buffer,” I clarify.
“And what exactly does that role entail? Because sleeping with the guy—added bonus, romantic dinner for two—seems out of the mother-buffer job description,” Dani continues.
“You went on a date with him?” Zoe gasps. “How did I not know this? If my husband knew this and didn’t tell me, he’s in so much trouble.”
I sigh—loudly. “It wasn’t a date!”
“Heard that before,” Dani mutters.
I put my fingers in my ears. “La, la, la, I can’t hear you,” I say in a singsong voice before pulling them out again.
“You’re in denial. D. E. N. I. A. L.”
“Oh wow, Dan, you can spell,” Zoe mocks. Dani replies by poking her tongue out at her older sister, but thankfully lets the conversation go.
Zoe’s phone chimes with a text and her fingers swipe over the screen, her eyes narrowing just before her fingers furiously type out a message. “My husband has been holding out on me!”
“That happens after children, I’ve heard,” I retort.
“Ha, fucking, ha. Even after two children, Noah and I have no problem in that department.”
“Gross!” Dani groans, continuing to flick through the hangers in Zoe’s walk-in closet. “It’s bad enough that I’ve heard Cade and Abi going at it. I don’t need the idea of you and Noah in my head, too.
Zoe’s head snaps up, and she looks at me and then her sister. “You’ve heard them? What? When? How . . . ? Why?”
“Long story,” Dani replies, her cheeks going a lovely shade of red.
“Let’s just say there was a sex battle in our apartment, and we all won,” I explain.
“Knew I wouldn’t want to know,” Zoe mutters.
“So what did Noah not tell you?” Dani asks.
Zoe jabs her finger at her phone, furiously typing out a text. “He knew about the date—”
“Again, not a date . . .” I reiterate.
Zoe waves her hand at me. “Whatever. He just told me you guys have been banging for a while.”
“I wouldn’t say a while . . .” Does a ten-month gap between romps count?
Zoe quirks a brow at me. “How long then?”
I open my mouth to brush her off but yet again, my best friend freely offers the information. “Once last year, then again last weekend after that night out at Throb, and—probably—the other night after their date.”
“It wasn’t a—”
“Date, we know,” Zoe and Dani reply in unison.
It’s six thirty, and I’m pacing my living room primped, primed and ready to pretend like a pro and Cade’s late. Yes, the man is late. My anxiety levels are sky high, and during the past ten minutes I’ve gone from freaking out to slow, deep breathing, to picking up my phone and going so far as to bring up his name on my phone before quickly putting it back in my purse.
I’m a basket case and as every minute ticks by, I’m second guessing my decision to agree to this fake relationship business—the promise of unlimited orgasms be damned.
Something stuck in my head after spending the afternoon drinking champagne with Dani and Zoe—well Dani and I did, since Zoe is still nursing.
A knock at my door breaks me out of my freak out, but my body remains frozen in place, excitement, sudden-onset nausea, and nerves holding me back.
Telling myself that I got dressed up for this shindig so I should damn well enjoy it, I force my limbs to move and make my way to the front door, swinging it open with a disgruntled grunt to stop dead in my tracks at the sight of a tuxedo-clad, mighty fine-looking Cade staring at me with his mouth dropped open.
The minute I see her, it takes everything I have not to push Abi back through her apartment door, slam it shut, and spend the rest of the night tasting and touching every inch of her body. In fact, there is nothing else I would prefer to do more.
She’s a knockout normally whether it be made-up and on the prowl at the bar, or first thing in the morning without a scrap of makeup on her. I could even say I preferred her naked as the day she was born, hazy from sleep, looking across the bed at me with nothing but sated eyes and a cute pouty smile. It may have only happened a few times but still, it was those moments I looked forward to just as much as the hot-as-fuck sex.
But seeing her standing in front of me in a dress that is both elegant and sensual, classy and the most effective aphrodisiac even