At 6:45 PM, Dan settled nervously onto a stool at the bar. His hands looked pale against the dark cherry wood of the bar, so he could only imagine that his face resembled a freckled version of Casper. He ordered a whiskey and Coke and checked his phone, refreshing the same email account repeatedly and searching for mentions of Amy on various political blogs and rags (nothing very telling). Why on earth was he so nervous?
Dan had never been unpopular with women, but he was also fairly reserved about dating and sex. He didn't have a string of one-night stands or go out clubbing every night, but it's not like he didn't know how to handle female attention. No, it wasn't that. He didn't even know if Amy thought this was a date. Maybe it was strategizing. Maybe she wanted to offer him a job. No, it wasn't the situation that had him tense. It was the way Amy made him feel.
When she had walked away, he had felt a chill run through his body. Other thoughts had cleared themselves from his brain for just the most fleeting moment, and only one thing had flashed in his mind, one crystal clear thought: I will do anything this woman asks.
If he was honest with himself, it turned him on. Her aloof but self-assured control and his instant and total desire to submit himself to her … it was strange and disgusting, and he fucking loved it.
"Good, you're waiting." Dan turned at the sound of her voice. "It's kind of pathetic, but at least you're not wasting my time."
"Hey," he said, his voice matching the dumbstruck look on his face.
Amy ignored it, throwing her purse down on the bartop. "Whiskey and Coke," she ordered. She didn't really like question marks, Dan thought, amused.
"Good choice" is what he said instead, raising his glass to her. Amy looked taken aback for a minute as she climbed onto the bar stool, but recovered quickly. She was still wearing the burgundy dress, so must have come straight from work. Dan had agonized in his hotel room about what to wear, checking dress codes and websites, and finally settled on dress shirt, tie, no jacket, cuffed up sleeves, and black pants. He feasibly looked like he had come from working, but also meticulously casual and handsome.
They drank and talked about the usual things political staffers talk about: upcoming votes, gossip, their careers. The bar kept the music deliberately moderate to enable such things. Amy alternately relaxed and stiffened, the alcohol exacerbating her normal reactions in either direction. Dan grew more intrigued as the night went on. Whenever she leaned over her drink, her hair would fall in front of her face, and he had an urge to brush it back just so he could keep looking at her. But he didn't, just as he avoided accidentally brushing her fingers across the basket of fries they shared. Partially, it was because this was a dangerous road; partially it was because he half-expected his hand would burst into flames the second he touched her.
He decided later that he hadn't been completely wrong. He could feel the heat flowing through her body, into her fingertips, through his shirt, up his arm, finally enveloping his face as he stared, stunned and unmoving, at the petite but firm hand she had laid on his forearm.
"Let's get out of here."
.
.
There were many things that night that had gone unspoken. When she threw him down on the bed, he didn't need to say anything before he ripped off her shirt. When she moaned from the sensation of his mouth sucking at her breast and, later on, his tongue tickling her clit, he didn't need to ask if she was enjoying herself. When she screamed, guttural and primal, scratching at his abs and tightening around his cock, she could look down at him and see that her orgasm had sent him completely over the edge.
But there were two things Dan did say that he often wished he never had. The first one was, "I need to see you again." The second was, "But I'm engaged."