“Toyed with me?” I jabbed my finger into his chest, revenge constricting my pupils. “You are the sex toy, not me.”
Toy. I meant to say toy. Only toy. I was the cat. He was the crippled mouse. I was the puppeteer. He was the puppet.
No sex. Why did my mouth let my brain win?
He lit up like the town square Christmas tree. “Damn … I think I love being your sex toy. I like your face red and your hands balled at your sides. Is that wrong?”
“Yes. It’s wrong and sadistic. Not a sex toy. You’re a pet toy.” I turned and stomped to the front door, plucking my jacket off the floor while stabbing my feet into my boots.
“No. You said sex toy. I have good hearing. I heard you perfectly.” Complete delight and an arrogant tone of victory carried his words.
“You’re a guy. You heard what you wanted to hear. And all things translate to sex for you. It’s not your fault that you’re genetically wired to think about sex all day long.” I reached for the door handle.
He grabbed me, spinning my body around, my back hitting the door. The Kael Hendricks eye sparkle was back and on steroids. “You think of me as your sex toy. You’ve said it before.”
I deflated, angling my gaze to the side. “Not in the way you think.”
“I think you’re using me for sex. I think you’re using me like a human dildo. I think you get a high knowing that other women in your little town of Epperly are throwing themselves at me, but I’m only into you—in the most literal sense. I think you like the secrecy. The simplicity. The sinfulness.”
He waited.
I kept a straight face.
He waited some more.
His body towered over mine, keeping me in my spot and plastered to the door until I gave him something back—acknowledgment. Nourishment for his male ego.
“Fine.” I shrugged, giving him a fleeting glance. “It is in the way you think. Now, move so I can get to work.”
There wasn’t another step for him to take, yet he found one, sucking all the air from my personal space. “Are you sure you’re done playing with me? I think we both have a few extra minutes to spare.”
“Careful. I’d hate for my shiny new toy to lose its luster.”
“Mrs. Smith … I’m not losing my shine in your eyes anytime soon. And you fucking know it.”
I burned in his presence, and he knew it. He pounced on every opportunity to reveal my weakness—him. Kael Hendricks was my weakness. The only thing that annoyed me about him was his incessant need to wear clothes and do things that didn’t involve giving me an orgasm. That and his natural flirtatious nature that drove all the women crazy.
“By the way…” he stepped back to give me a breath or maybe exhale the one I’d been holding “…I made a marketing decision after the vomit incident. I felt it was necessary to recoup a few customers. It was before you told me that Amie planned on making things right. So I just want to make sure we’re good. That’s what I was getting ready to tell you earlier when I mentioned our working relationship. Business being business.”
I tipped my chin up and cleared my throat. “Of course … business is business.”
“Great.” Without touching me with any other part of his body, he leaned down and kissed the corner of my mouth. I felt his lips bend into a smile.
I didn’t trust that smile.
“Have a great day at work,” he whispered, giving me a faint chill along my neck and down my spine.
Slow day.
I wasn’t sure what my competitor’s marketing decision was or if it affected my slow sales day.
Until …
Grief recovery group.
“Rhonda just called. She’s running a few minutes late. We can pray and start without her. Or …” Kelly, shrugged nonchalantly. “We can real talk.”
“Real talk?” Deb asked.
“She wants to talk about the things our husbands did that we don’t miss.” Bethanne winked at Kelly. “Right?”
“We can just wait for Rhonda.” I smiled. What had I done to our little church group? Only one of us needed to go straight to Hell.
Me, of course.
Yet everyone else seemed to have a guilty conscience too. Real emotions weren’t supposed to feel so wrong. My husband drove me crazy and died. I didn’t physically wrap my hands around his neck and strangle him—even if I thought about it in that weird, uncontrollable