“I did,” I tell him. “Better than coffee. Speaking of, you better hurry up or I’m going to gauge your eyes out.”

“Ah,” he says. “You’re one of those angry ones who aren’t even human until their third cup. Good to know. Wake up Nicola with good head and coffee immediately after.”

“That sounds like heaven.”

“Heaven can be arranged,” he says and places a lingering kiss on my neck, kissing up until right under my jawline. “I think I’ve found my heaven right here.”

I keep my head back and eyes closed and that ache between my legs flares up, wanting just as badly as before. But there’s no way that can happen today, not with Ava in my care. Unless IKEA has a sex pit, we’ll have to hold off on the bedroom stuff until it’s dark.

“So,” he goes on, pressing me to him and inhaling deep. “Oh, sweetheart, you smell so good. It’s distracting as fuck.”

“So,” I say to him, trying to keep him on track. “About today.”

He pulls away and eyes me. “Yes. Are you free?”

“Today is a day off,” I tell him. “I’m all yours.”

“Good,” he says. “Because even if you weren’t, I intended to make you mine anyway. Remember all those things I said about you being totally underfucked? Well, it’s going to take a long time and a lot of practice until I have you on the right side. But you can deal with that, can’t you, babe?”

Now that sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.

***

Though it’s the afternoon when we pull into Emeryville again, it’s a weekday and IKEA isn’t as busy as I thought it would be. To be honest, I’m actually excited to be back. It’s like when we were here before that was a totally different Nicola and Bram. Now we’re here and though we aren’t together together, this time I know what his cock feels like when it’s inside me – I no longer have to wonder.

Unfortunately, because we aren’t the first ones there, there’s a bit of a wait for the daycare fun center to fit Ava in, so we make the most use of our time by going into the dreaded customer service line and returning the couches. Apparently they don’t have any issues in taking them back and I’m sure the assembled couch will find itself in the “as-is” section, where the desperate and lucky souls go hoping to find that holy grail of all furnishings, the IKEA item that’s already been assembled.

Finally when it’s time for Ava to get into the daycare, we’re pretty much done for the day and ready to go home. But Bram points out how excited Ava is about going and I can’t say no to free child minding, so we agree to take a look around the store again while she has her fun for an hour.

After we wave goodbye to her, Bram pulls me close, his fingers firm against my wrist, his thumb delicately stroking the skin there. He whispers in my ear. “You remember the dare from last time?” he asks.

I give him a steady look. “It was a few days ago, so yes. And still no. You can call me no fun again, but I am not going to sit on a showroom toilet and pretend to take a dump.”

He smiles. “No, that wasn’t quite it. But it is a dare. One you’ll enjoy if you’re brave enough to believe me.”

My eyes narrow. “I don’t know…”

“Come with me,” he says and he leads me upstairs and back into the showroom area. We stride down the halls, past couples flopping down on couches and finicky women testing the smoothness of drawers.

Bram tugs at the tulle skirt I’m wearing. “Glad you wore this.”

I look down at it and the contrast with my Zara biker boots. “Thanks, I think it’s kind of ballerina punk.”

“No, I mean I’m glad you wore a skirt.”

“Why?” I ask and suddenly he’s jerking me into one of the showroom apartments. He takes me right around the corner of a sliding wood door and we’re in one of the bathrooms.

“No,” I tell him, planting my feet firmly. “What did I just tell you?”

“Relax, it’s not what you think,” he says and with one swift motion he grabs me by the hips and hoists me up onto the sink. I squirm even though I’m hidden from most shoppers. If anyone explored this faux apartment and turned the corner, they’d totally see me.

But Bram just hikes up my skirt so it’s bunched around my waist and pushes my underwear aside. The sudden burst of air and exposure makes me freeze, as does the cold faux marble on my ass. He positions himself between my legs, grinning up at me the whole time.

“Seriously, no,” I tell him. “We’ll get caught and kicked out.”

“But what a way to go,” he says and then I feel the tickle of his hair on me and the hot zing of his tongue.

I don’t even know how this is going to work. How can I relax and enjoy this knowing we could be found out at any minute? This isn’t pleasurable at all, this is nerve-wracking, it’s dangerous.

Jesus, this feels good.

I grip his hair in my hands and lean back, my head against the mirror as his tongue and lips get their fill of me.

A moan escapes me but I don’t care. The sound is taken away into the buzz of the store. Just feet away, there are people staring at this apartment, pondering their home furnishings and yet behind a simple piece of removable wall, my pussy is on display for them all to see.

Bram’s not taking his time like he was this morning though. His mouth is hot and fervent and as his tongue snakes in and out of me, I moan again, guttural this time, feeling like a very bad, very wild thing. When he takes his finger and plunges it inside, stroking my G-spot while his lips suck on my clit, I’m a goner.

“Fuck,” I cry out, too loud. But Bram keeps going until my limbs stop shaking. For a few glorious seconds there I think I’m above both time and space—the seventh dimension where Bram-powered orgasms send you.

“Wow,” I manage to say, lifting my head up. I expect to just see Bram but that’s not all I see. While he’s between my legs and staring at me with concern, probably because I look like I’ve just seen a ghost, there’s an elderly couple standing behind him with their mouths hanging open.

The woman shrieks and the man covers her eyes and pulls her aside and out of our view. Bram quickly hops to his feet, bringing me off the counter and making sure I’m covered.

“Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I swear, adjusting my skirt. I grab onto Bram’s shirt. “What do we do?”

“They look like the types who’ll call security,” he says and even though I’m freaking the fuck out, there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes. I’m not sure I like that. I don’t ever want to encourage this kind of fun again. “I guess we better run?”

I turn around and bang on the fake wall of the bathroom behind us. “Can’t you break through this or we can tunnel our way out? I don’t want to go out there,” I plead.

He grabs my hand and kisses the back of it. “On the count of three, we run. Got it? One, two, three!”

Somehow my legs move and he pulls me forward and we burst out of the fake bathroom and into the fake apartment. There are a few people staring at us, wondering what’s going on, but what’s the most frightening is that the elderly couple are talking to an Ikea worker and pointing right at us.

“Keep going!” Bram yells and my legs keep moving even though the rest of me seems frozen in icy panic and we scamper out of the apartment and down the hall toward the stairs at the very end.

I hear a “Hey!” of someone shouting after us but we don’t dare look or stop. We keep going, taking the stairs two at a time and run right to the daycare.

It hasn’t been an hour but Ava is running around close to the entrance. I call for her, waving frantically while trying to not appear like a crazy lady and Ava is good enough to run right over to us without any coaxing.

“You’re back already?” she asks.

“Honey, we have to go right now. Do you want to run with us? Pretend we are being chased by dinosaurs?”

She nods, always up for any sort of dino-related adventure.