That must be the reality TV cast. Thank God they didn’t make it to my area.

“Oh, here you are.”

I look up, stunned to find Bridget Ross standing at my cubicle.

“Can I help you?” It’s a question embedded with what the hell?

“I wondered if your office was up here,” Bridget says casually, strolling closer. She stares at the flowers on my desk before turning frosty blue eyes on me.

“Are you here with the crew?” I ask. “It’s Baller Bae looking at the collection?”

“Yes. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.” She pauses significantly, running her eyes over my skinny jeans, ribbed tank top, and sheer cardigan. “I don’t get it.”

My patience is fraying.

Lord, grant me the serenity not to kick her ass.

With God on my side, maybe Bridget will make it out of here in one skinny blond piece.

“What can I do for you, Bridget?” I ask. “It was Bridget, right? We met the other night at the restaurant I believe.”

“You know damn well who I am,” she drawls with deceptive indifference. “Or at least you should since you’re fucking my husband.”

Lawd, don’t fail me now.

“I think you should probably go before you make yourself look even more desperate,” I tell her, I hope with some kindness and not the middle finger I want to shove up her nose.

“Sure you don’t want me to stick around?” She sits on the edge of the desk and caresses one lotus petal. “I could give you some pointers on how Kenan likes his dick sucked. We were together over a decade. Maybe save you a lot of time.”

I step close until I’m standing right in front of her. I carefully slide my flowers away from her touch.

“Why would I want advice from the woman who lost him?” I ask, my voice hushed. I don’t need a scene. I’m sure her cameras are within striking distance. I’m giving her as little ammunition as possible.

“You won’t be able to keep him,” she sneers.

“Well at least we’ll have something in common and maybe enjoy each other better next time, but for now, I repeat. Leave.”

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” she says, chin up, hair flung back.

“Oh, no, you don’t know who you’re dealing with,” I say, my tone soft with danger she doesn’t, couldn’t understand. “You should pray to God my kindness and patience don’t run out, or you will know.”

“Just remember I offered to help you get it right,” she says spitefully, standing to her feet.

“You can best believe when I am fucking your ex-husband,” I tell her, “you’ll be the last thing on our minds. Now get the hell out of my face, out of my office and stay out of my way.”

“I won’t let you ruin things for us,” she says, her voice vehement.

“You already ruined it,” I say pityingly.

And I do pity her. I’d hate myself if I lost a man like Kenan, lost a life with him. Desperation clings to her, and I wonder if she cheated on him and then woke as if from a dream to realize what she had done? What she had lost and squandered?

She stares at me and then at the flowers one more time. Something gives in her eyes, and the façade slips. She blinks overly bright blue eyes, turns, and leaves.

20

Kenan

I’m leaning against “the tank,” as Lotus calls my truck, when she comes out of the building. All the skinny individual braids are gathered and braided into two thick ones. She looks like a little girl, except for that ass and those breasts and her lips and every other part of her.

So just the hair pretty much.

I open the passenger side, but when she steps past me to get in. I grasp her elbow gently and turn her so her back is to the open door. I prop my arms against the car frame overhead and lean down.

“Hi.” I pitch the word low and dip to kiss the line of her jaw.

“Hi, yourself,” she says with a tiny smile. I mold my hand to her waist, my thumb barely brushing the underside of her breast

“Kenan,” she says breathlessly. “I can’t think when you touch me like that.”

I slide my hands into my pockets.

“Look.” I lean forward, hovering over her lips. “No hands.”

With the kiss, our lips are the only point of contact, our mouths linked by a single strand of lust. Our moans meet in the middle and syncopate. Inches separate us. My arms aren’t wrapped around her, but the passion of just our lips and tongues burns away the space between us, and I feel every inch of her.

“Not out here,” she says softly, ruefully, after a few seconds, and pulls back.

She’s right. I already have Bridget hashtag hunting on Instagram. I don’t need some photo to pop up and make things more complicated with Simone before they have to be. I’m dreading talking to Lotus about it, but she needs a heads up about what happened in the counseling session with Bridget. I don’t anticipate drama, but you never know with my ex.

I press my forehead to hers for the briefest of moments, but can’t resist sneaking another quick press of our lips together. I’ve been thinking about this all day. Shit, I’ve been thinking about kissing Lotus again since our last kiss ended.

She returns the press. Our mouths don’t open. Our tongues don’t tangle, but just that simple pressure feels incredible, like there’s something we exchange even through a touch this chaste.

I close the passenger door once she’s in and climb into the driver’s seat.

“My chef delivered dinner to my place,” I tell her, pulling out into the side street bordering the atelier, “I wouldn’t subject you to my cooking.”

She bends her head, biting into the curve of her bottom lip. “Kenan, there’s something I need to tell you.”

I stiffen and my hands tighten on the steering wheel at the sober note in her voice. “That’s never good,” I murmur. Sitting at a light, I turn to study her profile. “What’s up?”

“Bridget came to the studio today.”

“Bridget? As in, my ex-wife?” Shock and fury wrangle inside me. “Came to your job? What the hell?”

“Exactly. We got word that a reality show wanted to come through. That’s not unusual. Producers are always scoping cool settings for the drama the casts get into. Fortunately, my drama with Bridget was just between us. She didn’t bring any cameras to my cubicle.”

A hundred scenarios run through my head, none of them making any sense. With each second, the flame under my anger turns up until I’m boiling mad.

“Green,” Lotus says.

“Huh?” I turn unseeing eyes to her. “What?”

“The light turned green.”

A honk from behind jars me out of my enraged stupor.

“Damn.” I plow forward, struggling not to take my anger out on the car. I want to slam the accelerator and gun the engine, channel all the power I won’t let myself expend on Bridget. “I’m sorry, Lotus. What did she say?”

“She accused me of fucking her husband and offered to teach me how you like your dick sucked.”

A growl rumbles in my throat. “What else?” I ask with a calm I’m far from feeling. “And what did you say?”

Louts opens her mouth, slams it shut, and looks out the window.

“Lotus? What else? I need to know.”

“Okay, damn,” she says grudgingly. “I told her that when I do fuck her ex-husband, she’ll be the last thing on our minds.”

Her words land like a hand on my cock. How could they not? I’m silent, marinating in the thoughts, the images her words evoke.

“Kenan, did you hear what—”

“Yeah, I did.” I slant a look, part lust, part laughter, over to her in the passenger seat. “Heard you loud and clear. When we fuck. Got it.”

“I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing.”

“Uh, no.” I tap my fingers restlessly on the steering wheel. “I think it was . . . fine. What you said.”

“I couldn’t let her—”

“Of course not.”

“I let her think we’re already . . . you know. Active.”

“You make it sound like a check-up at the health clinic,” I say with a grin. “So, tell me, Ms. DuPree, are you and Mr. Ross active?”

“Well I didn’t tell her we won’t have sex for a long, long, long—”

“Really?” I squeeze the bridge of my nose. “That many longs, huh?”

She tosses her head back and cackles.

“You’re evil.” I laugh, shaking my head and pulling into my building’s parking garage.

“Funny. Your note today sounded like you like me a lot.”

Her small hand curves around mine on the console between us. “Thank you for the flowers and the note. It made my day.”

“You mean after my ex-wife destroyed it.”

“Oh, no.” Lotus shakes her head. “She doesn’t have that much power over me.”

We’re pretty quiet once inside the building, and keep our distance until we board the private elevator that leads to my apartment. When the doors close, I pull her into me.

“Hi again.” I lean down and tease her lips open, then slip in to taste her. God, so sweet. She goes up on her toes, and I grab her ass and lift her.

“Kenan,” she laughs into the kiss. “Put me down.”

“Why? I bench press more than you every day.”

“Show off,” she says, her mouth curled into a happy smile.

“I have to find some way to impress you.”

She rests her elbows on my shoulders and caresses the back of my neck. She’s suspended in the air. “You’ve impressed me from the beginning,” she says.

“Oh yeah?” I set her on her feet when the doors open for my floor, take her hand, and walk to my apartment. “Is that why you were always so eager to kick it when we saw each other the last couple of years?”