Julie returns to me and stares as if my eyes hold the answers.
“If I don’t say yes to this, I’ll regret it,” she tells me. She moves forward, tucking her fingers in the pockets of my slacks. “I need to know something.”
“Anything.”
“What do you get out of this? You can literally hook up with anyone.”
“Yeah.” I take a breath. This is the hard part. “But I don’t want anyone. I want you. And I think you can help me.”
“With?”
“My thirty-day expiration date with women, the walls I put up, the way I run the second things get real. I’m broken.” I force myself to be honest. “I want to know why I’m so shitty at relationships. And you … you see through my bullshit. You force me to be honest when it’s easier not to.”
She studies me. “You want me to be your relationship coach? And then you pay me with orgasms?”
“When you put it like that …”
“Great! I’ll do it.” She laughs, then moves away, going to her bookshelf. “But if I’m going to help you, you’re helping me with something too.”
She pulls out a small notebook with a rose-gold cover.
“What’s that?”
“My naughty wish list.” Her cheeks turn pink. “Things I want to try, but my exes were too vanilla.”
“You have a naughty wish list?” I smirk. This is music to my ears.
“Yes, and before your mind goes to the gutter, it’s notallsex,” she says, then flips it open. “Some of it’s justexperiences.”
I scan over her neat handwriting. My eyebrows climb higher with each item.
THE “LIST”
Skinny-dipping under the stars
Sex in a semi-public place
Body shots
Mile-High Club
Domination
Phone sex
Have someone go down on me until I beg them to stop
Tied up and blindfolded
Fooling around in an elevator
O on balcony during a parade
Make a steamy sex tape
Sex in an office
Wake up to oral
