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We had nine months to figure everything else out. Or was it eight?
I learned that she was smart. Not in an “I went to an Ivy League,” but more in a street-smart way that I found incredibly attractive. You could go to Harvard and still not know shit about the world. I knew plenty of people like that, and they failed to impress me in the way Addison did.
I felt oddly insignificant next to her, which was saying something coming from the guy who had his ego fed by everyone around him. What she did mattered more than anything I had contributed to the world.
She was worldly in a way that most weren’t. She’d been to places I couldn’t even imagine because of her work with the nonprofit. Places people would never go to willingly. The way she talked about her job and the things she’d seen spoke volumes about her character. Her heart. Which was why her name was so fitting, and why I wanted it to be a normal thing rolling off of my tongue.
All of her brains and her passion were wrapped in a package I was dying to get my hands on again. To slowly unwrap her like the gift she was. It was all I could think about lately, which was why my eyes couldn’t help but wander over the white number she put on today.
The buttons struggling to contain her creamy breasts, the hem of her skirt riding up slightly as she slid across the leather seat. It was beginning to feel like torture being in such a confined space with someone I had once peeked inside. I closed my eyes, remembering her spread open on my bar, her nails digging into my back.
I heard Armand clear his throat, breaking me out of my thoughts. I looked up and caught his eye in the rearview mirror, a smile on his face.
“To work, sir?”
“Yes, please. Thank you, Armand.”
He nodded and pulled away from the curb. I watched as Addison’s office began to fade away with the distance. It just hit me that I wouldn’t see her the next morning. It was Friday, which meant I didn’t have a reason to drive to Brooklyn. Now I wished I had realized it sooner. I could have asked her to lunch or to dinner. I sighed. It was going to be a long weekend.
My phone buzzed just then. I pulled it from my jacket pocket and saw Kiera’s name flash across the screen. I rolled my eyes and debated answering. I went against my better judgment and hit the green button.
“Hello?” I answered.
“My knight in shining armor,” said Kiera, nearly purring.
“Excuse me?”
“The other night…at the club…”
I had done the gentlemanly thing and made sure she got her wasted ass home after I left Freddy’s birthday party early.
“Oh, right. I’m glad you got home okay.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Well, thanks to my driver.”
“Either way, I was completely wasted. I barely even remember leaving. If it weren’t for you, I don’t know where I would have ended up.”
Probably in some billionaire’s bed, which was how she ended up getting married the first two times.
“I do what I can,” I said.
“Well, I want to say thank you.”
“You just did.”
“No, silly. I want to take you out, so I canreallysay thank you.”
I knew that voice. It was the one she used to get anything she wanted. It was almost whispery, and dripping with sex. It had worked on me too many times to count in the past.
“That’s not necessary,” I said.
“Daniel…”
“How about the next time I’m up for bid at a charity auction, you can bid on me.”
I heard her huff on the other line.