“Did it feel semantic when you came all over my fingers?”
“You know, maybe it did.”
“We should try again,” he says, deadpan.
And while I love that he wants to, I also know it’s for the best that we don’t. “But we shouldn’t, right? Even though I didn’t return the favor.”
He cruises into the Presidio. “Sex isn’t about favors. Or scorecards.”
“What’s it about?”
“How good I can make you feel,” he says.
All the breath escapes my lungs. “You succeeded.”
“Semantically?”
“And otherwise,” I say as we reach the office building. He pulls up in front of the four-story brick building with two minutes to spare. “Thanks for the ride. I guess it’ll be more believable now that we’ve kissed.”
“And now that you’ve fucked my fingers.” There he goes, stoking the fire.
“You really like saying that.”
“Seems I do,” he says, sounding wistful. He leans across the car, slides a thumb along my chin, and says, “You’re fucking perfect.”
The same thing he said earlier. It makes me feel…floaty in a whole new way.
I get out and go, still glowing from the unexpected afternoon orgasm, but also a little melancholic from the realization it can’t happen again.
Even though that’s for the best.
It really is.
“It’s almost perfect,” I declare, adjusting the vintage banker light in Sofia’s new office. “Let me just move it a smidge over here.”
The polished lawyer watches me with intense scrutiny, like everything is fascinating to her, including the way I position her new—well, old and now new again—lamps that were delivered today. I set them down next to a paperback with a title in Spanish—looks like a romance novel.
“That is better, Skylar,” she says.
I smile. “Glad you agree.” Then I position some plants on her side table and add a pillow to the chair across fromher. “I know a pillow doesn’t scream attorney, but you want your clients to be comfortable.”
“Of course I do,” she says crisply. “And a pillow does the trick.”
“I love pillows so much,” I say, since, of course, I love pillows.
“What’s not to love?” she replies, then gives me a look that says she’s poised to say something. “Will you feature this before-and-after on your podcast?”
I freeze for a few seconds, then furrow my brow. “You follow my podcast?”
“Of course I do. I was hoping Ximena, Kuo, and Richardson would be featured.”
Hell yes.
“Absolutely,” I say, pulling out my phone to shoot some after videos. At least I can bring attention to my podcast by working with a client. That’s something real.
Unlike the fake thing currently occupying my brain—fake dating the guy next door.
When I’m done, Sofia tells me she’s meeting with a client from a labor union, and my mind spins with exciting stories of who she might be standing up for. Heck, I bet she’d defend the planet if Earth asked her to.
