The days roll on fast. I’m at work busying myself, and I realize I haven’t heard from Connick after our night out. Not even a text message.

Finishing up my shift at work, I start driving home, and just before I get there, I pull the car around and go to his house. I didn’t pay too much attention last time, but this time I’m taking in everything around me. Coming up to his large house, I notice more cars than usual, which is weird. I know he owns a few of them, but right now there’s a lot more. Stopping my car, I look up to the door, contemplating if this is the right thing to do.

Should I see him?

Do I even know what we are? Let’s face it, I don’t really even know him?

Closing my eyes, I realize I shouldn’t be that girl, the girl that stops by unannounced. I’ve never been that girl, and whatever he’s doing is none of my concern. We haven’t labeled ourselves, and nobody else has assigned us one either.

Starting the car, I decide it's best I leave. As my car starts, I hear a tap on my window, and I jump with a small scream leaving my mouth. When I turn my head, I notice it’s the same lady from the night at the gala Connick took me to. She’s smiling bright and waving at me, her lips move but I can’t hear her over my car’s engine noise and through the window. Turning the ignition off, I wind the window down hoping it won’t break on me like everything else has on this broken-down wreck of a car.

“Well, hello again, stranger.” She seems so nice, so unlike Connick, and I wonder how close they really are. “Connick asks that I bring you in.” She looks at my clothes through the car’s window and smirks. “I must warn you the men in that room are savage, though.”

Nodding my head, she steps away and pulls the door open. Stepping out, I realize why she was looking me over, I’m still in my work clothes, and my hair is tied up in a bun with no makeup at all on my face.

“Am I dressed okay?”

Her smile is warm when she links her hand through mine. “Of course you are, darling.” She starts to walk, pulling me along with her, and when we reach the doors they’re automatically opened and we step inside.

There are men everywhere, and I mean everywhere.

Is she the only woman here? Is that why she’s happy to see me?

“He knows I’m here?” I ask, shocked. She nods her head and keeps on walking with me in tow. Men stand around drinking, some playing card games at tables. His house feels so much larger now that I’m standing in a room full of people, yet at the same time I feel like I’m about to be suffocated.

“There he is…”

Looking up, I see Connick straight away. He’s wearing black slacks with a clean, crisp white button-up shirt that’s undone at the top. In his hand he holds a glass of alcohol, and he’s speaking to the man in front of him. He looks my way and places the glass to his lips finishing the contents, then he places it on a table nearby. Connick nods his head to the man but keeps his eyes on me. Once I get closer to him, his hand lands on my ass and he pulls me into him. Someone whistles, making me tense up that there’s an audience, but his words reassure me.

“Relax, Milanka.”

I do as he asks, my body instantly relaxing into his as he holds me to him. I stay glued to his side, as he turns slightly to finish speaking to the man in front of him. I hear a goodbye, and when I look around it’s now just us two together.

I wonder when I started being comfortable with him touching me. It’s not something that comes easily to me. I don’t like to be touched at all, but here I am, stuck to him with his large hands on my body like he owns me, much the same way Derrick once held me. Thinking of Derrick makes me pull away and stand next to Connick trying to not touch him. He notices straight away and his eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. I am confusing, I guess. My mind doesn’t know what it wants, but it always seems to come back to Connick lately, even when I don’t realize it does.

What’s he doing to me?

“I drove here by accident,” I tell him.

His eyebrows straighten out, and he hands me a glass of water from a passing waiter.

“You didn’t, Milanka.”

I so should have told him my name was Sara. I make a mental note—I need to keep that lie in the future. Because the way he says my name does things to me that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with yet.

“Perhaps you’d be more comfortable changing?” He inclines his head eyeing me. “Though, I would suggest that would be a waste of time considering your clothes will end up on my floor soon.”

“I didn’t plan on staying.” I grip the glass of water in my hand so I don’t move, to hide what I’m feeling, but he always seems to know anyway.

“Good, sex and bed sound like my plan anyway. Lucky you sleep naked.” He nods his head behind me, and the lady walks over. I should learn her name, I think. Just as she reaches us, I hold out my hand for her to shake.

“I’m Milanka,” I say, offering her my name.

She smiles, and her eyes shine. “I know your name, Milanka.”

“Yes, but I don’t know yours.”

She drops my hand from hers. “It’s Cherry.”

“Nice to meet you officially, Cherry.”

Cherry nods her head for us to start walking. Connick looks at me with a blank face, not saying a word. His eyes stay on the both of us as we make our way up the stairs.

“He’s so intense,” I comment once he’s finally out of view.

Cherry laughs at me while opening a door I haven’t been in before. In the middle of the room there’s a bed and that’s it, the room is devoid of any other furniture. She walks to a closet door, pulls it open and showcases gowns. There’s so many of them.

“He is… especially with you,” she says, turning and smiling at me.

“He seems like that with everyone.”

She shakes her head at me. “He isn’t, trust me. I went to school with him, I know him well. And he’s never like that with anyone. He is cold, I won’t deny it, especially if he doesn’t know you. Even if he does know you, you’d be lucky to get a smile.” She pulls a dress out and smiles when she hands it to me. “He loves black… and with your hair, it will look gorgeous.”

Taking the dress from her hands, I walk into the bathroom and slip it on. It’s easy and no zippers required, thank goodness. When I walk back out, she’s sitting on the bed tapping away on her phone with one hand and dangling a pair of shoes from her fingers on the other.

“You basically run his life?” I ask curiously, as I try to figure out exactly what she does. Taking the shoes and sitting next to her to put them on, she places her phone on her lap and looks at me.

“I do everything, even his groceries. Knowing all his secrets isn’t a plus, though, Milanka. I don’t want to know half of them.”

I nod my head and lace the shoes up my calves. She stands, and I wonder what his secrets are? Do they even matter? We all have secrets, right?

Walking out of the room and down the stairs, he’s waiting for me when I reach the ground floor. Connick looks me over and reaches for my hair, his strong arm brushes past my face before he touches my hair, and the smell of him invades my senses. Just before I get to breathe him in, he pulls my hair-tie free from my hair making it all drop around my shoulders. Looking to Connick, I can tell it pleases him to see me like that.

“Better?” I ask him with a smile.

He doesn’t answer, just looks around the crowd then looks back to me and leans in, kissing my collarbone as he does, before he whispers in my ear, “I have to work… mingle, Milanka.” He pulls away and walks to the next room leaving me standing there, alone. I walk around a little and remember seeing a table full of tapas and decide I should eat. Walking past other men feels awkward, as they stare, looking at me in one way or another. Reaching the table, I grab a piece of fruit and place it in my mouth, then I almost choke when a name is called from directly behind me.

“Sara.”

Spinning on my toes, he’s standing there, the man from my one-night stand, and the same one who found out where I work. I swallow the piece of fruit and look with wide eyes at him.

“It’s not your real name, is it?” he asks, tucking his hands into his pockets. He looks exactly the same with his short red hair.

“No, it’s not.” Looking past him, I see Connick watching us as he stands with a group of men.

Does he know who this man is? He can’t, that was a night I never shared with him or anyone.

“I get it. One night! Maybe another… in the future, though?”

Looking back to him, I shake my head. That will never happen.

“I’m with Connick.”

He laughs at my words. “No one is with Connick, Sara,” he says my fake name like what I said was some sort of joke.

“Okay, please excuse me.”

His hand touches mine as I go to walk past him. Looking down, I pull it free, and he places his up in surrender.

“If what you say is true, Sara, I would get away now. Free advice for great sex.”

He steps away, and I see why straight away when a hand lands on my ass from behind. I know whose hand that is by the size and the way he touches me.

“Rob, I hope you weren’t touching what’s mine?”

Rob, so that’s his name.

He looks at me, knowing I was telling him the truth, then he shakes his head with a smirk. “Was just introducing myself, boss.” He tips his head and walks off, looking back at me one last time with a serious stare that Connick doesn’t notice because he’s now in front of me, staring me down.

“You know that man?” I ask in confusion.

“I know a lot of men, even more women to be exact.”

Nodding my head and letting it all sink in, I let him guide me past the people who are being ushered out the door by Cherry, and up the stairs to his room, not speaking because I have no idea of what to say. All I can think about is all the coincidences that have happened since the moment I met him and tying them all to one person, the man that now has his hands on my body slipping my dress free. Wanting to say something slips from my mind the moment his lips touch my breast, biting my nipple, and placing his fingers between my legs. He plays with me like I’m his own personal puppet, and I hang on every touch and pull he gives me.

Before I know it I’m on the bed, and my legs are over his head. His eyes turn a dark gray as he pushes inside of me, taking hold of my ankles with a tight grip. My hair is sprawled out around my head, and my hands are pinching my breasts as he fucks me. He watches everything I do, pleasing him even more. Our eyes stay locked on each other, even when we come, even when I know now things have changed, if not for the good. He carries me to the shower, his lips touching my neck as he does. Then he places me down and up against the wall, and while turning the shower on, he fucks me again. I think he does it, so I don’t leave, so I am incapable of leaving him straight away.

He likes to be the one to leave, he likes to hold the power that is between us.