Velvet Afterglow

The cab smelled like stale peppermint and someone else's perfume. I had my hand on her knee the whole ride, thumb tracing the seam of those lacy leggings, and she kept giving me this look from under her lashes. The kind of look that says *I know exactly what you're thinking* and *you're not wrong*.

"You're staring," she said.

"I'm admiring."

"That's the same thing."

"It's not. Admiring has better manners."

She laughed and turned toward the window, watching the city smear past in streaks of orange and neon. Halloween stragglers still wandered the sidewalks in half-hearted costumes. A guy in a bloody doctor's coat. Two girls dressed as cats, or maybe mice, it was hard to tell from a moving car. The clock on the dash said 2:14. We'd stayed at the club way past last call, dancing until her ponytail came loose and her cheeks went pink from the heat of too many bodies packed into too small a space.

I'd been watching her all night. That skirt, dark green, hugging her hips in a way that made it impossible to look anywhere else. The leggings underneath with that lace pattern that showed glimpses of skin when she moved. She'd worn her hair up because she knew what it did to me. She always knew.

The cab pulled up to my building and I paid while she climbed out, her heels clicking on the pavement. I caught up to her at the front door, keys already in my hand, and she was shivering a little in the cold. October had teeth this year.

"You should've brought a jacket," I said.

"You should've offered me yours."

"I was too busy staring."

She rolled her eyes but she was smiling. I got the door open and we stepped into the lobby, all brass mailboxes and that weird carpet that's supposed to look expensive but just looks like someone spilled coffee on a rug and decided to keep it. The elevator took forever. Of course it did.

She leaned against the wall and I stood close enough to smell her shampoo, something floral and clean underneath the smoke and sweat from the club. Her lips were still stained from the wine she'd been drinking. Dark red. I wanted to ruin it.

The elevator dinged. We got in. She pressed the button for my floor and I pressed myself against her back, hands on her waist, mouth at her ear.

"You have no idea," I said, "how long I've been thinking about getting you alone."

She tilted her head back against my shoulder. "Since when?"

"Since you walked out of your bedroom in that skirt."

"That was four hours ago."

"I know."

The doors opened. I took her hand and pulled her down the hallway, past doors with pumpkins that had already started to rot, past the neighbor's sad little wreath made of fake leaves. My apartment was at the end. I fumbled with the keys while she pressed her lips to the back of my neck, and I almost dropped them twice.

The second we got through the front door, I didn't even give us time to breathe. I turned, pulled her close, and kissed her like I'd been craving her all night. Because I had. Her mouth was warm and tasted like wine and she made this small sound against my lips that went straight to my chest.

I barely gave us a chance to make it inside before stealing another kiss. Then another. She dropped her purse somewhere. I heard it hit the floor. Didn't care.

When I finally pulled back, I looked her in the eyes. She was breathing hard. So was I. Her ponytail had given up entirely, hair falling around her face in dark waves, and her lipstick was smeared exactly the way I'd wanted it to be.

I leaned in and told her quietly, my mouth brushing her ear, "You have no idea how hard it's been trying to keep my hands off you tonight."

"Then stop trying."

I picked her up. She wrapped her legs around my waist and I carried her toward the bedroom, past the kitchen with its sink full of dishes I'd been ignoring for three days, past the couch where we'd watched movies last weekend and she'd fallen asleep on my shoulder. The bedroom door was open. The bed was unmade. I didn't care about any of that either.

I set her down at the edge of the mattress and stood between her knees, looking at her. Just looking. The lamp on the nightstand threw soft yellow light across her face, across the curve of her collarbone, across the hem of that skirt where it rode up her thighs.

"You're doing it again," she said.

"Doing what?"

"Staring."

"Admiring."

She reached up and grabbed the front of my shirt, pulling me down until I had to catch myself with one hand on the mattress. Her face was inches from mine. "You talk too much," she said.

I kissed her again, slower this time. Deliberate. I wanted her to feel every bit of that anticipation, the way I'd been building it up in my head for hours. The way my pulse was hammering and my hands were shaking just a little. I wanted her to wonder what I was going to do next.

She undid the first button of my shirt. Then the second. Her fingers were cold against my chest and I shivered, and she noticed, because she always noticed everything.

"Cold hands?"

"Warm everything else."

She laughed, low and quiet, and pulled me down onto the bed with her. The mattress dipped and the lamp flickered, just for a second, like it couldn't quite handle what was about to happen.

I propped myself up on one elbow and looked at her. Her hair spread across my pillow. Her chest rising and falling. That skirt bunched around her hips. The lace of her leggings catching the light.

"I've wanted this," I said, "for longer than you know."

She reached up and touched my face, her thumb tracing my jaw. "Then show me."

And I was about to. I was going to take my time. Make her feel every second of how long I'd been waiting. But then her phone buzzed in her purse on the floor, loud in the quiet room, and she glanced toward the sound.

"Ignore it," I said.

She did. For about ten seconds. Then it buzzed again. And again. Three in a row, rapid-fire, the kind of pattern that means something.

She sat up. I felt the shift, the way her body went from soft to tense under my hands. "I should check."

"It's two in the morning."

"I know."

She slid off the bed and walked out of the room, and I lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to her dig through her purse. The buzz stopped. Then started again. I heard her say "What?" in a voice I didn't recognize. Sharp. Worried.

I sat up. The lamp flickered again, or maybe that was just me.

When she came back to the doorway, her face had changed. The flush was gone. Her eyes were somewhere else.

"I have to go," she said.