waistband of the boxer briefs I'm wearing so he can see. Christian's mouth drops open, shocked. What a great reaction. My mood shifts immediately, and I sashay into the house, part of me wanting to jump and punch the air. YES! My inner goddess is thrilled.
Kate is in the living area packing up her books into crates.
"You're back. Where's ChristianHow are you?" Her voice is fevered, anxious, and she bounds up to me, grabbing my shoulders, minutely analyzing my face before I've even said hello.
Crap... I have to deal with Kate's persistence and tenacity, and I'm in possession of a legal signed document saying I can't talk. It's not a healthy mix.
"Well how was itI couldn't stop thinking about you, after Elliot left, that is." She grins mischievously.
I can't help but smile at her concern and her burning curiosity, but suddenly I feel shy.
I blush. It was very private. All of it. Seeing and knowing what Christian has to hide. But I have to give her some details, because she won't leave me alone until I do.
"It was good, Kate. Very good, I think," I say quietly, trying to hide my embarrassed tell-all smile.
"You think?"
"I've got nothing to compare it to, do I?" I shrug apologetically.
"Did he make you come?"
Holy crap. She's so blunt. I go scarlet.
"Yes," I mumble, exasperated.
Kate pulls me to the couch and we sit. She clasps my hands.
"That is good." Kate looks at me in disbelief. "It was your first time. Wow, Christian must really know what he's doing."
Oh Kate, if only you knew.
"My first time was horrid," she continues, making a sad comedy face.
"Oh?" This has me interested, something she's never divulged before.
"Yes, Steve Paton. High school, dickless jock." She shudders. "He was rough. I wasn't ready. We were both drunk. You know - typical teenage post-prom disaster. Ugh
- it took me months before I decided to have another go. And not with him, the gutless wonder. I was too young. You were right to wait."
"Kate, that sounds awful."
Kate looks wistful.
"Yeah, took almost a year to have my first orgasm through penetrative sex and here you are... first time?"
I nod shyly. My inner goddess sits in the lotus position looking serene except for the sly, self-congratulatory smile on her face.
"I'm glad you lost it to someone who knows their ass from their elbow." She winks at me. "So when are you seeing him again?"
"Wednesday. We're having dinner."
"So you still like him?"
"Yes. But I don't know about... the future."
"Why?"
"He's complicated, Kate. You know - he inhabits a very different world to mine."
Great excuse. Believable too. Much better than - he's got a Red Room of Pain, and he wants to make me his sex slave.
"Oh please, don't let this be about money, Ana. Elliot said it's very unusual for Christian to date anyone."
"Did he?" My voice hitches up several octaves.
Too obvious, Steele! My subconscious glares at me, wagging her long skinny finger, then morphs into the scales of justice to remind me he could sue if I disclose too much.
Ha... what's he going to do - take all my money I must remember to Google 'penalties for breaching a non-disclosure agreement' while I'm doing the rest of my 'research'. It's like I've been given a school assignment. Maybe I'll be graded. I flush, remembering my A for this morning's bath experiment.
"Ana, what is it?"
"I'm just remembering something Christian said."
"You look different," Kate says fondly.
"I feel different. Sore," I confess.
"Sore?"
"A little." I flush.
"Me too. Men," she says in mock disgust. "They're animals." We both laugh.
"You're sore?" I exclaim.
"Yes... overuse."
I giggle.
"Tell me about Elliot the over-user," I ask when I've stopped giggling. Oh, I can feel myself relaxing for the first time since I was in line at the bar... before the phone call that started all this - when I was admiring Mr. Grey from afar. Happy uncomplicated days.
Kate blushes. Oh my... Katherine Agnes Kavanagh goes all Anastasia Rose Steele on me. She gives me a dewy-eyed look. I've never seen her react this way to a man before.
My jaw drops to the floor. Where's Kate, what have you done with her?
"Oh, Ana," she gushes. "He's just so... Everything. And when we... oh... really good." She can hardly string a sentence together she's got it so bad.
"I think you're trying to tell me that you like him."
She nods, grinning like a lunatic.
"And I'm seeing him on Saturday. He's going to help us move." She clasps her hands together, leaps up off the couch, and pirouettes to the