“Wait. What did you call him?”
“Brendan?”
“No, Genghis.”
“Genghis?”
“Bowman.”
She laughs, long and hard. “Oh, hell yes. That’s what you call him? I love it. The conqueror.”
“Such a hard-ass, right?” My eyes land on my workbench. I get up, trip on the blanket that’s somehow wrapped itself around my leg, and flop to the floor.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Fine.” Once I pick myself back up, I wobble over to look at something I started working on last night. “Look. I just made this.”
“A chair?”
“Grant’s chair from our office. It even tilts, see?” She whistles when I show her how it adjusts. “I started making our building.Hisbuilding. Did you know that?”
“Know what?”
“Genghis owns our office.”
“That seems… unethical.”
“Does it?” I consider. “Those two are up to something.” I flick a set of tiny handcuffs I put together. They’re so cute. So perfect. I’d pictured him putting a real set of these on me and pretending—ugh, no.
“Hey, you made a cat-o’-nine-tails.”
“It’s a flogger.”
“That’s amazing.”
“I wanted to make the whole building, you know?” I point the itty-bitty flogger at the wall o’ book nooks. “With the club in thebasement and everything, but…” Emotion fills me like bubbles getting forced into water in one of those at-home soda machines, and suddenly I’ve crushed the tiny flogger in my hand. I pick up Grant’s chair, ready to smash it to bits.
Sam grabs it from me and holds it up high. “Nope.”
“You can’t do that. It’s mine.”
“You’ll regret it.”
“I won’t. It’ll feel good to break it all.” Just like I’ll break his rough/handsome face when I get the chance.
“No. You’ll hate yourself.”
We’re circling my chair in a demented ring-around-the-rosy, Pepe’s brows twitching as he watches blandly from the seat, not nearly interested enough to lift his head.
Finally, I give up, spin, and fall flat on my bed, which, like everything in my place, is conveniently right there.
“Why’d he have to be so good at the sexy stuff, Sammy?”
She sinks down beside me. “Could be your ex was just the worst.”
Grant barely even touched me, and it was better than anything I ever did with Brendan. My mind skips back to the way it felt when his mouth landed on mine tonight. The hungry sounds he made. “His breath was all shaky.”
“Genghis’s?”
