“A pleasure,” Monica said, not releasing Daniel to shake his hand. “You regularly contribute to the Chicago Gazette, don’t you?” she asked him.
“Not if I can help it.” The old man winked.
Monica laughed, and when Daniel was approached by another elderly man intent on discussing Daniel’s expansion plans for the year, Monica tightened her hold on him.
“Daniel,” she whispered, grateful that he instantly ducked his head and placed his ear almost at her lips. “Please don’t leave without letting me talk to you.”
He turned to whisper back into her ear, and his warm breath and low timbre caused a strange tightening in her tummy. “I have a better idea. Do you want to get out of here? I have a decoy car out front and another parked out back—the paps will never know we left.”
His eyes twinkled as he drew back and surveyed her reaction, and Monica felt incredibly relieved. They were both accustomed to the presence of reporters, accepted their obsession with all attractive public figures with mild indifference, but sometimes, you just wanted to get away from it all. “Please, let’s,” she said.
It took them a couple of minutes to excuse themselves separately, and then they met at the back exit door. Daniel led her down the steps and across the service parking lot, where one striking black car gleamed luxuriantly among the shabby white service trucks scattered all around.
“What happened to Grandpa?” he asked as he opened the passenger door.
She rolled her eyes heavenward when she realized he was referring to Roland, the man she’d been dating for the past year, who was more … mature. “Thanks, Danny. Really. What about your nieces?”
He laughed, the rich, achingly familiar sound bringing a smile to her lips.
“Nice wheels,” she complimented as Daniel joined her in the driver’s seat, her eyes openly admiring the red leather interior of the shiny black million-dollar car. Not everyone could afford a Bugatti Veyron, much less dare to drive it around town. But then … he was a Lexington. The fact that the license plate said BUG 3 only meant he also had a BUG 1 and BUG 2 parked somewhere, too.
“You all buckled up?” he asked, kicking into the street with a little spin in the back wheels. Men.
“No, but if you get too feisty behind the wheel, there’s always the eject button,” she said as she leaned forward to unfasten her heels. She would never, ever, do this with anyone else. But she’d grown up with Daniel. He’d seen her in far, far worse ways than anyone else she knew.
“Good one.” His grin flashed briefly, truly arresting against his sun-bronzed skin. “Where to, princess?” Seemingly as eager as Monica to get out of his costume, he pulled off his bow tie and then briskly unbuttoned the top two buttons of his white shirt.
“Just drive,” she said, sighing as she leaned back.
“Bad day?”
“Bad life. I’m on a break from Roland. You?”
He rewarded her with an even wider smile.
“What?” she demanded.
“He’s a good businessman, Monica, but definitely not the man for you. I’m glad you finally got rid of him.”
“He broke up with me,” she said.
“You’re joking. Jesus, why would anyone break up with you?” He quirked his eyebrow questioningly, looking genuinely shocked.
“Because I suck in the bedroom.”
He fell silent, his profile unreadable as he stared out at the road. “That’s not possible,” he finally said, his voice soft.
“I do. I suck and not in a good way.” She smirked, then fell quiet when she remembered her most recent frustrating attempts to make love. “I can’t seem to let loose.”
“What holds you back?”
She was so grateful to talk to someone so openly that she squeezed his hand quickly on the shift gear and then drew away. “You know what,” she said quietly, turning to look out the window.
A strange contentment spread through her. Her friendship with Daniel was a source of unlimited comfort throughout the years, and just being alone with him, as they rarely were, gave her peace and tranquility.
She couldn’t think of a person with whom she was more relaxed or unguarded. She’d never seen judgment or disapproval in his eyes, except perhaps the times she put on her mask of aloofness in a crowd, when she could see he didn’t like her stepping behind it, which would immediately then close him off to her.
But this never happened when they were alone.
“Perhaps you’re not attracted to the men you date … have you wondered about that? They’re too old for you, princess.”
His voice calling her princess began to stir her strangely. “They’re safe. Young men are too … sexual.”
He burst out laughing—a full, masculine laugh—and the warmth in that sound made her follow in infectious laughter.
“Look, I don’t enjoy sex like you!” she said, sobering. “You want a good time with a woman, someone who’s not demanding and only wants sex? I want the opposite. Someone I can go to dinner with or converse with and bounce ideas about Davenport’s with, but who won’t expect to sleep with me more than once a month.”
He didn’t laugh again; instead, his voice became oddly gentle.
“If you’d choose someone you at least have some chemistry with, it wouldn’t be a chore to sleep with them more than once a month, Monica.”
She sighed, fighting the urge that his deep timbre awoke. She wanted to snuggle to that voice, like she had so many years ago. She wanted to wrap that deep, velvet voice around her skin and let its warmth seep into her cold, unfeeling bones, until nobody could ever accuse her of stiffening when they touched her. “It’s not them, Daniel. They’re perfectly attractive men. It’s me.”
“It’s not you. It can’t possibly be you.”
It was, and she needed to fix herself. She couldn’t stand to know there was something wrong with her and keep on ignoring it. She wanted normalcy, to have a partner who was mentally ideal for her. But to do that, she at least needed to occasionally be able to pull off a good bedroom routine.
“Daniel, would you have sex with me?”
A silence fell. His eyebrows shot up in astonishment as he shifted gears and halted at a stoplight. “Is that a rhetorical question or are you actually planning to get in bed with me?”