“What?” She blinks.
“The size of my dick.”
Catching on, she unwraps her arms and legs from around me, her feet hitting the floor, her gaze sparking emerald hot. “Fuck you!”
“I think we’ve established that’s not going to happen, Ms. Sinclair.” I press the button, and the doors slide apart. I exit as fast as my steps can carry me.
Outside, the humid evening air does little to cool me. What have I just done? Proved to Jordyn Sinclair that I am a misogynistic pig—and proved to myself that I want her now more than ever. I straddle my bike and take off, with guilt and shame riding pillion all the way home.
“Please tell me you have wine,” I say when Dee answers the door.
“Champagne?” she offers, studying my frazzled state. “I thought we were celebrating.”
“Yes, of course.” I hug her, lamenting my self-absorption. “Thank you for preparing dinner for me. How are you feeling?” I pat her growing baby bump.
“I feel great.”
“You look it.” She’s radiant in a knit dress that molds to her voluptuous curves and dips low at her enviable cleavage. I never get tired of seeing her confidence. Lexie and I met Deeana Chase almost three years ago in a Pilates class. She’d been wearing black leggings and an oversized T-shirt that she must have found in the men’s big and tall section. Dee was very self-conscious of her body and wore baggy clothes to cover it up then. But she’s worked hard to weed out her insecurities, and I love that she hadn’t lost weight to do it. She’s come into her own and found love and support in a worthy partner—Mick. I get a hug from him too. Six-five and drop-dead gorgeous, he’s a former basketball star, now a philanthropist and aspiring writer.
They’d been through so much in the last year, fighting for their second chance at happiness, battling Mick’s fame, and surviving a shooting that makes me shudder every time I think of what might have happened. I could have lost them both.
It’s for this reason that I decide not to tell Dee about Stiles—about that kiss. No. Kiss was too meek a word. Devour. That was more like it. He devoured me, and I let him.
One second I was on a full-scale rant, and the next, his hot, ravenous mouth was on mine. I’d never experienced hunger like that before. It overpowered my defenses and consumed all of me at once. I’d wrapped my limbs around him, clinging for dear life. I hadn’t given a single thought to resist, to object, to do anything but give in to the greed with a burning desire of my own.
I was gone, gone, gone. My head was lost in a fog when he pulled his mouth away, looking at me with his dark, primal eyes. When he moved my spread legs over his erection, giving me a taste of his thickness and virility through the material that separated us, and asked, “Does this clear things up?” I hadn’t understood in that moment what he meant. Then he doused my lust with a bucket of ice when he clarified, “The size of my dick.”
While I’d been all too willing to let him take me right there in the private elevator, he was delivering payback. Stiles hadn’t been motivated by his desire for me in the least. All that raw carnal energy had been to punish me and prove his masculinity. Well, bravo, Stiles, you win. You are officially crowned king of the 3A Club.
I so want to tell Dee—to confide it all to my sympathetic friend. She’d share my outrage and jump on the Down-with-Stiles Bandwagon. But I can’t tell her about the pub or about the elevator. Stiles is a man that she and Mick trust, respect, even like; he’d saved their lives, and I can never hate him for that—just for everything else.
“WHY DON’T LOBSTERS GIVE TO CHARITY?”
“Why, Pops?”
“Because they’re shellfish.”
I shake my head. My grandfather has been telling bad jokes for as long as I can remember. “You had dinner?” I ask.
“Yep.” He wheels out of the living room, where canned laughter from a sitcom pours into the kitchen. “Chicken and potatoes were pretty good.”
Not much of a cook, I subscribe to a meal delivery service to ensure there’s always something on hand that Pops can heat up in case I’m not around.
“Left a plate for you on the warming burner.”
“Thanks.” I acknowledge the dish he had covered in foil and wonder how much longer these simple tasks would be possible for him. “I’ll eat later,” I say and grab a dark lager from the fridge. “Want one?”
“Sure.”
I twist off the tops and offer a bottle to him, letting go when his grip is secure.
“What’s that on your mouth?” he asks, taking a sip.
I wipe across my lips with the back of my hand and see the smear of gloss on my knuckles.
“You got something you want to tell me, Junior?”
“Like what?” I stall and pull out a chair to sit.
