Smooth Operator by Risqué

gracefulness he’d never seen.
    He knew she could feel his hard dick pressed against her slit because the harder he became the deeper she thrusted into him.
    Arri pushed everything from her mind that told her she was having too good of a time. Hell, she hadn’t even called home and checked on Zion. Although she knew he was safe, that wasn’t the point. She didn’t need to be here, but then again she did. She turned around and faced Lyfe, slid her arms around his neck, and daringly, she kissed him—a soul-stirring kiss, the kind that made them feel like, even if only for the moment, they were the only two in the room.
    “Damn,” Lyfe said as his hands roamed freely over Arri’s ass, “I don’t think”—he sucked her bottom lip—“that we need to be doing this.”
    “Why not?” Arri said, continuing to kiss him.
    “Because I’m married,” Lyfe broke their kiss, “and I didn’t come to New York to fuck around on my wife.”
    Arri swallowed the embarrassment creeping into her throat. “I didn’t ask you to fuck around on your wife.” She could feel her heart hardening while her mind screamed,
This is exactly the bullshit you didn’t want to deal with!
Nevertheless, things were better this way, because Arri knew that the longer their tongues intertwined, the more likely she was to get addicted to the taste of him, the look of him, and the feel of him. “I have to go.” Arri stepped out of his embrace and turned to walk away.
    As if they were making a dance move, as quickly as she turned away was as quickly as he twirled her back toward his chest. He massaged his temples with one hand and held her around the waist with the other; “Wait, just wait.”
    “You want me to wait for you now?” Arri said with sarcastic disbelief.
    “That’s not what I mean.”
    “Listen,”—Arri patted Lyfe on the chest—“it’s been real.” She backed out of his embrace again and moved quickly and to the side so that he wouldn’t be able to pull her back.
    “Arri,” he called through gritted teeth, careful not to cause a scene, yet she kept going, disappearing into the heavy raindrops.
    Watching the door swing behind her, Lyfe pounded his fist against the bar and briskly walked out. “Arri,” he called out to her, spotting her halfway up the block. “Arri.” When she didn’t stop or respond he slid into his Escalade and crept along the side of her. “Arri,” he called out again, as the heavy rain seeped in through the open window and drenched his passenger seat, “get in the car. It’s raining, it’s dark. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. I just wanna make sure you get home safe.”
    Silence. She ignored him and as he continued behind her she walked the three short blocks to her apartment building. Once she reached the stoop, she turned around, looked into his face, and then quickly turned back toward the door and walked in.
    She heard Lyfe pull off as she walked upstairs to Khris’s apartment. She rapped on the door and a half-asleep Khris opened it, wiping her eyes. “Gurl, where the hell you been?” She looked at Arri suspiciously. “You know Zion and Tyree fell asleep playing Wii. Just come and get him in the morning.”
    “I’m sorry I was so long.”
    “Why do you sound like you just ran up on a niggah with a li’l dick?” She sniffed her and said, “You been fuckin?”
    “I wish,” Arri dragged, avoiding eye contact with her friend. “Listen, I’ll come first thing in the morning to get him. Good night.” She walked to her apartment and closed the door behind her.

New York
    “G ood morning, everyone,” Lyfe said with a slight edge to his voice, doing his best not to let on that he was still aggravated from the night before. He looked around the conference room and fought like hell not to stare at Arri, who sat before him holding a legal pad and a pen.
    Lyfe owed her an apology, that he knew, but now wasn’t the right moment to offer it to her. Besides,