Along for the Ride Read Online Free Page B

nodded his thanks as the plate slid down the counter in his direction, Odette already turning to some other customer. Five-thirty in the morning was a surprisingly busy time in this diner, tucked under the elevated trains not far from Rafi’s apartment.
    He came here several times a week and had gradually become a part of the pre-dawn brotherhood. Early on he’d polished his English, joining the motley assembly for discussions of Chicago sports and politics. Later he’d made some good friends. Jake, who traded warrants on the Tokyo exchange, and was wearily on his way home when Rafi was on his way out. Paul, a first-shift nurse at the county hospital.
    Odette, in her seventies, who mothered him. Hell, he welcomed it; it had been a long time since anyone had much cared about his welfare.
    Rafi regarded his breakfast: two eggs sunny-side up, a biscuit, and sausage. Jimmy Dean sausage, as American as meat got. In this diner, Rafi didn’t feel like a foreigner. Even on days when he didn’t see anyone he knew, he felt at home.
    Not today though. He set his fork down, took a long swallow of orange juice. No appetite. Or rather, no appetite for food.
    But Lauren was another story. He was ravenous for another taste of her love. For seven days he’d dreamed of her during his long hours on the streets of Chicago, letting his practiced fingers guide the wheel on his familiar routes, speaking absent greetings to his steady customers.
    In an hour he would see her again. And he was ready. God, he was ready, every nerve in his body anxious to drink her in again.
    She’d have him, Rafi was almost certain. He was well trained in the feminine lexicon of desire and he had read the fevered longing in her eyes as they parted. She would be catching the later flight again today.
    But doubts nagged at him nevertheless. He couldn’t quite put his finger on their source. He was no stranger to a women’s desire; he’d found himself in their sights since boyhood.
    And then he realized what it was.
    Since he’d first made love, at the age of fifteen, he’d realized he had a talent for communicating in the sensual language of love, the teasing give-and-take, the courting, the sly entendres. He took deep pleasure in bringing his lovers to ecstasy, second only to his satisfaction in keeping their interest with his library of techniques. He nurtured his sexual prowess as a museum curator might tend a beloved collection of antiquities, adding to it when something new and worthy caught his attention, revisiting old favorites frequently.
    Young women didn't often appreciate the care he took. They wanted to rush. Or to try things they'd seen on the internet, as though he was some sort of convenient sex toy. Rafi resented their carelessness; he wanted to put his skills and passion to use with a worthy woman. But with Lauren, the planning, the control, the mastery had vanished.
    From the moment her eyes fluttered shut as she met his kiss, he had not been the leader. Nor the follower. Lauren was not a virgin, not a shy and inexperienced lover; nor was she like the aggressive American performers he saw on television, revealing their flesh without revealing any part of their soul. Some other current carried her, and he’d gone with her willingly, and the reward had astonished him.
    But it was different to be out of control. Different and, Rafi had to admit as he stared into his coffee cup, incredibly frightening.
    But nothing was going to scare him out of Lauren’s arms. Rafi tossed a handful of bills next to his plate and went to meet her.
    #
    “Where to?”
    Lauren flushed, the pleasure of his voice warming her even as she shivered in her long coat, the sight of him standing by the open door of the car weakening her knees. Rafi’s smile tipped up slightly higher on one side, and his eyes, even in the cold light of early dawn, burned dark and hot.
    She slipped into his embrace before she had a chance to register what she was doing. He stepped aside