I play along. “Nowhere.”
He studies me for a second longer than he should.
“Fine. I’ll fly with you to Prague,” I say finally.
His jaw clenches slightly. Then he smirks.
I squeeze my eyes shut at the memory of how I arched off the mattress when he devoured my pussy like I was an ice cream sundae. Every detail is infused in my soul. My hands fisting his hair. Voice gravely from crying out his name every time he made me come.
The server clears away the cheesecake we barely touched and sets the bill down.
“We’ll be there for five days, unless you want to add a couple extra for sightseeing after the wedding.” He reaches for the check before I can.
Wait, what?
I pout to distract him from my reaction. “You always pay.”
He glances up. “Yes. I always will.”
“You’re so irritating.”
“I’m aware.” He signs the bill without looking at the total.
He devours me for hours until sunlight peeps through the curtains. Sometimes smiling up at me from between my legs, lips glistening with my release. I wonder if my unraveling was something he’d planned throughout law school and finally accomplished.
I scoot out of the booth. Zach stands and steps behind me and lifts my coat from the hook. His fingers brush the back of my neck as he places it onto my shoulders.
It’s barely a touch but it burns.
Outside, the air is cool. The city buzzes around us. He walks me to my car parked up the street, even though it’s unnecessary.
“How come you’ve never asked?” His hands are in his pockets now, watching me.
“Asked what?” I feign ignorance.
“How I felt about our night. The one after graduation.”
The world narrows.
“I dunno. Because it’s in the past. One and done. You didn’t seem to want a repeat.”
A beat.
As we approach my Mercedes, traffic moves behind him. Someone laughs from one of the balconies in the building above the street. I hold his gaze.
He stares at me, smoldering.
Zach rises from the edge of the mattress, cock in hand. Strokes himself with long pulls, forehead etched with restraint. He comes in arched spurts all over my nipples, the visual of which is permanently etched in my memory.
Zach opens my car door. Immediately, I slip inside. He closes it gently, palm lingering on the glass for half a second.
As I pull away, the ghost of his hands on my hips gives me a little thrill. I also realize he never answered me.
What’s his end game? Why bring it up now?
I guess I’ll find out in a few months when I’ll be thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic with him. Then, five days in Prague with our best friends in a fucking castle.
This man’s secretly held my heart in the palm of his hand.
It’s been fifteen long years of pretending it doesn’t matter.
I’m not sure I want to pretend anymore.
