26. Chapter 26
Chapter 26
I slept in on Saturday, and as soon as my eyes opened, I closed them again and buried my face in my pillow.
“God, what was I thinking?” I groaned into my pillow, the words muffled against the fluff as I remembered going to Cruz’s apartment in the middle of the night. “I was like a crazy person.”
Maybe I could smother myself with this pillow , I thought before deciding against it. I needed to get my hair color touched up before I could die. No one wanted to be lying in a casket while the funeral attendees lamented about the state of the deceased’s roots.
Rolling onto my back, I stared at nothing and did a quick playback of my middle-of-the-night sneak visit. Then I started overthinking. Was the baton thing too much? He’d looked surprised, though he did get hard. Very hard.
No, he definitely enjoyed the scene. The sight of his veins popping out the side of his neck while I was going down on him would live rent free in my brain forever. A smile pushed my cheeks upward. It was a pretty damn good blow job, if I do say so myself.
I’d felt confident and alive last night, though acting like a bossy bitch was way far out of my comfort zone. But that’s what role playing was all about, right? To do things you wouldn’t normally do. Like fucking a Viking.
I wasn’t sure what had come over me; it could’ve had something to do with the liquid courage—in the form of one of those small bottles of Fireball they display on the counter at the liquor store—I’d shot before walking down the hallway to Cruz’s.
Adjusting the pillow beneath my head, I giggled at the ceiling. I’d even tied him to his bed, which was completely unplanned.
Suddenly I sat bolt upright, reaching for my phone as a thought occurred to me. “No. No, no, no.” I searched my email and found the document Cruz had sent me. After our initial discussion about our arrangement, he’d sent me an extremely detailed list of limits we could both fill out. I’d read his over after he sent it, but I thought I remembered…
Scrolling down the list, I found the item I was looking for:
Are you okay with being tied down? Answer: No.
“Fuck!” I squeaked out. “Noooooo.”
The number one rule when playing sexual games of any kind was to respect each other’s clear boundaries, and I’d obliterated this one last night. How could he ever trust me again?”
I ran through the memory once more in my head, cringing when I thought of sitting on top of Cruz and binding his hands to the bed frame with my tie. It had felt like such a sexy thing to do at the time.
He hadn’t said anything. Why hadn’t he said anything? Shit!
My fingernails drummed against my lips as I paced back and forth. What should I do? What if he’d had some kind of traumatic experience while he was in the Marine Corps and that’s why he didn’t want to be tied up? Maybe he’d been captured or something and… Oh god, this is a nightmare.
I had to go check on him to make sure he was okay. Clipping my hair on top of my head, I quickly showered, brushed my teeth, and got dressed in a purple workout set. Then I walked to his apartment and knocked.
No answer. Shit. Just to make sure he wasn’t lying on his bed in a traumatic ball, I used my key card to open his door. After a quick search of the apartment, I determined he wasn’t there.
He wasn’t resuming work until next week, so maybe he’d gone out to run errands or for an early lunch. Might as well get your workout done to burn off some of this nervous energy, you rule-breaking perv.
Our apartment building was swanky as hell and had a workout room on each level, designated only for the residents of that floor. It was nice not to have to battle for machines with everyone in the building. Walking to the end of the hallway, I pushed open the glass doors and stepped into the small foyer. As I rounded the corner into the main room, which was beautifully done with hardwood floors and mirrored walls, I froze.
Cruz Estrada was in the weight room on the far side of the gym. He had a bar laden with what looked like a couple tons of weights across his shoulders, and he was doing squats.
I’m not ashamed to say that I gawked. His thigh muscles were thick and moved like fluid beneath his caramel skin. The black tank he wore covered what I knew was a strong back, and his ass? Have mercy! It was like God and Satan had joined forces to sculpt Cruz’s behind. Beauty and temptation combined to form two very fine gluteus maximus muscles that perfectly filled out his tight black shorts.
Oh, and to top it all off, he had his hat on backward. My damn weakness.
I was happy to see I wasn’t the only one staring. The poor woman running on the treadmill in the main room was ogling so hard, she lost her footing and had to grab onto the handles to keep from falling off the machine. She was dressed in beige-colored shorts and a matching sports bra, giving the impression that she was working out naked.
My attention went back to Cruz. He seemed okay, but the gym wasn’t the best place to have the kind of serious discussion I needed to have with him. Not with someone else present anyway.
Go away, lady. You’re hot enough already.
She didn’t heed my silent plea, instead choosing to shut down the treadmill and head to one of the machines that I didn’t know the name of. It did involve a lot of leg spreading though as she kept her gaze trained on the glassed-in weight room.
A frisson of jealousy arced through my chest. Naked girl was definitely interested. But hells bells, who wouldn’t be?
Cruz finished his set and wiped down with a plush dove-gray towel before exiting the small room with the weights. I pulled back, finding his reflection in one of the mirrored walls. He climbed on one of the treadmills and worked up a nice jog while watching his phone and laughing at whatever he saw there.
Okay, he doesn’t seem to be traumatized, I noted with relief, though I still wanted to talk to him about last night. My phone rang in my pocket, and I stifled a surprised scream. Ducking quickly out into the corridor, I answered in a rush.
“Hello?”
“Hey, girl! Still on for lunch today?” Nicolette’s cheery voice asked.
“Lunch? Today?” I asked breathlessly, running to my apartment like I’d been caught doing something illegal.
“Um, yes. We’re meeting Artie at that breakfast shop he’s been wanting to try. Are you okay? You sound out of breath.”
“Just left the workout room,” I panted as I entered my living room and flopped onto the couch. It wasn’t technically a lie.
“Okay, I’ll let you get cleaned up. See you in an hour.”
“Seriously, it was the most uninspiring sexual experience of my life,” Nicolette complained, sipping on her mimosa. “And I’ve had some boring sex in my days.”
Artie and I shared a glance. We’d heard similar stories from Nic for years.
“And where did you meet this lousy lay?” Artie asked.
Our friend lets out a long sigh. “At a convention.”
“Therein lies the problem,” I commented. “You need to have smexy times with someone other than other scientists.”
“And the people said Amen ,” Artie sang, raising his own champagne glass in the air. “You need to get you a big, hairy biker dude, honey.”
Nicolette looked appalled. “Not my type.”
“Ohhh, that’s right. Your type is men who don’t know what to do with their penises,” Artie said a bit too loudly. Two women who appeared to be in their eighties gasped as they passed our table, and Artie gave them an overexaggerated smile and a sarcastic twiddle of his fingers.
“I like clean-cut guys. I just want a dirty clean-cut guy,” Nicolette clarified.
“Clean-cut doesn’t necessarily mean a science nerd,” I mused. “What about, like, an accountant or something?”
Nic gave me a droll roll of her green eyes. “The only accountant I know is my own. His name is Earl, and he sucks his teeth while he talks.” In demonstration, she placed her tongue against her top teeth and emitted a long sucking noise.
Giggling, I mouthed a thank you to the server, who was dropping off our breakfast sandwiches. I was feeling a little better after seeing that Cruz looked okay today at the gym and now that I was with my crazy friends.
“What about work? How are things in the lab?” I queried, changing the subject.
Her nose scrunched. “My boss is a bitchy, micro-managing, shrew who is driving me cuckoo pants. Last week she told me she wanted to observe me running an HPLC assay to make sure I was doing it correctly. I mean really! A first-year grad student could do that, and I have two doctorate degrees.” She held up two fingers to prove her point.
“The, um, H-L-what?” I asked. Sometimes I wasn’t sure Nicolette was actually speaking English.
“HPLC,” she corrected. “It's a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatograph, and I’ve been running them for over a decade.” She waved a hand at Artie, whose mouth was gaping so wide, a piece of egg fell out and onto his lap. “Hell, even he could do it.”
Artie closed his mouth and lifted a doubtful eyebrow. “Yes, well, I think I’ll pass on running the chromosome-o-graph of asses or whatever. I wouldn’t want to embarrass the other scientists.”
Nicolette giggled. “Chromatography assays, and my boss isn’t even a scientist. She has a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies.”
Artie and I shared a stunned expression. “How the hell is she running that lab then?” I asked. Nicolette had a PhD in biochemistry, an MD with a residency in dermatology, and a master’s in microbiology. I couldn’t imagine anyone being more qualified than her.
“Oh, she’s not. I run the entire lab, but she has the title—and the corresponding salary—because she’s the CEO’s favorite niece. The other day she asked what I was doing, and I told her I was checking a sample for mercury. She asked what a planet had to do with cosmetics.”
I pressed my forehead against my palm and shook my head. “Please tell me that’s not true.”
“It’s the god’s honest truth, and I’m not sure how much more of this shit I can take.” She pushed her glasses up her nose and took a bite of her bacon, egg, and cheese croissant.
“What are you going to do?” Artie asked.
Nic’s pretty face contorted into a wince. “I’ve put in an application with Hale Cosmetics.”
“That’s the one in Houston?” I could feel my heart dripping with sadness. Of course I wanted my friend to do what was best for her career, but I’d miss her if she was all the way in Texas.
She gave me a gloomy smile. “I don’t want to move, but cosmetic research and development is my jam, and they’re supposed to have the best in-house lab in the country.”
I put on my brave face and my best smile for her sake. “Then you did the right thing. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”
“Fingers and toes,” Artie added, and we each reached across the table to squeeze one of Nicolette’s hands.
“Hey, what are you wearing to the party?” Gianna asked down the phone line as I walked home from the restaurant.
“Oh, uh, hmmm.” To be honest, I’d forgotten Gia had invited me to a party tonight at Monty Bouvier’s apartment. Her brother-in-law had just moved into our building this week. “Not sure. Maybe my gold off-the-shoulder top?”
Which happens to be at the dry cleaner’s , I remembered, doing a U-turn in the middle of the sidewalk to go pick it up.
“Ooooh yes! That looks so pretty on you.”
“Should I wear a skirt or pants?” I asked, mentally flicking through my wardrobe.
“I’m wearing jeans. It’s really casual, mostly family.”
“Okay, gold top, jeans, and my gold gladiator sandals.”
“Sounds great,” she replied. “I think I’ll wear that red shirt with the little ruffles on the shoulders.”
“That would be cute with your red kitten heels.”
“Boom. Decided. Thanks, girl. I’ll see you tonight.”
“See ya.”
As I approached the dry cleaner’s, I remembered that I’d thrown out my gold sandals when one of the straps broke, so after picking up my top, I sought out a shoe store. Then I decided to pick up a housewarming gift for Monty, grabbing a bottle of wine before heading home.
I spent the rest of the day taking a long, hot bath to rid myself of the soreness from last night’s activities and primping myself for the party.
Because Cruz was good friends with Monty, and I was pretty sure he’d be there tonight.