Cry Like A Girl

Chapter 9

When he arrived, Camille was seated in the booth furthest from the entrance. With one leg crossed over the other, foot bouncing in the air, and fingers strumming the table, he knew she'd been clock-watching.

She forced her mouth into a frown as he approached, but a smile danced in her eyes. He slid in across from her. "Whatever possessed you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "What? No good morning, I missed you, you look good, I want to stick my tongue down your throat?"

"It's because you look so good that I want to stick my tongue down your throat. I thought that was a given." He winked.

Erin, the usual weekday waitress, arrived with a cup of coffee in one hand and a notepad in the other. He asked Camille if she wanted anything more than the coffee already in front of her, she declined, and he waved Erin off with a smile.

"To answer your question, I told you I was going to get you out of the house, did I not?" Camille raised her chin just enough to let him know she was challenging him.

"You did. I suppose it was my fault for not thinking outside the box. It never occurred to me that you would ask my wife for permission." He made sure he kept his tone light, but his expression firm. He wasn't upset, but he wasn't pleased either. Her poor judgment could have had costly repercussions and he hoped that he could make her see the seriousness of the matter.

Camille looked around the diner and then reached across the table and stroked his hand before drawing back. "First of all, she has a name and I like the sound of it better than I like the phrase "my wife." Second, I didn't exactly go looking for her. She was on her way into Lochen's as I was leaving the bank. Opportunity presented itself and I couldn't resist."

And he couldn't resist her pouty expression or the hint of jealousy in her words. "No harm done. Unnecessary risks make me nervous, that's all." He tested his coffee with his lip and then drew a long swallow. He set the cup down and wrapped his hands around it. "About tonight."

She put a finger to her lips. "No cold feet, you promised."

He wanted to protest, but the moment her foot grazed the inside of his thigh, he lost the words.

"This is my fantasy and in my fantasy, you don't suck the fun out by talking it to death, you don't back out, and you don't do it any way other than the way I asked you to."

"If I do it the way you asked me to, you're liable to get hurt. I can't do that."

Her brow furrowed into lines that hadn't yet left their indelible mark. "You can't?" She stood, turned her back toward the main dining area, and slid her yoga pants down just far enough to expose her hipbone.

"What happened there?" he asked, wanting to reach out and touch the oddly shaped bruise.

"You happened there." She pulled her waistband up and returned to her side of the booth. "Apparently, you gave no thought to hurting me yesterday while you were plowing me into your desk, so why is it an issue now?"

"I don't know what to say. I'm sorry." And he truly was.

"Don't be. I didn't bring it up to lay a guilt trip on you. We've had rougher sex than that before so I don't know why you're wigging out about tonight."

The purple bruise on her pale skin was burned into his memory. His mouth tightened. "Rough sex is one thing. Rape is another."

"Fantasy rape," she corrected. "Listen, why do you think Fifty Shades did so well? It certainly wasn't for the writing. Trust me on this, women fantasize just as much as men. Not about rape in the heinous, criminal sense of the word, but in the willing, controlled, with-a-person-of-her-choosing sense of the word. White women fantasize about black men with huge cocks. Oppressed housewives dream about threesomes. Some women daydream about being bound and spanked while someone else videotapes it. The world is a horny place, Henry." She leaned back and slipped a finger through the handle of her coffee cup. "Don't be naïve. Any woman who says she's never fantasized about those things—is a liar. You're hung up on the word."