Dirty Work - Regina Kyle Page 0,13

and even though I’m no longer practicing we’ve stayed close. She’s one of the only holdovers in my life from my legal-eagle days—and one of the few people who didn’t think I was crazy for chucking it all and starting over.

“Who are you?” she asks, her cherry lips twisting into an impish grin. “And what have you done with my best friend?”

I knock back the rest of my drink and plunk the glass down on the table. I knew it was a huge risk going out on the town with Mia tonight. Two rounds in, and my tongue’s already as loose as my morals were in Jake’s apartment earlier. But it’s too late to take the words back now. As my great-aunt Elizabeth used to say, in for a penny, in for a goddamn ton.

“I dry humped his leg like a bitch in heat.” And came so hard I saw stars. Without even taking off my clothes.

Mia lets out a low whistle. “Damn, girl. You sure know how to break a sexual drought.”

I stare her down. “Who said I was in a sexual drought?”

“You did. The last time we were here.”

Here is Tammany Hall, our favorite Greenwich Village dive bar. The drinks are cheap, the floor is sticky and the decor is a cross between a bordello and a hunting cabin, with an odd yet somehow soothing combination of red velvet and taxidermy. But the atmosphere is always friendly and on game days you can catch the Yankees and Mets on the dueling flat screens above the scarred oak bar.

I decide to ignore the issue of my heretofore virtually nonexistent sex life and plow on. I’ve started this story. I might as well finish it.

Unlike Jake, who didn’t get to finish. At least not with me. Who knows what he did after I cut and ran? Or came and ran.

I slam the door on the image of Jake with his dick in his hand, sliding his fist up and down his impressive length until he shoots his load all over those washboard abs I felt under his T-shirt, and signal the waitress for another drink. “That’s not all.”

“There’s more?” Mia lifts her now-empty glass, indicating she’s ready for a refill, too. “Please tell me that after the dry humping, you ripped his clothes off and rode him like a polo pony.”

I wish. “Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

She flips her long inky-black hair over her shoulder, and I swear two guys at the table next to us start visibly drooling. That’s Mia. Everywhere we go, she attracts attention, with her Cher-inspired locks, flawless olive skin and statuesque figure. The chart at the doctor’s office says I’m average height and weight, but next to her I feel like a bridge troll. If she wasn’t so stinking nice, and so oblivious to her effect on the male of the species, I’d have to hate her just on principle.

The waitress comes with round number three, and I hand off our empty glasses before taking a sip from my new one. “Let’s just say it wasn’t my finest moment.”

“Come on,” Mia whines. “Spill. You can’t leave me hanging.”

“Well, since you put it that way...” I let my words trail off, hoping she gets the general idea without me having to fill in the dirty details.

She cocks a perfectly shaped brow at me. “Stop being so evasive and spit it out.”

So much for subtlety. I try again, still tiptoeing around the subject but a little less delicately this time. “Leaving people hanging seems to be my MO today.”

“You did not get your jollies and leave him all hot and bothered, did you?” She takes one look at my face, which must have guilt written all over it, and knows the answer. “Oh my God, you totally did. You filthy little tease.”

“Hey, I told you it wasn’t my finest moment.” I take a hit of prosecco. This conversation definitely requires more alcohol. “Roscoe fell off the couch, and when Jake went to check on him, I bolted.”

“Roscoe?”

“The dog.” I bury my head in my hands with a groan. “It was humiliating. I couldn’t look him in the eye after grinding on his thigh like it was a stripper pole.”

“The dog?” she teases.

I lift my head long enough to shoot daggers at her. “Very funny.”

“Hey.” She takes my hands and pries them away from my face. “If I know men, you have nothing to be ashamed about. I guarantee he enjoyed it as much as you did.”

I’m starting to feel