There was, of course, the danger that I might be underdressing instead of overdressing, but given the pretense that he and I were simply quarantine buddies (and not secksbuddies, at least not yet,) I figured that I was better off dressing on the more modest side.
After what must have been an eternity of this upward climbing the elevator chimed a high-pitch DING, and the doors to my destiny slowly dragged open.
I took a deep breath, gathered up my nerve, and stepped out into the hallway.
I nervously rapped my knuckle on the door to his apartment, and almost immediately Malcolm materialized in front of me, as devilishly handsome as I remembered him from before the pandemic.
“Annalise, good evening,” he said with one of his blinding white grins, his dark eyes focused intently upon.
“Hi, thanks for inviting me,” I said, and stepped inside. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Malcolm laughed, and the sound of it was like music to my ears. “A day or two, yes it has. You look great though. I love your outfit.”
I was grateful for the dimly lit ambience of his penthouse, else he almost certainly would have caught me blushing.
“Well, you wanted to know what I spent my stimulus check on,” I joked, gesturing to the outfit.
Again he laughed. “That does seem like a smarter investment than using it to light a cigarette.”
His very presence was intoxicating to me. I tried not to stare for too long at him, my nostrils flaring as I took in his softly lit visage. His handsome, chiseled face, his broad chest pushing through his white button-up shirt, with the first couple of buttons visibly undone…
I tried to refocus my attention, and cast my eyes around the sprawling panorama of his home. The place was fabulously decorated, full of chic, luxurious furniture. The color palette was perfectly muted, cast in a soft ivory glow from the room’s ambient lighting. The entire living room was full of wall to ceiling windows, each one of them looking out onto some exquisite vista of skyscrapers, as if some giant framed painting of a cityscape hung from each wall. Through a pair of glass sliding double doors I could see an outdoor swimming pool and jacuzzi, and naturally my imagination ran wild with possibilities.
“Your place is totally gorgeous,” I said in awe, trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’d somehow found myself in such an environment, and reflecting on just how out of place I was here.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said, and when I turned back at him his eyes were on me, leering as intently as I’d been at him only a moment before.
I smiled shyly, and cast my eyes nervously down to my toes.
“Well, should we get this show on the road?” he finally asked me, breaking up the awkward silence.
“Those lions aren’t going to lord over themselves,” I said with a smirk, and he escorted me over to his sofa.
“Why don’t I get us something to drink?” he asked before taking his seat beside me. “You’re a fan of bourbon I recall, correct?”
My mouth kind of fell open at this, surprised that he still remembered what I’d had to drink at the bar so many months ago. Instead I simply nodded, and watched as he disappeared behind his living room bar to grab a pair of glasses from the cabinet.
The next several minutes/hours/eons were completely dreamlike. This was, literally, the sort of impossible situation I would have a dream about, sitting beside my billionaire boss in his multimillion dollar penthouse, sipping bourbon while we watched a gay southern hillbilly wrestling with lions on his wall-sized plasma screen TV.
I don’t know how engrossed we both were in the show, or whether we were both just unsure of what we should be saying to one another, but it was a long time, at least several episodes into the series, before we engaged in any sort of meaningful dialogue again.
“This is completely amazing,” Malcolm said, mouth agape, his wide eyes fixed on the screen. “How the hell did our own streaming platform not snatch this up right away?”
“Honestly,” I said, “I don’t think anyone could have had a clue that this show was going to keep half the country sane during the first half of a pandemic.”
“First half? That seems a little optimistic,” he said, and I laughed.
“Fair enough. But here’s what I want to know- do you think that lady actually killed her husband and fed him to the lions?”
“I don’t even know at this point,” he said, and laughed. “This whole thing has thrown me for a loop from the start. I’m starting to get what all the fuss is about.”
“Right?” I said, still not looking at him. “I’m glad I finally get to watch this with someone…”
He didn’t say anything, for a long, long minute. After a while, though, I could feel that his eyes were on me. I’d been aware of his body heat next me this entire time, though I’d tried to compartmentalize it as best I could, and focus on just watching the show. Now though, I felt my body tingling beneath his gaze. My muscles tensed. Sweat began to trickle down the back of my neck.
I stared down into my lap for a moment, then finally I turned my head over to Malcolm.
He was gazing at me with longing in his eyes. I flared my nostrils at him, shifted in my seat, and burned with an intense, all-consuming desire for this man.
“I really want you,” he said in a low voice, and a wave of sensation spread hot and wonderfully up between my legs.
I tried to think of something to say, but everything that came to mind felt hollow and insufficient. He reached over to me then, and slowly, tentatively ran his fingers back through my strawberry blonde locks. He applied just the slightest pressure with the tips of his fingers, and I instinctively leaned over to him, and closed my eyes.
Our lips met. His mouth was hot, wet, and sweet.
He kissed me deep, his fingers sweeping across my chin, my chest heaving as I pressed my body further and further into him.
I slid my tongue into his mouth, and he breathed me in deep.
“I need you so bad,” I whispered to him, and I didn’t realize until now just how badly my body was aching for human contact until just that moment.
He pressed his strong, gentle hands up against my body, gripping me on either side. A shiver ran along my spine as he caressed me through my blouse, exposing my midriff to the burning of his flesh as he did so.
“You’re so amazing,” he breathed into me, nibbling on my neck, then planting a deep, hungry kiss against my throat. “Even your hair smells amazing…”
I giggled, and pressed my pelvis up against him, his solid desire immaculate up against me through the denim of my cutoffs.
I drew his mouth back to mine, desperate for his lips, and started pulling open the buttons of his shirt. I spread apart the fabric and placed both of my palms against the chiseled terrain of his musculature, fingers trickling like rain across his gleaming pectoral muscles, his six pack abs, and the delicious trenches of his Adonis muscles. However I might once have imagined him without his clothes on, the real-life version of it was more incredible than anything I could have fantasized…
I climbed onto his lap, straddling him on the sofa. I pressed down hard against him, and loved the way he groaned as I sat astride his hardness, pressing torturously up into me through the fabric of our clothes. He reached around me, sliding his hands up under my blouse, and let his fingertips dance down along my spine, to the small of my back. He cupped both hands under my buttocks, squeezing me tight, and I let out a long, desperate sigh of longing.