Page 44 of Choosing Stella

“Come look for yourself.”

Geo walked me through a steel interior door beyond the living space. The loading bay was fully enclosed, long and rectangular, with old brick on two walls and reinforced metal along the others. The exterior roll-up door was locked behind an internal security bar. Two square support columns broke up the open concrete floor, and a narrow service passage ran along one side before returning toward the main corridor.

I checked the roll-up door, the interior door, and the service passage myself. There were no ground-level windows and no outside access I could reach without crossing a locked door.

Geo waited until I finished.

“My room is the finish line,” I said when we returned to the living space. “If I get inside and lock the door, the game ends.”

“Even if I’m two inches behind you?”

“Especially if you’re two inches behind me.”

“And if you make it?”

“You lose me.”

His eyes held mine.

“That’s clear.”

“We use a condom.”

“Yes, we do.”

“You have one?”

“I do.”

Geo looked at me for another moment.

“This is the last time I’m asking before you start. Do you want to do this tonight?”

I looked toward my room, then back at Geo. He waited. I didn’t move toward the door.

“Yes, I want this.”

His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth.

“Then when you’re ready, run.”

I smiled and began backing away.

“You aren’t giving me a countdown?”

“You wanted control of the start.”

Of course he remembered that part.

Geo stayed where he was as I took another step, then another. Heat spread lower through my abdomen. My skin stayed warm and my stomach steady.

I turned and ran.

My bare feet hit the loading bay’s concrete. I’d left my socks in the bedroom and kicked off my shoes before coming in, so the cool floor pressed against my soles as I reached the first support column.

For ten seconds, I heard nothing behind me.

Then his footsteps changed behind me.