with at least a three-point-oh GPA. I had to agree to continue supporting my loving mother.” And I knew just by the way he said it that she was anything but.
30
“Exactly how much money do you have?” I asked as he reached my chair. I knew it was a rude question, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t mind.
“I don’t know exactly. Chester takes care of it all. Although he keeps threatening to retire, and I have no idea what I’ll do then.” “You don’t know how much money you have?”
“Not exactly. I know it’s enough that I can continue living the way I do and still have plenty left over for the heir I’ll most certainly never have.” He straddled my knees and sat down in my lap, facing me. He unbuttoned my shirt, then trailed his slender fingers through the hair on my chest. The conversation suddenly seemed incredibly unimportant. He had beautiful, full lips, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. “So tell me, sugar: would you like to discuss my trust fund all night?” He let his hair fall away from his eyes and gave me a wicked, lascivious grin that went straight to my groin. “Or are you ready for dessert?”
I discovered quickly that he didn’t really like being kissed on the lips. It didn’t matter to me. There were plenty of other areas on his body that he did like to have kissed, and I stuck to those. We left a trail of clothes from the dining room table to the bedroom. I found a condom, and offered it to him.
“Do you have a preference?” I asked him. “I’m versatile.” He pushed it back toward me. “I never top, sugar. It’s terribly cliché for a guy like me, isn’t it?”
I smiled at him. “I don’t mind.”
His body was slim and beautiful. He was only a couple of inches shorter than me, but he felt small and fragile underneath me. I discovered quickly, though, that he was anything but. He was a very enthusiastic lover.
The only body hair he had was under his arms. Even his groin had been shaven clean. His hair was silky soft, and it didn’t smell like cinnamon at all. It smelled like strawberries. There was a small birthmark on the back of his neck, just right of center, where the skin was a few shades darker than the rest of his body. It was triangular, and 31
it reminded me of a butterfly. I found my lips drawn to it over and over again.
Afterward, he didn’t lie in my arms or cuddle against me. He moved to the other side of the bed and stretched out languorously, not touching me. “You’re not going to make me drive all the way home in the middle of the night, are you, sugar?”
“No. You can stay.”
“I knew I liked you,” he said. If he said anything else after that, I didn’t hear it. I was already sound asleep.
H
E WAS still sleeping the next morning when I left for my daily run, but when I arrived back home I found him in the kitchen, making bacon and eggs. He was already fully dressed, but still barefoot.
He indicated the pile of dirty dishes in the sink and said without looking at me, “I don’t clean, darling, but I can have somebody come and take care of the mess, if you don’t want to do it.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. I pay Rosa double for the messes I make in other people’s homes.”
“Does that happen often?”
He smiled, but still didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes on the bacon and eggs sizzling on the stovetop. “Not as often as you probably think.”
“Do I have time to shower before we eat?”
“If you make it fast.”
By the time I was ready for work, breakfast was on the table. “Do you usually cook breakfast the morning after?” I asked.
“It depends.”
32
“Did you cook for Jared?” Of course I didn’t actually know that he and Jared had ever been lovers, but I was curious.
He smiled. “I would have if he’d ever had anything in his house to cook. I’m pretty sure that man subsists on nothing but Pop-Tarts and beer.”
When I finished, I looked over to find him watching me.
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro