Page 89 of The Secret
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” I groan, looking up at the sky but I’m damn sure I’m not going to discover the answer up there. “He’s married to your friend?God.You looked … you looked … he took your hand in his!” My fists clench tightly as it bursts out of me. What am I? Sixteen?
A smile curls over her mouth as she murmurs, “I’m certain I would have reacted the same if I’d seen you sitting with some gorgeous woman.”
I rub my chest trying to dispel the bruised feeling that’s making so many exposed words tumble out. “No doubt.” I take a few deep breaths. “You think he’s gorgeous?”
She grins at me. “Of course he is, I’d have to be half-dead not to realize that.” She gives a typical Liss grin. “He’s not you, though.”
I look down the sidewalk at where he disappeared. “Yeah, I don’t look anywhere near as polished or as trendy as he does.”
“No, you’re so much more interesting than that.”
She can’t mean that.I scan her face, but her expression is soft. She takes a step toward me and I get a whiff of the warm scent of Liss: earth and sweat and some sweet perfume. It reminds me of the best sex of my life, of lying under the stars, of cicadas loud in the night air. She smells like heaven. I groan and put my hand out, and she shifts right into me, wrapping her arms around my waist. The feeling of her slight body pressed into mine makes me heady, like a cocktail of drugs is washing through my system.
“I missed you,” I say, pulling her into me, my voice vibrating against her hair, and she sighs into my chest.
“I missed you too.”
“Why did you go?” My throat tightens as the words stumble out, raw and wounded, and I’d give anything to reel them back in. It’s like I’ve been rubbed across a cheese grater, abraded and badly scraped.
“I never expected you to come after me,” she sighs.
I pull back and take her face in my hands. “I love you, Liss.”
Her lips part, eyes filling with tears. “I love you too,” she says, and my eyes widen, a wildness galloping through my chest.
“You do?” It’s a raw croak.
She laughs, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Of course, you idiot, from the moment we met. You were so goddamn cute. I don’t know what woman could have resisted you.”
I crush her into me. “Why did you go?” I repeat.
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk here. Let’s go back to the apartment.”
I growl at her. “Are you still in the place that …”
“Yes.”
“I have dreams about being in that bed. If we go back there …”
She smiles and squeezes my hand. “I know.”
I stare at her for a beat.I’m not going to press her now.We’re going back there, and I’m going to get her to give me some goddamn answers.
40
DAN
Monday, April 11, 2022
The black outline of the entry door looks no different the second time around, and a reel of her enormous smile and the way she jumped on me the first time I came here flickers through my mind. I spent the whole journey over worrying about how she’d react. And, my God,the amazing sex we had afterward. I squeeze her hip and nuzzle into her neck as her fingers slip on the keys to the lobby door.
“I have very good memories of this place,” I mumble, inhaling her skin like a dog sniffing a bone.
She laughs and turns her head, so I slide my hand along her chin. Her mouth opens, lips warm and seeking, and my cock hardens as the need to take and take and take burns through me.She loves me?I was expecting more hesitance: Sheleft.But in the softness of her lips, my thoughts are whipped away, seeds in the wind.
She pulls back, the lock finally gives a satisfying click, and we fall through the door. Her hand slaps the elevator button as I pull her into me: impatient, demanding. I want to be over her and inside her, I want her begging. My hands are grabby as I latch on to any damn part of her I can reach, rubbing against her shamelessly, but she’s right there with me, her hips moving so she can get my erection right where she wants it, gasping when I fit into the notch at the top of her thighs.
“Dan,” she whispers.
