Chapter 4: Public Indiscretion
The door to Izzy’s apartment complex swung open before Milo could even ring the bell. She stood there, backlit by the harsh hallway light, and for a moment his brain simply refused to process what he was seeing. The dress was less fabric and more a suggestion, a sheer black mesh over a dark slip that left nothing to interpretation. It clung to every outrageous curve, plunging at the front and disappearing at the thighs. Her heels were architectural disasters that made her legs look a mile long.
“You’re two minutes early,” she said by way of greeting, her eyes sweeping over his khakis and navy button-up. She shouldered a tiny sparkling purse. “Cute. Let’s go.”
The car ride was silent except for the thunderous beat of Milo’s heart. He could smell her perfume, something cloying and tropical that filled the small space.
The Fancy Restaurant was a temple of quiet money. Marble floors echoed underfoot, and the light from a thousand crystal droplets refracted across linen tablecloths. A sommelier glided past with a bottle like a religious relic.
“Reservation for Green,” Milo whispered to the maître d’, his voice cracking.
Izzy didn’t wait. She followed the man to their table, her walk a deliberate, hip-swinging provocation in the hushed room. Heads turned, not discreetly. Older couples paused their conversations, forks hovering. A man in a suit choked on his water.
She ordered for them both without looking at the menu. “The oysters, the foie gras, and the bone-in ribeye. Rare. And a bottle of the most expensive Cabernet you have.” She flashed the waiter a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Her foot found Milo’s under the table, the sharp point of her heel digging into his shin. “Isn’t this nice?”
He nodded, unable to speak. The oysters arrived, glistening and cold. Izzy sucked one from its shell with a loud, slurping sound that made the next table flinch. She licked her fingers, staring at him.
“So,” she said, her voice a normal volume that felt like a shout. “You think about me? After the elevator?”
“Izzy, please,” he hissed, leaning forward.
“Please what?” She grinned, popping another oyster. “Please tell me how you couldn’t sleep? How you touched yourself thinking about my tongue in your mouth?” She said it clearly. A woman at a nearby table gasped softly.
Milo felt the room constrict. The clink of silverware was artillery fire. The murmur of voices was a judging jury. He saw the looks—the disdain, the prurient interest. He was a specimen pinned beside a chaotic, beautiful insect.
His own appetizer, a delicate tower of beetroot and goat cheese, sat untouched.
Izzy’s phone buzzed on the linen. She glanced at it, then back at Milo, then around the opulent room. A wave of pure boredom seemed to wash over her features. The performance was losing its audience; she needed a new stage.
She dropped her napkin on the table. “I’m bored. Come on.”
“What? The steak—”
“Now, Milo.”
She stood, the movement fluid and inevitable. He fumbled with his wallet, throwing too much cash on the table before stumbling after her. He followed the wake of her perfume and the echoing clicks of her heels, past the confused waiter, through the grand foyer, and down a plush, dimly lit hallway marked with a brass restroom sign.
It was a single, marble-lined room, absurdly large, with a chaise lounge and a vase of orchids. She locked the door behind them. The world shrank to this gilded cage.
The polite dinner facade shattered. She backed him against the cold door, her hands already hiking up the sheer skirt of her dress. There was no preamble, no seduction. It was a demand.
“You saw,” she breathed, her eyes wild and fixed on his. “In the conference room. You saw what I am. Now taste it.”
She pushed his head down. The dress was around her waist. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The anatomy he’d only glimpsed was now pressed against his face, full and overwhelming, a thatch of dark hair and swollen, glistening flesh. The scent was musky, animal, completely out of place in the sterile, lemon-scented air.
“Do it,” she commanded, her fingers tightening in his hair.
He obeyed. He had no other language here. He kissed, licked, tentative at first, then with a frantic rhythm as her thighs clenched around his ears. Her sounds were not human; they were grunts and sharp, ragged exhales. She ground herself against his mouth, using him, her balance precarious on the towering heels. One hand braced against the marble wall, the other clutching his head, guiding him with brutal pressure.
“There. Right there. Don’t you dare stop.”
Her body tensed, a bowstring pulled taut. A choked, guttural cry ripped from her throat, and then a hot, sudden gush flooded his mouth and chin, soaking his collar. She shuddered violently, her knees buckling. He caught her, holding her up as she sagged against him, panting.
For a few seconds, there was only the sound of their breathing and the distant, elegant hum of the restaurant. Then her eyes, hazy and satisfied, focused. They traveled down his front, past the mess she’d made, to the obvious, straining bulge in his khakis.
A new, different hunger sharpened her face.
Slowly, she sank to her knees on the cold marble floor. The reverence was grotesque. She nuzzled the fabric with her cheek, making a low, humming sound. With clumsy, frantic fingers, she undid his belt and zipper.
When she freed him, she froze.
Her breath hitched. All the brash confidence evaporated, replaced by a kind of stunned, avaricious awe. Her blue eyes widened, her lips parted. A string of saliva escaped and dripped onto his thigh.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, not to him, but to it. “Oh my fucking god.”
She leaned in, her nose brushing his skin, and took a deep, shuddering inhale. Then another. Her eyes rolled back slightly before focusing again with manic intensity. She didn’t kiss him. She lapped at him, a broad, wet stroke from root to tip like an animal claiming its meal. Then she took him into her mouth.
It was a frantic, sloppy, deeply obscene act of worship. She couldn’t take much of him, but she tried, gagging and pulling back, strings of spit webbing her chin and his flesh. She used her hands, pumping what her mouth couldn’t contain, her face a mess of saliva and smeared lipstick. She made noises—choked gasps, wet gulps, whimpering moans. Her eyes crossed, unfocused, then snapped back to stare with bulbous greed at the part of him still in her grip. She would stop, panting, just to stare at it, to run her tongue along a prominent vein, to take another deep, intoxicating sniff at the base.
“It’s so big,” she slurred, her words thick. “It’s so perfect. It’s mine. You’re mine. This is mine.”
The door handle rattled. Someone knocked, a polite, tentative tap.
Izzy didn’t even flinch. She just took him back into the wet, hot cavern of her mouth, her eyes squeezing shut in ecstatic concentration, the knocking and the world beyond the marble walls completely forgotten. Milo stared down at the top of her head, at the chaos she wrought, trapped against the door of a bathroom that smelled of sex and money, knowing with a sinking, final certainty that he would never, ever get his life back.