Page 96 of What We Bury

It should scare me. It doesn’t. I press into his palm.

“That’s what does it for you.” His voice is so calm it’s almost cruel. “You want an audience. You want to be seen. Adored.”

My eyes flutter half-shut and I grind helplessly against his hand. His pupils blow wider.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “There’s my bad girl. I know what she wants.”

My muffled cry burns hot against his hand.

Oh god, oh god, oh god!

I come against his hand with his palm over my mouth and his eyes locked on mine, hard enough that my knees stop belonging to me. It hits fast and ugly—one sharp convulsion, then another, then I’m shaking apart against the brick while his fingers keep working me through it, dragging every last pulse out of me like he knows exactly how much I can take.

“That’s it, Fury. Come all over my fingers. Let me feel you.”

I’m still trembling when he eases his hand out from under my skirt. Holding my eyes, he brings his fingers to his mouth.

He licks them clean.

“Oh my god.”

A small smile touches the corner of his mouth. The first real one I’ve seen on him.

“Fix your skirt,” he says quietly. “Your shift’s not over.”

I go back inside on shaky legs, but he doesn’t follow. I’m disappointed but somehow not surprised.

What the hell did I just do?

Danny is at the grill flipping something. He doesn’t look up. I grab a tray of clean glassware and carry it to the front. Rosa takes one look at me and snorts.

“Well,” she says, stacking saucers. “Some break, huh?”

Heat floods my face so fast I’m amazed I don’t combust on the spot. “You know nothing.”

“I know you walked out looking like a woman on a mission and came back looking like your soul got eaten.” She glances past me toward the front windows. “He still out there?”

I risk a look.

Knox is across the street now, leaning against the hood of his truck like he didn’t just make me come in an alley behind a diner. Like he doesn’t still own the pulse between my thighs.

“Yes,” I mutter.

Rosa hums. “Big one.”

I choke on a laugh. “Rosa?—”

“What? I’m observant, not blind.” She flicks her rag over one shoulder. “Just don’t drip on the floor, honey. I already mopped.”

I make a wounded noise and get back to work.

I pour a customer a coffee refill, drop a check to the lady at one of the booths, and I do all of this with Knox’s voice still in my ear.

You want an audience. You want to be seen. Adored.

I don’t know what to do with my body. It’s still humming. The pulse of him is still between my legs—slow, steady, like the imprint of his thumb hasn’t faded yet. I can feel the cotton of my underwear sticking and the brush of my skirt against the back of my thighs. Every part of me is awake and asking why we’re so far from him.

One of the regulars says something. I nod, smiling. I don’t know what I agreed to.