Gold Digger – Story 2 –  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT D

Okay. So.

There’s someone I need to tell you about before any of this makes sense.

His name starts with D.

That’s all you’re getting.

D is the reason my spreadsheet has blind spots.

Late twenties.

Self-made but not yet made.

There’s a difference.

If you’ve ever dated potential instead of a portfolio, you know exactly what I mean.

He works in something that requires actual skill and produces actual things and pays him not nearly enough for either. He is attractive in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with money, which is the most inconvenient thing about him.

He knows about the plan. Knows about the spreadsheet.

Thinks it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

That is the problem with D. He finds me – all of me, including the parts I’m not proud of – genuinely, unhelpfully amusing. He doesn’t think I’m ruthless. He doesn’t think I’m tragic. He thinks I’m funny and sharp and slightly chaotic and he laughs like he means it and then he looks at me like –

I’m not finishing that sentence.

Here’s what happened three weeks ago.

I should have gone to sleep. I had a 9am. The spreadsheet needed updating. I was on track.

I texted D at 11:47pm.

I didn’t say anything interesting.

I said hey with a lowercase h.

He said hey back.

And then I was in an Uber and then I was at his door and then I was inside and –

His flat is small.

That’s the first thing.

Small and warm and it smells like coffee and something else I can’t name.

There’s always a plate of food on the counter at whatever hour I arrive, like he just – has it.

Like he knew.

He moved the plate closer without asking.

That’s the thing I can’t put in a spreadsheet.

The plate.

“Long night?” he asked.

“Fine.”

He nodded like fine meant something specific and he’d correctly translated it.

That’s the other inconvenient thing about D.

He speaks Mila fluently and I never taught him.

Then he leaned against the counter and looked at me.

Not the way men look when they’re performing interest.

The way he looks when he’s already decided something and is just waiting for me to catch up.

“You came here.”

Three words.

Not accusing.

Not surprised.

Just noting it.

Like it meant something.

Like I meant something.

“I was in the area.”

“It’s midnight.”

“I’m a night person.”

That got a smile.

The dangerous one.

The smile that sees through every single thing I’ve just said and finds it charming instead of annoying.

I should’ve left then.

Instead I took two steps forward.

Then another.

Close enough to smell him.

That specific D smell – warm, clean, and something underneath that my nervous system apparently recognizes before the rest of me does.

He still didn’t move.

Just watched.

Half a smile.

The kind that knows things.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

Like I’d arrived somewhere I’d been expected.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“That.”

“The thing you’re doing.”

“I’m standing in my kitchen.”

“You’re doing it knowingly.”

He laughed.

Low.

And then he pushed my hair back from my face.

One slow movement.

Like he had all the time in the world.

Like there was nowhere else either of us was supposed to be.

I felt it from my scalp to my knees.

I’m choosing not to think about that.

I kissed him first.

Obviously.

Because if I didn’t, he’d just keep looking at me like that until I lost my mind entirely.

He kissed me back like he had a point to make.

Then he stopped. Just for a second. 

Pulled back just enough to look at me.

 “You sure?”

 “Don’t ask me that.” 

“I’m asking.”

 “Yes.” 

The word came out smaller than I meant it to. 

He heard it anyway. 

His hands moved to my waist first. Slow. Like he was in absolutely no hurry and wanted me to know it. 

That’s the thing about D. Every other man I’ve been with has treated urgency like a virtue. D treats it like an amateur mistake. 

He walked me backward until my shoulders hit the wall and stayed there. Not rough. Just – certain. Like he’d decided where we were going and the wall was part of the plan. 

I pulled at his shirt. He let me. Watched me do it with that half-smile like I was doing exactly what he expected and he found it delightful. 

I hate that smile. 

I pulled harder. 

He laughed low and helped me and then his hands were on my skin and I stopped thinking about the smile entirely. 

He took his time. Hands first. Slow and deliberate. Learning something he already knew like he wanted to confirm nothing had changed since last time. I kept waiting for it to feel different.

 It didn’t. 

I told myself I wasn’t going to make noise. 

I lasted approximately forty seconds.

 “There she is,” he said quietly.

 I would have said something sharp but his mouth was on my neck and I’d temporarily lost access to the part of my brain that does that. 

We moved to the bedroom eventually. 

Eventually is doing a lot of work in that sentence. He was unhurried there too. Infuriatingly, specifically unhurried. The kind of unhurried that makes you forget what you came here to not feel. 

I forgot. For a while I forgot all of it. 

There was just D. His hands. His weight. The specific way he said my name when he wasn’t performing anything – just saying it. Quiet. Like it meant something particular to him. 

I don’t know what to do with that. I never know what to do with that.

 At some point he pulled me closer and I let him and that was the most honest thing I did all night.

 The rest of it was the best argument against my own plan I have ever personally experienced. And I have experienced it more times than the spreadsheet knows. 

That’s when his control finally snapped. Or maybe it didn’t snap. Maybe he just decided it was time.

 With D, it was impossible to tell. 

His fingers tightened on my hips. Hard enough to leave bruises I’d find tomorrow and secretly like. 

He shifted, heavy and warm, his thigh sliding between mine, pressing exactly where I was already completely undone. He didn’t give a shit about being gentle. He never does when it gets to this point. He just took. 

I resent how much I needed that. 

Hands lifting me like I weighed nothing, my legs wrapping around his waist because my body apparently remembers him better than my brain does.

 He carried me the last two feet to the bed without breaking the kiss, and by then the kiss was all teeth and friction and desperation. 

He dropped me on the mattress. Before I could even breathe, he was over me, pinning me down in the exact way I needed him to. 

Clothes disappeared. I don’t remember who pulled what, just the sudden shock of air on my skin, and then his mouth on me, heavy and sharp enough to make me arch off the sheets. 

“Jesus, D,” I gasped, my fingers fisting in his hair. 

He lifted his head, his eyes dark, entirely stripped of that casual amusement. He looked at me like he wanted to swallow me whole. 

“Look at me,” he commanded.

 I did. I couldn’t look anywhere else. He didn’t do the slow buildup this time. He knew exactly where I was.

 His fingers found the center of it, heavy and ruthless, while his tongue traced the line of my jaw, biting down just hard enough to make me whimper. 

He knows the exact pressure. The exact rhythm. It’s a proprietary algorithm I never authorized him to build.

 I should have read the terms and conditions. I told myself to hold onto my thoughts. I did not hold onto my thoughts. 

When I came, my fingers twisted in his hair and I screamed his name into the quiet room, my entire body convulsing around his hand. 

He didn’t let me recover. He worked me right through the edge of it, his fingers relentless, dragging me straight into a second wave before I could even catch my breath. 

I was babbling nonsense, begging for him to stop, begging for him to hurry, completely shattered. 

“Enough,” I choked out. 

“D, please.” 

He finally lifted his head, his face glistening, his breathing ragged. 

“Never enough,” he murmured.

 He says things like that. I’ve stopped arguing. 

He moved up my body, positioning himself. I felt the weight of him, thick and hot against my entrance, teasing the edge just long enough to make me crazy. 

“Tell me,” he rasped, his voice thick.

 “You,” I breathed, pushing my hips up to find him. 

“Fuck me, D. Just do it.” 

He didn’t grin this time.

 He just pushed inside. Slow, steady, stretching me open until the ache turned into something else entirely. 

He paused when he was fully deep, letting me adjust, his eyes locked onto mine like he was checking the math. 

Then he started to move. Deep, deliberate thrusts. No frantic rushing. Just a controlled, calculated pace designed to systematically dismantle every defense mechanism I own. He knew the exact angle. 

“Still sure?” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear as his hips snapped against mine. 

I genuinely could not have answered that question honestly in that moment. 

So I didn’t try. I couldn’t answer. I could barely breathe. 

The heat was building again, different this time – coiled tighter, deeper. He increased the pace, his pants coming harsh and fast, driving into me until the friction was the only thing left in the universe. 

I shattered. My nails dug into the muscles of his back as my body locked up around him, wave after wave of it taking me under. 

He followed me over a second later, his body tensing hard, a low, guttural groan tearing out of him as he spilled into me. 

He makes a sound I’m not going to describe because some things belong only to the people who were there. 

We stayed like that for a long moment, tangled, heavy, both of us trembling in the dark. 

When he finally rolled off me, I felt empty. Cold. I curled onto my side, trying to preserve the warmth of his body next to mine.

 He pulled me back against him, his arm wrapping around my waist, his chest pressing against my back. We lay there in silence, our breathing slowly returning to normal. 

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

I didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to acknowledge the emotion in his voice or what it did to my chest.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m okay.”

He pulled me closer. I let him.

That was probably the second most honest thing I did all night.

Afterward I lay there for exactly as long as I could stand it. Which was longer than usual.

Then I got up quietly while he was still half-asleep. Found my shoes. My coat. My bag.

He has a key hook by the door. My key is on it – has been for four months. There’s a space on the hook next to his. Empty. I’ve looked at that space every single time I’ve left.

I have a key to his apartment in my bag.

I have never been brave enough to leave it on that hook.

I locked the door behind me. Stood on his street at 2am with my heels in my hand like a woman who has her life completely together.

The key was in my bag all the way home.

It’s still there now.

Spreadsheet status: D → [row does not exist]

The key is in my bag. Has been for four months. I’m fine. I’m fine. – Mila

Back on track. You have a plan. D is not in it.