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IT’D BEEN NEARLY eight hours since Bailey received Henri’s text, and he was still no closer to deciding what he wanted to do. Of course, Xander’s initial suggestion had been to text back and think about the consequences later, but that wasn’t the way Bailey worked.
He wanted a minute to think about this, a minute to decide whether this was a path he wanted to go down now that alcohol was not involved. But as he sat on his back deck staring off into the trees of his property, he realized it must’ve been, if he was still thinking about it all this time later.
Bailey sighed and unlocked his phone, then he pulled open the message Henri had sent and stared at the keyboard.
Am I really going to do this? That was the million-dollar question here, because as soon as he wrote back, as soon as he acknowledged that he’d received this message, there was no taking it back, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for that.
God, what was it about Henri that made Bailey want to throw out all of his usual rules and just see where this crazy attraction took them? Because that was what this was: absolute craziness.
There was a list a mile long as to why he shouldn’t do what he was about to do, and somewhere at the top of that list was the fact that Henri was one of his friend’s ex-boyfriends. But just like all the other reasons he knew he should walk away, Bailey found himself shoving it aside in pursuit of what he really wanted—and that was Henri.
Deciding it was now or never, Bailey typed out two words—Call me—and then quickly hit send before he could change his mind. When the word delivered appeared under his message, he wondered how long Henri would make him wait.
A few minutes. A few hours. A couple of days, maybe? Bailey had no idea, but just as it had been for the past two weeks, his mind was now one hundred percent consumed by a virtual stranger, and he had to wonder what kind of power Henri possessed to make him feel that way.
Bailey grabbed his beer off the side table on the deck and took a long, hard pull of it, continuing his stare-off with his phone, and when the screen lit up and it began to ring a second later, he almost dropped it to the ground from the shock.
Shit. Fuck. Shit. Bailey wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but Henri calling him back right away had not been it. If anything, he thought he might get some smartass, sexy text reply. But no, as he sat there staring at the ringing phone in his hand, he realized he was getting exactly what he’d asked for—Henri, calling him.
Bailey took a deep breath and then quickly let it out before he hit accept on the phone and brought it up to his ear. “Hello.”
“Good afternoon, officer.” Henri’s voice was smooth as honey through the phone, and Bailey shut his eyes, picturing the mouth that had just spoken. “I can’t decide if I’m happy or not that you texted me back. I was kind of looking forward to coming up with a reason for you to use your handcuffs.”
Bailey’s fingers tightened around the neck of his beer bottle as he pictured that scenario playing out in his head. He’d never been turned on by the idea of restraining someone that way with his cuffs, but as his dick stiffened between his legs, he was starting to realize that maybe it had to do with whom it was he’d be restraining.
“Do I even want to imagine the scenarios you came up with?”
Henri’s chuckle was raspy and pure sex, and Bailey bit down on his lip in an effort not to groan.
“I don’t know, do you?”
Bailey grinned despite himself, and took a quick swig of his beer before saying, “You wanted to talk?”
“I want to do a lot more than talk. But I figure that’s where I need to start, considering how I left things between us.”
It was on the tip of Bailey’s tongue to ask why Henri had left things that way, but since they were little more than acquaintances, he figured he’d leave that for some other time. “And what makes you think I’d want to talk to you after everything that’s happened?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. Blind hope? Pure stupidity? Take your pick; I’m thinking both apply.”
The response was so unexpected that a bark of laughter escaped Bailey before he could help himself. Add charm to all the other reasons Henri was trouble with a capital T.
“Come on, Bailey,” Henri said, and the sound of his name on that tongue made Bailey’s pulse speed up. “Let me take you to dinner.”
“To dinner?”
“Mhmm.” The rumble that filtered through the phone vibrated up Bailey’s spine. “Well, we could skip it if you like. But I was trying to honor my words and actually talk to you. To do that, I think we should meet somewhere public first.”
