We were back in bed, comforter up to our waists. Vance had his arms around me; I had my hands pressed against his chest.
Boo was sitting on the end of the bed staring at us with barely concealed impatience at what he considered the unacceptable delay in the arrival of his morning wet food breakfast.
After we were done on the floor in the hall, wordlessly Vance had carried me up to the bed not like last time but cradled in his arms. He’d managed that feat too, gracefully. He pulled me into bed, yanked the comforter over us and he held me, still silent.
I was silent too. My body was completely sated after three earth-shattering, back-to-back orgasms, so much so, I could barely move.
My mind was blank with shock and, if I admitted it to myself, pure unadulterated fear.
I pulled my thoughts together, tossed my emotional Rottweiler a juicy steak and twisted my head to look at Vance. “We have to talk.”
And we did. We so had to talk.
He kissed me quickly then looked in my eyes. “Is this one of your whisper-sweet-stories-about-your-life-and-smile-at-me talks or something else?” he asked.
“Something else,” I told him.
“Then we don’t have to talk.”
“Crowe.”
He kissed me again.
“I’ll call you later,” he said.
“Crowe –”
“We’ll go out to dinner before the meet with Darius.”
“Crowe!”
He leaned in, kissed my forehead, let me go, moved swiftly and disappeared off the edge of the platform.
“Crowe!” I shouted.
I scrambled to the end of the bed, wrapping the comforter around my na**d body. With effort and absolutely no grace I threw my legs over the side of the bed, stumbled, corrected myself and jumped down, pulling the bulk of the king-sized comforter with me
I went charging into the living room, Boo hot on my heels but Vance was gone.
“God dammit!” I shouted at the empty room.
“Meow!” Boo concurred.
* * * * *
I arrived at King’s nearly an hour late and the minute I came through the door May bore down on me like I was a clueless tourist wandering into the street in Pamplona and she was the bull.
She was followed, to my complete surprise and absolute mortification, by Daisy and Roxie.
“Well?” May asked after she arrived, looking at my face closely.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I stated, walked right by the trio and stomped across the room, ignoring the kids who were staring at me.
The ladies caught me at the entry to the hall and hustled me, protesting all the way, into the yellow counseling room. Roxie shut the door and May drew the blind on the window to the hall.
“Oh Sugar, what happened?” Daisy asked, eyes on me, her voice gentle.
I faced off against Daisy and ignored her soft look. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”