Page 36 of Melt With You

Yeah, like that would happen.

All she really needed – she decided as the credits rolled – was another drink.

But a knock on the door startled her. She hurried to the front door, peering through the hole to see Van waving to her. He held up a bottle of tequila in one hand and two limes in the other.

‘I saw your light,’ he said, when she opened the door.

‘What were you doing out this late?’

‘Early,’ he countered. ‘It’s early.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Van said as he peeled her clothes off her.

‘What do you mean?’

‘That you could be thirty-one …’ She’d lied to him about her age, and now she started to stammer something about taking care of herself, not realizing he hadn’t finished his statement. He put his finger to her lips and then his lips to her lips, and then he broke off laughing. ‘That you could be thirty-one and never have done a body shot before.’

‘Who told you that?’ But as she said the words, she knew. ‘Bette,’ she said along with him. ‘But why would she tell you that?’ Dori asked, trying to figure out the type of conversation where someone would casually bring that up.

‘I don’t know. We have the strangest discussions at The Beauty Box. You never know whose secrets are going to be spilled.’

As he said the word ‘spilled,’ he tipped the bottle of tequila gently, letting a little bit of the liquor fill the basin of Dori’s belly. She shuddered at the chill, but Van stopped her. His mouth now went to the tender skin between her hipbones, and he began to lap up every last drop of the tequila.

‘But that’s not an actual body shot, is it?’ she asked, breathless.

‘No. You need the salt and the lime. I only brought the lime.’ The two green fruits were up on the end table. She and Van were on the floor of the den. ‘Did you want the salt?’ he added.

Dori didn’t know what she wanted. No, that wasn’t true. What she wanted was for Van to stop playing around and start licking her. Licking her where she needed him to. Forget the bar tricks. She wanted his tongue to make loop-the-loops up and around her clit. She wanted her legs over his shoulders, her hips in the air. She wanted …

‘Let’s try it with the salt,’ Van said, answering the query for her. Dori watched sadly as he left the room. She heard him on the stairs, heard him whistling to himself. In less than a minute, he’d returned with a salt shaker and a knife.

‘You game?’ he asked, his eyes flashing.

Dori nodded.

‘Then why don’t you start?’

He held out the knife and reached for one of the limes.

Dori shook her head. ‘You do it,’ then watched as he expertly worked the blade through the tough skin of the lime, as he cut a wedge and then set the knife down. What was he going to do next? Where was he going to squeeze it?

‘Like this,’ he explained. He licked his wrist and then shook a bit of salt onto the skin there. Then he handed Dori the bottle, and gripped the lime wedge between his teeth. She understood without having him explain, drank a large swallow of the tequila, licked the salt from his skin, and then moved forward, to suck the lime juice. He backed up, and she had to crawl on hands and knees to reach him. She felt like a pet, ridiculous, until he spit out the lime, laughing, and reached for her.

‘It’s different in a bar,’ he said. ‘You’re touching people in this intimate way. But in public. You know?’ He had her long hair in his hand, pulling her head back, rubbing his thumb over her lower lip. ‘We don’t need to play games, do we?’

She wasn’t sure. She liked games. The way he played them, anyway.

‘Tell me what you want, Emma.’

Seconds before, she’d wanted his tongue on her clit. Now, suddenly, surprisingly, she wanted him to call her by her real name. She wanted him to know who she was. But although the words were in her head to tell him, to confess, all she managed to say was, ‘Fuck me.’

His eyes gleamed. ‘You don’t usually talk dirty, do you?’

She shook her head.

‘That’s why the words sound so filthy when you say them.’

‘When I say “fuck”?’ she teased, hitting the word hard for emphasis.

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