Chapter Eighteen

Chelle

“You did what?” Karmel asked, wide eyed, with her chocolate hazelnut croissant stopped halfway to her mouth.

She’d said it loud enough to get some stares from the folks sitting at tables around theirs at Grounded Coffee, who’d already spotted the woman from that one show (it was a different one for everyone) but were ignoring Karmel the way only jaded Harbor Citians could.

Chelle waited a few beats for the gawkers to turn back to their own tables and lowered her voice. “I listened to him jerk off.”

Now Karmel was grinning, a devious little upturn of her mouth that showed just how much she was about to enjoy whatever came next. Chelle braced herself. She knew this would happen when she walked into the coffee shop no matter how much she mentally warned herself to just keep her mouth shut about Nash. Karmel had a way of just pulling the truth out of her—whether it was the reality of what growing up a rich Finch had been like or what she’d been up to with her (Karmel’s words) hot hunk of a husband.

“And he did this,” Karmel continued after taking a bite of chocolatey, flaky deliciousness, “because you told him to?”

Chelle sank lower in her chair and mumbled an affirmative into her toasted almond latte with extra foam.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”

Okay, big girl, grown-ass woman panties time. Chelle sat up straighter and forced herself to make eye contact with her too-amused-to-hide-it friend. “Yes.”

“Michelle Finch, you dirty bird,” Karmel said with her signature husky laugh that grabbed the attention of a few more coffee shop patrons, who then glanced away almost as quickly as they started staring. “I’m impressed.”

Yeah. That was one way to look at it. Guilt stole all of the taste from her latte as she took another drink. “With what, that I sexually harassed my fake husband?”

“Is that what it was?” Karmel added enough sugar packets to her plain black coffee to qualify it as a dessert. “Did he not listen to you first?” She sipped from her mug, wrinkled her nose, and then added a strong pour of liquid creamer. “Did you intimidate, use force, or otherwise coerce him into masturbating while your back was turned? Is there a power dynamic I’m not aware of?”

It wasn’t that simple. “Not exactly, but—”

Karmel rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You two need to have a conversation.” Then she lowered her theater-trained voice meant to reach the old lady in the back row with her hearing aid turned off to as close of a whisper as the woman had. “And you need to fuck him already, because where there are sizzling solo hand jobs there is also fire fucking.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Chelle said before her mutinous libido could start rationalizing exactly how and why it was a very, very good idea.

“Fuck good ideas,” Karmel said. “It’s about time you had a little fun.”

Fun? That really wasn’t part of her make-up any more than relationships were. Fun belonged on the pages of her fantasy books, the short side quests that involved drunk goblins with the giggles and retrieving gemstones infused with aphrodisiac spells.

“He’s too young,” she said.

Karmel dead-eyed her. “There’s barely a blip of an age difference between you. It’s what, less than a decade?”

“Eight years.” She was out of college when he’d been a high school freshman. He was a baby, a puppy, a—

Full-grown man packing a dick big enough to make her mouth water, going by what she’d seen when she’d looked at his gray sweatpants last night.

Shut up, brain.

“Uh-huh.” Her friend shot her a that’s-what-I-thought look over her mug of what in no way resembled anything close to coffee anymore.

“It’s not like we’re even together together.” They were, after all, only husband and wife on paper, and they had agreed to no sexy times—even if he had suggested tearing up that part of the agreement.

Karmel gave her a so-what eyebrow raise.

“He’d probably mansplain the female orgasm to me.” Why did that kinda sound hot? Oh God. She needed help. Professional help.

“I don’t know about that.” Karmel smirked. “Sounds to me like he’s open to taking orders.”

“I caught him off guard, and anyway, that’s not really my thing.”

Karmel scoffed. “Keep telling yourself that. You’ve spent your whole life having other people tell you what you want and how you should want it and what you should do to get it, but all of that ‘touch yourself’ stuff came out of nowhere?”

Vibrator-assisted fantasies and the joy of controlling all sorts of characters in her books aside? “It was a one-time occurrence.”

“Sounds to me like you both need to figure out if that’s really the case.” Karmel sat her mug down. “You know I love you.”

Chelle took a drink of her latte and braced herself for whatever was coming next, because she highly doubted she was going to want to hear it.

“But,” her friend continued, “maybe it’s time you get out of your own head and enjoy life rather than just watching it from the sidelines.”

“I don’t do that. I have a very full life with a job I love, hobbies, and my pets.”

“And no one to share it with.”

“That’s perfectly fine with me.” It gave her all the time in the world to do what she wanted, when she wanted, and how she wanted. It was freeing. “The last thing I need in my life is a man who thinks he can tell me what to do.”

“Then you should be the one telling him what to do,” Karmel said. “Nash isn’t going to be in your life forever? Good, then this could be your chance to baby step it into the world of relationships. Try it on for size. Get your feet wet. Take it for a test drive. And if you get nothing but orgasms out of it, where is the harm in that? Like I told you before, life is a buffet and it’s time for you to get fat and sassy on the bounty. Honey, you deserve it.”

Why did all of that have to make so much sense, and what could Chelle even say to that? If she was writing one of her characters, she’d have plenty to say, but as herself? Yeah, it sounded a little too real.

Karmel reached across the table, covered Chelle’s hand with her own, and gave it a squeeze. “Just say you’ll think about it.”

As if she had been thinking of anything else over the past twenty-four hours. “Fine, I’ll give it some thought.”

“Some dirty thoughts, I hope,” her friend said with a theatrically lewd wink.

Despite everything, Chelle burst out laughing. “You’re a bad influence.”

“Proudly and always.” Karmel popped the last bite of her croissant into her mouth. “And you love me for it.”

Now that, Chelle didn’t have to think about at all, because it was 100 percent true. And as for what to do moving forward with Nash? She already knew the answer to that, she just wasn’t sure she was ready to say it out loud.