married a shark?” Eleanor asked, laughing.
“A corporate shark, in fact.”
“Wow,” Eleanor said, duly impressed. “How did you meet her?”
“At the library, of course.”
“She read?”
“She gave,” Daniel said with great emphasis on the last word. “She gave balls, galas, parties, charity events, fund-raisers of every stripe. She actually had a heart and a conscience. She was the human face of an otherwise very imposing old firm. She held a gala one year to raise money for a literary charity at the NYPL—”
“Holy shit, you worked at the NYPL?”
“Fifth Avenue, Main Branch,” he said with barely concealed pride.
“With Lenox and Astor?” she asked, naming the two famous lions that guarded the legendary library.
“On warm days I ate my lunch outside with Astor.”
“Why not Lenox?”
“He asked too many personal questions.”
“I like him already. So you were both guests at the party?”
“Oh no. She was the hostess. I happened to be working late that night in the Map Room. Lowly archivist. Not important enough for an invitation.”
“So you were tucked away in a dusty corner alphabetizing 18th century maps of Tierra del Fuego …”
“Something to that effect—”
“And she slips away from the suffocating crowd of the geriatrically wealthy—”
“Has anyone ever told you that you should be a writer?”
“No one who’s ever tried it themselves. But back to you and her. So you’re up to your elbows in Fuego and she rushes in all disheveled elegance, out of breath, desperate for just one moment of solitude …”
“Actually I was examining a map of Eurasia for signs of wear; she strolled in quite calmly, apologized very politely when she saw me and said she simply wanted to see the library by night.”
“I like my version better. But still that is romantic. You gave her a tour? It was love at first sight?”
“Intrigue at first sight. I assumed she was just a guest at the gala. She was lovely, intelligent, a very young-looking thirty-nine.”
“Ohh … an older woman. I love it.”
“Her age or mine was never a factor. Or perhaps it was. She was older than me, powerful, wealthy … but at night when we were alone …”
“She was your slave,” Eleanor said, finishing his sentence.
“My slave. My property. My possession.”
“Your possession … I know how she must have felt. Pressure to be in charge of the world. So much responsibility. The whole world on her … to let go and just give herself to you, to give up to you …”
“I’m glad you understand,” Daniel said as he started sifting through another stack of books. “Few women do.”
“Oh, they do. They’re just afraid to admit it. Yeah, equal pay for equal work and our bodies our selves and Gloria Steinem and all that jazz … but in that dusty dark little corner of every woman’s heart where we keep our maps of Tierra del Fuego lives the hunger to fetch a powerful man his slippers on her hands and knees.”
Eleanor was pleased to see her words had a similar effect on Daniel as his did on her. His breath quickened just slightly as his hands deliberately stroked the leather binding of the book in his hand.
“So you,” she said, meeting his eyes, “are a librarian. What does that make me then? A seven-day loan?”
Daniel laughed as he set his book aside. He moved toward her and lightly gripped her knees.
“Seven-day loan … I’m not sure I like the thought of giving you back.” He slid his hands up her thighs and took her by the hips.
“But what about the overdue fines?” she asked, playfully flashing her eyes at him.
“I think I can afford them,” he said. Eleanor tried to voice another protest but his mouth was already on hers.
He kissed her with an urgency she hadn’t felt last night. Last night he’d discovered, taken for his own. This morning she felt the need to have her. It wasn’t about her body as a stand-in for his wife. Eleanor had made him laugh, given him a break, if only momentary, from three years of pain. This time he wasn’t conquering. This time he was just grateful.
Daniel pulled her from her seat on the desk. She wondered if he would take her on the floor or take her back to his bedroom. Instead he turned her so she stood with her back to his chest. He laid one slow, possessive kiss along the length of her neck before pushing her forward onto the desk.
Eleanor forced a deep calming breath as Daniel stripped her naked from the waist down. She braced for his entrance, expecting it to be as sudden and fierce as last night’s. But he waited, running his hands over her thighs, across her lower back, slipping a hand between her legs to caress her outer lips until she was so eager for him she stood on her tiptoes in readiness. When he finally penetrated her it was slow and methodical. He gripped the back of her neck as he began thrusting. He didn’t go as deep today as last night either but moved in spirals in and out of her, reaching every corner inside her.
She moaned quietly, her hot breath steaming a patch of the cool mahogany of the desk under her cheek.
“You like it from behind,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“God, yes,” she confessed without shame.
“There’s more than one way to enter from behind.”
“If you think that’s a threat, then you don’t know me very well,” she said, smug even while squirming underneath him.
“I don’t,” he admitted, slightly breathless, but still in control. “But that will change.”
As if to prove his point, he pushed down and deep into her, eliciting both a muscle spasm and a sharp gasp.
She closed her eyes. He increased his pace. When she came she came as quietly as she could but still loud enough for Daniel to hear and laugh just before he let himself come with three final thrusts and a muffled grunt at the back of his throat.
Eleanor’s breathing slowly settled. She blinked and raised her head. All she saw were thousands of books stacked and shelved and neatly scattered. Daniel was still inside her.
“God I love a man who reads,” she breathed and laid her head on the desk, spent.
The sex out of their system—for the moment, at least—Eleanor and Daniel made diligent progress on his library. Daniel sorted, reclassified while Eleanor dusted the bookcases in question and
