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hold sugar packets, the napkin holders—it all went crashing to the floor. Any other time I would have
been pissed. But that night I was thrilled by his impatience, his ferocity. He spun me around and urged
me down onto the table, my arms stretched to hold the edges.
“You said you weren’t going to touch me, Will.”
“I’m not going to touch you. I’m going to fuck you,” he groaned, pulling my knees apart and
standing naked between my spread thighs. He now held his heavy erection in his hand, stroking it, his
fierce eyes on me as he prodded into my wetness, a hesitant inch, then another one, teasing, making
me yearn and reach, asking, begging for him to fuck me, to fuck me hard, Oh, Will, my quivering
thighs bracketing his narrow hips, my nails digging into his forearms as he—
“Excuse me. Is this seat taken?”
Oh shit, my fantasy broke like a bubble. A man—a real one—now stood looming over my metal
patio table at Ignatius’s, his face shadowed from behind by the high, hot sun.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “The patio’s full and I noticed you have a table for
four all to yourself. Very selfish.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry. Yes, of course,” I said, plucking my purse from one of the chairs at my table. I
must have looked like a dozy ape, chomping on an ice cube and staring into the middle distance,
fantasizing about Will—again. This bad habit had to stop or I would drive myself mad.
“I’ll just eat my sandwich and drink my coffee and read my paper,” he said. “And we can pretend
we’re not sharing a table for lunch.”
“Good plan.”
He had mischievous blue eyes, and though normally I didn’t like beards, even short, groomed ones,
his was sexy.
“We wouldn’t want to speak or make eye contact over food. That would be weird.”
“And awkward,” I continued. “Not to mention rude.”
“Disgusting.”
“The way people eat together and talk to each other. Over meals!” I added with a shudder.
There was a beat, and then we both broke character, laughing.
“I’m Cassie,” I said, extending my hand. The thought occurred to me that I never would have been
capable of such banter just a few months earlier, before I’d been introduced to S.E.C.R.E.T. I had
changed.
“Mark. Mark Drury.”
Flaky hipsters have never been my type. But this one had a nice smile and a great Cajun accent.
Add those blue eyes and strong, lean hands …
“Lunch break?” he asked, folding his long legs under the table.
“Kind of. You?”
“Breakfast time for me.”
“Late night?”
“Occupational hazard. I’m a musician.”
“Get out! In New Orleans?”
“Strange, I know. And you?”
“I’m a waitress.”
“What are the odds?”
There was that smile again.
Naturally, easily, we carried on the conversation, about the instruments he played (he was a singer,
played bass, taught a little piano on the side) and the Café, where I worked (he knew it, hadn’t been in