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I placed my hands on his muscled shoulders and my hips matched his rhythm. He was feeling it too, I knew it: a pleasure bigger and stronger than anything experienced before. As bliss shot up and through me, I could only throw myself into it more fervently. When I came, I heard him calling my name, his torso arching as he filled me, melding his beautiful body with mine.
Afterwards, I lay across his chest. The chill outside, our breath, our bodies warming the room had caused the windows to steam up. Before I could really calm my breathing, his mouth found mine for a lingering kiss. Then he fell back again and closed his eyes. Both of us were lost in a quiet serenity.
“I think you’re probably going to be late for work tomorrow,” he said softly a while later. “And I think I’m okay with that.”
I laughed as I rested my head against his chest, listened to his heart. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to him, kissing the top of my head.
“Have you really thought of doing that since the day we met?” I asked.
“Yup. And pretty much nothing else, Cassie.”
A terrible doubt rose in me. I needed to know.
“So, why did you guys break up?” This explained Tracina’s moodiness, her absences the past few weeks.
He closed his eyes like a man who knows he has to deliver news he’d rather forget about. “Couple weeks ago I caught some texts that went back and forth between her and that D.A. from the auction. But it’s been over between us for longer. She just handed me an excuse.”
“Was she cheating on you?”
“She says no. But I don’t really care either way. It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
“What’ll she say when she finds out about us?”
“She’ll say, ‘Told you so.’ She always knew I was a little bit in love with you.”
A little bit in love with me? He must have sensed my astonishment. “Yeah, you heard me,” he said, tickling my sides. “Does that scare you? Me saying it?”
“Nah, you said a little bit in love, you didn’t say a lot in love. That would scare me.”
“Well—” he began.
I slapped a hand over his delicious mouth.
“Don’t!” I said, resting on an elbow and hovering over his very handsome and now very pensive face.
He removed my hand and kissed it. “You’re different than I thought you’d be, you know,” he said, regarding me intently.
“You mean … in bed?”
“No. I don’t mean the sex, not exactly. I mean you. You seem more … together. More confident, I don’t know. I mean, I always saw you like that, but I didn’t think you did, until lately. Lately you’ve just been more … more you.”
I smiled down at him, having just received the best compliment of my life.
“You know, I think you’re right. I think maybe I am more me lately,” I said, leaning in for another kiss.
And moments later we fell asleep to the sound of the sax player who held court after hours in the doorway of Café Rose, hat at his feet, putting his own loneliness to music as mine dissipated into the night.
How I left Will sleeping there I’ll never know. I guess I assumed I’d see him again a few hours later, after I raced home, fed the cat, showered and put on a nice pair of jeans and a sexy top to open the restaurant.
Turned out I wasn’t late. I was early, in fact, early enough that I managed to have the coffee brewed before our first customer walked through the door, stepping over the Times-Picayune instead of doing the polite thing by bringing it in for me. But I wasn’t mad. Nothing could get me down that day, I decided, not the rain, nor the fact that the girls had left the room upstairs a bloody mess, one that would likely fall to me to clean. After all, Will and I had contributed to the mess, hadn’t we? Will and me. Me and Will. Were we an us? I hoped so. No. It’s too soon to think that way, Cassie. There was still the matter of collecting my charm, and telling Matilda I’d made my decision. I was choosing a relationship with a man I loved over S.E.C.R.E.T. And I was grateful, so very grateful, that this decision was such an easy one to make. The sexual emancipation of Cassie Robichaud was complete.
Admittedly, a part of me would miss the excitement. And I loved the feeling of sorority I got from the women in S.E.C.R.E.T., women like Matilda and Angela and Kit. I could only imagine what it would be like to help facilitate fantasies for another woman, to pass the lessons down. But I wanted a life with Will. Something in me knew it would be fulfilling and loving and fun. He’d already proven to me that sex with him could be all that I needed, wanted or ever imagined. And I was ready to do that for him too.
No, nothing could bring me down on that day, until I saw Tracina trudge around the corner from the condo, waiting for a soda truck to pass before slowly crossing Frenchmen, her a
rms tightly wrapped around her. I felt a twinge of guilt despite my certainty that I’d done nothing wrong. They broke up. We weren’t friends. I owed her nothing. Still, I fled to the back of the Café and busied myself with sandwich prep. My stomach dropped when I heard the door chimes announce her arrival. She said hello to a couple regulars. Why was she here so early? I quickly tossed out a dozen bread slices like I was dealing cards.
“Hey,” she said, sending me to the ceiling.
