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Sure, all relationships started out filled with passion, but eventually they all petered out, under the weight of routine and familiarity. Or, they become something worse. Something harder. Like his parents’ troubled relationship. He shook his head. No way was he going to become like his father, a slave to love.
He and Sasha had ripped their clothes off the night they met, but then a year later, beneath ratty old T-shirts and dozens of nights in the same bed, they had grown tired of one another, bored. Sex had become mechanical, predictable. No wonder she’d looked outside their relationship for satisfaction. He couldn’t blame her. The passion that had once lit their relationship had fled.
Xavier pulled up his Nost profile on his phone but barely even looked at it. This was not like him at all. Normally, he was already on to his next challenge, his next anonymous rendezvous. The last year since Sasha had been a blur of bodies for the most part. He knew on some level it wasn’t the healthiest way to get over his ex, but it sure was the most fun. Instead of browsing through the new candidates on his phone, he headed to the laptop in his study and once more pulled up Emma’s profile. She’d been active in the last twenty-four hours, he saw, sending a little pang of jealousy through him. Had she already gotten over him? Was she trolling for new mates as he sat here at his computer?
His fingers froze on the keyboard. Would he snoop to find out? No. He shouldn’t. That broke every privacy rule Nost had.
Get a hold of yourself, Xavier said. What are you doing?
He decided to Google her once more. That was safer than digging through her Nost profile—safer and not opening him or Nost up to a lawsuit, either, he mused. With a few quick clicks he discovered Emma had posted a new article for Helena. About him.
Interest piqued, he scanned the article.
Where is Mr. X? I never thought I’d ever use an app like Nost, or like it, but...
Xavier scanned the article, eating up every word. She enjoyed every minute of being with him, she said, enjoyed the freedom, the intimacy, the immediate connection. He knew they’d connected, but seeing it written in black and white delighted him. The way she described him was godlike. He grinned to himself. He hadn’t even used all his best tricks. He still had some in reserve for...
When? When would he ever see her again? Their time was up. Forty-eight hours. That was his rule, but...
He glanced at her small profile picture that hovered above her article. Cornflower-blue eyes, lush blond hair, amazing pink lips. He remembered her small, pink nipples, the way they puckered beneath the caress of his tongue. Remembered below her waist, her delicate pink folds. He wanted to taste her again, make her arch her back and squirm with pleasure, see that amazing look in her eyes when she let the whole world go and embraced the climax he gave her.
He just wanted her.
He glanced once more at the end of the article.
Mr. X, if you’re out there, find me at the Brew Coffee House. North Avenue. Four p.m. Saturday.
Xavier glanced at his watch. He had an hour to make it. If he really wanted to leave Emma in his past, stick to his rules, he’d let her wait. But he also felt desire growing inside him, a white-hot burn. She was asking for him. Could he really refuse?
* * *
By the time the fourth awkward, pimpled and overweight guy stumbled up to her and claimed to be Mr. X at the Brew Coffee House, Emma was beginning to think her idea to call out Mr. X publicly had backfired.
“You’re not Mr. X,” she told the twenty-something, acne-prone gamer who stood before her wearing a Game of Thrones T-shirt. He shuffled his massive feet.
“No, but I totally am!” he insisted, pushing up his flat-brimmed baseball cap to reveal unwashed, greasy hair beneath.
“You’re not,” she said, shaking her head. He didn’t fight too much harder, and eventually shrugged and left. The cup of coffee she’d gotten half an hour ago now sat empty and she wondered how much longer she ought to keep this up. Mr. X clearly wasn’t coming. He might not have even seen her article, and even if he did, might have chosen to ignore it. After all, he had the forty-eight-hour rule. No strings. No attachments.
But Emma wasn’t asking to marry him. Just...explore him. A little longer. She just wasn’t ready to let him go yet. He’d become a craving, more than that, an addiction. Something she didn’t just want, she needed. The idea of going back to her boring, vanilla boyfriend sex life just felt horrible. She didn’t want to do that. She wanted Mr. X.
Emma scribbled down a few notes on a notepad about Game of Thrones guy and figured that at least this would give her enough material for another article. Her Helena editor had loved the Nost piece, and no wonder, it was the top trending article on the blog and already had thousands of shares on social media. The article was blowing up, and Emma thought that was in no small part because more and more users were intrigued by Nost, and she was the good-girl-next-door who’d tried it and liked it. The story almost sold itself.
