Page 92 of His Good Girl

Jules:First: are you still alive? Second: did the open throat happen again? Third: why do I have a bad feeling and a good feeling?

I stared at the message. Then I laughed, a little wildly, alone in the elevator.

Me:I need a cold shower.

The typing bubbles appeared instantly.

Jules:Oh, my God.

I looked at my reflection again. My hair was loose now, curling around my face. My cheeks were flushed. My mouth looked exactly like it had been kissed by a man who knew how to use restraint as a weapon and then, for one devastating minute, had put it down.

My phone buzzed again.

Jules:Details. Immediately.

I closed my eyes and thought of walking in tomorrow wearing a black pencil skirt with nothing underneath.

I had no idea what I was going to do.

That was a lie.

I knew exactly what Iwantedto do.

The real question was whether I was brave enough, reckless enough, or foolish enough to do it.

CHAPTER 11

Avery

The security guard at the front desk looked up when I passed. I smiled too widely at him, and he just blinked at me.

Outside, the evening had gone cool and gray. The last of the office crowd had already thinned into a scattered stream of people hurrying toward trains, ride shares, and whatever lives they had that did not involve being kissed behind locked doors by men who could ruin them with nothing more than a simple touch. Rowe Tower rose behind me in black glass and hard angles. I did not look up at the forty-seventh floor.

I stepped toward the curb and pulled out my phone to see that Jules had already sent six messages.

Jules:I need a cold shower??

Jules:Avery Melissa Hale.

Jules:Did he kiss you?

Jules:Did you kiss him?

Jules:Were there rolled-up sleeves?

Jules:I am putting on shoes.

I laughed once, shaky and alone on the sidewalk. Then a feeling at the back of my neck came over me, the primitive awareness of being watched. I looked up from my phone and glanced across the street. A man in a gray coat stood near the corner, half turned away, one hand raised as if checking his phone. A cyclist wove between traffic. Two women walked past him laughing, one with a gym bag over her shoulder. There was nothing strange or out of place, but then I heard a faint click. Maybe it was a car door or maybe it was someone locking a bike. Or maybe it was a camera.

My stomach clenched with nervous energy.

The man in the gray coat lowered his hand and turned away, blending into the movement near the intersection. I stared after him, pulse still high from everything that had happened. I told myself I was being ridiculous. I had just been kissed senseless and sent into the evening with instructions that would have made a calmer woman lose her mind. Of course I felt watched. I felt exposed because I had exposed myself to a man who could probably wreck me in t-minus two seconds.

Still, I pulled my coat tighter around me and kept my face turned away from the street while I ordered a car. I didn’t want to take the train, at least not tonight.

In the back seat of the Uber, I sat with my knees pressed together and my bag on my lap, watching Rowe Tower disappear behind us through the rear window. My phone buzzed again.

Jules:I am either coming over or calling emergency services. Choose.