I reach down to grab his hand. I ride it through the crest, and as I hold in a moan that could wake the dead, he takes my mouth in a deep, lush kiss.
As soon as our lips part, he dips his other hand into his pocket to retrieve his phone. He answers the call. “Locke.”
Trying to find my bearings, I stumble back a step.
Graham bends down, scoops up my torn panties from the floor, and leaves me a panting mess as he heads out of the room, telling someone else that he’ll see them right away.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Graham
I’m a bastard.
I see no reason to sugarcoat the truth. I never have.
With my fingers still inside of my wife, I answered my phone.
In the hours since it happened, I’ve managed to half-convince myself it was for self-preservation. I was feeling something when I watched her orgasm.
It wasn’t the same empty satisfaction I always feel when I’m with a woman.
It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been told that the sex was great or someone wants more, it’s always the same hollow void that is never filled by a lover’s words of appreciation.
Tonight was different.
I watched Trina’s face as she gave in to her body’s raw need. I felt her pussy clench around my fingers as I lured her closer to an orgasm.
I could tell it wouldn’t take long even though I wanted, in some abstract selfish, and fucked up way, for it to take forever.
I wanted to freeze time with Trina on the precipice of her climax so I could cement the memory of the way she looked in my mind for eternity.
When the phone rang for a second time, I saw it as a coward’s escape from the emotions that had fought their way to the surface inside of me.
I felt connected to my wife as we shared that moment.
I wanted to drop to my knees, press my mouth to her pussy, and taste every drop of her need.
But I didn’t.
I answered the goddamn phone.
I listened as a friend invited me for a drink while I watched in wonder as the most beautiful woman who has ever drawn a breath came down from the high of an orgasm.
I felt it.
I almost lost it as her pussy gripped my fingers like a velvety soft vice.
Then I took her ripped panties and raced out of my penthouse so I could get a lungful of air that didn’t taste or feel like her.
I haven’t managed to find that yet.
She’s all around me even as I sit in this almost vacant bar and listen to a man I’ve known for more than a decade comment on a story that is considered breaking news in the world of finance. I consider it a waste of my time because what’s bad news today is yesterday’s news by the time I wake up tomorrow.
“Graham.” He snaps his fingers near my ear. “Are you listening to me?”
“Bane,” I say his name in a pissy tone. “I’m sitting here, aren’t I?”
His blue-eyed gaze drops to my left hand and the silver band that circles my finger. “You’re thinking about your wife.”
The accusation is so marred in suppressed sarcasm that I huff out a laugh. “What if I am?”
He studies me, likely trying to determine if I’m serious or not.
He finally abandons that thought with a shake of his head. That’s followed by a shove of his hand through his black hair.
It’s not a gesture of frustration as it is when I do it. Kavan Bane never shows annoyance or weakness. He’s a powerhouse. A man who has been dragged through life’s gutter and managed to crawl out without giving a shit about anyone or anything.
Yet, I consider him a friend and a close one at that.
“Is it still a fake marriage?”
Kavan was part of the toast to my wife on our wedding night. I met him, Harrison Keene, and Sean Wells in the private dining room of a French restaurant on Tenth Avenue.
It was one of our monthly dinners.
Those started shortly after we graduated from the boarding school we all attended. College sent us in different directions, but we made a point of getting together whenever we could.
Since then, all of our lives have changed in remarkable and torturous ways.
We toasted to my sham of a marriage after I exchanged vows with Trina at the courthouse.
My three friends didn’t voice their approval or any disappointment. They understand the reason I put a ring on my assistant’s finger.
After the toast, I thought the subject was a moot point.
“Screw you,” I toss out the phrase that has served me well since I was a fifteen-year-old kid with long bangs.
“Mature,” Kavan counters the same way he always has.
I take a mouthful of the drink in my hand, mentally searching for a way to shift the discussion to anything but my wife.