He leaned forward. “Don’t take well to threats, either, Beautiful. You’ve made your point, you can stop making it. Not gonna cheat on you, and will try my best to keep from lying while not telling you the stuff you really don’t want to know. Not making promises I can’t keep here, so that’s the best I can offer.”
Gen’s phone chimed, and it was set to only allow calls and texts through from a handful of people. She hoped it was Bethany, as Gen had texted her earlier asking if she wanted to come over later for drinks. Gen smiled when she saw it was, indeed, from her friend, and then smiled bigger as she read:
Be there at 7 with bells on. I feel like wine tonight.
“Bethany’s coming over tonight. I need a night with my girl.” Gen wasn’t sure how he’d take the news, but he’d been spending so much time with her, surely he had things he needed to do at night with the club.
Duke took a drink, set his beer down. Thinking. Finally, he said, “I’m attracted to the strength in you, to the fact you decide what you want to do and you do it.”
He was quiet, as if expecting her to respond, but it hadn’t been a question. After several long moments, Gen finally said, “Okay.”
He shook his head. “No, not really. I’m used to people asking me things, not telling me. I wanted to bring you back to the clubhouse again tonight. I had plans for us.”
“Then you should’ve told me your plans, Duke. We’ve been spending a lot of time together and I need an evening with Bethany.”
He shook his head. “Yeah, okay, tonight’s done. We eat, you go home, I get you tomorrow night. My point is that we need to find a different way to communicate in the future.”
“What do you propose?”
“How about asking me, ‘If you don’t have anything planned, I’m going to see if Bethany wants to hang out with me tonight,’ before you set something up with her?”
“So, you’re saying I should assume we’ll be together every night, and I need to check in with you before making any plans on my own?”
Duke nodded as he chewed a bite of steak. Gen watched his jaw muscles work, remembered how it’d flexed when he was pissed the other day, and took a breath to try to bring herself back to the conversation. “Are you going to give me the same courtesy?”
He swallowed, took a drink. “The club handles patrols on a rotation. I patrolled nearly every night for six months, and told them I was banking time so I could have some evenings with you once I finally claimed you. I’ll need to patrol some over the next two or three months, but for the most part I’m off the schedule a while. Once I go back on it, you’ll be alone the better part of two or maybe three nights a week, and I’ll ask you to use those evenings to spend time with your friends. I’m more than happy to have Bethany hang with the two of us, got no problem at all with you inviting her over when I’m around.”
“I’ll try.” There was so much she wanted to say, but she had a feeling he was being more patient with her than he’d been with anyone in a long time… or perhaps ever, so she didn’t argue the point, and didn’t tell him they were moving too fast.
Chapter Thirty-One
“You don’t know how many orgasms you had last night? Seriously? You lost count?”
Four empty bottles of wine sat on the coffee table, and Gen watched as Bethany opened a fifth. She’d stopped and bought all their favorite specialty cheeses on the way home, and most of it was gone.
Gen leaned forward and used her fancy cheese slicer to cut another piece of moody blue. “That’s not the point, Bethany.”
“Yeah, your point is you’re wondering why you’re letting him play with your ass when you don’t think you like it. But my point is that you freaking lost count of how many orgasms he gave you!”
Gen shook her head. “I’d have had those orgasms even without the anal stuff. And, bottom line — every time I want to tell him not to, I see Mike doing the tramp up her ass on my bed, and I’m worried if I say no, he’ll someday find someone who’ll say yes.”
“You have to talk to him about it,” Bethany said as she poured them both another glass of deep red wine. “Sex is supposed to be fun. If it isn’t, or if you’re doing something just to keep him from cheating on you, it’s time to back up and regroup.”
The doorbell rang and the women looked at each other, then the clock. It was nearly midnight. Gen leaned sideways, saw Mike’s car in the driveway, and reached for her phone. She dialed nine-one-one, and when the operator asked her emergency she did her best to keep from slurring her words as she gave her name and address, and then said, “I pressed charges against Detective Mike McPherson the other day, and he’s at my door right now. I’m not going to respond because he scares me, but he’s probably already looked in the window and seen me, so he isn’t likely to leave. I’d like you to send a car out to ask him to leave, please.”