Read Online IllicitImpulse by Alexa Day - Free Book Online Page B

convertible parked next to the
boardwalk in the middle of the afternoon. Or on a park bench. Or something like
that.”
    Had she—? “Top down?” The question was out of his mouth so
quickly, it was as if someone else had asked.
    She blinked. “What now?”
    “In the back of a convertible with the top down?”
    “You tell me.” She raised her eyebrow and grinned, daring
him to answer her. “Would you?”
    “We’re not talking about me.” And before she could protest,
he pointed at the tape recorder. “We’re talking about you.”
    “Oh, okay. If you want to be like that, we are talking about
me, but we’re only talking about last week.”
    He shook his head. “No, no, no. You started this. Now you
have to finish it.”
    “Is that what you want?” She grinned. “You want to know if
I’ve done all that?”
    He wasn’t sure. But now he’d talked himself into a corner,
hadn’t he?
    “Okay then.” She pulled the tape recorder slowly toward her.
“For the record, I have done it in the back of a convertible parked next to the
boardwalk in the middle of the afternoon.”
    “My question,” he said, “was whether you had the top down.”
    “No. It was July! We needed the shade. Top up.” She raised
her eyebrow. “Windows down.”
    “And the park bench?”
    “That didn’t happen last week either,” she said.
    But when? With Tal? Why had he started this?
    Now she was sliding the tape recorder back toward him. “What
about you?”
    “What about me?”
    “The way you asked about whether the top was down, it kind
of sounded like maybe you’ve done that before.”
    “In a convertible? No.” Did he even know anybody with a
convertible?
    “Or any car.”
    “Well, I have done that .”
    “I’m not talking about one time in college.”
    “Neither am I!”
    Her brow rose again.
    “I’m not!”
    “Okay, so you’ve been there and done that. I just figured—”
    “You just figured boring old Johnny’s never done anything.”
    “No, it’s not like that. I mean, maybe that’s just what you
want. Maybe you’re just not into that sort of thing. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong
or boring or anything.”
    He’d said the same kind of thing hundreds of times, hadn’t
he? So why did this bother him so much?
    Because she said she and Tal were talking about you.
Probably about how you’d never done anything or been anywhere.
    “Besides,” she was saying, “I’m sure you’ve done plenty.”
    “Okay then,” he said. He looked down at his legal pad,
trying to find his place. Where had he gotten so sidetracked? “I mean, I’ve—you
know, tied people up.”
    “People?”
    “Women.” He sat up and dropped the pencil on the legal pad.
“Girlfriends.”
    “With what? Scarves?”
    “Yes.” Twice. At their request. She didn’t need to know all
that.
    “Phone sex?”
    He folded his arms. “Yes.”
    “Done it outdoors?”
    He had. While camping. Just out of college. With the tent
zipped tightly shut, it had been like having sex inside a pizza oven, and he’d
never do it again, but he’d done it. “Yes.”
    “Well then! You have been around.”
    “I have.” He took up the pencil again and then looked back
up at her. “So you can just tell Tal—”
    “No. I don’t think so.” She folded her arms. “I’m done
carrying messages back and forth between you guys. I think you need to talk to
each other.”
    “I don’t know about that…”
    “I do. It’d be good for both of you, and even better for
me.” She leaned back in the chair. “I’m tired of explaining each of you to the
other one.”
    Did he really want Tal to become any more real for him than
he was right now? As it was, he had enough trouble with Tal as a faceless,
shadowy figure who was screwing his best friend.
    Instead of, say, you screwing your best friend .
    “I don’t know, Grace. I’m already having to try to stay
impartial, and if I actually met Tal—”
    I might wring his neck.
    “If you actually met him,