Leonora Adams
She liked jazz. Well, no, she appreciated jazz. It was one of the finer things in life but not something to be enjoyed, to revel in, like the explosion of taste from the first sip of a full-bodied red, or the glee of shrieking on a rollercoaster. No, jazz was something to think about, to mull, to nod your head to. There was an act to enjoying jazz. A detachment. Truth be told, it was boring.
They played blues here most nights, despite the name, but Maurice Steijn preferred jazz. He was Dutch, so surprise surprise. He was a soccer coach, in America for scouting or some training conference or other. She knew a bit about soccer, from her father, but Mr Steijn didn't seem to want to talk, and she soon dropped the matter, settling instead into the role of ornament. The soccer coach was only 39, not long out of his playing days, and carried his still-athletic frame with confidence. Having sex with him later would be a physical pleasure, if not necessarily emotionally fulfilling.
She stretched out a lithe arm for her glass of wine; her silver bangles chimed together and Mr Steijn looked round, appearing to notice her for the first time. His eyes grazed along her exposed neck, over the tops of her breasts in her low-cut black dress. He smiled at her hungrily, then turned back to face the stage again. A man who liked to savour his pleasures, she decided.
Still, his disinterest gave her time to ponder a few things that were on her mind.
First, her apartment. She'd been trying to ignore it, but Staten Island was really too far away from campus, and from Manhattan. A two-hour commute each way ate up too much time from an already crammed schedule. It had been all she could afford under the budget she'd made out for her freshman year, and she loved the rough-and-tumble nature of the area, but now she was earning a bit more, and so could afford to live somewhere a bit more convenient to both her lives. Soon, but not yet...
Second, internships. In the second semester, everyone on her course was meant to talk some slimeball corporate HR manager into bestowing the dubious privilege on internship upon them: early starts, late finishes, thankless copying and coffee runs, and unavoidable sexual harassment. She hadn't given it any thought; passing a law firm on the way to the Blue Moon had reminded her. What was it called? Something Kass?
A firm hand crept over her thigh, down to her knee and under her dress. While she'd drifted away on her own thoughts, Mr Steijn had turned to her and found her less than attentive. This was his way of getting her attention. He leaned in, smiling wolfishly, and nipped her neck with sharp, white teeth. She swallowed and shivered, then smiled shyly at him through her long lashes. The visible signs of her arousal were only partly an act; that lupine grin had reminded her of the third thing on her mind: the predatory glare of Lincoln Genovese and, more specifically, the man from whom he had inherited such animal magnetism - his father, Jonathon Genovese.
Her reverie was broken as she was pulled to her feet. 'Come, Lea, we go to hotel now.' She sashayed across the club in Mr Steijn's wake, a familiar warm tingle spreading below her waist.