a display of chocolates. Or chips. Or maybe the meat counter. When did she even notice all this about me?
“Now do me,” she says. And then sticks out her tongue. “Not like sexy do me. I can’t help it if your mind lives in the gutter.”
“You’re the one who brought up sex.”
“Take a look.” She gestures at her boobs...and lower. Her grin has my dick standing at attention in my pants. “Tell me what you like about me. If you need an icebreaker, I’ll point out my favorite parts.”
I tear my gaze away from her boobs. I do not need Hazel playing show-and-tell in my office. She watches while I try to pretend she hasn’t knocked me for a loop.
Hazel thinks I’m hot.
“Look,” she says impatiently. Her right foot is swinging like a metronome. “We’ve covered the fiasco that is my dating life. My sex life hasn’t been any more successful, and you’re clearly experiencing the orgasm drought, as well, so I thought we could help each other out. I like sex. I like you. We do everything else together, so why not have sex together until we’re ready to be in real relationships again?”
“Are you messing with me?”
The laughter she suppresses lights up her eyes, making the corners crinkle and her mouth curve. We’ve always teased each other—it’s what friends do—but everything feels different today, just that little bit off. It’s not bad—at least, I don’t think so. But it’s different and I’m not sure things are supposed to be different between us. Hazel is my constant.
“Not really. There are walking groups, running groups, hiking groups...but the sex groups are really strange. So I’d rather just have sex with a good friend. Someone I trust.”
I blurt out the next part without thinking. “Who is hot.”
“Well, yeah.” Her grin is incandescent. She has a lush mouth beneath the slick of bright red color. Usually, she’s talking, lips moving, hands flying to emphasize whatever point she’s making. It’s as if Hazel’s entire body is just punctuation for what she’s thinking. Normally, it makes me smile because only an idiot would underestimate Hazel’s intelligence. Today, however, it drives me crazy because now I’m looking at her mouth, her arms, her goddamn fingers...and I’m imagining exactly how she could touch me.
“I’m self-serving, not a saint,” she continues, as if I’m not burning up over here. “I’m just suggesting that, when we’re not in the office, we have sex until we don’t want to.”
She’s staring at me expectantly. I sort of feel like I should start stripping like a Chippendale dancer. “So rule number one—not in the office?”
She nods.
“And then we’ll just stop?”
“Rule number two,” she says. “When we’re done, we’re done—but we promise to still be friends. In fact, we should be friends first.”
I have no idea what that means.
“Think about it.” She hops up from my chair as the alarm on her phone goes off, reminding her she needs to be across town for a lunch meeting. Plus, the Salas Group people must be growing impatient by now. “And while you think about it, give Max’s hookup app a try. Find someone, go out for dinner.”
“Now you want me to hook up with someone else?” Somehow I’m moving across the room toward her, and not because I’m rushing to a business meeting. My voice is rough, as if I’ve been thinking really dirty thoughts.
She winks at me as she dances away. “I just want you to be sure I’m the best.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I’VE KNOWN FOR years that Max is either a sexual deviant or extraordinarily creative in bed—and, no, I don’t want to know which—but I’ve never actually used his apps before. It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with the user experience they promise to deliver—sex in all its dirty, delicious, fun variants—but I was in a committed relationship with Molly when he launched. My involvement with his product was limited to financial advising.
Hazel loaded both of Max’s apps onto my phone—the first is the now-infamous Billionaire Bachelors app that lonely boys and girls can use to find love, happiness and a relationship. As the name promises, it identifies billionaires in a twenty-mile radius, along with their likes, their dislikes and the spots where they can frequently be found. When I check my profile, I discover that I’m hot, filthy rich, pro-monogamy and most likely to be found on the beach. I’m not sure how I feel about having been reduced to a set of check boxes even if they’re not inaccurate.
The second app