“So,” I say.
Somewhere outside, a car horn blares and someone shouts something unintelligible and the city keeps doing what it alwaysdoes, indifferent to the fact that I just had the best sex of my life for the second time in three days with a man I’ve spent most of my adult years despising.
“This was just sex,” he says, still staring at the ceiling, his voice blunt and matter-of-fact in that way only Dominic can manage while lying naked in someone else’s bed. “We’ve both been wound tight for weeks. Fight week, the article, all of it. This was just... blowing off steam. Again.”
“Obviously,” I say firmly. “I’m glad we’ve got that settled then and we’re on the same page about what this was.”
“So we’re clear?” he asks.
“Crystal.”
We look at each other for a long moment in the dim light filtering through my window from the streetlamp outside. His eyes are still dark, still heated like he wants me again, despite everything we just did. And I can feel the tension building in the air between us like static electricity before a thunderstorm. I can feel my pulse starting to pick up even though my body should be completely satisfied and exhausted right now.
“You’re insufferable,” I tell him. Then I reach over, grab his shoulder, and pull him back down to me.
CHAPTER 19
Dominic
“Dom!” Alex’s voice cuts through the party noise, and I turn to find him weaving through the crowd with a drink in each hand and vampire fangs in his mouth. “I’ve been looking for you for ten minutes. This place is a madhouse.”
He’s not wrong. Emma’s transformed the house into full haunted mansion territory, purple and orange lights strung across every surface, fake cobwebs drooping from the ceiling in artistic cascades, a fog machine in the corner pumping mist across the floor like we’re in a low-budget horror movie.
Half the town is packed in here, bumping into each other and spilling drinks and complimenting each other’s costumes with the kind of enthusiasm that only happens when the punch has been spiked for at least an hour.
Apparently Halloween is Emma’s favorite holiday, and there was no way she was skipping it just because she’d just recently had a baby. Clara’s finally old enough for visitors, though Emma and Theo have her tucked away upstairs snoozing in the nursery with a family friend keeping watch. Not that it stops either ofthem from disappearing up the stairs every twenty minutes just to look at her.
“Here.” Alex hands me one of the drinks and pulls me into a hug, clapping my back hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Congrats again on New York, man. I know I already texted you like forty times, but seriously. That fight was incredible to watch. Roman looked like a damn machine out there.”
“Thanks.” I take a sip of whatever he handed me. Cider, spiked. “Roman did all the real work though.”
“Modest as always.” Alex laughs. “How was the city though? You liked it?”
“It was good. I liked it more than I expected.”
“Yeah?” He gives me a look I don’t love, the one he and Jack perfected as kids right before they did something that got all five of us grounded.“Anything else interesting happen while you were out there? Anyoneinteresting?”
“I visited Dad’s old gym,” I say, deliberately misunderstanding him. “The one on the Lower East Side.”
That knocks the scheming right off his face. “Wait, seriously? You didn’t tell me you were going to do that.”
“It was kind of last minute.”
“How was it?” His voice is softer now.
“It was a lot.” I take another drink of the cider rather than elaborate, and Alex watches me for a second, then nods. He knows when to push and when to leave it alone. It’s one of the reasons he’s easier to talk to than Calvin, who’d want to sit down and process feelings about it for an hour.
“I AM SPEED!” Chloe goes zipping past in a tiny dragon costume, a friend hot on her heels, Gus and Laila chasing after them, both in hot dog outfits, tongue outs, and tails flying.
Alex laughs and watches her go. “I should go check on the food situation,” he says, glancing toward the kitchen. “Go mingle. Eat something. Talk to a human being who isn’t relatedto you. I know that’s challenging for you, but I believe in your ability to make small talk for at least five minutes without scaring anyone off.”
“Your faith in me is touching.”
He disappears into the crowd, crooked fangs and all, and I scan the room for somewhere to be that doesn’t require excessive socializing. I spot Maren at one of the high-top tables near the food spread, which seems like a safe option. She’s got one hand resting on the visible swell of her belly and the other holding a meringue ghost that she’s been nibbling on, a small mountain of crumpled napkins piled around her plate like she’s been stationed there for a while.
“Hey,” I say, dropping into the chair across from Maren. “I forgot to ask the other day when I saw you and Calvin, how’s your second trimester going?”
“Terrible, thanks for asking,” Maren says cheerfully, taking a bite of her meringue ghost. “Better than the first, but the nausea hasn’t fully gotten the memo that it’s supposed to be gone by now.” She grins at me. “However, the baby’s healthy and everything looks great, so I’m choosing to focus on that and ignore the fact that my body has been staging a full rebellion against me.”
