“Can we do this in the bedroom?” I ask to buy myself more time.
“The bedroom?” she parrots back with a straight face. “You want us to take this to the bedroom?”
This is a conversation about all the things I want to do in the bedroom, so it seems fitting.
“Yes,” I answer succinctly and tack on an explanation for good measure. “I don’t want Lloyd to stumble into the middle of this conversation.”
She thinks about that for a second. “I don’t want him to overhear it either.”
We finally agree on something.
“Why don’t we do it in your study?”
I’ve thought about her asking that very question, but in my imagination, she was naked with her hand between her legs, readying herself for my cock.
“My study works,” I agree because I’m not a man against compromise.
She stands grounded in place. “I don’t know where that is.”
Of course, she doesn’t.
The tricky maze of hallways in this place is hard to master. I got lost twice when I first moved in.
I walked into a storage closet in search of a shower.
The second time, I landed myself in the laundry room when I was looking for my bedroom.
“Follow me,” I say with hope.
There’s a chance she’ll bolt in the other direction and head for my bedroom.
She doesn’t.
I hear her heels clicking on the floor behind me as I lead my wife to the one room in this vast apartment that feels like home to me.
“Is that you?” Trina questions as I shut the door to my study.
I glance over to where she’s pointing at a framed photograph that sits on a shelf.
Nodding, I move closer to her. “That’s me.”
She leans closer to the picture. “How old were you in this?”
I can tell her to the day, to the hour to be more precise, but I go for a general answer. “Sixteen.”
Her gaze darts to my face. “You look the same but different.”
I sure as hell hope so.
I’ve got thirteen years on the scruffy kid in the picture.
“Who are these other guys in the picture with you?” She smiles. “Your brothers?”
“Friends.”
I leave it at that.
I’m not going to explain who Kavan, Sean, and Harrison are. She’ll never meet them. There’s no reason to go into any detail about them.
“Are they Buck boys too?” she asks with a hint of a chuckle.
“Yes.”
“Are you still friends with them?”
“I am,” I answer swiftly.
Chewing on the corner of her bottom lip, she sighs. “Why is it so hard to imagine you as someone’s friend?”
I huff out a laugh. “Ouch?”
She doesn’t apologize for the question or attempt to backtrack. Instead, she doubles down. “You don’t strike me as the type of man who allows other people to get close to him.”
That hits so close to home that I drop my gaze to the floor of my study.
“No one has ever called the office for you in a personal capacity,” she explains. “I’ve never booked a lunch or dinner reservation for you and a friend.”
I glance up at her. “I handle those myself.”
“Right,” she says with a curt nod of her chin. “That’s how you book reservations for dates too.”
It’s a statement, not a question, so I see no need to respond to it.
She looks at her watch. “Time is running out.”
Holding back a smile, I shake my head. “Time starts now. Your attention was diverted because of that picture.”
Shrugging a shoulder, she looks around. “We didn’t discuss whether distractions factored into our agreement.”
“They do,” I insist. “So time starts this second.”
She taps the face of her watch with her fingernail. “Go.”
“You enjoyed what we did the other night, Trina.”
Shaking her head, she laughs lightly. “That’s one way to start a discussion.”
“I’m not lying,” I point out. “You had a good time.”
“I had a good orgasm,” she corrects me.
I can’t fight off a smile. “So we agree on that?”
“It was an orgasm, Graham.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “It was a fleeting moment in time. Then it was over, and you left.”
“Which was a mistake,” I admit for the second time tonight.
“It doesn’t matter if it was or not.” She rests her hip against the edge of my desk. “It’s the past.”
I take a step closer to her. “If I hadn’t left that night…”
Her hand darts into the air. “But you did, so let’s not go down the what-if road. It serves no purpose.”
“If I hadn’t left that night,” I begin again as I close the distance between us with measured steps. “We would have fucked.”
Her gaze drops to my lips. “Says who?”
I drag my teeth over my bottom lip. “Says me.”
“You’re too cocky for your own good.”
“Again, I’m not lying, Trina.” I stop just inches short of where she is. “I would have taken you to bed and fucked you over and over again.”
She retreats half a step. “That would have been an even bigger mistake.”