Page 3 of Atonement

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12:08 a.m.

“I just feellike he never listens to me, you know?” I force my eyes to stay focused, trained ahead, and not rolling back in my head like they want to at the blonde’s comment. “I try not to nag him; I swear I don’t. No one want’s a nagging, rambling woman to deal with, right?”

Present company excluded?

My eyes snap wide open as she looks my way for some sort of confirmation. I nod my head yes at the woman in front of me, pretending to stay interested in what she’s incoherently saying as she takes another long sip of her cranberry vodka.

“I just really thought we had something special, you know?”

Her voice breaks and the tally in my head surpasses the bet I made with myself when this conversation started. Nineteen. The woman has said ‘you know’ almost twenty damn times in less than ten minutes.

Oh, I know, Blondie.

About as much as Rick knows just how much you can’t seem to shut the hell up. But unlike the man that has to live with your constant babble, I’m only buying time until something better comes into view.

My eyes catch a glare behind the woman’s head and instinctively I look up.

What do you know?

Looks like something better.

I stand up from the stool I’ve been keeping warm 10 minutes too long and button the top of my Brioni suit jacket, all while never taking my eyes off my target behind her head.

“See, you don’t even want to listen either,” she sniffles into her drink. But before I can think of a witty response, before I can feel bad for not consoling her, my feet move on their own accord, and I find myself quickly pushing through the crowd behind her.

Go call Rick, Blondie. He’s used to tuning you out.

Me?

I have a one-track mind, and it stayed on your track 10 minutes too long.

“There you are,” I hear someone shout at my right which slightly throws me off my game and defiantly pitches a curveball into my selfish plan.

Turning around quickly, I grab a drink off a waiter’s tray as they pass and pretend to be preoccupied. Turning my neck to the right, I train my ear to hear her voice and hold my breath as I wait for her to speak next.

“Silas,” she breathes, and I swear I feel her warm exhale hit the back of my neck as a shiver runs down my spine heading straight to my dick.

“Where have you been?” Silas fumes. “We’ve been holding them off for the last 30 minutes. You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”

An hour ago, Silas, she was doing heavenly things with her mouth in the back seat of a car that wouldn’t be appropriate to perform where she’s headed now. Center stage. For all to see.

But not if I can help it.

“I’m sorry,” she stammers, as I pull my phone from my pocket and pretend to act normal. Human. Consumed by the tiny device in my hand that seems to ruin everyone else’s world. “I...”

The same smirk I gave her as I left her on her knees in the backseat of that Mercedes pulls across my lower face. My thumb flicks across the screen in my hand, performing a task that would look normal to most as my mind trains and patiently waits to hear her excuse for why she can probably still taste me on her tongue, feel my velvet skin against her lips, and hopefully can’t shake the thought of the way I left her from her mind. Just like how she hasn’t escaped mine in over seven years.

“Never mind,” Silas demands in a hurry as I turn to the left and see him angrily take her by the arm. “I told Carlisle you’d make the wait worth it...”

He starts to usher her off and my blood boils as I watch him manhandle her with force towards the stage in the center of the club. He takes a few steps and then begins pulling her closer, screaming something in her ear as I take one last sip off my drink and dispose of it on a nearby table.

Fuck it. I’ve never played by the books. Why start now?

Slipping my phone back in my pocket, I pull my Sig Sauer P229 DAK out from behind my back, previously shielded from view in the waist of my slacks behind my jacket. Holding it low, I crack my neck a few times to the right, and then slowly to the left, as I take a couple of steps in their direction and bite my lip to keep the perverse grin from spreading across my face.

This buildup never fails to get my dick rock hard. Something I hope Magnolia, my lovely estranged wife, will once again help me out with after I break up the reunion happening in front of me.

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