Page 113 of Love Me

“Tell me what really happened,” I say with a gesture toward his hand.

“It’s nothing.” He adjusts himself in his seat. A dead giveaway.

“We don’t keep secrets from one another, remember?” We’ve had that saying for years but I know the reality is there's a boatload of shit we haven’t shared with one another.

“Secret keepers,” I reiterate.

“Gabriel Garcia Jr.,” he says.

I nod.

“You got into a fight with him?”

He snorts. “More like he walked into my fist a couple of times.”

My stomach tightens from nervousness. A flash back to our junior years of college comes back to mind. I remind myself that this is not the same situation.

I won’t push him on the details. Not this time.

“Is he taken care of?” I ask, needing to know at least that.

He glances my way and gives me a short nod.

I don’t say anything else on the matter. Instead, I reach over and start playing with one of his curls. My mind drifts off to someplace else.

I start to think about our upcoming weekend. My priority for this weekend is making contact with a fabulous artist I found online. She only posted a handful of paintings on her social media page before suddenly deleting it.

However, a post from a few months ago mentioned that her work would be displayed at Blairwood’s Art Fair. I’m banking on that to find her and convince her to let me showcase her paintings at my gallery.

I can’t quite put it into words yet. I just know that her story will fit right in with the theme of my gallery.

“Baby, as much as I love it when you play with my hair …” Diego says, yanking me out of my thoughts. He takes my hand from his hair and presses a kiss to my knuckles before settling my hand on his thigh. “I can’t have you doing that while I’m trying to concentrate on driving safely.”

A grin splits my lips. “And my hand on your thigh is safer?” I start to slide my hand toward his dick.

He grunts and wraps my hand in a vice grip, trapping it before I can reach the promised land.

“We have two more hours in this damn car. I have no problem pulling into the first hotel we find and tying you down to the bed until you beg me to let you up for air.”

I slowly close my eyes and have to clench my teeth together to keep from asking him to do just that.

Then I recall his exact words. My eyes pop open as I ask, “Did you say tie me to the bed?”

His lips purse. “A figure of speech.” His voice is thick.

I think it was more than a figure of speech on his part.

As much as I would love for him to do exactly what he said, I need to get to this art fair.

With reluctance, I pull my hand away. “Work then fun.” I nod more to myself than to him.

“Good girl.”

Why do those two words cause my nipples to harden? Again, I have to fight my own instincts not to go in the direction my body is leading me. I can’t recall ever wanting a man as much as I want Diego. At all times.

It’s probably because he’s always been my safe space. My best friend. My protector even when I didn’t ask him to be.

I love you.