She inches her ass on the seat. "Have you done that before? Have you screwed a woman in the back of a car like this?"
She was a fan, drunk on the attention I gave her at a book signing. It was an early summer evening in a car that was taking me to the airport in Dallas. I invited her along for the ride and fucked her while her face was pressed against the sticky fake leather of the seat. I never knew her name.
"Don't ask me that."
"I'll take that as ayes." She raises the corner of her mouth in a challenge. "Where else have you had sex?"
"Sophia." My tone is low. It's a warning. "We agreed that we wouldn’t discuss past lovers."
I wait for her to bring up the fact that I now know every detail about the life of one of her former boyfriends, Franco Abano.
"We're adults." She checks her watch. "We won't be at Gabriel's for at least ten minutes so let's talk about what we did and didn't like with our past lovers."
I don't want to. I can't imagine a scenario where discussing the intimate details of sex with another woman will end well. Sophia has a jealous streak whether she'll attest to it or not. It's what lured her down from the balcony at Veil East. She saw me talking to Penny. She envisioned the two of us fucking and she decided to put a stop to it. It's as simple as that.
"I won't discuss the women I've slept with, Sophia. That's all in my past."
She huffs. "You don't have to tell me their names or how you rate them. I'm asking what you liked doing with them."
Everything she can imagine and more. "Where is this coming from?"
Her eyes skim over the front of my pants before they level on my face. "You like having sex in places where you can get caught."
"Do I?" I bark out a laugh. "I'm an exhibitionist now?"
"You said you'd fuck me on the Ferry and just now you wanted to fuck me in this car. You have a condom in your pocket, don’t you?"
I won't lie to her. "I do."
"I've never done those things." She lowers her voice to a whisper. "I don't know if I ever could."
Restless, I move to touch her hand, but she pulls it back. "Sophia, don't assume anything about me."
"If you need a woman in your life who will fuck you in the middle of the day on the Brooklyn Bridge, I'm not her."
"I need you." I lean forward on the seat so I can look at her directly. "If I have a driving need to fuck in public it's because I crave you constantly. I want you every second of the day."
The only response I get is silence.
"For the record, anything I've ever done with a woman in my life isn't even a memory worth holding onto at this point. I want you. I want us to be together, alone when we make love." I push her hair behind her ear to get a better view of her profile. "I cherish you, Sophia. That condom is for later. You told me you hadn't allowed many people into your apartment, so I assumed you wouldn't have protection there."
"If we never have sex in a public place, you're all right with that?"
I am. The few times I've done it has been exciting but they've been nothing compared to being with her. "Completely."
Her shoulders ease back into the seat. "That's the last time we'll talk about the past."
It's not. At some point, we need to have a discussion about that fucked up asshole, Franco Abano. It's just not happening tonight.
Cruel irony isa part of life that no one can prepare for. As I walked into the foyer of Gabriel Foster's lavish penthouse, my mind was focused on one person. A man from Sophia's past. I was reading a text from Crew about Franco Abano when I heard a familiar voice from across the room.
My past was standing in the center of a large living area with a glass of wine in her hand and a tall, bearded man by her side. Her long red hair looked just as it did that day eight years ago when I ran past her at the top of the staircase of her home in search of her sister.
Lilly Parker, Briella's sibling, is here.
We haven't spoken since the joint funeral where she was forced to say goodbye to her sister, her two brothers and her mother. We never mentioned her father in our conversations but I knew that she mourned the loss of him too. It wasn't the loss of his life but the loss of the trust she had in him.
"Lilly," I whisper her name knowing she can't hear me. Sophia does.
