Devastated

“Benji!”

Realizing that Eumie had called his name twice in succession, and that he had been pounding away more harshly than he’d intended, he stopped. He rolled his hips more gently, searching for the angle that made the eyes roll toward the back of her head. He found a rhythm and depth that made her tighten her hands around his forearms.

“Damn, you’re so good,” she moaned.

Minutes later, she was convulsing and screaming. He used the moment to thrust harder and quicker, but his release didn’t come as soon as expected. Withdrawing, he flipped her onto her stomach before plunging back in. He slapped his pelvis against her creamy white buttocks—and when he pictured himself sinking into Kimani’s arse, he erupted.

How many women would he have to fuck before he stopped seeing Kimani in his mind? he wondered as he lay in post-coital haze with Eumie curled beside him.

He thought about the man who had broken into Kimani’s place. What the fuck was Jake up to? Could he trust the San Francisco police to figure it out? Or Bataar and the former Secret Service he hired?

Ben wanted answers, and he wanted them now. He wasn’t content to just sit and wait for SFPD or Bataar. He didn’t like that he was over 5,000 miles away, unable to do shit. And if he could resolve the issue and put his mind at ease, then maybe he could finally be done with her.

He would fly out to San Francisco himself.

Sooner rather than later.

WRAPPED IN A THICK robe, May, who had finished a massage treatment at the hotel spa, stood at the edge of the pool.

“I meant to text you earlier that Eumie is here,” she said as Ben got out of the water. “I tried to hint to her that you were interested in someone in California.”

Ben toweled off his wet hair. “She didn’t take the hint.”

“Sorry about that. I tried to spare you.”

Ben sat down on a lounge chair and ordered tea from the poolside server, aware that May was eying him keenly.

“Guess it was just as well,” May continued. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”

May had never been a big fan of Eumie’s, possibly because May

had hit on Eumie first, and Eumie had not received May’s flirtation as a compliment.

Lying back, he closed his eyes. “So what if I did?”

“Don’t you remember what she was like?”

“She’s not interested in getting back together.”

May snorted. “Of course that’s what she’s going to tell you. She’s old school at this game. She knows playing hard to get still works with men.”

Ben wondered if Kimani had ever played hard to get. He couldn’t see it.

“Maybe she’s at the same place as me,” he said. “Women aren’t always interested in a relationship. You were the one who told me that women are not biologically predisposed to monogamy, that it’s a construct men imposed on women to keep them from having too much sex.”

May rolled her eyes. “But, deep down, Eumie’s old fashioned. She wants that giant diamond on her finger.”

“Her Hollywood boyfriend could have given her that.”

“I wouldn’t just take her word for it that she dumped him. She never struck me as the most truthful person. She reminds me of one of those femme fatale movie characters.”

“May, stop worrying.”

“She’s trying to sink her hooks into you.”

“You don’t know that. And even if she were, I can take care of myself.”

His sister shook her head. “Men have blind spots when it comes to women. You could have the IQ of Albert Einstein, but when you think with your dick, you’re dumber than shit.”