Nicole Edwards - Perception

“Look, Dad. I’ve got a conference call in a few. Tell Mom I love her and that I’ll see you both in a couple of days.”

“Will do,” Stan answered. “And try not to think about your mother and me on those rafters, will you?”

Xander laughed, just as his father had probably intended, as the call disconnected. Leave it to his father to try and torment him. The man was always trying to come up with something.

Mercedes was dressed and downstairs just in time to see Xander walking into his kitchen. She was carrying her shoes and heading for the coffee pot, hoping she didn’t look as harried as she felt.

Snatching a cup from the cabinet, she dropped her shoes on the floor and grabbed the coffee pot. God, even one cup would go a long way to improving her morning. As it was, she wasn’t sure she could function without at least a little caffeine.

“I can’t believe you didn’t wake me up,” she chastised him when he came up behind her.

“You looked so peaceful. If I had my way, you’d still be in my bed,” he mumbled close to her ear, pulling her hair back from her neck and placing a kiss to the sensitive spot that made her shiver.

“I have a meeting,” she told him, pulling away to glance at her cell phone. “Shit. I’m actually late.”

“Where’s your meeting?” Xander took her coffee cup from her hand and placed it on the counter before turning to the refrigerator to retrieve the creamer.

“Not far from here,” she informed him. “I’m meeting a client.” Fidgeting with her shoes, Mercedes finally managed to get the damn things on, and when she turned back to Xander, he was holding out her coffee mug.

Mug.

Not cup.

He’d transferred her coffee from a cup to a mug, and he was sending her on her way.

“Be careful. Call me later.”

Mercedes stopped. She stared up at Xander. “You’re sending me on my way, just like that?”

“Just like what?” he laughed. “You’ve got a job to do, M. I wouldn’t dream of getting in the way of that.”

Yes, she did have a job to do. But for some reason, she’d expected him to be… demanding or something. Insisting that she stay and do something. Hell, she didn’t know.

He stepped close, placing his hands on her hips as he pulled her against him. “Trust me, if I could keep you tied to my bed, you’d be there right now. And I’d be buried so deep inside of you, you’d never be able to let me go.”

Mercedes’s sucked in air. When he talked to her like that… It did strange things to her.

“Well,” she said on a breath. “I better go.”

“Yes, you better.” Xander pressed his lips to hers. He didn’t linger, didn’t tease. Just quick and sweet. “By the way, it’s Thursday,” he told her as though she didn’t already know what day it was.

“And?”

“And I’m going to X-hale tonight.”

He looked disappointed, but Mercedes knew he enjoyed going to the cigar bar. It was one of the highlights of his month and had been for years. So much so that he’d acquired, redesigned and renamed one of his own a few years back – What had previously been known as Smoke became a much more refined establishment appropriately named X-hale . According to Shane, the name had been Xander’s ego hard at work.

“Ok.” At the moment, Mercedes didn’t have any plans for the night, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. If she did, she feared he might just change his plans for her. And that was the last thing she wanted. “I’ll call you later to find out what time you’ll be home.”

Xander nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

It was Mercedes’s turn to assure him, even though every second that passed made her that much later. “I’ll be here tonight. Just like I promised.”

Xander’s eyes softened, and she realized that was exactly what he’d been worried about.

Breaking the eye contact, she held up her coffee mug in salute. “Thanks for this. I’ve gotta go, but I promise, I’ll call you later.”

“I’m holding you to that.”

Of course he was.

Several minutes later, Mercedes was walking through the parking garage. On the way down from Xander’s condo, she had called her client, informing her that she was a few minutes behind. She didn’t make a habit of running late for anything and she still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to be so careless that morning.

Because you slept like the dead after Xander rocked your world.

Ok, so there was that.

Once inside her Lexus SUV, Mercedes placed her coffee in the cup holder, staring down at it for a moment. Xander had prepared that for her. Just like…

No way. Do not go there.

It was a simple task, one anyone would’ve done. She was not going to read any more into it. Just because they’d had phenomenal, top-of-the-head-exploding sex last night did not mean they were a couple.

This was still a deal. One that would only last a few more days.

Mercedes’s phone rang. Thank God.

Hitting the button on the steering wheel to activate the Bluetooth, she greeted the caller. The number that came up on the navigation screen was unfamiliar.

“Mercedes?”

“This is she,” she told the female caller.

“This is Samantha McCoy.”

“Hello, Samantha,” she answered in return, trying to hide the confusion in her voice.

Oh, God.

If Sam were calling to discuss her desire to learn about submissives, she just might run her car into a wall.

“Please call me Sam. I just wanted to call to see if you had plans tonight.”

Tonight? Right. The boys – including Logan – would all be at the cigar bar. “I, uh –”

Sam interrupted. “Some of us are going to go out to a… you know… a toy shop.” Sam paused, and Mercedes smiled. The woman was nervous.

She didn’t encourage Sam to continue because she had no idea what the woman was requesting.

“We wanted to see if you wanted to go with us.”

Wow. That was a surprise.

“An invitation to a sex shop?” Mercedes said with a laugh. “I have to admit, I don’t get those types of invitations much. At least not from a woman.”

Sam laughed, some of her anxiety seeming to fade away. “Yeah, well, me either. But, we figured since the boys get their night out, we’d do something that would… benefit them too.”

Mercedes liked the idea of a girl’s night out without men. She hadn’t been able to spend a lot of time with Clarissa, her closest friend, because Clarissa’s schedule was even more bogged down than Mercedes’s. But tonight, she certainly didn’t have anything to do because Xander would be gone, and she feared if she sat at home, she’d only find ways to pick apart everything that had happened over the course of the last two days.

“Sure, I’d love to go,” she told Sam now.

“Perfect,” Sam said enthusiastically, just short of a squeal.

Mercedes listened while Sam gave her the details: time, place, what they’d be doing before in case she wanted to join them for drinks. When Sam finished with the instructions, they said their good-byes just as Mercedes was pulling into the parking lot of her destination.

A group of girls at a sex shop.

Why the hell not. It could be fun.

And it would be her chance to set the other women straight. After all, they were probably still under the impression that she was a sub.

“That is not what happened, and you know it,” Shane argued with a choked laugh. “She was… Shit. I don’t even know what she was after. I could see it in her eyes, she wanted me laid out like a platter, and I got the feeling she wanted to feast on my blood.”