Wherever It Leads(67)

“I’m sure you don’t. You can pick me up and take me somewhere and use that damn cashmere voice and sexy smirk and have my pants off in two seconds flat. Not happening.”

He pauses. “If I have my way, it won’t take two seconds.”

“Fenton . . .”

“What if I promise you I won’t?”

“You won’t what?”

“I won’t f*ck you . . . first.”

I can’t stop the laugh that bubbles in my throat. “Fuck me first? Like it’s a guarantee?”

“Let’s be real. If we’re together, we’re gonna f*ck. You made me promise that, remember?” he teases.

I could argue with him and pretend to be Superwoman and have some sort of feminine resistance to his charms, but it’d be a lie and we both know it.

“Just let me pick you up. We’ll talk and you can ask whatever you want,” he says in a tone I haven’t heard from him before. It’s a touch shaky, a little nervous. “And then we’ll f*ck.”

“You promise to answer everything?”

After a brief delay, he says, “Yes.”

“You promise to make me come on your face?”

“Oh, rudo, I promise to make you come any way you’d like.”

I catch my reflection in the mirror. My cheeks are pink, a wide smile on my face. This is what Presley was talking about and she’s right—there’s no sense in not being happy if I can be. Being miserable isn’t going to help anything.

Pulling my towel completely off my shoulders, my hair doesn’t look too bad for not brushing it out right after my shower. “I can be ready in an hour.”

“I’ll be there.”

“See you soon.”





I hold up a yellow blouse and look into the mirror. I’m all over the place, unable to make a simple choice about what to wear.

My phone sits in front of me on the dresser, right where I left it after talking to my mother. She sounded eerily calm, sort of sleepy. She said they were suing Mandla and that my father had lost his passport so he couldn’t go to Africa until he got it replaced and he was pissed about it. I’m not sure how much of that is true and how much is the result of her medication.

A part of me feels guilty for looking forward to seeing Fenton and not being with my parents. But what good would it really do? And my mother’s sister came into town and is staying with them, so that helps ease my burden.

“Screw it.” I start to pull the hem of my red silk camisole over my head when the door to my room swings open and slams shut, rattling the picture on the wall. Spinning in a circle, I see Presley standing with her back pressed against the door. My typically unshakable best friend has eyes the size of saucers.

“My God, Brynnie,” she breathes, her hand slapping against her chest in an over-the-top fashion. “He. Is. Fucking. Gorgeous.”

“I know. Did you get close enough to smell him?”

“Lord no! If I’d gotten that close, I’m afraid I would’ve just started licking him like a popsicle. I know he’s yours and I’m not that kind of girl,” she flashes me her heart tattoo that matches mine, “But you’d have to have forgiven me because—have you f*cking seen him?”

Laughing, I turn back to the mirror. The camisole with skinny jeans and heels will have to do. I run a hand over my hair to smooth a fly-away as I turn back to her. “Of course I’ve seen him. With and without clothes, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know which one I prefer.”

“I saw him before. The workout pants at the grocery was one thing, but he’s in a f*cking suit and it’s a completely different level now. He’s not just lickable, he’s edible.” She side-eyes me. “If I’d seen him like that first, I’d have fought you for him.”

“You have no idea,” I tease, grabbing my purse off the bed. “The things that man can do . . .”

“You’ve been holding out,” she says, stepping away from the door. “I know there are details I haven’t gotten, and I’m going to demand every single one of them when you get back. If I can’t have him, I want the fantasy, and I’m not even sorry I’m fantasizing about your man.”

“He’s not my man.” I cringe as the words float from my lips because it’s true. He’s not. Part of me wants to declare him mine anyway, but there’s the other, stupid, logical half that reminds me I have questions that haven’t been answered.

And he hasn’t exactly said he wants the job.

“No, but once your vagina touched him, he’s off limits.”

I look at her in disbelief. “You never fail to just astound me with your brilliant language.”

She pats me on the shoulder. “If I needed a job, I would’ve been a reporter. With these babies,” she lifts her boobs up with her hands, “They would’ve put me on TV.”

“If you didn’t actually talk first,” I laugh, pulling the door open. Fenton’s cologne hits me right away. I stutter-step, inhaling a lungful of the eau de male. Presley comes up beside me and does the very same thing.

We stand there, taking whiffs of the air like two bloodhounds looking for the target. We both breathe in at the same time and burst into a fit of giggles.