Page 120 of Beautiful Liar

I let my eyes drift shut. “I want both.”

“That’s impossible.”

“That word doesn’t exist for me.” Never has, never will.

“It does for me.”

“Then you shouldn’t have called.”

“I can hang up now.”

“You called. That door is shut. There’s no going back from that.”

“And the only way is forward?”

An alien need pounds through me. “Let me see you. Are you done with your thing?”

She hesitates a beat. “No. Not yet.” Her voice has changed. There’s reluctance in there. And excitement.

My cock stirs. “You owe me, Elly.”

She breathes out again. “I know, but this thing I’m doing…it’s complicated.”

“Complicated is if you’re shackled to a wall in a dungeon in an underground castle somewhere in the South China Sea. Are you?”

“No, not exactly.”

“You’re shackled to a wall in a dungeon in New York?”

“I’m not shackled anywhere. But I’m locked into something.”

“Something that prevents you from having dinner with me?”

She gasps. “You want to take me out?”

“I want. You sound surprised.”

“Well, I’ve never been…” She stops. Seconds tick by. “I can’t go to dinner with you, Quinn.”

“On account of those shackles?”

“Something like that.”

My hand travels down to lie on the bulge in my pants. Just hearing her voice makes me hard. “I want to see you.”

She sighs. “Maybe…I can come to your office. Have lunch…?”

“No.”

“Right. Okay.” She sounds hurt.

“No, because I’m not there. And lunch is too short. I want dinner with you.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t say no to me, Elly.” I harden my voice, give her a glimpse of my obsidian heart. “I don’t like it.”

Her breath catches. Silence thrums. “Can you give me half a day? I can’t promise anything, Quinn, but maybe I can work something out?”

---