Page 32 of Tributary

A few hours later, I’m refreshed and ready to head across the street to the conference hotel—a much more modest venue—for drinks with some cranky old moss experts.

It’s good to be among plant people again. I’m pleased with how easily I slide back into conversation about soil acidity and chestnut blight. I actually let myself enjoy the conversation, and try to silence the small voice in my head screaming at me that these people all think I’m an imposter botanist. Or that I’m a fool.

Once I shake off the persistent nag inside my brain, I find a group of scientists who are actually doing similar work to mine, partnering with engineers and computer scientists. Midway through a spirited argument about autonomous weed control, I look across the room and see the latest source of my frustration.

The smug jerk is smiling at me, just staring across the bar, sipping whiskey while I talk about machine learning. And damned if I don’t want to just drop everything and run to him. Which, frankly, scares the hell out of me, because the last time I lost myself in a man…I never found my way back again. Not really. “Will you gentlemen excuse me? I see someone I need to speak with.” I rush away from the weed dudes without waiting for a response, and stride directly toward Asa.

“You have some nerve,” I hiss. “At least tell me if you’re sending me on some luxury trip.”

“Would you have accepted?”

“Screw you.”

“Listen,” he says, setting the whiskey glass on the bar. “I didn’t come here to fight. I came to ask a favor.”

“A favor? From me?”

“Yes,” he says, gripping my wrist, his thumb gently circling. The sensation makes my blood sing, makes me forget why I’m upset with him. Like a damn baby, I’m soothed into complacency by his touch. “I’d like to take you to dinner on Sunday.”

“Dinner? What?” He keeps rubbing.

“Dinner. With me. I’ll have you back at your hotel by midnight, so you are sure to get enough sleep before your train.”

I am hypnotized. I can feel my pulse throb in my ears. He smells so good, and looks so good. I must be drunk. I feel myself nodding, agreeing not just to nasty, semi-public sex, but to go on a date with him. “Pisiform,” I blurt.

He raises an eyebrow and stops rubbing. “That bump on my wrist where you’re rubbing—where you were rubbing—it’s called the pisiform.”

“You like when I stroke your pisiform, baby?”

I nod and down the rest of his drink. “Play darts with me,” he says.

He sidles up to the dart board—none of the botanists had been playing—and offers me my pick. I eye him warily and grab the blue darts. I line my toe up against the line taped to the floor and start to take aim, when I feel him behind me.

I look over my shoulder at him. “You’re affecting my shot,” I say, and he just nods. I bite my lip and scowl, then consider and say, “You should know I plan to retaliate.” He responds by slipping his arm around my waist and kissing my neck while I throw. The little blue dart lands in the narrow part of a black triangle. Not bad.

Asa reaches into his back pocket for his first dart and keeps his left hand around my waist to throw. “I think you help me concentrate,” he says, and then hisses when I reach back and rub the crotch of his pants. Somehow, he lands in the green circle anyway.

An hour later, Asa has beaten me at Around the Clock, traditional, and every other type of darts variation, and I’m so turned on I’m worried my pants are visibly wet. “Tell me more about your fancy plants,” he says, after sinking his final bullseye and pulling me close against him. I can’t take it anymore and I spin in his arms, grabbing him for a kiss.

“So this means we’re on for Sunday,” he asks, pulling back. God, I forgot he asked me out to dinner. But he drags his thumbs along the small of my back and I’d say yes to almost anything right now.

“There had better be meat involved,” I say, shoving him back toward the door, start marching us across the street toward the hotel. “And I’m only bringing you up to my hotel to angry fuck you,” I tell him. “I’m a terrible loser.”

We hurry to the corner and wait impatiently for the light to change. “I’m fine with that,” he says, continuing to rub my wrist as I hurry across the street. I shove him against the wall of the elevator and thrust my tongue in his mouth as the doors slide shut. I bite hard on his lower lip, feeling his erection hard against my belly.

“You do this to me all the time, Diana. I ache for you.”

I dig my nails into the bulge inside his pants and he hisses as he rocks his hips toward me.

He starts to pant, his fingers reaching into the waist of my slacks, stroking.

The doors slide open and we tumble out of the elevator into my room. Asa lowers me to the floor gently and yanks down my slacks, and I decide his little stunt to get me to New York wasn’t so awful after all.

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