We're going to be doing this.

Yeah, I have absolutely no idea what we're going to be doing.

I'm the first to leave. I walk out to the elevators, and who should I b.u.mp into but Mr. Sully from HR? Shoot. Can he see how flushed I am?

"Hi, Elizabeth," he says pleasantly.

"Hi, Mr. Sully."

"Steve, please. We are all on first name basis here. Chris's orders."

"OK, Steve." My heart pitti-pats in my chest cavity, and I wonder if these experienced HR types can see through your body language. They are experts, right, to pick up body cues and stuff that says not everything is going right with an employee?

"Going straight home, Elizabeth?"

"Please call me Beth." My voice is squeaky. "No, I think I'll go for drinks with some friends."

"It's nice to see you making friends here." He smiles. "Who are you going out with?"

Oh c.r.a.p c.r.a.p c.r.a.p. I'm not a good liar. Never was.

"Oh, no one you'd know. Old friends. From college."

"Great." He smiles.

"Yeah."

The elevator doors open and I dive out before he can ask any more questions. I head swiftly for the parking lot elevators. But scoot, he follows me. Of course, I berate myself. His car is parked down there too.

"You don't have a car, do you, Beth?"

I am so not good at this.

"No, not yet." I stop in my tracks. "I think I have to go to the washroom first."

Sully is a congenial man. Nondescript. But the first inklings of amused suspicion light up his features.

"You're not avoiding me, are you, Beth?"

"No, of course not. Why would you think that? I really have to go, Mr. Sully. I mean Steve."

I scuttle away to the washroom in the lobby. My palms are already damp.

Shoot. My date hasn't officially started, and I'm already a mess.

CHRIS.

Actually, I don't believe she said 'yes'.

But I totally believe her when she said she was a virgin.

f.u.c.k. How do I deal with that? I haven't had a virgin since I was in tenth grade. None of the girls I knew after that were virgins.

She certainly wasn't a virgin when we both seduced each other back then.

Beth is nervous when she gets into my official company car a Merc. I don't have a company driver, even though I'm ent.i.tled to one. I like cars too much to let someone else drive them.

"Relax," I say, opening the door for her. "I'm not going to bite."

With her face flushed like that, she looks good enough to eat, actually. It's going to take everything I have to control myself. I'm not good at controlling myself when it comes to s.e.x. Taylor calls me aggressive. I would rather think of myself as exact.

During our drive back to my penthouse, we talk about inconsequential things, all the while skirting the issue on what she really wants to talk about as to what we are going to do when we get to my place.

"It's a surprise," I say, smiling.

She smiles back, but I can see the unease on her pretty features. A pang fleets through my chest. Is this what I do to innocent young girls? Make them scared of me?

"It's going to be OK," I a.s.sure her. "No intercourse, remember?"

"It makes me nervous when you call it 'intercourse'," she says, not meeting my eyes.

"Oh? What should I call it?"

"I don't know. I've never had such a frank s.e.x conversation before."

Of course.

"I was just trying to make the distinction between the actual s.e.x act and other stuff we can do."

I can tell this is too much for her. Inwardly, I'm shaking my head bemusedly. Is she really such an innocent? And yet she's here, with me ready to be initiated. But I've been told I do that to women all the time.

Mom would have been proud of me, but Dad hates it.

We take my private elevator up to my penthouse. I can tell from her awed expression that she's impressed with my interior decorating not that I had any hand in it, of course, having hired an expensive designer. But I'll admit it's impressive, and it should be, because I spent several million on the furniture and art and fixtures and everything else in between. As a result, my penthouse looks like a luxe baroque hotel suite.

"It's . . . nice," she says a little breathlessly, taking it all in.

"It's livable. You want a c.o.c.ktail before dinner?"

"OK."

I go to the bar and mix us two margaritas. I'm pretty good at mixing stuff, having worked a stint as a bartender when I was in college. Not that I needed the money, of course, but everyone else (equally rich) was working at some thing or other just to boast that they had experience at being plebeians. Being 'middle-cla.s.s normal' was the in thing to be.

We sit at the lounge with the tastefully upholstered armchairs and sofas. Beth still seems ill at ease. She's wearing a demure blouse and skirt. None too expensive stuff, but they look good on her. She's got a good body. In fact, scratch that. She's got an amazing body. I don't like girls who have anorexia there's no ma.s.s there, nothing to grab and hold. Beth's body under those clothes is just right.

"See? I haven't jumped you yet," I say.

She manages a laugh.

"Do you want dinner?"

"OK."

We bring our margaritas to the dining room. My housekeeper, Rita, has left some pasta for us and set two dining places. There's white wine chilling in a half-melted ice bucket. So we were late back from work.

We tuck in.

"It's delicious," she says.

She has a hearty appet.i.te. I love it. I believe it will extend to bed . . . if she cuts herself loose, of course.

After we finish dinner, she helps me put the dishes in the sink. She starts to run the tap, but I say, "No need. Rita will get that tomorrow."

"I'll bet you haven't washed a plate in over a decade," she says, smiling.

"More like two." I laugh. "Seriously, if I didn't have a housekeeper, I'd live off paper plates and restaurants, not to mention Chinese takeout."

"So you're a typical guy."

"Yeah, I'm not that different from your average couch potato beer guzzler."

We go back to the lounge with our wine gla.s.ses and the bottle. I fill her gla.s.s.

"I don't drink that much," she confesses. "This is the most I've drunk in one sitting."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. I know you think I'm a hick."

"I don't think you're a hick. I just think you're a twenty-three year old young woman who hasn't been exposed to the real world."

"That depends on your definition of the real world. I come from a real world too," she points out. "And my world is every bit as real as yours."

"Well put." I ponder this, and find it surprisingly true. I like being surprised like this. It reveals facets about Beth I never knew.

After a while, she says, "So . . . what do we do now?"

She's wringing her hands.

This is when I have to take charge. I don't really have a game plan. I never do. I don't plan out seductions like some sort of strategic roadmap do this, and that, and you'll have her dropping her panties at the end of it. It doesn't work that way for me.

I say, "You don't have to do anything. Just sit there. Tonight is just . . . well, getting to know each other. In the physical sense, it's for you to get to know me."

She furrows her brow. "How so?"

"Just stay right there."

It's impromptu, as such things are. I stand up. I've taken off my jacket, and I'm still in my shirt and well cut Tom Ford pants.

I begin to unb.u.t.ton my shirt.

"What are you doing?" she says, alarmed.

"Stripping. For you. Don't worry, I'm not going to touch you. I just want you to get comfortable with my body."

She looks panicked for a moment, but when I shrug my shirt off, her eyes go round. I always get that look from women and quite a few men. I work out, and so I know I have a great body. My chest and shoulders are broad and well-muscled but not too bodybuilder heavy. My abs are an eight pack.

I unzip my pants, and I can see her hands clutching the armrests and her fingernails digging into the fabric. I'm wearing briefs underneath. I wasn't hard throughout all of dinner, but now that I'm undressing and in an escalating s.e.xual mode, my c.o.c.k starts to fill with my sap. I rip off my briefs, and it rises like the head of a rearing snake.

I have a huge p.e.n.i.s and it's impressive, but for a virgin, I understand that it can be scary. As soon as it reveals itself, Beth can't take her eyes off it.

"I'm not going to ask you what you think." My voice comes out more hoa.r.s.ely than I intended. And no wonder. I'm as tumescent as a protruding outcrop of rock.

I want her. I want her so badly. I want to go to her, kneel before her and take her in my arms. But there she sits, speechless in wonder. I'm beginning to doubt she's ever seen a naked man before.

She says, a little breathlessly, "You're beautiful."

"Thank you. I think."

I seat myself on the couch. We stare at each other. Her eyes rake me in up and down, lingering especially on my c.o.c.k.

I say, "Do you want to sit next to me? I'm not going to touch you today unless you want me to."

She hesitates only for a while before she gets up and comes over.

I hold my hands up. "Look inside the drawer of the table." I nod towards the stylized coffee table at the center of the armchair arrangement.

"Why? What's inside?"

"You'll see."

She's curious as she opens the left drawer. And gasps when she sees what's inside.

"Go ahead," I say. "Put them on me."

BETH.