"Actually," I say, stalling for time, "I have a confession to make."
"Well, that's a good start. What do you want to confess to me, Hadley?"
I lower my voice to an almost whisper. "I think I left my panties in your bed."
"You think, or you know?"
"I know I left my panties in your bed. I was . . . distracted."
"I like the idea of finding your panties in my bed. And you coming to my bedroom to retrieve them once I'm back from my trip."
I like that idea too.
"Where are you right now?" I'm picturing him stepping out of some high level late night meeting to call me. Talking to me in a low voice in the hallway while they wait for him to come back inside. Is he meeting about something illegal?
If he wants me to talk about my fantasies while he's waiting to resume a meeting, I just can't.
"I'm in my hotel room. Alone. I'm pouring myself a glass of bourbon," he says, and I actually hear the ice clinking in his glass. My shoulders soften. "Then I'm going to stretch out on the bed, relax, and forget about the crappy meetings I just spent the last five hours in. Do you know why I'm going to forget about them?"
"Why?"
"Because you're going to stop stalling right now and tell me a story, Hadley. You're going to tell me something you dream about that makes you hot. Something you've only ever imagined doing. You're going to tell me your wildest fantasy. And when I get back to Miami, Hadley, I'm going to make that fantasy real."
Hearing him say it again sends a shiver of anticipation through me. How daring can I be? I'm not ready to share my most private fantasies. Not with a man I barely know.
But the very idea that I could tell him anything - absolutely anything - and he would turn that fantasy into reality is probably the hottest thing I've ever heard anyone say.
How far should I go?
"Go all the way, that's how far," Max says, and I realize I must have spoken those words out loud. I squeeze the bridge of my nose, sighing.
"I don't even know you."
"You know me well enough, Hadley. And you're going to know me a lot better. Very soon."
His confidence radiates through the phone, and it's attractive. I close my eyes. It's easier with my eyes closed to be vulnerable, even though he's not here.
"Are you in bed?" he asks me, and I'm almost afraid to tell him.
"Yes," I whisper.
"Are you naked?"
I could tell him I am. How would he know? But I don't want to lie to him, even about something as trivial as what I'm wearing.
"No, not naked. I'm wearing a t-shirt." I'm actually wearing his t-shirt, the dark green one he loaned me yesterday, and that on impulse I stuffed in the bag with my clothes this morning, telling myself it was only polite to take it home and launder it for him before returning it.
But I know I have no intention of returning it. Or telling him.
"Take it off right now. I want you completely naked while you tell me your fantasy."
I set the phone down on the pillow beside me, then sit up enough to pull my t-shirt over my head and toss it on the floor. The way he just orders me to take off my clothes is hot. I like men who are confident in bed, who take control. But it has an even edgier connotation now that I realize he might be the head of the kind of business where he gives orders and people follow them, or else.
And I'm wondering, does anyone ever refuse Max Bennett when he wants something?
I lean back against the pillows again.
"I'm naked now." I look down at my breasts and see my nipples are already erect. Realizing that makes them tingle more.
"Tell me, Hadley," he says. "Tell me what you really want. Tell me your most secret desires." He lowers his voice even more. "Tell me what you imagined us doing when you took off your panties in my bed this morning."
I take a deep breath. I can do this. Not my most secret desires, but I can tell him what I thought about this morning when I was alone in his bed imagining what might have happened if I hadn't been so drunk and he hadn't been such a gentleman.
"It starts just like last night," I tell him. "I'm in the club. You finish your meeting and come to my table. And you bring me upstairs to the apartment. I've had a few drinks but I know what I'm doing. I know what I want."
"Tell me what you want." With his voice on speaker on my phone it's like he's right there in the room with me.
"You already know. As soon as the door closes behind us, you push me against the wall. You kiss me like you did on the plane while you reach around me and yank down the zipper on my dress, fast. You shove the straps off my shoulders and the dress just slides down my body onto the floor. Then you unhook the clasp on my bra and it falls open and both your hands are on me instantly, running your palms roughly over my breasts, pinching my nipples between your fingers until I don't know the difference anymore between pleasure and pain." I pause, my breath starting to come a little harder now.
"Are you touching your breasts now, Hadley? Can you feel my hands on your bare nipples?"
"Yes. Yes." Since I have him on speaker on my phone, both my hands are free to roam over my own body. The fact that he knows I'm touching myself, that he's telling me what to do while I touch myself, takes the fantasy to a whole new level.
"Go on," Max says, "I'm listening."
"You're so hard against me. You're still kissing me, but now your lips move down the side of my neck, my collarbone, and then your mouth is on my breast, closing over my nipple, ravishing it with your tongue and your teeth while you use your hand to torment my other nipple. It's so much I think I can't stand any more, and then I feel your other hand moving down my body."
"What do I do with my other hand, Hadley?"
"You rip my panties off so fast it's shocking and then you lift me up and my legs are wrapped around your waist. You're still fully dressed but you've loosened your pants and you plunge into me, deep, and you are thrusting so hard and so fast that I wrap my arms around your neck to just hold on."
I'm pinching my nipples between my fingers now, running my hands over my breasts and pretending it's him touching me, pressing me against the wall, driving into me. Telling Max this fantasy is taking it to a whole new level beyond what I experienced just thinking about it this morning.
I keep talking, although my voice is shaky. "My bra is dangling from my body and the only other thing I'm wearing are my high heels. And when I start to come you just keep taking me harder and harder and I have the most intense orgasm I've ever experienced that just goes on and on and then finally when I'm coming down you change the angle and take me right back up again."
"That's right," Max says, his voice sexy and edgy and demanding. "I'm not done with you yet. Put your hand between your legs, Hadley, and stroke yourself while I take you so hard and so fast that you're screaming my name."
"Oh God. Oh, Max." It doesn't even occur to me not to do exactly what he says. When I close my eyes, it's like he's right here, doing all the things I've ever imagined.
"You like that, Hadley?" Max's voice is unrelenting, pushing me higher and higher. "I'm pounding into you, pressing you against the wall, taking you with no mercy."
My breath is rasping now, panting. "I'm so close, Max."
"Do it, Hadley," he says, the command sharp in his voice. "Come for me right now."
And I scream his name for real as I climax because it's gone beyond a fantasy. It's intense and somehow I've lost control of my own imagination and Max has taken over. The orgasm stabs me like a knife, rocketing through my entire body. It's as if I've been struck by lightning. And Max makes this guttural noise, half triumph and half release and he growls out my name and I take wild delight in the knowledge that he just came, too. Thinking of me.
Finally, the waves of spasms racking my body recede and my hands fall limply onto the bedding. Inexplicably, I being to cry.
"Hadley." Max's voice comes through the phone beside my head. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," I manage. "That was just a lot."
"Tell me how it ends," he says, more softly now. "Your fantasy."
I let out a shuddering breath. "It ends with us both completely spent and we slide down to the floor and then somehow you have the strength to stand up and you carry me into the bedroom and fall into the bed holding me on top of you. My head is on your chest, and I can hear the wild beating of your heart. And then we both fall asleep."
For a few moments all I can hear is the sound of my own breathing. I start to feel self-conscious. What did I just do? I barely know this man, and I told him every detail of the sex fantasy I had this morning. About him.
I've never done that before with anyone.
Then I let him take control of my fantasy, stroking myself while he told me what he imagined doing to me, until I came.
Was it too much, too soon? I feel a little bit like I'm losing control. What is he thinking?
I wish he would just say something. Anything.
"Max? Are you still there?" My voice sounds hesitant as I break the unbearable silence.
"I'm here." Is it my imagination or is his voice also a little unsteady? Maybe what just happened was more than he expected, too.
"But I'm afraid I won't be back until the end of the week," he continues. His voice sounds normal now, very controlled, and makes me wonder if my ears were just playing tricks on me a moment ago. He pauses. "I wish it was sooner."
There it is again. That faint hint of . . . something . . . in his voice.
"Oh." I realize I really would have liked to see him again sooner, not even for sex, but just to have someone to share with how my first few days go at the law firm. "Well, I mean, that's okay. We can talk on the phone."
"Oh, we will. I want another fantasy from you every night until I see you again."
"Another fantasy?"
"Every night. And each one should take you further into your deepest desires. I have the feeling we're just skimming the surface right now." I hear movement, like he's shifted in bed or gotten up, and then a few moments later the sound of water running.
"Do you trust me, Hadley?"
"Yes," I say, and I realize that despite what I've been reading about him, it's true.
"Come to the club Friday at midnight."
"All right." My voice is calm now, but my heart is pounding. Does this mean he plans to do what I just described on Friday night? That the first time we are together we'll be living the fantasy I just shared with him? And he says it like it's no big deal. Come to club Friday night, and I will screw your brains out is the subtext. No big deal.
"They'll have your name at the door," Max continues in that same matter-of-fact tone. "Someone will bring you to my table."
I'm wondering if it's the same one I caught a glimpse of him in last night with his business associates. The sky box. Looking out over the floor of the club. Seeing everything. I hope so because I want to be there looking out over the dance floor, the bars, the crowds and the tables and all those flashing colorful lights as he rests a hand on my knee, as he leans over and kisses me...
"We'll have a drink together, Hadley, then I'll take you up to the apartment. I think you know what happens next."
The fact that I just had an orgasm a few minutes ago doesn't stop the quick thrill from shooting straight to my core.
"That was just a fantasy, Max."
"Not anymore. Wear the pink dress, Hadley."
"What?" Actually, I was thinking about the gold shimmery sexy one I bought on the same shopping trip.
"Why?" I ask him.
"Because it's part of the fantasy," he says, and I imagine him getting that do what I tell you look on his face. "That's the zipper you imagined me yanking down, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"So wear the pink dress."
"Um, okay. But just so you know, I really like my lingerie."
I can tell he's smiling through the phone.
"From what I saw last night, I like it too."
"No, I mean, you remember what I said about there being some times where you don't want a fantasy to meet reality? I spend almost $80 for one pair of panties, Max. You are not ripping them off me."
He gives this low laugh. "Think again. If I want to rip expensive panties off your body, I'll buy you a drawer full. Then I can do whatever I want with them." He pauses. "And with you."