His words.
1. That kiss was epic.
Ten out of ten. I didn’t believe in that bullshit about scoring eleven out of ten. That diminished the entire grading system.
Ten. Out. Of. Ten.
That was how fiiiine his mouth was—and his tongue.
Wow.
I knew that the second he went down on me—because yes, that now took pride of place at the top of my agenda—I’d go off like a rocket.
He knew how to move that bad boy, and I had no issue with letting him make that move on me because a girl deserved to be savored. There’d been zero savoring in my life for too long, and Stan was one big fat promise wrapped up with a Brioni bow.
2. His sorrow, on the other hand, worried me. Not because I thought the woman who’d died would turn me into a placeholder—unlike with most men I’d dated recently.
Truly, I’d never known a man to exude grief as he did.
That he could feel such devotion touched my soul.
That kind of dedication was beyond rare. Throw in his compassion and empathy…
He took my breath away.
His sorrow appeared to manifest in shame. Fear. Self-disgust.
It made me want to hug him then fuck him until he forgot everything but my name.
God, I was such a terrible person.
3. His words tripped every single one of my anxiety triggers, but his grief overwhelmed them, enabling me to look past his sins.
My brothers weren’t cherubs.
Neither was I.
I’d committed some terrible sins in my time to protect my family.
So, while I lay in a luxurious bed and my vacation destination burned, I vacillated between hunting Stan down to climb him like a tree and the urge to text Lara, Millie, and George. The latter was something I had to fight. Not only did they have zero clue I was mobadjacent, but if my actions got them in trouble, I’d never forgive myself.
Plus, George would talk me out of my attraction to Stan with a pesky PowerPoint presentation loaded with specifics he’d wheedle out of me and an argument founded in common sense. If Lara and Millie backed him up, then I might well listen.
I had no desire to listen.
I descended the staircase to this supermassive black hole with my eyes wide open. The blame would land squarely on me when this went wrong.
Because it would.
It always did when you climbed between the sheets with the mob.
So, I did nothing. I stayed in bed like the good girl I wasn’t and, eventually, I fell asleep with my thoughts rolling on top of one another, smashing and crashing like a trawler surviving a stormy North Sea.
My subconscious told me to back off, while my body craved something that was undoubtedly bad for me but that I wanted and needed nonetheless.
