L. Marie Adeline- S.E.C.R.E.T

ody felt suspended in his strong hand, held as if in a swing.
“No one can see what I’m doing,” he whispered. “Everyone thinks I’m talking to you
about how much I love the band. Can you feel that?”
“Yes, oh God, yes.”
He pressed himself into my back again. I leaned into this deliciousness, my right hand
reaching up and cupping his working shoulder, my left arm holding the jacket steady. I
felt his taut arm muscles as his thumb worked those magic circles, his deft ngers gliding
in and out of me. He was playing me like an instrument. I lost myself in the darkness of
the room, the beat of the music, the waves of pleasure. I wanted more of him inside me,
not just ngers. Him. All of him. I edged my right thigh out and he read his cue to let his
ngers explore deeper. I bent my head forward. I tried to look like I was totally lost in
the music, but I was reeling with the swells this man was creating in my body, over and
over, now building to a heavenly climax.
“Cassie, I can feel it. You’re going to come in my hand, aren’t you, girl?” he
whispered.
I grabbed the bar with my right hand, feeling in a trance, and the room went black,
the music mingling with a low moan (mine?) that had me bucking backwards. He was
like a wall containing me as wave after wave ooded me. Oh sweet Jesus, I couldn’t
believe he could do this to me, right there. I couldn’t believe I had just come in a loud,
dark room full of strangers, some of them less than two feet away from me. He slowed
his thumb as the waves in my body subsided; the room came into focus again. He stood
still, holding me for a moment. When I shifted slightly, he pulled his ngers away
gently, tracing them across my exposed thigh.
He slid my champagne glass in front of me. “You’re fearless, Cassie.”
I took the glass in my unsteady hand and gulped it down, then set the empty ute a
little too loudly on the bar. I grinned and so did he. He was looking at me as if for the
first time.
“You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he said.
And instead of saying something self-deprecating, for once I believed it. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” he said, signaling the bartender for the bill. He pulled o the two
twenties again.
“Keep the change,” he said to the bartender. Then he shed something out of his
pocket. “And this is for you,” he said, icking what looked like a coin in the air and
slapping it down on the bar.
When he lifted his palm, I saw my Step Two charm glowing under the bar lights, the
word Courage engraved in script.
“It’s been charming,” he said, kissing my hair. Then he plucked his jacket o my lap
and disappeared into the crowd.
After securing my charm and admiring it and its partner on my bracelet, I slid o the
stool, my legs so rubbery beneath me I almost collapsed on the oor next to my
abandoned thong. As I moved through the dark crowd, my breathing was still staggered,
my sight blurry. I smacked right into a tiny girl in high platforms, nearly knocking her
over. At rst I didn’t recognize Tracina, because she was all dolled up, her curly hair a