Page 85 of Antihero

He looked back at her.

The diffuse overhead light shone through her eyes. They were still blindingly blue.

“This is me,” Evan said.

“And this,” Candy said, “is me.”

Neither of them moved. The overheads hummed. Somewhere outside, a horn blared and someone laughed caustically and a street performer improvised not half badly on a saxophone.

“I like how you are with her,” Candy said.

Evan said, “Same.”

Her mouth was rose-colored and full, though he was unsure if she was wearing lipstick. Her coat was unbuttoned, showing a knife of flesh at her throat, the collar dark with leaked rainwater. Her gaze scanned him. He felt it like heat.

“Come here,” she said.

He came.

His heart thundered. The training spun through his mind, to regulate his vitals, take down his blood pressure, suppress nonverbal tells. But her long lashes blinked, those eyes flashing up through them, and he thought: Fuck it.

Her mouth was parted and she was breathing hard.

He was breathing hard, too.

He stopped in front of her.

They looked at each other.

With a swing of her pocketed hand, she let her raincoat part. Her blouse was damp, the outline of her bra discernible. She was wearing a skirt, not short but not not short either, and her visible leg was bare and long and finely toned. She lifted it ballerina-slow and wrapped it around him, around the back of one of his thighs, gathering him in slower than seemed possible with not a tremor in her weight-bearing leg.

She brought his lips to her waiting mouth.

She was impossibly plush and tasted vaguely sweet. Her hand was at the side of his neck, thumb and forefinger splayed up his jaw, holding him. They broke apart, foreheads touching, and breathed into each other.

“Would you like to come in?”

He said, “Yes.”

She traced her fingertips across his cheek, his lips, hooked them into his mouth and tugged at his lower lip. “I know what you’re expecting. I am Candy McClure. But let me tell you something: I am not here to match your expectations.”

Evan said, “Understood.”

“I am not an object.”

“Understood.”

“I will be with you as you will be with me.”

“Understood.”

Her leg uncoiled, liberating him, and set down without the slightest vibration of the rest of her body. Her palm moved unseen to the card reader and the lock submitted to her touch. She evanesced into the room. With a slight pivot of his boot, Evan halted the door an inch before it shut behind her.

He could still smell her, her lotion, taste her mouth.

He pulled himself into courage rung by rung, and entered.

34Intimate