Ben dropped me off at Safe Harbor earlier, but I insisted he take the rest of the weekend off and told him I can either take an Uber or drive myself places.
“Is Alfred sending the Batmobile?” Daphne asks me, her expression dead serious.
“The Batmobile is in the shop,” I say wryly.
Matthew doesn’t react, but I’m sure he thinks we’re a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
“A ride would be great,” I tell him. “We’re going to Miss Barrington’s place near Wicker Park.”
“Well, I am,” she says.
“We both are.”
“Olivier.”
I turn to look at her. “Daphne.”
“I don’t think—”
I stop her. “I need your help filling out that check to the Southern Poverty Law Center. You’ll have to remind me how much to send them.”
She reluctantly turns her lips up in a smile.
“Olidaph!” someone calls out from the group of bystanders with camera phones. “Can I get a picture with you guys?”
We pose for a few photos and then Matthew tells the bystanders a car is waiting for us and he helps us get through the growing crowd of people to get to it. Once we’re alone in the back seat, Daphne sighs heavily and leans her head back.
“It’s not that I don’t like you,” she says softly. “You know I do.”
“I know. It’s that you’ve convinced yourself we wouldn’t work together.”
She stares me down with an aggravated glare. “My reasons are legitimate, Olivier. You’re used to getting your way, because if the answer is no, you just put enough money on the table to turn it into a yes.”
“Not all the time. If you’re talking about business, I walk away from deals all the time. More often than not. I don’t pour money into anything just to say I won. Everything has to line up.”
“Do you think everything lines up with us?” I can tell from her tone that she’s unsure about the answer to her question.
“I think everything that really matters is there, yes.”
“I don’t want a billionaire lifestyle, though. Or even a millionaire one. There are things like that—big things—that keep me from melting into your arms like I sometimes want to.”
Her admission makes me feel hopeful. I take her hand in mine.
“What if it ends up being worth it? There are lots of excuses for both of us. I’m not a broke poet and you’re on the rebound. You’re stubborn as hell and think it’s fun to befriend drug addicts while they’re high. People take photos of us everywhere we go. All that’s true, and yet…it doesn’t change the way I feel when I’m with you.”
Her eyes don’t leave mine. I feel her weighing my words, and finding herself unable to argue with me. Daphne is afraid to leap, and I know it’s not because I’m wealthy and it’s not because of her broken engagement. It’s because she’s scared.
I feel it, too. Daphne has the potential to wreck me. This isn’t just physical attraction, even though I feel that too—she’s the only woman I’ve ever known who makes me crazy in the best possible way.
I’ve never felt like this or taken personal risks this way before. The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t want to go back to a life without Daphne.
“I want to come in with you when we get to your place,” I say, our gazes still locked. “And if a check to a charity would make it easier for you to say yes, name the terms and it’s done.”
I see her throat move with a hard swallow. “It’s not…I don’t come with a price, Olivier.”
“I know that. But it’s easier for you to take what you really want from me by telling yourself it’s not just for you.”
The driver clears his throat and I turn to find him looking at us in the rearview mirror.
“This the place?” he asks.
“Oh. Yes it is, sorry,” Daphne says, reaching for her bag.
The driver comes around to open her door and I pull out my wallet for a tip. He looks at the $50 bill, grins and thanks me profusely.
Once Daphne and I are alone on the stairs to her apartment, we lock eyes again, the air between us thick with desire.
“I can take an Uber home,” I say. “If you want me to.”
“I don’t.”
We reach for each other at the same time, her arms wrapping around my neck as I put my hands on her hips and slide them around, pulling her against me. I press my mouth to hers and she moans softly, kissing me with the same urgency that’s been building inside me.
This kiss isn’t like our first one; it’s frenzied, her hands in my hair and my hold on her so tight her feet leave the ground.
“Get a room!” someone calls out of a passing car.
Daphne laughs, and I look up at her, both of us grinning and breathless.
“Should we go inside?” she asks me.
“Right fucking now.”
Her hand is unsteady as she unlocks the door to her apartment. I slide my arms around her from behind, taking in the light, sweet scent of her hair.
“You’re not helping,” she says lightly.
I’m like a caged beast, wound tight with pent up desire for her. It’s been a long time since I had sex, so I know I should take it slow, but I’m not sure I’m capable of that with Daphne.
As she pushes the door open and steps inside, she grabs a handful of my shirt and pulls me in with her. Her keys and bag drop to the floor and I shove the door closed with my foot.
She tugs at my shirt, and we pull apart, each racing to undress. Her skin is flushed and she’s breathing hard, and she’s the sexiest sight I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Your generosity tonight made me so hot,” she murmurs. “The way Jada’s little boys looked at you, like you were the greatest man they’d ever seen.”
“Everything about you makes me hot. You’re fiery and strong and so fucking gorgeous, Daphne.”
She pauses, her hands behind her back working on unfastening her bra. “You want me to…?”
“Take it off,” I tell her. “I feel like I’ve waited a lifetime to see you like this.”
She takes off her silky white bra, and then shimmies out of her panties. I’ve never gotten naked so fast in my life, my eyes only leaving her as I pull my shirt off over my head.
Between seeing her perfect, round breasts and the light curls between her legs, I could come undone on the spot. But the sensation intensifies when I take her back in my arms, her bare skin warm and soft against me.
“Condom?” she says suddenly. “Tell me you have a condom.”
“Fuck, I don’t.”
She groans dramatically. “How do you not have a condom?”
“Relax,” I say, also wondering how I could not have one in this otherwise perfect moment. “I’ll have some delivered to your doorstep. Just let me get my phone.”
“Craig and Jess!” she cries.
“What?”
She runs back to the living room, her bouncing tits almost making me want to forget the condom altogether.
“My upstairs neighbors,” she calls out. “They aren’t ready for kids, and when I was having a glass of wine with Jess the other night, I teased her about the Costco-sized box of condoms they’d just bought.”