Page 18 of Shark’s Pride

“Mmm-hmm,” she cooed and stroked my hair.

Again, Rio with her knowing, comforting sounds and movements. Despite knowing, deep in my belly, that every feeling I qualified as “comfortable” would never be that again.

Everything had changed. And I’d done it to myself.

I’d lusted after a player. Had then slept with that player. Consequently, expected the end game from that night to be by the man’s standard playbook.

Wrong.

Because Sebastian wasn’t playing.

Not now.

Had he ever been?

My gut knew the answer to that too. At once, my head careened and swooped from it as this new epiphany took root.

He hadn’t been playing.

Everything he’d said and done…every stare and whisper and caress and growl…had really been him. From inside him. From all those meaningful places he kept telling me I’d stirred and touched…

To which I’d responded no better than a tabloid reporter. Someone who’d already made up my mind about everything he was, based on what everyone told me to believe. Yes, even after his heroic gesture, standing up to that asshat at Vela’s soccer game. Even after knowing how he grew up with nothing and faced adulthood so young.

And even after everything that happened between us afterward.

“Sheez-usss.” Rio’s exclamation, soaked in her astonishment, was a lifeline back to reality. As I hung on for dear life, she sent over a dazed, “I still can’t believe all this.”

“The thing is, I can.” I gulped. Then again. “Or should I say, maybe now I do?”

She pivoted, making me squirm under a new dose of her tender scrutiny. “And you’ve come to a conclusion about it?”

“Yeah,” I confessed. “I mean no. I mean— Ahhh, I have no damn idea what I mean!” I dropped my face back into my hands. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” I moaned. “What would you be doing, if you were this damn confused?” And lost. Completely off-keel and taking on more water by the second…

But all Rio had for me was a soft, rueful, utterly unhelpful stare. “Oh, honey, how I wish I could answer that—but Sean isn’t Sebastian, I’m not you, and the world sometimes isn’t as clear as a Thin Mint craving.” She winked, backing up and straightening her clothes.

“Or a pleasure cruise about to capsize.” The metaphor still felt perfect, so I stuck to it while dragging my hands along the sides of my head. As I yanked the hair tie out of my ponytail, an unmistakable sting pressed the backs of my eyes. Damn it.

“You’re going to figure this out, Abs. And you know I’ll be here to listen through every second of every hour of every day.”

Astoundingly, a long giggle tumbled out of me. Still, I drew away for fear of getting my fresh tears all over her pretty ensemble. “I love you more than every Thin Mint in this kitchen, sister.”

She laughed so hard, her curls bobbed against her cheek. “Damn. That’s a lot of love.”

I shoulder-bumped her. “Freakin’ right it is.”

“Well, at the risk of being downgraded on the cookie scale, I’m officially late.” She checked her buzzing phone with a wince. “I was only supposed to stop by on my way to date night. Your brother is getting mighty impatient.”

“Can’t blame him.” I gave her an approving once-over again, actually happy about the interruption.

“Sean had a job interview downtown this afternoon and actually dressed in a suit and tie for it. Now we’re meeting at Kincaid’s.”

“Oooo. Fancy.”

“Right?” Her eyes twinkled with golden joy. “We’re going to slurp oysters, watch the sunset, and do interesting things to each other under the table with our toes.”

“And you’re really leaving me on that note?”

She waggled her brows. “Maybe it’ll give you a few ideas.”