt. “You said you wanted to sleep with me. That’s all I assumed. All I agreed to.” 

I cleared my throat and if I could have done anything to prevent myself from blushing, I would have. Paul nodded and plucked my hand from his face to kiss my palm and then each fingertip. 

In hindsight, it is easy to point to moments like this one—and as honest as I am trying to be with myself, I don’t know if I believed that. I just know that I desperately wanted to be that person, that I wanted to explore the terra incognita he had opened in front of me and that I couldn’t have looked myself in the eyes anymore if I had closed myself off from all he had to offer in order to return to my flat, my cat, my job and my vibrator without even trying, without even a taste.

Paul didn’t smile. He watched me and when he came to my thumb, he sucked it into his mouth in turn. Within a moment, it was engulfed in warm, unexpectedly intense wetness. My eyes bulged and I uttered an involuntary sigh that rang through the silent room. His tongue curled around it, flicked at it and then he suckled hard. Just when the first moan broke through my chest, he let it slip out, though, causing a sudden and stark difference in temperature.