Page 56 of Scandalized

“You’re doing okay today?” he asks. “I’m sorry I couldn’t check in until now.”

Rolling over onto my side, I stare out the expansive window. As expected, every big feeling is so much more manageable in daylight. I’d be embarrassed about my meltdown last night but maybe that’s Alec’s superpower. He doesn’t make emotions feel like a dirty word. “I’m good.” I adjust the pillow under my head. “I’m glad you called. I was just missing you.”

“Yeah?”

“Wishing I hadn’t just gone back to sleep last night. Feels like a wasted opportunity.”

The line falls into a tiny pool of silence. “You’re in bed thinking about me,” he says, half question, half realization.

His tone has changed, dropped, quieted. And in an instant my body is awake. “I am. Where are you?”

“Walking to a car,” he says. “One place to the next.” Another pause and then a playful, “Are you wearing anything?”

I look down at the terry cloth twisted around my midsection. “I finished up work and then showered, thinking I’d climb into bed for ten minutes. So,” I say, “I’m half wearing a towel.”

“And nothing underneath?”

My hand slides up over my stomach. Tight anticipation builds under my palm. “No.”

I can just hear his quiet groan over the sound of him walking, the clatter of a cart.

“Are you alone?” I ask.

“For now. Walking out to the back of the building to meet my driver.”

“Ah.” I bite my bottom lip, imagining his long, purposeful strides as he moves down a hallway, along a back alley to a private car. I remember what he put on this morning: black trousers, a simple white button-down shirt. Three-quarters asleep, I’d watched him check his reflection in the mirror, hands in pockets, hands out.

“When you’re alone,” he begins, breaking into my thoughts, “alone and… turned on… what do you think about?”

I grin, and my cheeks heat. “Really?”

“Really.”

I close my eyes, thinking. “I haven’t really done that in a while.”

“Then think about me,” he prompts quietly. And then adds, “Tell me about the time you liked the most.”

“That is an impossible request.”

“Pick one. Don’t think.”

His full mouth flashes in my mind. “The first hotel room in LA.”

“Why that one?” I can hear his smile, like he already knows the answer.

My hand slips over my breast. I was still a little mad at him, full of heat and sharp edges. I remember his kiss on the swell of my breast, the way he groaned. The wet, placating circle of his tongue on the peak. And then the obliterating heat of his lips trailing down my body. “You put your mouth on me.”

I hear another man’s voice greeting him and then a car door closes. “In the car now,” he says quietly. Formally. “You’ll need to walk me through this from here on out.”

My hand stills on my breast. “I—” I open my eyes, blink up at the ceiling. “You want me to get myself off while you just listen?”

“Yes.”

Heat floods my cheeks. “I don’t usually talk.”

“I honestly can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this collaboration,” he says with a laugh in his voice.

“Shit.” I laugh into the phone. “You’re serious?”