Not for a husband. Not for some fairytale forever.
Just… someone who makes it matter.
The one who’ll make me forget why I waited at all.
Maybe that’s naive.
Maybe I’m just romanticizing my own restraint.
But hey, risk is my favorite vice.
And if sex is just another kind of danger… maybe I’m just waiting for the right one to make me reckless.
“So you…Had an orgasm from dry humping a man in a mask?” she asks after I’ve told the whole story. “And he really couldn’t see you? Like, at all?”
“Yes and yes,” I confirm. “And I know, it’s so weird, but it was also…hot?”
“I mean, oneassumesit was hot, considering the orgasm. And he never, like, touched you?”
“I mean, he touched me a little, mostly over my dress. He touched my nipple and my ass, but only because they were already exposed. Not my…you know…privates.”
Maria cackles so loud through the speaker that people on the train turn to look. I feel my cheeks go hot with embarrassment.
“Yourprivates?” She wheezes with laughter. “Leanna. You’re a grown-ass woman, not a kindergartener.”
“I mean, I don’t know…”
“Don’t know what? How to say the word clit? Pussy?”
“I know how to say them,” I say, rolling my eyes, cheeks still bright with color. “I’m just…on the train.”
She yells, “Hey, people! Women have clits and pussies! Women like their clits and pussies touched! But only with consent!”
“Ssstoppp,” I hiss, but I can’t stop grinning. This is why she’s my oldest friend.
She wipes tears from her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Look, I love you, so you know I always have your back. And you know I’ll always tell it to you straight. Are you ready?”
I nod once. “Shoot.”
“Okay. You have had what I feel confident I can call lackluster or ho-hum sexual experiences to date. You’ve had more orgasms from playing with yourself than you’ve had from your partners, and the experiences have been so uninspiring that you literally couldn’t stomach taking it to the next level. Am I right so far?”
“I guess…”
“Shut up. Of course I’m right. I know you better than anyone. So, being you, you decide to do a lap dance on a stranger on a dare. And,ooh, it’s a Russian mob club, which only makes it hotter, because youlovewhat’s off-limits.”
She’s on a roll now, eyes sparkling. “Even better? He can’t see you. No idea you’re a Campisi. No clue you’re the smartest person in the room. No expectations except that you move andbe sexy for him. So you do. You drop every inhibition, every wall, and for once, you just let yourself befree.”
She’s so right about this, it isn’t even funny.
“My friend,” she continues, “I think you need something, I don’t know, darker? Maybe you haven’t wanted sex because you haven’t gotten what you really need. Maybe this weird Russian is the dark lord you’ve been looking for.”
“Dark lord,” I repeat with a snigger. “Nerd.”
“I’m down for this,” she says. “But.”
“But?”
“But, this is a Russian-owned club. You don’t know who or what they’re trafficking in and out of that place, and what if they figure out who you really are? What if they think you’re a spy for your dad? It could get dangerous.”
