Page 117 of Sexting His Assistant

He looks at me.

“What?” I ask.

“You look guilty.”

“I am guilty.”

“No,” he says. “You look like a woman hiding evidence.”

“You are the evidence.”

That makes him smile.

A real one this time, small but there, and it hits me so unexpectedly that I almost forget Misha is on his way to potentially commit a felony.

“Go,” I say, softer now.

Luka steps closer instead. “I will.”

“You’re moving away from the door, dude.”

He reaches me and, for once, does not grab, demand, corner, or overwhelm. His hand comes to my face carefully, his thumb brushing my cheek with a gentleness that makes my chest ache.

Then he bends and kisses me.

A kiss that feels less like winning an argument and more like making a promise neither of us is ready to say out loud.

When he pulls back, I don’t open my eyes immediately.

Because I’m an idiot.

Because I want him to stay.

Because he absolutely cannot.

His forehead rests against mine for half a second, before he turns and leaves.

14

LUKA

By the time I leave Nina’s apartment, my shirt is buttoned wrong.

I notice it in the elevator reflection.

One side sits higher than the other, the collar crooked beneath my coat, the cuffs uneven because I had dressed with one good hand and far too little sense. I look like a man who has been dragged out of bed in a hurry, which is exactly what happened.

I fix the buttons slowly, jaw tight as the movement pulls at my shoulder. The wound punishes me for every careless thing I did last night. Carrying her. Holding her. Letting her pull me back into her bed when I should have had the discipline to leave after the first time.

I would do it again.

That’s the problem.

The elevator descends quietly, floor numbers blinking down while I stare at my own reflection and fail to recognize the man looking back at me. My hair is not perfectly in place. There is a faint mark on my jaw where her mouth had been. My cheek still carries the ghost of her slap, not visible enough for most people to notice, but I feel it.

I deserved that slap. I deserved worse.

I came to her apartment with her resignation in my hand and fury in my blood, and instead of letting her speak, I tore up the letter like the decision belonged to me. She should have thrown me out. She should have called Misha immediately and let him put a bullet through the part of me that still believes wanting someone gives me the right to keep them.