she says shyly when the check arrives. “This place is amazing.”
“You didn't feel too judged by the fish?” I ask.
“I got over it,” she replies, smiling. She has a beautiful smile. It inches up a little more on one side of her face than the other. It looks like a sweet smirk, a concept I would have found as credible as Santa Claus until I'd seen it for myself.
I pay the bill and guide her out of the restaurant, my hand on the small of her back. My blood is pulsing and throbbing in my cock as I take her back to the jet. Thirty minutes tops, and I'll be inside her.
But that isn't what happens. I've got her all the way to the bedroom at the back of the plane. I'm about to push her down onto the bed, my hand fumbling for her zipper when she says, “Soren, stop.”
I think I may have actually growled. What in the fuck?
This time she leads me back into the main part of the plane as she zips her dress back up. I realize I'd managed to get it halfway down her back. She sits in one of the plush seats, glancing nervously out the window as if she has the option to jump.
I sit in the seat across from her. I'm sure she can see my anger and impatience because she looks genuinely afraid. Good. She's trapped in the air with me with no one to save her, and I'm growing tired of this prude act. It was cute at first, but I'm just about over it.
She looks down at her hands. “I told you I don't have casual sex,” she says quietly.
“Well what the hell does that even mean? Do you want to be exclusive? Do you want to be my girlfriend? Is that what you're angling for?”
She looks up and takes a deep breath. I can see the weight of what she's about to drop on me even before it falls.
“No. I don't do the girlfriend thing. Girlfriend is a fake title for a non-commitment that's just committed enough to fuck but isn't really going anywhere. Trust me, I've gotten that T-shirt. I don't want to sleep with anyone who isn't offering me anything real. And I don't believe in monogamy outside of marriage anymore.”
Now I'm gaping at her like one of the fish we just left. She has got to be kidding. I want to stop this plane and make her get out and walk. Unfortunately that idea only works on the ground, with a car.
“Excuse me?” I ask. Of all the million things I expected to come out of her mouth, this was never even in the top one hundred. “Wait... are you seeing other men?” I feel somehow weirdly betrayed by this even though I'm usually the one seeing multiple women and keeping them all at arm's length.
We haven't even discussed whether or not we're supposed to only be seeing each other. I just assumed because most women past the second date zero in and focus all their attention on me. So fair or not, it's become an expectation even when I'm not doing the same.
She looks genuinely terrified right now, and still no guilt has arisen over that issue in my mind.
“Yes, I'm seeing other people. And you're free to see other people. We aren't in a committed relationship.” She says this like it should be completely obvious. And actually it should be.
“So you're trying to trap me into marriage?” I ask, my voice rising.
She flinches at this, and something dark inside me is pushing at the cage walls to get out. I can hear it growling inside me, claws scraping harshly against metal in the way of fingernails down a chalkboard.
“Of course not,” she says. “I didn't say it had to be you. I'm saying I'm not sleeping with any man I'm not engaged to. That's a privilege reserved for the man I love, who loves me, who is committed to me and offering me real security. Whoever that happens to be. And until that man makes that decision and I accept, I will be seeing whoever I want. And you can see or sleep with whoever you want. I'm not asking you to be celibate or putting your dick in a cage.”
I'm speechless. For several minutes I just sit there, staring at her, forcing my mind to process the words that just came out of her mouth. It's like she's speaking in a