“I’m serious about the rain check,” she said as she gathered her toys and zipped up her bag. “I love f**king you.”

“I love f**king you, too...and you’d love it if you let me.”

“We’ve had this talk. I don’t let anyone top me anymore.”

“Except for Søren.”

“Søren has needs.” She hated having this conversation with Griffin. Griffin loved reminding her she was a switch, and as a switch, she should be a little more flexible in the bedroom, i.e., let him top her every now and then. As much as that fantasy appealed to her, she’d tried subbing with other men, and all she’d done during the sex was think of Søren the entire time. He was the only man she let top her these days and even then only on rare occasion. Griffin deserved better than that. He deserved better than this, too. But for Wes? Anything.

“I have needs, too. I need someone who isn’t going to dump me for someone else after making plans with me.”

Nora stood by the door and stared back at Griffin—gorgeous, kinky, rich, hilarious, sexy as f**k Griffin. And she did want to stay and have her wild night of sex and kink with Griffin. All she had to do was call Wes back and say, “Hey, something’s up. I had to go. You’ll have to get your own pen.” And Wes would say, “Okay.”

But she didn’t.

“I hope you find her someday, then. Or him.”

Nora turned to leave but a question from Griffin stopped her.

“Who is he?” Griffin asked.

Nora winced, not wanting to bring Wesley into this part of her world.

“No one you know.”

“You like him?”

Nora gave him her best apologetic shrug.

“Enough to give up sex with you for.”

Griffin laughed softly, laughed enough to tell her she was forgiven.

“Damn.”

Damn indeed.

* * *

“So you left this man Griffin for your Wesley? I’m not impressed,” Marie-Laure said, pulling Nora from her memory and out of her story.

“I’m not done yet,” Nora reminded her testily. She hated being interrupted when she was on a roll. “Story’s not over. Do you want to hear the ending or not?”

“I hope it’s a happy ending. You paint quite a picture. Your Griffin sounds lovely. Another younger man of yours?”

“Not that much younger. He’s twenty-nine.”

“A very good age.”

“It’s a very good age to be Griffin. He’s currently ass over ears in love with a teenage boy. I introduced them. One of my better matches.”

“A teenager? You have no morals, do you?”

“If he’s old enough to join the army, he’s old enough to get it from Griffin. And you married an eighteen-year-old, Captain Morality. Oh, and you killed someone.”

“I never said I had morals. I’m simply pleased to find that you don’t, either.”

“Let’s be best friends,” Nora said. “We can braid each other’s hair and murder runaways together.”

“Let’s. After your story, s’il vous plaît. It’s enjoyable but I still don’t understand why you love this Wesley boy of yours so much. I certainly wouldn’t have sacrificed a night with your friend Griffin for a night of editing a teenager’s term paper.”

“Some things are more important than sex. Wes...he was more important than sex.”

“An interesting statement from a woman who used to sell her body.”

“I never sold my body. I only sold my time and talents. And that’s something any working woman can say—secretary or Dominatrix or both. And there’s not a mother on the planet who hasn’t had to say no to fun in order to help her kid with his homework.”

“So that’s why you loved your Wesley? He was like your son?”

Nora exhaled heavily. No, Wesley wasn’t her son. He’d been her sun, but there was no explaining something like that to someone so deep in darkness.

“Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”

“By all means, carry on.”

Nora left Griffin’s and drove into the fading sunlight of evening. All the way there she plotted playful revenge on Wesley. She was going to have to do something to punish him for taking her away from a night of food, sex, massages, kink, more sex and the eight most impressive inches of manhood in the East Village. She’d come up with something good. She always did. She could put tampons on the next grocery list. That might be too cruel. After all, she didn’t have periods anymore thanks to her IUD. Not that Wesley knew that. Tampons and yeast infection cream. That would do it. And condoms and lube, the flavored kind. That would stoke his virginal imagination, wouldn’t it? She briefly considered putting Hershey bars on the grocery list, too, but that would be a bit too cruel even for her. Wes might be a virgin by choice, but he never asked to be a type 1 diabetic.

But seriously, he deserved a little torture for dragging her all the way back to Westport from the city just to bring him his insulin pen and read his midterm paper. She caught herself smiling as she contemplated the various tortures. Goddammit, why did doing things for him make her so happy? She pulled onto their street and furrowed her brow. There, in her damn driveway, sat Wes’s yellow VW bug. What the hell? If he was home, why did he need her to get his pen for him? Did that little twerp actually make her abandon a night with Griffin for absolutely no reason whatsoever?