...“What about you?” I said, since we were clearly acting like drunks and sharing secrets and saying things that shouldn’t be said. “You and your hot prospects and your movie star girlfriends and your perfect teeth, what else are you scared of?”

He looked taken aback. “I have perfect teeth?”

“Yes, you do.” The words were tumbling out. “And perfect hair and perfect….” I made a swiping motion at his whole body. “It’s very annoying. You know some people work extremely hard and never have teeth like that?”

He gave this the thoughtful consideration it deserved. “People work hard at having perfect teeth?”

“People work hard, period.” I tapped the tabletop in an illustrative, menacing way. “And they don’t have perfect anything. Period. You, you have it all.”

He shrugged. “I work hard for it all.”

I shrugged back. “So what? Lots of people work hard.”

“You mean you work hard.”

“I mean me. No, wait, I mean—” I stopped short. I needed to remember he was a lawyer as well as an accountant; best not to talk too much. I made an immediate vow to that effect.

“You’re jealous,” he surmised.

“You bet, I am,” I retorted sharply. So much for vows. “I have the same degrees as you. I work just as hard as you. I work just as late as you.”

“You don’t work as smart as me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s helpful. Thanks.”

He took another sip of whisky. He looked perfectly relaxed, like he was enjoying himself. I felt like a tiger ready to pounce.

“You’re too tense,” he said helpfully. “You need to loosen up.”

I closed my eyes and forced myself to inhale. “I’m well aware of that.” I leaned back until the back of my head touched the chair. “That’s why I’m here. I’m loosening up.”

He laughed. My eyes popped open. He was looking around, at the work papers strewn across the table, at my empty fifty-two ounce refillable coffee mug and my stupid, pathetic rolling suitcase, because I didn’t even want to spend one night out in the world. Had to hurry back home to all my nothing.

I tilted my head down slightly and glared at him. “I’m trying. A person can’t just…let go.” I waved my hand around.

“Sure she can.”

I pushed to the edge of my seat, all pounce-y again. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t know how?”

“Oh yeah, it occurred.”

“I need practice. That’s what I’m here for: practice.”

He sipped his drink. “You need headbanging sex.”

I straightened with a snap. “Sex?”

“Headbanging sex,” he clarified. “The kind where your body takes over, and you’re so hot your skin burns, and you pant for breath and forget your name.”

“Oh. That kind.” And here I'd thought I needed a hobby. I put my hands to my face. My fingers were cool stripes against my hot cheeks. “You remember how you’re the one who brought all this up here?” I nodded toward the papers. “If anyone’s hyper-focused on work, it’s you.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but I know how to have sex.”

I gasped and dropped my hands. “I know how to have sex.”

He smiled. “Yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

He just kept smiling at me. Like he didn’t believe me.

“I have sex all the time,” I informed him. I left out the part about it being mostly with a showerhead.

He still didn’t say anything. His silence would be my downfall, the path to my truth.

“I mean,” I said after another moment, “maybe it’s been a little while.”

No laughter now, just his gaze burning through the room.

“And I don’t know that it was ever headbanging,” I said, looking away. I picked up a napkin, began shredding it. “But how often does that happen in real life anyhow? Books and movies, but real people…?” I dabbed at a bead of water with the napkin shreds. My skin felt hot. “But that’s my fault. You know,” I rolled my hand through the air, “the uptightness and all.”

“Your fault,” he repeated softly, like he was turning the idea over in his head.

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s hard to make me lose my head, let alone bang it. I don’t know how.”

Silence. Then, “Want me to show you?”

Five words, that’s all it took. My body shivered, a hot, glorious sort of shiver. My brain rebelled.

“Show me?” I said stupidly.

His eyes never left mine.

I noticed I was trembling. “What does that mean?”

“It means I fuck you.”

I got to my feet. I had no idea what I was doing, and standing sure wasn’t going to help things, since my legs were shaking. “Fuck me?”

He nodded slowly. “Yep.”

“You’re going to do me a favor and fuck me?” I whispered. My head was buzzing.

“Let’s try this again,” he said softly. His eyes locked on mine--dammit—and he started saying, whispering really, promising, and I knew I was doomed, “I want to fuck you, Juliette. Please let me fuck you. I really, really want to make you come.”

My face roared with heat, my ears rang, I couldn’t hear myself, only his words, rushing over me like fire.

I had to open my mouth to breathe because I knew, knew, in the depths of my soul, that I was standing at the edge of a precipice. This was a moment of decision. I could get a life right now. With a guy whose last name was Danger.

Cold fear sliced through me. No, it had been too long, I didn’t know how. And flat-out, I was scared. One could almost say terrified.

But…wasn’t that the whole point of coming up here?

What I did know was my heart was beating stronger than it ever had in my life, and Johnny was watching me, and I felt electric, like I was lit up in the darkness. Like I could be seen. And only Johnny was watching.

I lifted my chin, shaking all over. “Okay.”

I watched him shift in his seat, lean and graceful, like a predator. He said nothing. His gaze moved slowly down my body.

The silence went on and on, entered my body like a scent, until I became nothing but a bated breath, a frozen inhale, waiting for Johnny. His gaze slid back up. I tipped my face toward the ceiling, kept my eyes on him, my mouth open to breathe, waiting.

“That’s a nice shirt,” he said, low and rumbly.

My body ricocheted against nothing but the sound of his voice. “Thanks,” I whispered.

“Take it off.”

The breath shot out of me. I lifted my fingers to the top little button of my sweater and flipped it open, then exhaled raggedly, breathless from the effort.

“All of them.”

“Johnny...we’re in a bar. I…I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“Someone might s-see us. Hear us,” I whispered. For some reason, my body shivered.

His eyes met mine, then he said slowly, perhaps significantly, “Oh.”

I made a helpless sound which only seemed to inflame him. I saw his erection, hard, thick, pressing against the seam of those faded jeans.

I unbuttoned my shirt for him.

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