I throw my hands up. “So I’ve been fucking told. But please, do tell.”
Hex leans forward, elbows on the bar. “I handle shit for people that need the help.”
I gape at him.Handle shit. For people.
So… Murder? Vengeance? Finding lost dogs?
I take a deep breath, pressing my fingers to my temples. “Okay,” I say, my voice faint. “What you’re telling me is… you’re the kind of guy people call when they need a problemsolved.”
Hex nods.
“And sometimes the solution is”—I wave my hands erratically—“taking someone out?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just watches me, calm as fucking ever.
Finally, he shrugs. “If it needs to go down that way.”
I take a measured breath. Credit to half a Wim Hof YouTube video and a panic attack last April.
Right. Cool. No big deal.
Just exchanged oral sex with a man who straight-up unalived someone last weekend. During our fucking date.
I stare at him for another long second before my brain short-circuits completely, and the only thing I can think to say is: “…Well. That’s not terrifying at all.”
Okay. She’s freaking out.
Maybe if I stay calm, she’ll calm the fuck down too.
I lean into the bar, arms folded, watching her move the glass again—left, right—grasping for order after hearing something that can’t be neatly put away.
I didn’t sugarcoat it. Didn’t try to ease her into it. I just dropped it in her lap, a brutal fucking housewarming gift.
Welcome to the real me, sweetheart.
Decidedly so, maybe she should have known this information before I feasted on her pussy. Too late now.
She exhales sharply, hands braced on the counter, eyes darting anywhere but toward me.
“So,” she says, voice a little too high-pitched. “You’re a…handler.”
She lets the word stretch, like she’s trying it on, but worried it just doesn’t fit.
I watch her carefully, resisting the urge to speak too soon.
She’s not the kind of woman who panics, but not the kind who’s been given a reason to stand still, either. Always moving. Always calculating.
And still, I told her.
I told her because something about her tells me I can.
She plays by the book, yes, but she’s too sharp around the edges for that to be easy.
I’ve seen the streak of defiance in her eyes when she’s trying to do the right thing and hating every second of it. In the way she chews her bottom lip when she’s holding herself back. In the way she squares her shoulders before doing something she knows she shouldn’t enjoy.
There’s a wildness buried under all those rules. Something real.
And that’s why she gets the truth.
