“For starters, you currently have to decide if you want to press charges against my bar for not having ample security staff, resulting in damages toyourbar.”
“Monroe, I’m not going to sue you over a few windows.”
“Why? Because you got some pussy out of it?”
Hurt and indignation immediately flood his features.
“I didn’t mean that,” I rush to explain. “I was just trying to prove my point. This is complicated. I don’t know where we go from here.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“That’s kind of beside the point,” I answer. “Our professional lives are part of this. We’re professionals. We have more to think about than just what we want.”
To my surprise, he starts to chuckle.
“What?” I demand.
“It’s just...you sound like me right now.”
“Well you’re usually very reasonable,” I admit. “Usually.”
His tone darkens. “Maybe I’m too reasonable.”
I watch the lines in his face deepen, and I’m about to ask what he means before he continues in a lighter voice, stroking my leg as he does.
“Maybe there’s more than what we want involved, but it’s a good place to start. So I’ll ask again: what do you want, Monroe? Do you want to see me again?”
The brush of his thumb along my thigh adds extra weight to the word ‘see,’ but I’m still a bit shocked by the question. I was expecting us to navigate our way out of a one night stand, not make plans to do it all over again.
I try to tell him just that, but the words get lodged in my throat.
What do you want?
The answer is impossible to ignore: I want this. I want to chuck both our phones out the window and stay in this bed all day, learning the language of each other’s bodies, drifting in and out of sleep between lessons. I know I can’t have that today, so I want the next best thing. I want to see him again.
“Yes,” I answer. I don’t see the point in hiding it. I tried to deny how much I wanted him to both of us, and that just ended with me in his bed. Clearly ignoring our attraction isn’t going to make it stop. “Yes, I want that, but I also want to keep Taverne Toulouse, and you’re about to open a bar that will in all likelihood run it out of business, if not completely absorb it. I only have six weeks until the owner decides if he’s going to sell or not, and then what happens?”
He considers me for a moment. “I’m still not sure I understand about you and that bar. I’ve tried to. I really have, but...there’s so much potential there, Monroe. It could—”
“And I’m still not sure I understand about you andyourbar,” I interrupt, not willing to get into a business debate right now, “but as it stands, we have opposing goals in life. Even if all we’re doing is fucking—”
“Is that all we’re doing?”
The question catches me off guard. Last night felt like more than just a last minute fuck. I’ve never let myself give in to desire like that before. I’ve never understood the idea of ‘letting go’ during sex. When you lose yourself to the moment, you lose sight of others too, and that’s what I’ve always seen as the most vital part of sex: my focus on my partner. I want to make them feel good. I don’t see it as being subservient or inferior; I always thought it was what made me feel best too.
Then I met Julien Valois’ tongue.
It’s like something bloomed in me last night, like a part of me that’s been curled up tight in the dark finally sprang loose and demanded to be seen.
“I mean, you were there,” I answer. “You...must have felt it.” He had to have felt it, or he wouldn’t be asking if all we did was have sex. “But what I’m trying to say is that we have other things to consider. We want different things—”
“What if we didn’t?”
I scoff. “Well, we do, or are you going to prove me wrong?”
He smirks. “Maybe I am. I did it once. I think I can change your mind on this. I can make you see what I see when I look at Taverne Toulouse. I can make you see everything it could be, and I can make you want it too.”
There’s Mr. Businessman again.
