Something Forbidden (26 page)

“You never wanted to get caught, you mean,” I corrected.

Silence hung on the other end of the line.

“It’s late here, and I’ve got a big day tomorrow,” I said at last.

“I understand. But I had to call.”

“You did.” My confidence greeted me like a long lost friend.
Hey, man.
“But don’t ever call again. Not me, and not my wife. Understand?”

“I understand. Like I said, it’s over. And truly, Max, I’m sorry.”

“Goodbye.”

Pressing
end
on that call was more than symbolic, but when my phone went black, I knew there was another I needed to call.

Katie’s phone went right to voicemail. I started to hang up, but as I listened to Katie’s recorded voice apologizing for missing me, then the beep at the end, I started talking anyway.

“Kates, I love you. And I’m so sorry about...so many things. I’m sorry I brought Chloe and Greg into our lives. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you more. I’m sorry that we let it get to this point, where I have to leave a message on your phone rather than look you in the eyes and tell you in person.”

I took a deep, wavering breath. Tears gathered in my eyes before I brushed them away.

“But I’m not sorry that I got to discover this new side of you—of us. I don’t regret sharing my fantasy with you, and watch you live it out. That was awesome. We just picked our partners poorly.

“I’m sorry that you’re going to miss the opening It’ll be weird without you here for that, but you know what? It’ll be here the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. I love you, Katie. See you when I see you.”

I hung up as a tear carved a trail down my cheek. Blinking, I was in The Katherine once again, alone and lost in the dark. It would be here for her. And so would I.

****

The next day—the day of the grand opening—I actually slept in. Maybe it was the fact that I’d gotten such shitty sleep leading up to that night. Maybe it was the emotional exhaustion of the soft opening and all the Chloe and Greg revelations. Maybe I was finally at peace. The rest was out of my hands.

Whatever the reason, I didn’t even open my eyes until almost noon. And when I woke up, I felt rested for the first time in ages.

My phone didn’t have any messages. No missed calls. It wasn’t a great feeling, but I tried not to linger on it.

I stopped by my parents’ house to spend some time with Mya. We went to the neighborhood park where I pushed her on the swing.

“Where’s mommy, daddy?”

“She’s away,” I said.

“She’s on a trip. She’ll be back soon.” I clung to the certainty in Mya’s statement.

“She will. She will.”

The rest of the day passed in a blink. I brushed up on a few of the more popular cocktails from last night, although this time I didn’t taste-test them beyond a sip.

Unlike the pre-launch party, I spent my opening nights incognito. I left the ribbon-cutting and first toasts to the manager—Nadia for the second time—while I prowled the crowds. It was much easier to find out what people really thought about your bar when they didn’t know it was your bar.

I didn’t deliberately disguise myself. People who knew me knew not to make a big deal out of who I was. To everyone else, I was just another bartender, or patron enjoying a successful opening night.

We opened at 9. By 9:30, we had a line.

“It’s good,” Nadia said. I’d stepped out from behind the bar and eased myself onto a stool that gave me a view of the narrow space. “So far, it’s really good.”

The buzz was positive. People liked being part of something that felt illicit. Prohibition may have been dead, but The Katherine made you think otherwise. At least for a moment. “Are we turning many away?”

“Not many. A few came by in tennis shoes and t-shirts, but most of the crowd knows the score. Word spread about the dress code.”

Word-of-mouth was like electricity: transferring from person to person seamlessly. They brought that excitement in here, charging the air with a level of energy I couldn’t have paid for. I felt it, too: a underlying hum that put me on edge, ready for anything.

I closed my eyes. The hum of conversation pounded relentlessly. “I thought absinthe was illegal,” I heard the pretty blonde seated behind me say to her equally attractive Asian friend. They were drinking a champagne and absinthe cocktail ominously called a “Death in the Afternoon.”

“Me too,” the Asian woman whispered. “Let’s order another before this place gets shut down.”

Absinthe had been legal in the U.S. since 2007, but I liked that they thought they were getting away with something. They’d share that excitement with their friends, who’d come seeking more of the same. That was what this place was all about.

I pushed off my stool and floated through the crowd, capturing snippets of conversation like an impatient man turning the dial on a radio.

“Wow, that’s really good.”

“Smell the bouquet on this punch.”

“I feel like Gatsby.”

Nadia was right. So far, it was good. Really good. And that wasn’t even counting all the rave reviews I’d previewed in the blogosphere from last night. The Katherine was going to be my most successful bar yet. But something was missing: its namesake.

“Call her?” Nadia was there once again, materialized like a sexy version of my subconscious when I needed her most.

“What?” I asked dumbly.

“Call her,” Nadia repeated. “Couldn’t hurt, right?”

“She’s not going to answer.”

“So then she doesn’t answer.” Nadia leaned closer. “
Call her.
”

I rolled my eyes, but pulled out my phone and called Katie. My wife answered on the second ring.

“Hi.” Her achingly familiar voice cut through the noise. Wherever she was, it was as loud as my own surroundings.

“Katie!?”

“Did you mean to call someone else?” I savored the sound of her laugh, wishing I could record it and play it back again and again.

“Where are you?” I asked, plugging the ear not pressed against the phone. “Sounds loud.”

“I’m in a bar.”

I imagined glitzy Hong Kong around her, an exotic redhead in a sea of dark hair. “I miss you. I wish you were here.”

“Oh, Max… So did Greg call you?”

“Yeah.”

“They won’t be bothering us any more. Not if they want to stay out of jail.”

“You didn’t have to do that alone, you know, Katie. I could have helped…” I’m not sure how, but I just knew I could have.

“Of course you could have,” she humored me, “but it was so much easier this way. And besides, I had help. John was instrumental. What’s most important is that they’re history.”

“And you and I?”

“Still have a lot of history to write, I hope,” she said.

“We do.” I wished I could hold her in my arms and nuzzle my cheek along hers.

“I got your message. So you like my naughty side?” she asked.

My body grew hot. My cock reacted. “I do.”

“Good, because I don’t think it’d be easy to just ignore.” Her voice sounded so close. I jammed the phone harder against my skull. “And I don’t think you want me to ignore it, either.”

I gulped, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m looking at a pretty hot guy here right now. I think he may be game for a little fun.”

Jealousy twisted knots in my gut, but my erection raged. The drug was back. The draw of the forbidden that would never be fully satisfied.

“Just a little fun?” I said, my voice steady despite the way I felt. “Wrong guy then.”

Her response didn’t come through the phone line. I heard it right against my ear, feeling hot breath and a woman’s touch encircle me from behind. “Maybe I can convince him to be more than a little naughty.”

I almost dropped my phone. I turned, finding Katie standing before me, her wide smile a mirror of my own. “You’re here.”

“
Finally
,” she agreed. “I’ve been flying for the past 36 hours. I’m so tired of foreign airports and shitty food.”

“Flying?” I did the math. So that’s why she’d been off her phone. Not because she was with someone else, or that she was mad, but that—

“Are you going to keep standing there and over-thinking the situation, or are you going to kiss your wife hello?”

I did just that, pulling her close and sliding my lips into place against hers. The kiss was one I’d been dreaming of for days now—a kiss that I was worried I’d never share again. It came from somewhere deep inside of us, born from years of love and familiarity, yet delivered with the same freshness as our first. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but they didn’t say anything about the kisses being so fucking good.

“Get a room, you two.”

Nadia crossed her arms as she leaned onto the bar.

“You knew she was here,” I said to her.

Nadia smirked. “I also knew that she’d been trying to get home for the past two days, but this makes it worth it.”

“Thanks for looking out for him, Nadia,” Katie said. She still hadn’t stepped out of my embrace, and I wasn’t about to let her go quite so easily.

“Hey, watching Max is one of my favorite pastimes,” Nadia said before she could help it. “I mean, not that anything would ever happen...um...”

Katie just laughed. “That’s too bad. I was trying to think of creative ways to thank you and John, and you just eliminated the top contender.”

Nadia and I were both stunned. I stared at Katie, the woman whose jealousy could be so intense that I’d gotten into the habit of not mentioning Nadia’s name even in a business context.

“What?” Katie giggled. “Don’t tell me that you two haven’t wanted to jump each other for years.”

“I think she’s fucking with us,” I said to Nadia, but couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll show you some fucking,” Katie said. She pulled me toward the back, asking Nadia over her shoulder, “This way to the office?”

Nadia grinned and nodded her head. Her dark eyes followed us until the crowd swallowed us up.

****

“I missed you so much.” Katie sighed as we melted into one another’s arms. “I love you, Maxwell Callahan, and for a second, I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m right here.”

I pulled back, studying her for the first time that night. She wore a red, single-shouldered dress that was so seamless it looked poured on. The brocaded detailing around her shoulders gave it a hint of the Roaring 20s and her make-up was glamorous to match, but nothing about her look suggested someone trying too hard.

I brushed a strand of red hair from her freckled cheeks. She’d worn in down in long, coppery waves that cascaded around her shoulders as she leaned back onto the desk.

“I’m sorry again about Chloe and Greg,” I said. “I never should have given you her card.”

“But you did because you wanted to open up our relationship.”

“No,” was my first instinct. That sounded awful, but in a way, it was true, too. “Okay, yes. And that’s why I really feel terrible.”

Katie mirrored my touch, reaching out to run her hand along my cheek. “Don’t. They were a dangerous couple to be our first, but we survived.”

“Our first?” My cock was at full attention.

“Less talk. More getting reacquainted,” she said. Her kiss followed, her soft touch on my cheek growing firm.

My hands strayed down her dress, silky smooth under my palms. I felt the back strap of her bra and the faintest hint of her tiny panties, and something else.

Hoisting her up onto the edge of the desk, I pushed the hem of her dress up her leg, discovering the lacy fringe of her nude stockings, then the strap of her garter belt.

“You like it?” she asked. “I felt they were Era appropriate.”

I glanced at the lingerie. It was blood red as her dress. “Good thing. Wouldn’t want to have to throw you out.”

“Well, I’m no historian, but I don’t think many women wore g-strings in the 1920s, so you may need to throw me out anyway.”

“Good thing my stance on bribes is Era appropriate, too,” I said.

“Are you suggesting that I can stay if I suck your cock?”

The question emerging from the old Katie was unthinkable. Or maybe it had been there all along, ready to emerge. Either way, she was here to stay.

“I’m afraid this offense is far more serious.” I loosened my belt and lifted her legs up onto the desk. With my cock in one hand, I stepped close, pushing the gusset of her g-string to the side. “We at The Katherine take historical anachronisms very seriously.”

“About that name—UH!”

Her pussy accepted my thrust without resistance. She wrapped her legs around me and leaned back on her desk. “How does it make you feel, being part of something so illicit?”

A sweep of auburn hair fell across her eyes, making her look even more the part of the temptress. “I love it.”

I pulled down the side of her dress not supported with the single strap, revealing a lacy red bra that just barely covered her nipple. I freed that a moment later, tweaking it with my thumb.