Page 19 of Wild Card

“I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat, grabbing for water. “Was the dude gay?”

“How am I supposed to know? He essentially went down on me, was about to fuck me, but stopped with his hand on his zipper.” I banged my head against the counter a few times.

“He went down on you?” Juan ran the water at the sink for a second before turning. “How was it?”

I lifted my head with a smile I couldn’t hold back.

“That good huh?” He whistled again.

“He knew exactly what he was doing, Juan. Oh my god, and…he went, like…lower too.” I stood, moving toward the coffee machine.

“Lower?” He raised an eyebrow, following me with an empty mug.

“Lower, you know…like stuff we only see in porn.”

Juan choked on his food again. “I think we might be too comfortable in our relationship, but Mallory, my sweet flower, that is not just stuff you see in porn. Men and women eat ass all the time.”

Turned away from him, my eyes widened, and I was suddenly super interested in the warning label on my Keurig.

“I can see thatI’vesomehow madeyouuncomfortable, so let’s move on.” He laughed, turning away from me. “Why aren’t we telling Taylor about you getting an orgasm?” Juan opened my fridge, knowing I’d want the creamer.

“How do you know I…”

“Because you look like you had the best orgasm of your life last night, and well, with what he did to you, it’s hard not to come from that.”

I blushed, feeling my face heat. Just thinking about his tongue inside me, his fingers moving, and that thumb he pressed…god. I needed a fan.

Clearing my throat, I shook the creamer. “I told her I wasn’t going to do anything with the guy…I just don’t want to hear anything about it from her since I gave her such a hard time about it.”

“Okay, but can we at least tell Hillary?” My friend sipped a glass of water while watching me fiddle with the coffee maker. I was doing everything backward today, as I realized too late. Juan noticed and thought it was hilarious.

“Of course we can tell Hillary—hell, she’ll probably die from laughter then I can have those strappy shoes of hers that I like,” I joked, finally getting the top of the machine to engage and shut.

I didn’t want it to slip that Hillary was the one who’d made me look so cute to begin with, or that she had been in on this entire thing from the beginning. Juan would feel left out. I explained the entire card situation and game and everything I had planned to do to my second best friend, watching as his face took on different expressions, until finally he let out a heavy sigh and asked, “So, this guy…who was he?”

Juan was a solid six feet tall with whiskey-colored eyes and dark brown skin. His hair was a deliciously soft black, almost like feathers, and it was always falling over his eyebrow or forehead. Hot was an understatement. He was drop-dead gorgeous, and I had wished a million times that we had any kind of chemistry, but we just didn’t.

“Elias Matthews?” I wrinkled my nose at the question in my tone, because it was stupid. I had no idea who he was, and he’d had his tongue on my nipples and on my mouth. He had kissed me, and something told me he wasn’t the type of guy to kiss on the lips.So why did he?

Juan spit his water out.

“Elias Matthews, as in the pitcher for the Devils?”

I shrugged. I still had no idea what position he played, and thanks to Elias’s dark and broody answers, I hadn’t gotten any real information about the freaking card game.

“Girl…that’s…” Dark hair fell into Juan’s eyes as he shook his head at me, as if I had done something wrong to make Elias ditch me in his bedroom.

“I know,” I muttered, totally irritated all over again. “He was hoping for Taylor…guess he only knew her by name or something because he thought I was her the entire time.”

“The entire time?”

“Yeah, until he asked what kind of car I drove…isn’t that a weird thing to ask?” I sipped my coffee, looking outside. The sun was bright, nearly zero clouds in the sky. The heat was already setting in, like a preheated oven. My mind raced with all the things I had to do. I needed to hit the gym before my shift at the bookstore, run by the bank, get gas, and go to the library to filter through school newspaper clippings from the last two decades.

Sigh.

It was going to be a long day.

“And you told him…?” My best friend waved his hand forward, waiting for me to answer.

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