Sex Says(72)

Jen’s eyes were like lasers as she pointed her order. “You better call me tomorrow, Lola Sexton.”

“Oh, shit. Lola Sexton, like the columnist for the San Francisco Times?” the half-chub asked.

Shit. Time to abort. A little like a piece of gum on a cracked chair, the lies weren’t going to hold much longer.

“Let’s roll,” I told her, but she was already moving, dragging me along behind her.

“Through the bar,” I ordered. She immediately rerouted to comply.

Our food was already sitting there waiting, thanks to my buddy Freddy behind the bar. I swiped the bags while still in motion and lifted my free hand in a wave.

“Just put it on my tab, okay, Fred?” I asked, and Freddy answered from the other end of the bar with a salute.

Lola looked back over her shoulder with a laugh. “You come here a lot?”

“I told you they have good burgers and fries.”

Truth was, I knew people all over this city. Connections, acquaintances, people who owed me favors. Freddy was just the beginning.

I walked her out the door with a hand to her back and straight to a Mercedes at the curb. She turned surprised eyes in my direction and grabbed the handle on the door.

“A Mercedes?” she asked as I watched the door open without incident. I raised my eyebrows and bit my lip as she climbed inside and got settled.

As soon as she was in, I rounded the car, looked both ways and then crossed the street to my Corolla at the other curb. She’d been looking at her lap, but when she looked up and found me missing, the crazy way she jerked back and forth looking for me cracked me up.

Finally, she spotted me climbing into the driver’s seat of my car and scrambled for the door handle of whoever’s car she was in.

All she did was struggle for the first several seconds, floundering like a fish on land—an island it’d never been to, at that. When she finally found it and engaged the handle, she jumped out way faster than she’d climbed in.

I rolled down my window as she crossed the street.

Straight to my door, she moved at a jog and punched me right in the arm when she got there.

“Ow,” I said with a laugh, but secretly just happy it hadn’t been the jaw. “What was that for?”

“I hate you!” she yelled, but that didn’t stop her from rounding the car and climbing into the passenger side.

“How could you let me do that?” she railed. “I could have gotten arrested! What if the owner had come out and found me in their car?”

“Relax,” I consoled, still laughing. She, however, wasn’t entertained by my amusement. I reached over to rub her thigh, and she jerked away.

“Oh, come on. It wasn’t a big deal, and I didn’t say anything. You just assumed.”

Her head shot to the side, the glow from the restaurant creating a scar of light all the way from her eyebrow to the bottom of her cheek. “Because that’s where you led me!”

“I was headed this direction, across the street,” I explained.

“Well, you didn’t stop me.”

“That’s because it was funny,” I admitted, cranking the key and the car to life.

“I really hate you,” she said again, but there was no fire in her voice. Only a soft, sweet swell of affection.

I stopped what I was doing and leaned over to touch my lips to hers. She let me.

“You really don’t,” I whispered there, and the moist tip of her tongue traced along the flesh under my own.

“Ugh,” she huffed, realizing belatedly what she was doing, pushing me away and forcing her eyes open. “Just drive.”

“Your wish” —I told her honest, unguarded eyes— “is my command.”




I sat on my desk chair and smoked as Lola paced the room barefoot, grabbing a fry every time she passed the container. We’d already consumed our burgers, and apparently, having been fueled by the food, the entire evening was finally coming to a head in her mind.

“I mean, what is that?” she ranted. “Why the fuck do women do that? Why do they have to be someone else when they’re trying to impress a guy? Like, I’m just not getting it.”

I smiled, and she pointed at me angrily. “Don’t you smile at me.”

“What?” I asked with a laugh before taking another drag. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Bullshit. You’re the one who filled my head with all of this crap. Now I can’t let it go!”

Apparently, my words and perspective were doing the impossible inside her brilliant mind: making sense. I had to admit, I got a certain amount of sick satisfaction out of watching her mentally, and quite physically, battle herself over agreeing with me—Reed Luca, the devil himself—about anything.