S.E.C.R.E.T.: An Erotic Novel (13 page)

“Know what’s for dessert?” he said, turning to face me, an eyebrow cocked. “You.”

He took a few steps towards me and enveloped me in his arms, kissing me again. Then
he gently lifted me onto the
table and left me there, legs dangling. I watched him walk over to the walk-in fridge
and disappear inside.

“Let’s see now …” he said. He emerged with an armful of containers and the whipped
cream dispenser.

“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.

“Close your eyes and lie back.”

And with that, he moved to my ankles, circled them with his hands and yanked me to
the bottom edge of the table. Then he parted my legs with embarrassing ease. I let
out a giggly scream that came to a stunned halt when he squirted whipped cream in
the middle of my belly button. Then he squirted two dollops on each nipple and regarded
his work earnestly.

“What are you doing!”

“Making dessert. I’m a pastry chef in real life, if you can believe it. Let’s see … one
more …” And with that, he drew a line of whipped cream from my belly button all the
way down. Then he grabbed the container with the chocolate icing and gently dolloped
some of that on me. He reached over and took a single maraschino cherry and placed
it over my belly button. I tried to stop giggling but couldn’t. It was all cold and
ticklish and also incredibly hot. He gave his work a long look, then bent and closed
his mouth over my belly button, took in the cherry and licked the cream clean off.
Then he smeared the icing across my breasts, while his mouth made its eager descent.
His sticky hands soon followed, crossing my torso, my stomach, then parting my legs.
His tongue was hot and lush. At first he just lapped,
not touching me directly, and I felt I would die if he didn’t. Then, finally, he closed
his mouth around me, moving it around and around, soft, hot, sticky, sending me into
a narcotic haze. I felt his fingers tickle around the outside of me, their firmness
complementing his soft, wet licks as he cleaned all the cream off me. I was aching
for it like never before. He pulled me so quickly to the brink that I had to grasp
the sides of the table to stabilize myself.

Then he stopped.

“Why are you stopping?” I gasped, breathless. I looked down at his hungry eyes, the
back of his hand wiping the cream off his cheek.

“Cassie, could you feel what I was doing with my tongue?”

Um, yeah. I could
definitely
feel what he was doing. It was making me crazy.

“Yes,” I said as calmly as I could.

“I want you to do that with your fingers. In front of me.
For
me.”

“You want me to
what
?” I felt drunk as I looked at him, his face still adorably smeared with whipped cream.

“I want to watch you touch yourself,” he said.

“But … I don’t know how, really. I suck at it. I can get started, but then I feel … I
don’t know … and with you watching, I—”

“Give me your hand.”

I reluctantly placed my hand in his. He held it firmly, guiding it to where I was
hot and wet. He isolated my index finger. He placed it gently on me, and using his
mouth there,
he made me newly wet. His hand guided my finger in circles, his tongue darting around
me. Oh God, it was incredible.

“I don’t know what tastes better, you or the cream,” he said.

Once I found the rhythm, he let go of my hand and my own fingers continued, while
he gently moved his mouth over me. His hands grabbed the insides of my thighs, pressing
them down into the table. He stopped for a second and watched me. I was on the very
edge of ecstasy. I flung my head back, trying to take it all in, these sensations.
He watched as I touched myself. Then his mouth soon joined my fingers.

“You feel that? You like that?” he said, between feverish licks.

“Oh yeah,” I said, feeling every pulse and matching it with my own. I wasn’t sure
where the orgasm was building, but it was coming from someplace new, someplace deep,
his wet tongue pulling something out of the very core of me. He pushed his fingers
into me until they couldn’t go any deeper, and as his other hand pressed my thighs
open, pleasure ignited every fiber of my body. He sensed all the energy building inside
me.

“Holy shit,” I said, almost afraid of what was about to happen, like it was all going
to be too much, and that’s when the white hotness shot through me, forcing my hips
higher, his cue to take over, pushing my hand away, kissing and licking me with vigor.
The rush was so strong, it made me feel like I had to hold on to something, anything,
for dear life.

“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod” was all I could muster, writhing on the slippery table, not
caring if I crashed over
the side, dizzy with bliss. He clutched me, holding everything very still, until he
could tell I was coming down off from the precipice. And when my orgasm subsided,
he gently wiped his face on the inside of my thighs.

“That was … wow … really strong, Cassie. I could feel it.”

“Yes. It was,” I said, flinging my arm over my forehead like I’d just woken from a
dream.

“Wanna do it again?”

I laughed. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that again.”

He peeled himself off me, grabbed a couple of towels from below the table and soaked
them for a few seconds in warm water at the sink by the fridge.

“Oh, you will.”

“Where’d they find you?” I asked, slowly sitting up.

“Who?”

I let my legs dangle over the side of the table as he returned to me and began gently
cleaning the stickiness off me with a warm towel. “The women from S.E.C.R.E.T.”

“I’m not allowed to say, unless you become a member.”

He brought the other towel to my face and hands. He was thorough and gentle at the
same time.

“Do you have kids?” I asked, out of nowhere.

There was a long pause. “I have … a son. We’re doing too much talking, Cassie.”

I could totally picture his son, a little boy who looked exactly like him but with
bigger cheeks and no tattoos.

“Do they pay you to do this?”

He was wiping my arms, the towel turning over the soft
skin on my wrists. “ ’Course not. They don’t need to pay me to do what I just did.
I’d do that for you
any
time.”

“So what’s in it for you?”

He stopped then, my hand in the towel. He looked sternly into my face for a few seconds.
“You really don’t know, do you.”

“Know what?”

“How beautiful you are.”

I was speechless, my heart near to bursting. I had no choice but to believe him. He
seemed so sincere. He finished wiping me and then tossed the dirty towels over his
shoulder. He plucked his hoodie off the floor. He passed me my clothes and we both
got dressed, mostly.

“Let me help you clean up,” he said, kicking an empty garbage pail to the center of
the room. It took us ten minutes to toss all the broken boxes, salvaging two. I filled
a pail with hot water to wash the floor and I told him I could do the rest.

“Don’t want to, but I gotta go now. Those are the rules. Thanks for dessert. And the
cracked rib. And the broken elbow,” he said, inching towards me. He hesitated at first,
and then he stepped forward and placed a firm kiss on my lips.

“You’re cool,” he said.

“You’re cool too,” I said, surprised to hear myself say it out loud. “Will I see you
again?”

“It’s possible. But the odds are against me.”

Then he backed out of the kitchen door, winked and left the Café. I watched him trot
down the darkened street, the door chimes ringing goodbye.

I thought I had gotten rid of all the evidence. But there in the bright light of the
next morning, I watched as Dell went over the stainless steel with a cloth and some
special solvent. Maybe it was my imagination, but while she worked it was almost as
if she was shooting me an admonishing look, one that said:
I don’t know how a butt print got on my table, but I am not about to ask
.

I scanned the kitchen for my tray and, when I found it, bolted out the door to the
dining room, only to run into another set of equally accusatorial eyes, this time
Matilda’s. She was sitting stock-still at table eight. I made my way towards her.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered, looking around.

“What do you mean, Cassie? This is one of my favorite cafés in New Orleans. Do you
have a second to chat?”

“I
only
have a second,” I said, lying, dropping a menu on the table. “It’s been so busy.
We’ve been down a waitress, and I’ve been working like a dog.”

Truthfully, I was avoiding this conversation with Matilda because I was worried I’d
broken the rules by talking to last night’s man for too long and asking too many personal
questions. I looked around the nearly empty restaurant. The breakfast crowd wouldn’t
hit for another half hour. Will was probably still at Tracina’s, knowing I was scheduled
for the breakfast shift. I slid into the chair, feeling guilty, but for what I didn’t
know.

“Did you have fun last night? With Jesse?” she asked.

“Jesse? That’s his name?” Butterflies roused in my stomach.

“Yes. Jesse. First of all, I’m sorry if you were at all taken aback by his late arrival.”

“It all worked out. Really well, actually,” I said, looking down. “I … liked him.”

“That’s the other thing I’m here for. I think you’ve left an impression on him too,
Cassie.”

My heart leapt a little at the idea, and yet it was also flooded with the strange
improbability of it all.

“Listen, it happens sometimes. People make a connection. Something clicks, and people
want to know a little bit more about each other. So. What I can tell you is this:
I can facilitate a meeting between you and Jesse. But if that’s your choice, you’d
be done. Your journey would end at Step Three. You’d be out of S.E.C.R.E.T. So would
he.”

I gulped.

“Truthfully,” she added. “I didn’t think Jesse is your type. I mean, he’s sexy, but
he’s …”

“Married?”

“Divorced. But I can’t say anything more than that, Cassie. You think about it. I’ll
give you a week.”

“Is he … Does he … want to see more of me?”

“Yes. He does,” she said, a little sadly. “He’s made that clear. Listen, Cassie. I
can’t tell you what to do, but I will say this: you’re thriving. I can see it. I’d
hate to see you stop this momentum for a man you know nothing about, so soon into
your journey, based on one great night.”

“Does it happen a lot?”

“Many women do end self-exploration prematurely. Most regret it. Not just in S.E.C.R.E.T.
but in life.”

Matilda placed her hand over mine, just as Will made his hurried way from the kitchen
through the dining area, past us to where Tracina was attempting to parallel-park
his truck in a small spot on the street in front of the restaurant. Even from where
I was sitting, I could see it was a bad idea.

“Jesus! Stop! I told you to wait for me!” he yelled out the door.

I couldn’t make out what Tracina said in reply, but it was loud and animated; the
truck was askew and blocking traffic out front.

This is what it’s like to have a boyfriend, I thought, and this is what it’s like
to be someone’s girlfriend. You spend your days careening between bliss and disappointment,
love and a bit of loathing, your every action weighed against the approval and disapproval
of someone else. You don’t own them and they don’t own you, yet you’re responsible
for their every want and desire, some you can satisfy, some you never, ever will.
Did I want that right now? Did I want to be some man’s girlfriend? Did I even know
anything about this man Jesse? A tattooed pastry chef who lives God-knows-where and
has a kid? Sure, we had chemistry. But still. I hardly knew him!

Just as I was going over all of these things in my mind, outside the window I saw
Tracina get out of the awkwardly parked truck and slam the door. I watched her as
she
dangled the keys in front of Will’s face and then threw them at his feet.

Will picked up the keys and stood still for a few seconds, staring straight ahead.

“You know what?” I said, turning to Matilda once more. “I don’t need any more time
to think this through. I know what I want to do. I want more. I want S.E.C.R.E.T.”

Matilda smiled. She gently placed my Step Three charm in my hand and patted it shut.
“Jesse forgot to give this to you. But I think I’m the right person to offer it.”

I looked at the word on the charm:
Trust
. Yes. But did I trust that I had made the right choice?