Ramsay could feel her heart pounding as she waited for Seth to pick up. By the third ring, her mouth had gone dry. "Hello?" Seth's voice sounded a bit hoarse.
"Um, hi, Seth. It's--it's Ramsay."
"Yeah, I figured that," he said dryly. "Shouldn't you be almost here by now?"
Ramsay swallowed hard and silently cursed herself for having agreed to visit Seth at his apartment. Why was she so eager to go back to the lions' den? Her body was still sore from the previous night's lovemaking--if one could call it "lovemaking." Seth had all but devoured her, spitting misogynous epithets of ancient provenance at her all the while. She was dying to know whether he had treated her 22-year-old sister Gaby the same way when he was dating her. But Gaby was visiting friends in Chicago as a means of coping with the end of her relationship with Seth, and in any case, Ramsay could hardly have asked her. She was 18 years old, too young to be dating a sexually voracious, 25-year-old man--if one could call it "dating." And if her either Gaby or her mother, who had never liked Seth to begin with, ever learned that she had just spent an entire night being devoured by the man who had jilted her sister, there would be hell to pay.
"You there?" Seth's voice was laced with impatience.
"Yeah, yeah." She closed her eyes and gripped the phone. "Listen, I, uh,...I don't think I'm going to be able to see you tonight."
There was a long pause. "That's not acceptable."
His autocratic tone irked her. "Well, that's...how it is." Another long pause. She half expected him to hang up on her.
"I'm coming over there."
"No, you're not," she hissed, reluctant to raise her voice. The apartment she shared with her mother had thin walls.
"See you in about fifteen minutes."
"Seth, listen to me!" She locked her bedroom door and sat on the bed. "My mother is home, and the last thing I need right now is another showdown. You should have heard her when I got in this morning looking...the way I did."
"You mean freshly fucked?" He chuckled softly to himself.
"It's not funny," she muttered, recalling the hard words she and her mother had exchanged just hours before. The upshot of their endless arguments was that Ramsay now had an eleven o'clock curfew.
"Come on, baby," he wheedled. "You enjoyed yourself didn't you?"
Ramsay recalled the previous night and felt a flutter in her stomach. Seth had been rough with her, had made sure she felt thoroughly objectified every time he shoved her against the wall or ordered her to spread her legs. But he had also indefatigably worked her into states of arousal she had never before experienced. He had practically kept score of their orgasms, making sure that she came at least as often as he did. And he had spent a good half hour coddling and teasing her clit with his tongue, pausing only to urge her--in characteristically explicit terms--to come for him. He may have reduced her to his plaything, but as his plaything she was apparently entitled to hours of pleasure.
"Well, I could maybe see you tomorrow," she said tentatively, fully aware that Seth would not be content to wait.
"You didn't answer my question."
"Seth, I need to hang up now."
"The hell you do," he growled. "Listen, tell that fucking cow that you're taking a walk. I'll park a block north of your place. See you in fifteen minutes."
"Seth, I--"
He had hung up.
Ramsay threw her cell phone pettishly on the bed. She resented Seth for never taking "no" for an answer. But she resented herself even more for being so inexplicably eager to see him. He was, as her mother had told Gaby countless times, "bad news." But his heavy-lidded brown eyes--"bedroom eyes," as her grandmother would have called them--and his almost artfully disheveled hair were irresistible. And if Ramsay allowed herself to linger over the thought of his broad, smooth back, which she had covered with small scratches the night before, and of the way he groaned with lust every time she tentatively touched his cock, she became embarrassingly wet.
She wanted to see Seth, that much was certain. But she would under no circumstances allow him to drive her back to his apartment. Wasn't that one of the cardinal safety rules for women confronted with an attacker? Never let yourself be taken to a second location.
***
Ramsay looked warily back at the apartment building before walking toward Seth's coupe. At least her mother wasn't watching her from the window. Maybe she couldn't believe that her daughter would be audacious--or just downright stupid--enough to try something just hours after having been threatened with all manner of punishments if she ever broke curfew again. But here she was, watching her breath rise and condense in the chilly evening air as she walked willingly toward the man who seemed determined to make a royal mess of her life. He climbed out of the car as she approached. God, he looked desirable, thought Ramsay as she gathered her scarf more closely around her neck.
"Did you miss me?" he said jovially as he opened the passenger door for her.
"I'm not getting in."
Seth cocked his head to the side and smirked at her. "It's a little chilly to fuck up against the car, don't you think?" He consulted an imaginary watch on his left arm. "Not to mention a bit early."
"Look, I need to talk to you." She jammed her hands into her coat pockets and peered up at him.
"Come here," said Seth, encircling her in his arms before she could extricate her gloved hands from her pockets and push him away. He smelled of tobacco and fresh wood shavings. A comforting smell, she thought, closing her eyes and inhaling. An arousing smell, too, she mused. Seth, it seemed to her, had single-handedly turned carpentry into the world's sexiest vocation. She leaned in and, against her better judgment, closed her eyes. Almost immediately she felt his tongue pry its way past her lips, which were still a bit swollen from his many assaults the previous night. Ramsay moaned quietly as she felt the familiar tickle--the tickle that Seth could conjure with unsettling speed--between her thighs. He was nibbling at her bottom lip, tasting her mouth and running his fingers along her neck. Her hands slid up to embrace his shoulders, and he seized the opportunity to unbutton her tweed coat. Her desperation to feel his hands on her breasts again alarmed her.
He broke off the kiss at last. "Get in the car," he rasped. His hands had found their way to her breasts, which looked, Ramsay had to admit, rather inviting under the snug-fitting softness of her pink V-neck sweater.
