Exposed (16 page)

When Steve turned back to me it was with a smile.

“No, those aren’t realtors. The older one is Max Moore — the Moore of Moore & Associates. The other one is Richard Meyers. He’s been with us for a couple of years, up from Los Angeles.

“He hasn’t made much of a splash. Rumor is that Moore uses him for work he doesn’t want to attract attention. A lot of people don’t care much for Meyers; he’s kind of hard to know. I’m not sure he’s that smart either. I bought him a drink once, and he didn’t talk much. Barely said ‘thanks.’”

Suddenly it was like Steve had sucked the air out of my lungs with a tube, then replaced it with pure oxygen. Memories of the night of my wreck flooded back, then coalesced with guesses, insights, and logic into a picture suddenly so acutely edged, so overwhelming, that I put my drink down on the bar and stared at Steve as if he were a saint.

“Oh. My. God.” I said. “Oh. Fuck. Oh. Shit.”

“You okay?” asked Steve, and he started to turn around to look at Max Moore and Richard Meyers, to search for the source of my outburst. To stop him, I put my hand on his knee, then his thigh, always a way to capture a man’s attention. One of the things I’ve learned: once a man’s blood starts flowing to the penis, it immediately empties the brain.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just realized I’m supposed to be at a meeting in Bellevue.”

“You won’t make it at this time of day in Seattle traffic,” Steve said.

“I can conference in. They knew I might be late,” I said. Technology made lying so easy.

I reached for my purse.

“I got this,” said Steve, which was sweet, as well as hopeful.

“You sure?” I asked.

“Yeah. May I see you again?”

“That would be nice,” I lied, maybe. “Do you have a card?”

He gave me a business card and I left Sullivan’s, my back to the two men who had just proven that I still had some work to do that depended on events and people that were entirely out of my control.

• • • •

Mark had said once that Max Moore often went to The Edgewater to do business and for a drink after work. I had known I would run into him either at The Edgewater or at Sullivan’s, now with Sullivan’s ruled out, I focused my attention on The Edgewater. Since I didn’t want to look like I was looking, I gave the valet there a $100 bill and my phone number.

No, it’s not what you think, though he
was
pretty cute. I asked if he would send me a text if a certain very fancy car pulled in.

It wasn’t a week later that the text I was waiting for hit my phone. One word. “Bentley.” Fifteen minutes later I arrived at The Edgewater in a cab, had given the valet another $100 bill, and was sitting in the bar two tables away from Max Moore, who was chatting with a man I didn’t know.

If a woman wants a man’s attention, she can usually get it. Depending on the man. And the woman. I was pretty sure I could send the signal I wanted to send to Max Moore, and all things considered, I was pretty sure he would interpret it correctly.

When his drinking companion got up and left, Mr. Moore walked over and asked if he could buy me a drink in that voice that still made my ovaries dance.

“That would be wonderful,” I said.

I wondered if he would see through the darker eye shadow, the colored contacts, the shorter and much, much darker hair. The lips that were lined to be much fuller than they ever were. I tried for the look between a high-priced call girl and a runway model, if that isn’t redundant.

Honestly, that’s not a judgment. As far as I’m concerned, both are honorable professions, but most models are underpaid.

“What do you do?” he asked.

“What is it you want me to do?” I shot back.

“We may be traveling a slippery slope,” Max said.

“Not yet, but we could be,” I said.

Then I laughed, said I was just teasing and told Max Moore I was a pharmaceuticals rep from New York, working with regions on the West Coast as we introduced a new product.

“I’ve heard that’s a great career,” he said.

“Depending on the lines, and the company, it pays quite well,” I said. “And you?”

“I’m a lawyer,” he said, simply. No name, no posturing. The man had class, and if I didn’t know what I thought I knew, the attraction for me would have been intense. Oh hell, it was intense anyway. What can I say? Biology, remember?

We chatted about Seattle. I asked him what I should see while I was here. God, he was smooth. For a while, I began to worry he would not make a move. But men are men, and I mean that in a good way.

“Let me show you some of the sights. Will you have dinner with me?”

“I can’t tonight, but how about tomorrow?” I asked.

“Tomorrow would be wonderful,” said Max Moore. “What do you like?”

“I’ve heard it’s possible to get decent seafood in Seattle.”

Max Moore laughed and said that was true. I gave him a card with just a name and my cell phone number.

“No company card?” he asked.

“Not for personal business,” I said. “And I am kind of hoping this gets personal.”

His eyebrows flickered less than half a millimeter, I swear. The man was a machine. Unbelievable control.

We’d soon see just how much control he actually had.

• • • •

He called the next evening at six. He arrived at seven in a suit that felt like cashmere when I put my hand on his arm and kissed his cheek.

“I’m glad you called,” I said into his ear.

“I’m glad you answered,” he replied into mine. He could have whispered but did not. With his lips that close, his deep, deep voice set my whole body into a sympathetic vibration.

We each had a drink, and then we left for dinner. As we walked out, he tipped the valet who looked at me with a sly smile I barely acknowledged when I looked up to thank him while he closed the door of the Bentley.

“Nice ride,” I said when we settled into the opulent machine, and he started an engine that only murmured its power.

“I enjoy it very much,” was all he said about a car that costs a quarter million dollars.

Max took me to Canlis, a Seattle restaurant with views as fantastic as the meal. We talked about Seattle, New York. I was glad I had been recently to France, because that was a good part of my contribution to the conversation.

Eventually our meal was over, and I told him I should probably head back to the hotel. We made that not-quite-giddy small talk of a man and a woman who know what’s next and are both looking forward to it. Max doesn’t really do giddy, but I could tell he knew the evening wasn’t over.

How a man in his 50s could be in such good shape was stunning to me. His face was weathered, but his blue eyes were alive. His arms and shoulders were large and cut. He was very gentle as he undressed me at the foot of the large bed with posts like young trees holding up a faux canopy. I undressed him just as slowly, kissing every inch of newly exposed skin of his chest, his hips. He pushed his shoes off, and his pants dropped to the floor.

His cock was like a hard branch of polished oak. It matched everything else about this man, and I wanted that, I wanted that in my mouth, inside me, every place I could imagine. When he pulled me from my knees, he lifted me like I weighed nothing and put me gently on the bed. Then he proceeded to kiss me from my nose to my toes, pausing at places that rose to meet his mouth as if they had a mind of their own.

When he finally slid inside me, I gasped. I was full of him, there was no way I could move that did not bring more of him inside me. We stayed locked together like than, the room lit only by the lights shining down on the dock outside, for what seemed like an hour of ecstasy. When I felt him ready to come, my body was completely in sync and ready to receive, and when he exploded into me my hips convulsed up against him and rose and pulled him in as deeply as he could possibly be.

We lay wrapped together for two hours. Eventually, he said so softly, “I need to let you sleep. You probably have work to do tomorrow.”

“I do,” I said, “but I’m not ready to let you go.” We made love once more, with less urgency but no less satisfaction.

We lay again, spent.

“I’m fucked,” I said, the satisfaction in my voice clarifying the double meaning.

“When do I get to see you again?” he asked.

“In two weeks,” I said. “I’ve got another trip scheduled. I arrive Tuesday, I think it’s the 25th. How about Wednesday?”

“That’s too long,” he said.

“But that’s what it has to be, Greedy Boy,” I said to him, giving him the slightest flick on the tip of his nose, glad he was already missing me.

• • • •

I had several priorities over the next week. First, I booked another room at The Edgewater as well as for the adjoining room for the 26th of the month.

Then I called Claire.

“Hey, Jessica! Where have you BEEN!?” she demanded when she realized it was me. I told her I’d been in France with my grandmother’s family, that I was back. And that I didn’t have a lot of time but that we would catch up.

“You still know somebody in Seattle PD?” I asked.

“Even a few more,” she said with a little bit of pride in her voice. “My boy has a job there now. He transferred over from King County.”

“I need to talk to somebody,” I said. “And I need them to talk to somebody else.”

I made more calls, too, to friends I made as a lawyer, former clients mostly, and to friends I made while in jail. I kept up with a few, what can I say?

My last priority was not being seen by Max Moore in Seattle. But Seattle is a big town, and I like the San Juan Islands.

I went out to Friday Harbor, then down to Port Townsend. I stayed in the ancient Victorian Hotels there on Water Avenue, went to the wonderful Rose Theater, browsed incense-suffused texts at Phoenix Rising Books and petted Pavi, the owner’s giant, beautiful Poodle.

Eventually, it was time to return to Seattle. To be honest, I was looking forward to another session of lovemaking with Max Moore, who really was the most intense, gently erotic lover I’d ever had.

I was looking forward to other things as well.

• • • •

When Max was supposed to arrive at The Edgewater on Wednesday the 26th, I texted him that my meetings ran late and that I was not ready. I suggested he come to my room and gave him the number. When he knocked, I opened the door wearing a g-string.

I had his clothes off and him into bed in under five minutes. Ten minutes later we were done.

“That was amazing,” he said.

“Sometimes a girl just needs a quickie. What time is dinner? I’m famished.”

“We have time. They’ll hold our table,” he said, with the confidence of a man who knows that his patronage is valued over any small slight to a maître d’.

We got dressed. As always, he opened the door for me, a true gentleman. I was nearly into the hall when I stopped.

“Oh! Would you hand me my makeup bag?” I whispered into his ear, and I pointed to the smooth leather case on the dresser where I had my purse.

“Of course,” he said. When he brought it to me, he said, “That’s not much of a makeup bag. My wife carries a small suitcase.”

I didn’t say anything, just opened my large purse and he dropped it in. I gave him a kiss so he would not see it land next to the lipstick and eyeshadow I kept in the inside pocket.

We took the Bentley to a wonderful Italian restaurant in the older portion of Bellevue. The waitstaff was not as deferential as the maître d, but the food was excellent. I had to ask the waiter for another napkin, mine must have dropped to the floor when Max was rubbing his hand along my thigh.

Some of the other customers looked slightly disapprovingly at us sitting side-by-side and close together.

“The men are jealous of me; the women are threatened by you,” Max said.

“You’re not worried about being seen by friends of your wife?” I asked.

“Did I say I was married?” he shot back, his eyes sharpening.

“At the hotel. You said your wife carried a large make-up bag. Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter to me.” I berated myself for carelessness. That was bad backgammon.

“We have an understanding,” said Max Moore, closing the subject with his tone.

When we were done, we walked to the car and, as he always did, Max opened my door for me. While he was walking around the car’s tight but still large exterior, I used the napkin I had dropped into my purse to slide my “make-up bag” under Max’s seat.

Back at The Edgewater, after the valet opened the door, Max asked if I wanted another drink.

“Noooo,” I drawled. “I want YOU.”

“You are a force of nature,” he laughed, and I could tell he was delighted. And I did want him. I have no idea why my biology thought his biology was so compelling. At this point, power, sex, control, eroticism had all blended together into one incredible intoxication.

Back at the room, I put my purse on the bureau next to the TV, reached inside, pulled out my lip gloss, and fumbled around as I put it back into my purse. I could only pray the next hour would go as I planned.