A Billion Little Clues Read online

  "I agree," he said emphatically, tilting his head back to look up at those stars I had just mentioned. "And out here, even with those bothersome spotlights, they really do look amazing. Do you know the constellations?"

  Why had I mentioned stars? It had sounded kind of deep in my head, but now that it was out, I wished I could grab the words back. I should have stuck to what I knew. Office supplies? How to brew a good pot of coffee? "I'm a bit rusty," I covered for myself.

  "Me too, but let's see what I do remember," the man said. I felt him draw in closer to me as he kept on gazing up at the sky. He felt warm, heat radiating out from him despite the fancy suit he wore. It felt quite nice, and I couldn't stop myself from leaning in a little closer against him. "Okay, here's one! See those stars up there? See how it looks a bit like a pot with a long handle? That's the Big Dipper!"

  "No, where?"

  "Here!" The man's arm pointed up, and I pressed my head against his shoulder to gaze down the length of the arm at where he was pointing. They were just stars, little pricks of twinkling light! "I don't..."

  And then, suddenly, I did! "Ooh! There!" I exclaimed. "I see it!"

  "Yes! And now, if we follow up along those two bright ones that make up the pot, it points right to the North Star!" The man's hand traced the pattern across the sky for me. "It's that one up there, a little fainter than the others. That's how sailors used to find out which direction was north when out on the ocean."

  "That one?" I raised my own hand to point.

  The man's hand closed gently around my fingers, adjusting them slightly. "No, this one."

  "Oh. That one."

  His skin was very warm. With him holding my hand like this, I was all but pressed against his chest. Just beyond my spine, I could feel his heart beating inside his chest. Was it going faster? I tried to count, but I lost track after a few beats. It was definitely beating strongly, at least.

  When the man next spoke, his voice was right beside my ear. I could feel his breath blowing through my hair, brushing ever so gently against the skin of my neck. It made it very difficult to focus on his words. "This probably isn't the best choice," he murmured, but he didn't sound as though his heart was in his words.

  "Shh," I replied, barely daring to break a whisper. "Everything on the balcony is confidential, remember?"

  What in the world was I thinking? I was definitely not supposed to be out on Roman's super-expensive balcony, flirting with some man whose name I didn't even know. It had been a long time since I'd last even gotten this close to anyone who wasn't my dentist or a homeless man on an especially crowded bus, but that was no excuse!

  I really ought to just take a step back, put on my professional face, and thank the man for his informative little lesson on the stars. I would then go inside, make the rounds and put in a few good comments about the Marketing department here and there, and then go home. The next day, I would report to Keith that I had heard nothing but good things, and maybe he would go a little easier on the yelling.

  Instead, I took another drink of my martini. In fact, I took quite a large drink. By the time I put the glass back down on the metal railing, the little metal sword with its skewered olive was ratting against the empty glass.

  And then I turned around to wrap my arms around the man. For an instant, we were frozen there. I could feel his dark eyes staring down into mine, his lips slightly quirked up as if he was enjoying a private little joke. His arms were encircling me, enclosing me in a lovely little cocoon of protective warmth against the slight chilly breeze that had sprung up. His coat had fallen open, and I was leaning right against his thin shirt.

  For a moment, we hung there, our eyes locked on each other. Amazingly, all of the thousand little competing voices in my mind had fallen silent. I knew that they would spring back up in a second, so I had to act quickly.

  But the man beat me to it. Bending down slightly as I craned up on my tiptoes - he kissed me.

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  I was being kissed. There was no doubt about it. These were definitely another pair of lips on mine, soft and yielding and ever so gently exploring.

  I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't even know this man's name, for goodness sake! He was a total stranger, a man I had only met a few minutes previously, a man to whom I had already told several lies (not the least of which being the implicit assumption that I actually belonged at this party in the first place).

  All this man had done was yell at me about the flowers in the garden below us, and then point out a few stars in the sky. Admittedly, it was a very romantic sky. Aside from the spotlights sweeping back and forth at the front of the house to mark the entry to the party, there were no other lights in the countryside. The stars were brightly shining above us, even the faintest, dimmest ones visible among their brighter brethren.

  And then he had stepped up to me, wrapped his arms around me to keep me warm against the chill in the evening's air. As he'd tightened his grip, I had turned around to look up at him, at his handsome face in the faint light shining out from the house behind us. Our lips had been very close together already.

  But he had been the one to make his move first! I might have been thinking about how it would feel to kiss this man, but I hadn't actually planned to do it. Maybe I might have tilted my head up in preparation, pursed my lips a little bit, but I hadn't been the one who made the first move forward to plant our lips together.

  We were still kissing, even as these thoughts shot through my head. I couldn't help noticing that we were still kissing. This was, I had to admit, all but impossible to ignore.

  It was really quite a good kiss. The man's lips were just soft enough, not all chapped and ragged like some men who didn't pay attention to their lips. His tongue had slipped out of his mouth and probed gently at my own, and I opened my lips up a little wider to allow it entrance. It poked around my mouth, gently exploring and massaging in quite a nice way. When it met my own tongue, they would briefly coil around each other in mutual greeting before darting off to go explore some more.

  As well as the kiss, the man's arms were wrapped around me, pulling me in tightly against him. I had nestled inside of his suit, partly to get away from the cold, but mostly so that I could feel the heat of his body. We were pressed very close together. And my dress was quite tight. I wondered if he could feel my nipples standing out, pressing against his rock-hard abs. I wasn't sure how he could miss them.

  Now that I thought about it, he was probably super aware of my nipples pressing against him. I could feel something pressing against me, that was clear. At first, I thought perhaps the man's wallet was touching me, but as we continued to kiss and it grew longer and harder, it became very clear that this was no wallet. But it definitely got my pulse up as I imagined its size inside the man's pants.

  We very briefly broke apart, just long enough to grab breath before diving back in for more lip-locking. All sorts of dirty, delicious little thoughts were springing up in my mind. Maybe this was meant to be, I thought to myself. Meeting a dark, mysterious stranger at an incredibly rich and extravagant party, only to end up falling for him and spending a wild night of passion together before departing in the morning and never seeing him again.

  The more we kissed, the more I ran my hands over his very tight and shapely body, the stronger these fantasies grew. In my mind's eye, I was ripping his very fancy shirt off of his body as he tugged at the tight zipper of my dress. He was kissing me all over as his hands ducked inside of my undergarments, running to all sorts of delicious private places. I was peeling off his pants and getting to feel up close the object pressing into me between my thighs. I swore that I could feel his hand on my ass, right now...

  Wait a minute! I really could feel his hand there! My eyes went wide, and he let out a little satisfied grunt as he squeezed. I tried to make an affronted little noise without actually sounding like I wanted him to stop. His fingers managed to encapsulate the cheek of my ass very nicely.

 
And that wasn't all that I could feel! Did I mention that I was pressed very closely up against this man? And that the fabric of his suit, although very nice and well-made, was quite thin. And, not to put too fine of a point on it, I could feel a very long and distinct bulge between this man's legs, questing and seeking to find refuge in between my legs.

  I reached down with one hand, running it ever so gently along this bulge. I was rewarded with a gasp from the man, even from such a light touch. The fire in his eyes doubled in intensity, and he growled at me as if he was about to rip my clothes off with his teeth. Not that I would have minded if he did so...

  Inside my head, I had a sudden vision of sitting atop this man, my legs spread wide to straddle him, neither of us wearing a single stitch of clothing. His hands would both be wrapped around my ass this time, sliding me up and down across his hard body. I would have my hair cascading down over my shoulders, my head tilted back in ecstasy.

  Screw going home early, doing what Keith wanted me to! I wanted to stay here until dawn, keeping this man awake and extracting every last drop of pleasure from his body. I wanted to stagger out of here, no longer even able to walk straight, needing at least three or four drinks to rehydrate myself after all the sweat I'd lost the night before. I wanted this man to be left in a sex coma, unable to believe his luck in meeting someone as amazing as me.

  I really wanted to make this vision a reality. More than anything else in the world, at that one moment.

  When we next broke apart, I looked up at the man. I was panting, unable to even find the words to form a coherent sentence, but I was sure that the question was shining in my eyes. And indeed, in his eyes, I could see a similar flame of desire reflecting back. He wanted me just as badly.

  And his hands crawled up my back, reaching right now for that zipper to peel my skin-tight dress off of me.

  "No," I finally managed to gasp, as I found my voice. His touch had found my zipper, and he was already wiggling it, trying to work it loose. Part of me wanted to help him out, but I wasn't quite ready to let him strip me naked right out here. What if someone came out and caught us? At a party with all of my boss's bosses! I'd literally die of embarrassment. "No, we can't do it out here! We have to find someplace else."

  I wasn't quite sure why I didn't want to take this man right out here on the terrace. Maybe I was afraid that someone else would come out at exactly the wrong time, catching us in the throes of passion. Or maybe I just didn't want to have crazy, no-holds-barred sex someplace where I was in danger of losing a toe or two to frostbite.

  For just the fraction of a second, frustration flashed across the man's face. But it almost immediately cleared as a new thought bloomed in his mind. "I know a room inside," he breathed out, his hands dancing over me like spiders. "Totally private. Far out of the reach of the rest of the party. No one will find us there."

  I tried to grin seductively at him. I wasn't sure if it worked, but his hands didn't stop running over all of my most sensitive spots. "What are we waiting for?" I asked.

  He needed no more encouragement. He let go of my ass, his fingers sliding a little reluctantly away from the zipper up by my neck that would have spilled me out of this tight little dress, and instead grabbed my hand. He tugged me in towards the doors leading back into the house, and I eagerly let him tug me along.

  We came bursting back inside through the doors in a rush, both of us panting in anticipation of the incredible sex we were going to have. The man led me down the long corridor, turning around corner after corner. I'm pretty sure that at one point we went up another flight of stairs.

  "On this floor," the man panted back to me. Both of us were out of breath from running up here, as well as from thinking about all the nastiness that we were about to commit together. "Almost there-"

  The man froze, as another sound suddenly cut into our fevered visions. For an instant, I wasn't sure why he was stopping, but then I heard it as well.

  Someone had just screamed.

  It sounded like a man, confused and panicked. We both froze, the sound snapping us out of our dreamy desires and sexy visions. For a moment, we both hung in the middle of the corridor, listening and waiting in case we heard it again.

  For a moment, there was only silence. And then, we heard it again, drifting down the corridor. This time, it built up, but was cut off abruptly, halfway through. It was as if someone or something had slammed the man's mouth shut halfway through the scream. Or something else had happened.

  For a fraction of a second longer, my mystery man kept a hold of my hand, but then he let go. "That doesn't sound good," he said, as if he was still working out the thoughts in his head.

  I shook my head. My brain might be fogged still with thoughts of wild and incredibly erotic sex, but I knew that something had just gone wrong. "No, it doesn't," I replied. "Is there supposed to be some sort of performance or entertainment at this party?" I couldn't keep a slight hint of hope out of my voice as I asked this.

  But the man was already shaking his head. "Nothing that would cause a scream like that," he said. For one last moment, his eyes were running over me, taking in every single inch of my body. And well he should - I didn't know when I would come close to looking this good again.

  But then, with regret obvious in every single inch of his body, he turned towards the scream. "I better go see what's going on," he said, wincing as the words came out. "I'll see you at the party, afterwards?"

  I nodded. "Oh, for sure," I told him. I hoped that my words sounded more solid to him than they did to me.

  With one last glance at my figure, the man turned and sprinted off down the hall, towards the source of the scream. I watched him go - man, you could totally see the lines of his tight ass as he ran in those pants! - and then turned the other direction, heading back down to rejoin the rest of the party.

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  I was heading back down through the massive maze of a house towards the rest of the party. I wasn't expecting to run into them all charging up towards me, a flight of stairs and two corridors later.

  "Hey!" called out one man at the front of the big group charging towards me as they came around the corner and spotted me hurrying towards them. "What's going on?"

  I shrugged back at them. "I don't know!" I replied, shouting back.

  "We heard a scream! Is someone hurt?"

  "I don't know!" I repeated again, and then they had caught up with me. All of the partygoers were running the opposite direction as me, but they swept me up in their group, spinning me around until I was forced to either start following along in their same direction or end up being trampled into the surely absurdly expensive carpet.

  I glance left and right as the crowd spins me around and recruits me into their own number. "Where are we all running?" I manage to get out to the man beside me, a short and burly man with a face like a bulldog that has just swallowed a lemon.

  He glared back at me, as if the answer should be obvious. He had that kind of face, I noticed. The kind of face where he looks perpetually angry, always ready to bite somebody's head off. "Didn't you hear the scream?" he demanded. "We want to know what's going on!"

  Sure, that made sense, but he didn't have to yell at me about it! I mean, it wasn't as if the I was the one who had been screaming my head off.

  We reached the top of the stairs, once again, the mob temporarily pausing as we glanced around to try and figure out which direction to turn next. I craned my ears, striving to hear any sort of sound to tell me where to go.

  In a second between breaths, I caught a quiet sound from off to my right - the direction in which my mystery man had vanished! And I wasn't the only one who heard it. The man with the angry bulldog face also must have heard it, as his whole head swiveled around to stare in that direction.

  "Down this way!" the man yelled, and without waiting to see if the rest of us were even following, he bolted in that direction.

  I shared a look with some of the other well-dressed party
guests as this man went barrelling off, but what could we do? There didn't seem to be any other choice - so we all hurried after him, doing our best to keep up. He might have short little bulldog legs, I thought to myself in consternation, but man, he can move fast!

  We rounded another corner, and this time, up ahead, I could see a door standing open. That must be where the scream had come from! The little bulldog man had also spotted this, and he somehow managed to squeeze even more speed out of his little legs. I was half worried that his suit was about to catch fire from the friction.

  But when the pugnacious man reached the doorway, he stopped dead. His face, which had previously been permanently fixed in that scowl, seemed to lose all tension and go slack. It almost looked as though he'd just received an invisible sucker-punch to the gut.

  And a moment later, as the rest of us caught up with him, I could see why he looked this way.

  I was in the front row; I had a clear view of the scene before me. I almost wish that my view had been blocked, that I hadn't been exposed to the horror on the floor before me.

  There was a body sprawled out, arms and legs akimbo. At first, I thought that this body must be lying on a brilliantly bold red rug, but after a moment I realized the truth. The carpet below the man was sodden with his blood, stained bright red. There had to be at least half a gallon of blood just on the carpet alone.

  My eyes panned upward. Another man was kneeling behind this fallen body, frozen with his eyes wide as he stared back at us. He had lifted his hands up as he reacted to all of us coming around the corner, and his mouth was hanging open.

  His hands were also red, dripping with blood. Blood from the man in front of him.

  But that wasn't the worst part.

  I recognized the kneeling man. I felt my heart give a sickening lurch as it dropped down into the pit of my stomach. I knew who he was.

  This was the man who had been keeping me company out on the balcony, just a few minutes previously. This was the man that, on a wild, crazy impulse, I had kissed. This was the man who, up until just a few seconds ago, had been dominating my fantasies.