The door shut, the cold air gone, and I gripped at the front of his shirt, pulling myself tighter to him, his arms wrapping around me. “What happened?” he asked, looking down at me, our eyes meeting.
“Nothing,” I whispered, closing my eyes. I might have been drunk, but I knew one thing—if I told Vic about the money, he’d give it to me. I’d already sold the man’s earrings. I didn’t need another IOU hanging out there.
“Did someone hurt you?” His voice was louder and I winced, my head shaking.
“No. I fell. On the street.”
He pressed a soft kiss on my forehead, his eyes searching mine. “Come home with me tonight.”
The seat beneath me was heated, the Rolls silent and smooth as we moved through the city. In his arms, in that spot, I could have stayed forever. I shook my head. “I can’t.”
I expected him to fight me on it. To take me to his home, damn any of my opinions to the contrary. But he didn’t. For once in our relationship, he listened to me. Maybe it was because he had another girl waiting for him, a date or fuck interrupted. Maybe he felt sorry for me in my pitiful state. Whatever the reason, he and Jake carried me up to Cammie’s, her yanking open the door, the worry on her face clearing as she gathered me in her arms. She lectured me for not answering my phone, drowned me in bottled water, and then put me to bed, her touch as comforting as my mom’s had once been.
I shouldn’t have called Vic. I shouldn’t have been that weak. But in that moment of vulnerability, I’d needed to be taken care of. And Vic … he’d always done that for me. He did it better than anyone.
16. Well. This is Awkward.
Chanel must be constipated. That was the only thing I could figure, because she’d been trying to poop for three blocks now. The major issue was that I thought her first squat was the poop of the walk, and I’d bagged and trashed that niblet of poo, so now, anything that was squeezed out, I had nothing to pick it up with. Which left me standing there, as she went through the poop squat, looking like a Fifth Avenue asshole.
We finally made it back inside the house, my knee aching, a constant reminder of last week’s mugging. I still couldn’t believe I’d been mugged. Four years in the city and it chose the worst possible moment to occur. And since that night, nothing from Vic. I didn’t know whether I was glad he wasn’t pushing the mistake of my weak moment, or if I was hurt that his I’ll love you forever had such little weight. I undid Chanel’s collar, her butt hitting the thick carpet as soon as she reached it, dragging herself by her front paws, a long smear of brown leaving a crooked trail behind her. I groaned, setting her leash on the foyer table, and about jumped out of my boots when there was a deep chuckle from behind me.
“Sorry.” Clarke’s hands came up in surrender, and I held a hand to my chest, embarrassed.
“I thought you were in Vegas,” I said.
He grimaced, his head shaking a little. “No. When at all possible, I try to avoid the condom business.”
I had to smile at that. I’d been surprised that Nicole, as high-handed as she was about everything, had gone.
“Nicki loves it,” he followed up, as if in answer to my thoughts. “She’s a god there. They do a better job of kissing her ass than I do.”
“Yeah?” I said faintly, not wild about the thought of sharing the space with him for three days. I’d had big plans for that stretch of time, my Netflix queue already packed and ready for watching. I’d envisioned locking my office door and having a movie marathon with Chanel, broken up with naps and runs downstairs to use the cappuccino machine.
“Don’t worry about that,” Clarke nodded to the carpet stain. “One of the girls will get it.”
“Okay.” He rested his hands on his hips and I noticed his hands. Long fingers. Thick thumbs. I’d read, on Cosmo somewhere, about thumbs. Thumbs and their correlation to other body parts.
I picked up Chanel, needing to escape before my thoughts about Nicole’s husband turned completely inappropriate. “I think Chanel is constipated,” I blurted out, and any imagined sexual tension dried up with the words.