©Megan Hart, may not be reproduced without permission

Boyfriends, she’d decided, were like seashells. Every once in while you found a pretty one to put in your pocket, but most were broken, some were sharp, some had a bad smell. Her last boyfriend had been a nice guy, a sweet guy. A spineless, couldn’t-make-a-decision-to-save-his life sort of guy. The one before that had been the opposite, a big, brawny manly man who’d delighted in treating her like a helpless, fragile doll.

She wasn’t opposed to dating or marriage. She just wasn’t going to hold her breath or put her life on hold until she found the One. Nor was she willing to put aside her standards for a quick fling, or to settle for a relationship just to have one rather than be alone, the way some of her friends had done.

The line moved forward slowly, each person seemingly needing a long, long time to get their arrangements straightened out. With one eye on the line, Julia pulled out her iPhone, doubly grateful for the distraction of the ‘net as she browsed her favorite gossip site and checked her email, then surfed over to her account on Connex, a popular social networking site. There she played a few moves in her online version of a popular board game and checked out the updated photos on her friends list.

The line had moved, but not much.

Idly, she skimmed through her messages from Connex. She had the usual winks and hugs from random users who’d found her profile interesting and some friend requests she deleted. She liked Connex because the blog function allowed her to keep up with real-life friends she didn’t see often, but she wasn’t there to collect “friends” the way some people were. She never friended anyone she hadn’t met in real life. She was getting ready to disconnect when a new message arrived in her inbox. The username made her smile every time.

Onemanwreckingmachine

His real name was Graham, and the first she’d met him he’d been blindfolded and at her mercy.

Their companies had been merging, resulting in some new corporate policies. The week-long Occupational Health conference last year had been meant to strengthen relations between the corporations and bring the department heads into mutual compliance with new policies. The atmosphere had been more casual than the yearly conferences she’d attended in the past, and meeting all the new people had lent an air of excitement missing from the past years’ educational programming. Along with the traditional dry business meetings there had been a few more parties and fun events in the name of “team-building.”

Julia had arrived late to the conference and been ushered at once to the room they’d set aside for team-building exercises, where she took her place with the only unpartnered person. He’d been standing with one half of the group, their eyes covered with black cloths, waiting for their partners to lead them with words through a maze created by traffic cones on the ballroom floor. Julia would never forget the way he’d turned his head at her “hello,” or how he’d taken her every direction without hesitation. They’d won the contest because Graham had negotiated the maze at her command without knocking over even one cone. She still had the pen engraved with the company logo.

She wouldn’t forget her first sight of his eyes, a hazy gray-blue, when he took off the blindfold. Or the sound of his name when he’d introduced himself, or the press of his palm in hers when they shook hands.

“You’re good at taking direction,” she’d said.

“You’re good at giving it,” had been his reply, and his smile had sent heat trickling all through her.

The session had continued, but if anything important happened, Julia didn’t remember it. All she thought of when she looked back to that day was Graham. She’d thought about him a lot over the past year.

Later that first day, they met in the hotel lobby at the elevator. They’d struck up a conversation on the ride up. He’d impressed her at once by referring to their transport as the Great Glass Elevator. The elevator opened into a short hall, open at either end. The rooms themselves formed a square open to the lobby below. He’d gone one way, she the other, and found their rooms had been almost exactly opposite across the opening.

He’d waved. She’d waved back. Inside her room she’d leaned against the door and laughed to herself at how something so simple and small could feel so big so fast.

The attraction had been instant and undeniable, at least to her. Graham stood at least six-three, with long, long legs and long, long arms, and big, long-fingered hands. He alternated between well-cut suits with funky ties and casual, long-sleeved t-shirts and the type of jeans fondly known amongst Julia’s circle of girlfriends as “dirty denim.” Not that the jeans themselves weren’t clean – just that the cut and style and contents brought to mind dirty, dirty thoughts.

They’d been partnered in a trivia contest and wiped the floor with their competitors. They’d sat together at dinner. They’d talked long into the night about topics as diverse as comic-book superheroes and global warming and her love of snow, which he rarely saw in his native Texas. He had an easy sense of humor and laughed at all her jokes. They’d only known each other for five days.

A lot can happen in five days.

The after-hours events had been a bit more raucous than the daytime meetings. Casual flirtations that would never have gone further than the office seemed an entirely different animal going on away from home. Alcohol made people stupid, something Julia had determined never to be, particularly not in front of her boss’s bosses and around people with whom she had to work on a daily basis. Even with people she would never see again. Maybe especially with people she would never see again.

The conference had ended with an awards dinner on Friday night. Many of the attendees who weren’t heading out immediately for home had ended up in the hotel bar, where they drank and danced and generally let down their hair.

Julia and Graham had shared a booth with several people neither of them actually worked with. There had been drinking and music and flirtation she couldn’t ignore. His thigh had pressed hers beneath the table. She had reached to brush a non-existent piece of lint from his collar. They hadn’t been alone but nobody else had mattered.

Last call came and with it, a decision. They’d taken the Great Glass Elevator together, tension thick and sweet as honey between them, but when the doors opened and let them both out, Julia had mumbled something about it being late and turned. She’d walked away.

Would he have said yes if she had asked him to go with her back to her room? She would never know, because she hadn’t asked. She’d wanted it desperately, fiercely, the need of it a physical force that had dried her throat as it moistened her palms and dampened between her thighs – but she hadn’t asked.

Their flirtation had begun casually and grown exponentially each day until that last night there should have been no doubt of her intentions or his, but despite the fact he had looked into her eyes and she could almost feel the heat his gaze was giving off like it was an actual flame – despite all of that, Julia, in that last moment, had faltered. Chickened out. Because he might have said “no.” More frightening, he might have said “yes.”

And then what would she have done? Taken him to her room, used his tie to bind his hands or to cover his eyes. Ordered him to service her with his tongue until she came. Ridden him like a mother-fucking pony until he screamed her name. The possibilities had been as endless as her fantasies, but they all came back to one, single theme. Graham Tremaine on his knees in front of her, doing whatever she pleased.

It was what she wanted, but not what she allowed herself to take. After five days she liked him too much to risk disappointment. She hadn’t even held out a hand for him to shake, afraid that simple touch would give away the sheer force of her desire and embarrass her. She had simply wished him “good night” and turned on her heel to walk away without daring to even look back. She hadn’t dared look across to see him going into his own room, either. She’d swiped her key through the lock and gone inside, closing the door tight and leaning against it again, her heart pounding like she’d run a mile with wolves chasing her.

She’d never seen him again.