S.E.C.R.E.T. Revealed (Secret 3)

He peeled away from the curb, and when he steadied the truck on Frenchmen, he reached his right hand behind my head and gave me a warm caress.

“I’m thinking it’s time I get you naked, Cassie Robichaud.”

Despite my lingering feelings for Will, it was goddamn instant wetness with this man.

“I’m thinking the same thing.”

I had waited more than two months. Long enough for Will to change his mind. Long enough for a thaw or a shift, something that would tell me it wasn’t over between us. But that moment wasn’t coming. And frankly, Matilda was right: having sex made you want to have sex. It was a muscle; exercising it created an appetite. And I was hungry. Sitting next to Jesse, something deep in me released, the way your bra can sometimes come undone and you don’t feel it at first. You just start to breathe a little easier.

We were quiet on the short drive. He parked in front of his place in Tremé, and I let him walk around to the passenger side of the truck to open my door. I got out and followed him closely, wordlessly, on the walkway leading to his front door. I needed sex; I needed this man inside me.

In the foyer, I let him take my purse from my shoulder and drop it in the pile of kids’ unwrapped toys stuffed under a Christmas tree that would probably be up for another month. He turned my body to face him and kissed me hard, pressing me backwards into his darkened bedroom, a teak-filled room with heavy brown drapes. There, he stood me in front of his wall-mounted, full-length mirror, undressing me slowly, stopping me anytime I did anything to help.

“Don’t move. Just stand there,” he said, bending to pull off my boots and socks.

I rested a hand on his shoulder. He undid my jeans, wrestling them down, unsheathing my legs. As he slid my panties down I was conscious of how wet I was. My T-shirt and bra were next, tossed on the pile of my clothes on the nearby chair. The strangest sensation came over me, one that went beyond arousal. I realized that for the first time in my life I was just a body. My heart wasn’t in the room with me. It was all sensation, movement, touch, feel.

From behind he placed his hands on my breasts. He knew my body well. I pressed back into him, feeling his erection through his clothes against my back, my whole body leaning into it, softly rubbing it, surrendering all over again. I was doing another Step One. I need hands on me. What is wrong with that?

I closed my eyes and my head tipped back against his chest.

“You want this?” he whispered, his tongue in my ear.

Eyes closed, I nodded.

“You want me to fuck you?”

I nodded again.

He slid his hand down between my legs, over my pelvis, pulling my hips back. I wrapped my arms up and back around his neck. He slipped a finger, then another one in me. Oh god was I wet.

“There have to be rules.”

I looked at myself in the mirror, my body stretching back against his. My pulse quickened. Uh-oh. Heart, stay out of this!

“We’re both in S.E.C.R.E.T. That could get tricky. Emotionally.”

“How?”

“My Step’s coming up.”

I was looking at his face buried now in my neck.

“I know that,” I said.

He moved me closer to the mirror and placed my hands on it. Our eyes locked in the reflection.

“So it doesn’t bother you at all that I’m going to have sex with the new woman, the new candidate?” he asked, kissing my shoulder but never taking his eyes off mine in the mirror.

Steel yourself, Cassie. You know what it is to be with this man. This isn’t about love.

“I don’t have any expectations.”

“And I don’t either,” he said, moving my hair to one side and kissing my neck. “I really like you. No. I adore you, Cassie, but we’re different. You crave love. I just … I crave.”

“But you said … you said you might have been waiting for a girl like me.”

Why did I have to bring that up? And now?