Blue Angel by Logan Belle Page A

you want to do?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Then I think you should give it some more time—see if you can figure out something else. But until then, try to give this your best shot. Certainly don’t make a decision until after you’ve taken the bar again. I know you’re going to ace it, and I want you to experience that, so you stop feeling so bad about what happened in August.”
    He hugged her again, kissing her forehead, her nose, her lips. He moved his hand inside her blouse, and when his fingers brushed her nipples she thought of Bette.
    “Alec,” she said, pulling back.
    “It’s fine, baby. We’ll figure it out,” he breathed, his mouth moving down her neck.
    “Wait—I need to tell you something.”
    She pulled back, taking his hand and leading him to the couch.
    “I was really upset last night. You and I are supposed to be able to talk about anything, and I was admitting something to you that was hard for me even to admit to myself, and you freaked out. I left here, and I tried calling Julie, and she didn’t pick up, and Allison wasn’t around. I even went down to Allison’s building. I didn’t want to come back here, so I thought of calling Bette, and luckily she was home.”
    “You called Bette Noir?”
    “Yeah. I saw her yesterday, and I’d started telling her about my job situation and she was so understanding. . . .”
    “Well, I’m glad she was there for you. It’s a bit odd that out of all people she’s the one who you ended up confiding in, but so be it.” He reached out and stroked her hair.
    “Yeah. Well, it was a little more than confiding.”
    He stopped touching her.
    “What do you mean?”
    “This is hard for me to explain, Alec. I was upset—not just about the fight last night, but about the way things have been between us since I got to New York.”
    “What do you mean, how things have been since you got to New York?”
    “It’s hard to explain.”
    “Try.”
    “I feel less close to you. I feel like an appendage to your life here instead of really being a part of it. Part of the reason I let myself get pulled on stage the night of my birthday was because I thought, on some level, it would make you finally see me. I don’t feel like you want me physically the way you used to. . . .”
    “I think our sex life is as good—if not better—than ever.”
    “Then why do you look at other women all the time? And why are you so fixated on the idea of having a threesome—like I’m not enough?”
    “First of all, all guys look at women. It’s human nature. And I’m not fixated on the idea of a threesome. I just think it could be interesting, and I would like to experience that with you. If it doesn’t happen, it’s not a big deal.”
    “It feels like a big deal.”
    “I think you’re overthinking things.”
    “Maybe. But that’s the way I’ve been feeling. And so last night I was upset. I went to Bette’s, had a few drinks. And then we . . . hooked up.”
    Alec smiled a funny smile and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
    “Just what I said. We hooked up.”
    He pulled back on the couch, looking at her as if she was a stranger.
    “Can you be more specific?”
    Mallory thought of herself being blindfolded, of Bette unbuttoning her blouse. . . .
    “She kissed me and . . . I let her touch me.”
    “I can’t believe you. You are such a hypocrite! You get of-fended—angry, actually—because I admit to you that I fantasize about bringing another woman into bed with us—
us
being the operative word here, Mallory—and then you run off and let another woman fuck you the minute we have an argument.”
    “We didn’t . . . she didn’t fuck me. It wasn’t sex. She just touched me. . . . It was nothing.”
    “Did you come?”
    “What?”
    “Did you have an orgasm?”
    “I mean, yeah, but . . .”
    Alec pushed himself off the couch and stalked off to their bedroom. He slammed the door.
    Jesus. Mallory put her head in her hands. Bette had been