Eventually, when she was right on the edge, shaking, he gave the command.
“Come for me. Let me watch you fall apart.”
She came hard, biting her lip to keep from crying out loudly, her hips jerking against her own hand while he watched her come apart on the screen.
When she finally caught her breath, she asked, voice shaky, “Did you…?”
He grinned, slow and satisfied. “I’m fine. What part of Atlanta?”
“Downtown, near the aquarium. My hotel’s less than a block from the restaurant. My car probably won’t come out of the garage until it’s time to drive home.”
They talked another couple of minutes, and she heard a phone ringing. He lifted another phone to look at it — not the one he was talking to her on — and then looked back to her.
“I need to take this.”
“Of course,” she replied, trying to sound casual.
He ended the call with her, but the image of the second phone lingered in her mind long after the screen went dark.
Two phones.
Because she was a secret.
She didn’t have the number to his main phone.
It made her feel like the other woman, even though she wasn’t his woman at all. They were fuckbuddies.
That was the deal.
She walked to the kitchen to stir the collard greens and told herself it was fine. He wasn’t just protecting himself, he was protecting their secret.
And she’d have to be good with that.
Just to prove to herself how good she was with it, she went to her laptop and started planning their next Monday adventure, determined to make it a day they’d both enjoy and remember.
- - -?- - -
Knife heard the Maserati from over a mile away, sitting on his front porch drinking coffee when the enginesounds rose up through the trees. No mistaking that powerhouse for any other car, and it was running at a speed that suggested the sexier-than-sin driver was treating the posted limits as mere suggestions.
She’d told him ten-thirty, and it was ten-twenty-eight.
He appreciated punctuality.
He’d already opened the gate, and he left it open when she came through, since they’d be leaving right away.
He stepped off his porch while she drove up his hill. He stood waiting for her to get out, but she sat and stared at him a moment before she opened the passenger side door three feet in front ofhim.
The butterfly door lifted up, giving him a view of her in the driver’s seat — black leggings with little silver studs running up the outer seams, and a black and white sleeveless blouse with a wide black belt at the waist. Like she could be going to a board meeting or a rock concert.
The bike was out with the sleeveless shirt, so he nodded to his truck, but she shook her head.
“It’s my day. I’m driving.”
He looked at the Maserati. Then at his truck. He dug through his brain for a reason he should drive.
There wasn’t one. Not one he could say out loud, anyway.
So he stepped forward, slid in, and pulled the door down to close it.
