SECRET Revealed (11 page)

“Yup,” Claire said.

“Damn. Between that and the new wiring, we’ll be in the red before we even open.”

This was it; this was my “in.”
Now. Ask now
.

“Will, I want to run something by you before I go.”

“And you,” he said to Claire, ignoring me. “Did you find out who left that shitty Facebook comment?”

Claire’s shoulders slumped.

“Ben told me it was Olivia,” she said. “But I talked to her and she said she didn’t.”

Will’s face reddened. He lifted a finger to her face. “I’m telling you, Claire, if anyone ever writes something like that again on your wall, I’m not going to be able to stay out of it, okay? I have to talk to their parents.”

“Yeah, Uncle Will, because every teenager wants angry adults to handle their problems, ’cause that fixes everything.” She rolled her eyes, jumped off the table and shuffled back into the dining room.

“What comment? What’s going on?”

Will exhaled long and loud. “Apparently, someone—she won’t tell me who—has been calling Claire names on her Facebook page. They’re getting posted through her friends’ accounts. Her friends say they’ve been hacked, or something. I don’t know how all that shit works. All I know is it’s upsetting her and it’s affecting her at school. She stayed home two times last week.”

“What are they calling her?”

“A slut, a whore, shit like that.”

I felt guilty suddenly for not pressing her when she brought it up. “That’s awful.”

“I know. Girls can be so horrible to each other,” he said, shaking his head in bafflement.

“Oh, well, you know. Men can suck too.”
Zing
. It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

A flash of hurt crossed Will’s face, but I changed the subject before that can of worms was reopened. This wasn’t the time.

“So, Will. I’m glad you’re here. Because … thing is … I want to discuss something with you. I have a proposition of sorts.”

“O
-kay
,” he said, crossing his arms, all business.

“Yeah. It’s about the restaurant’s name. I was wondering if—”

“We’ve been over this, Cassie. The name stays.”

“I know, Will. I’m aware of that. And you’re aware of my ambivalence about it.”

“I am, but you’ll get used to it.”

“Maybe. But it’s just that if it’s going to be named after me, then I want to … have it mean something. I want to
invest
in it as well.”

He blinked several times, his face placid. “I told you, your sweat equity is enough.”

“It’s not enough for me. I told you when Scott died he left me with some insurance money. And I’ve only drawn on a little of it. The rest—about sixty-five grand—I want to put into this place. I want to be your … partner. Business partner, I mean.”

He took no time to think about it. “No. No way. That’s your retirement fund, Cassie. That’s all you have.”

“No.
This
is my retirement fund. This place. And you need the money and you know it. Investing will make me feel, I don’t know, more worthy of its name. Don’t say no. I need you to say yes. I want to do this. Or else.”

“Or else what?”

If you say it, you have to mean it. No more empty threats
. But in that moment, it didn’t feel like a threat. It felt entirely necessary. “Then I really can’t stay.”

“Don’t do that, Cassie. Don’t drop ultimatums.”

“It’s not an ultimatum. It’s a fact. I need to do this because I feel lousy. What’ll make me feel better is if I get a piece of this restaurant. A piece of the risk. And, hopefully, if I have anything to do with it, a piece of its success too.”

He scratched his head. I couldn’t decide from his expression if he was a little angry or kind of pleased.

“Well, we could use some money for the unforeseen expenses, like fixing the
fucking dishwasher
that we just installed! And I’d love to run some print and radio ads …”

“Then it’s all set,” I said, not waiting for a full yes or a firm no. Will imagining an easier opening night was enough for me, plus I was running late now. “I’ll cut a certified check. We’ll deal with paperwork later. And by the way, we have the wine testing tomorrow. We have to pick the house red and white. I know you like those Texas Hill Country vintages, but they’re not cheap.”

“Right,” he said, looking dizzied.

“And I left the insurance forms upstairs for you to sign.”

“Great. Yeah. You off?”

“I am.”

I grabbed my coat off the hook in the kitchen.
Leave. Leave now before he changes his mind
.

“Okay, then. Have a nice night,” I said, bounding out of the kitchen.

I waved bye to Claire, who barely looked up at me over her phone, no doubt her latest drama already morphing into something new. I headed to a certain truck idling a half block from Café Rose. Will and I weren’t going to be partners in life, but we’d be business partners, a relationship that I hoped I would one day find almost as satisfying. Sex I would have to get elsewhere.

I opened the truck door, startling Jesse.

“Hey babe,” he said, shoving his newspaper aside. “You’re late.”

“I’m sorry. I was in … a meeting.”

He was wearing mirrored sunglasses and working a toothpick. He looked like an ad for his truck. I slid into the seat next to him, took his sunglasses off his face and put them on mine. I was flooded with adrenaline.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

I’m not sure what my grin said, but we were both instantly aware that we weren’t going out for a coffee or dinner or a movie. We weren’t going for a chat. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot left to discuss.

“Your place or mine?” he asked.

“Yours.”

He peeled away from the curb, and when he steadied the truck on Frenchmen, he reached his right hand behind my head and gave me a warm caress.

“I’m thinking it’s time I get you naked, Cassie Robichaud.”

Despite my lingering feelings for Will, it was goddamn instant wetness with this man.

“I’m thinking the same thing.”

I had waited more than two months. Long enough for Will to change his mind. Long enough for a thaw or a shift, something that would tell me it wasn’t over between us. But that moment wasn’t coming. And frankly, Matilda was right: having sex made you want to have sex. It was a muscle; exercising it created an appetite. And I was hungry. Sitting next to Jesse, something deep in me released, the way your bra can sometimes come undone and you don’t feel it at first. You just start to breathe a little easier.

We were quiet on the short drive. He parked in front of his place in Tremé, and I let him walk around to the passenger side of the truck to open my door. I got out and followed him closely, wordlessly, on the walkway leading to his front door. I needed sex; I needed this man inside me.

In the foyer, I let him take my purse from my shoulder and drop it in the pile of kids’ unwrapped toys stuffed under a Christmas tree that would probably be up for another month. He turned my body to face him and kissed
me hard, pressing me backwards into his darkened bedroom, a teak-filled room with heavy brown drapes. There, he stood me in front of his wall-mounted, full-length mirror, undressing me slowly, stopping me anytime I did anything to help.

“Don’t move. Just stand there,” he said, bending to pull off my boots and socks.

I rested a hand on his shoulder. He undid my jeans, wrestling them down, unsheathing my legs. As he slid my panties down I was conscious of how wet I was. My T-shirt and bra were next, tossed on the pile of my clothes on the nearby chair. The strangest sensation came over me, one that went beyond arousal. I realized that for the first time in my life I was just a body. My heart wasn’t in the room with me. It was all sensation, movement, touch, feel.

From behind he placed his hands on my breasts. He knew my body well. I pressed back into him, feeling his erection through his clothes against my back, my whole body leaning into it, softly rubbing it, surrendering all over again. I was doing another Step One.
I need hands on me. What is wrong with that?

I closed my eyes and my head tipped back against his chest.

“You want this?” he whispered, his tongue in my ear.

Eyes closed, I nodded.

“You want me to fuck you?”

I nodded again.

He slid his hand down between my legs, over my pelvis, pulling my hips back. I wrapped my arms up and back
around his neck. He slipped a finger, then another one in me. Oh god was I wet.

“There have to be rules.”

I looked at myself in the mirror, my body stretching back against his. My pulse quickened.
Uh-oh. Heart, stay out of this!

“We’re both in S.E.C.R.E.T. That could get tricky. Emotionally.”

“How?”

“My Step’s coming up.”

I was looking at his face buried now in my neck. “I know that,” I said.

He moved me closer to the mirror and placed my hands on it. Our eyes locked in the reflection.

“So it doesn’t bother you at all that I’m going to have sex with the new woman, the new candidate?” he asked, kissing my shoulder but never taking his eyes off mine in the mirror.

Steel yourself, Cassie. You know what it is to be with this man. This isn’t about love
.

“I don’t have any expectations.”

“And I don’t either,” he said, moving my hair to one side and kissing my neck. “I really like you. No. I
adore
you, Cassie, but we’re different. You crave love. I just … I crave.”

“But you said … you said you might have been waiting for a girl like me.”

Why did I have to bring that up? And now?

My hands were still pressed on the mirror. His fingers reached around my face and under my chin. He glided them across my lips and slid one into my mouth; I closed my lips
firmly around it, tasting soap. I watched myself sucking his finger. I could feel him stiffen even more behind me. His breathing sped up. Matilda once told me that what a man tells you about himself is true. If he says he’s a shallow jerk, that’s usually true. If he says he’s not good at relationships or has trouble committing, ignore this information to your peril.

“I meant it when I said it. At the time.”

His finger was still in my mouth, his tongue traveling to my ear. My knees went weak.

“Then you went back to Will first chance you got,” he whispered. “I learned my lesson.”

He removed his finger from my mouth with a tiny pop. “I told you I was sorry about that, the way I treated you, I—” I thought I detected a hint of anger in his voice.

“I’m not looking for an apology. But it made me realize that I am suited to this. And to fantasies. Not necessarily to real love. Or real commitment. I worry that the opposite might be true of you.”

He stepped back and whipped off his T-shirt. This man was elbow-deep in icing and butter all day. How was it possible that his body was so sculpted?

“How so?”

“You want love.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

He turned me around to face him.

“No, everybody does not. Some of us just want to fuck.”

He gave me a little push that sent me backwards onto his bed. He was no longer smiling. The face of the sweet,
supportive friend who had driven me home from Latrobe’s was replaced by that of an intense young man, his tattoos lending him a menacing patina, one that I found a little scary and incredibly sexy. I inched backwards on the duvet, centering my body on the bed, as he stripped the rest of his clothes off. He was magnificent naked, his cock erect and insistent. He stood there, casually stroking himself as his eyes took me in.

“Open your legs, Cassie,” he instructed, leaning over to his nightstand to remove a condom.

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I liked the tone in his voice.

“Do it,” he added, sounding hoarse.

“Ask nicely,” I replied, my knees clenched.

He slid the condom on, ignoring me, then climbed onto the bed and kneeled before me, placing his hands on my knees.

“Do you want me to make you? We can play like that too, Cassie. Just say the word.”

This was making me wet
and
freaking me out. Did I want that? Did I want him to
make
me?

“Does this turn you on?” I whispered. “Ordering me around like this?”

“Sometimes.”

“I thought men in S.E.C.R.E.T. needed clear signals.”

“I’m not your fantasy man anymore, Cassie. I’m just a man, who wants to fuck you.”

He tugged my knees apart and collapsed over me, his hands on either side. His cock graced the nook between my thigh and pelvis, lying heavy against my skin. The dark bedroom cast shadows across his cheeks and chin. He was
breathing heavily, his eyes traveling over my body. I reached up and moved the tips of my fingers across the light hair on his chest, his sternum, the back of my finger tracing up his neck, his chin, across his cheekbones. For some reason I wanted gentleness to contrast with his sudden aggression, but he took my wandering hand and placed it over my head the way you’d move a lever back into its place. There was a moment where I asked myself,
Should I let him fuck me like this? Should I let him restrain me and use me? Should I use him?
I said
yes
in my head, while using my knee to press him away from me in a complicated
no
.

“Too rough for you?” he asked, sounding almost … triumphant.

A surge of something (indignation?) rushed through me. “I actually don’t mind rough sometimes, Jesse.” I remembered Will’s spanking, the fun we’d had pushing each other’s buttons and limits. “It’s that you’re angry. That part I don’t like.”

He blinked a couple of times as though coming to consciousness. Then he rolled off me and collapsed on his back, an arm slung over his eyes.

“Sorry, Cass. I’ll take you home,” he muttered. “I gotta be somewhere anyway.”

I hoisted myself off the bed and began to gather my clothes. “Don’t bother. I’ll walk.”

“Cassie.” He reached to grab my arm. “Let me take you home. I’m being a fucking dick. I’m sorry. Really. We don’t have to—”

I jerked free of his grasp and began plucking my clothes from the floor and dressing with my back to him. I felt a strange power surge through me—a new sense of agency.