#chapter Eighteen
The park was a beautiful place to be in mid-October. A little chilly, but the changing leaves had not yet started to fall and the trees were full of red and orange and gold. Ian shifted on the bench, a paper cup of coffee in his hand. He hadn’t lifted it to his mouth once, not in all the time she’d been talking.
“Too bad that’s not how it happened,” Ian said.
Maura smiled, then shrugged. “A girl can dream, can’t she?”
“The first part of it. That was true.”
It was. He had called her while she got ready for her date. She had been wearing the panties and bra she had described. She had gone on a date with the perfect plastic surgeon, and they had ended up at the hookah bar.
At last, Ian sipped his coffee. It had to be cold by now. He’d barely taken a drink all the time she’d been talking. “The rest of it, though. When does it become fiction?”
“When do you want it to?”
“I know I wasn’t waiting for you when you got home,” he said.
“So. Back it up. Do you want the rest of it to be fake, too?” Maura had her own coffee, but hers was almost gone. She’d needed the caffeine and sugar to get her going, though once the story began she’d found it surprisingly easy to tell him.
On the park bench, they had to sit side-by-side, but both of them were turned in toward each other. Knees barely touching. Ian had a bad habit of bouncing his knee, and now Maura reached across and put her hand on top of it to stop him from jostling. Ian shrugged.
He’d agreed to meet her here today. At least there was that. It was better, seeing him in person, than it could ever be on the phone or video chat. She kept herself from leaning in to smell him only because she did have a tiny shred of pride.
“Do you want to ask me if I fucked him?”
Ian shifted at that. His coffee sloshed from the small hole in the lid of his cup, spilling over his hand and onto his khaki pants. “No. I don’t want to know. It’s not any of my business.”
“No, not really. But I’ll tell you —”
“I said I don’t want to know!” Ian got up and stalked to the trash can, where he threw his cup so vehemently it was like it had done him wrong.
“That was the deal, Ian!” Maura called after him.
He turned, brows knitted, and came back to the bench to stand over her. “All I ever said was that I thought you needed to see other people, spend some time making sure you knew for sure what you wanted…”
Maura stood. Ian didn’t move back, so they were toe-to-toe. “And I told you that you were going to have to listen to me talk about it until you couldn’t stand it any more. One way or another.”
Her heart pounded at the way she pushed him. He could walk away from her, forever. He could have decided he was done with this, with her, with everything. And then what would she do?
Learn to live without him, Maura thought as she watched his expression twist. What other choice would she have?
He stared at her without saying anything for as long as it took her to count to fifteen in her head. Kiss me, she thought, but Ian didn’t. Touch me. But he didn’t do that, either.
Instead, he took her hand and pressed it between them, inside his long trench coat, to the bulge in his pants. He rubbed her hand slowly along him, staring into her eyes without looking away. Then he curled her fingers gently around him and held her hand still. That was all it took to send her heart thumping in her throat. To weaken her knees, make her clit pulse.
“Ian,” she murmured when he didn’t say anything, “I didn’t fuck him. I didn’t even kiss him. The stuff about spanking…all made up.”
That’s when he let her go, and stepped away. “But you did with that other guy.”
Her mouth opened and closed a couple times before she could find words. “Yes. I did.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
“Heath?”
“Him. And the other guy. The one you used to fuck in college.” Ian’s face held no expression, and his voice was cold.
Maura lifted her chin. “Heath, probably not, though if he asks me, I might go. Daniel? Yes. Definitely. Friday night, as a matter of fact. We’re going to dinner.”
Ian took a few more steps backward and put his hands in his pockets. The hem of his coat flapped a little in the suddenly chilly breeze that also pushed his hair over his forehead. “Have fun.”
“All you have to say is ‘don’t,’” Maura told him, but Ian shook his head and walked away.