Page 232 of Safe Word

His smirk stretched wider.

Vinnie did not blush.

So was this a front?

‘No hard feelings on what I’m about to say? We’re friends, right?’ he asked smoothly but with an edge of hesitation.

That stuck like a splinter.

Friends, to me, weren’t people you met a week ago. Friends were something closer to family, someone you knew down to the bone. They weren’t fleeting, weren’t temporary. They meant something.

And Vinnie, for all his charm, was still a stranger.

‘Right,’ I said, not trusting myself to say more. If I did, I’d start another round of banter.

He hesitated as he started back up the road. Just as we neared my uncle’s black Range, parked beneath the yellow glow of the streetlamp, we stopped.

He sighed, dropping his gaze for the briefest second, then lifted it back to mine. Just a stutter, a quick hesitation. But that look – that look – stalled my breath.

For the first time since I’d met him, I didn’t want to hear what he was about to say.

‘I thought you’d have fun, and he’d cut you off,’ he admitted.

I exhaled, relieved it wasn’t worse. Because on the surface, that would have been a logical conclusion, wouldn’t it?

Under normal circumstances, Cain and I didn’t fit – not when I looked at us together. He was sex on legs, and I… well, I should have been smarter than to dive into this with him so recklessly.

But Cain and I hadn’t met under normal circumstances, had we?

We’d met as two people too damaged to see a way out. We were chained by pain, bound by pleasure, and wounded by our pasts. And that was what had carved our connection so deep it had grown past the physical.

Cain had become the still point in my chaos.

‘Fair enough,’ I said slowly. ‘I sense a but coming.’

Vinnie wiggled a finger at me, smirk returning like a mask slipping back into place. ‘Don’t tell him this,’ he warned, ‘because I quite like having a spine.’

I arched a brow. ‘All right,’ I said, my interest piqued. And just as the word left my mouth, something about the curiosity and a cat started rolling in the back of my mind.

Vinnie leaned in slightly. Not enough to cross a line, not enough to make me uncomfortable. Just enough to make me uneasy.

‘I had dinner for two booked at Emilio’s,’ he murmured.

I blinked, narrowing my eyes as I replayed those first days at the office in my head.

Had I missed something?

Vinnie had been Vinnie – chirpy, playful, armed with jokes and friendly banter. Had I overlooked something in his ways? Had I been too focused, too locked into business mode to notice?

Or… had I already been subconsciously drawn to Cain? Had my body recognised him before I even knew he was Ghost?

Or – and this was the thought that truly unsettled me – had I looked right past Vinnie because he was bright and inviting, and looked straight into Dark and Forbidden?

My throat worked around a swallow, the realisation settling like a stone in my stomach.

‘I’m sorry,’ Vinnie said, his voice softer, the usual playfulness tempered with something more sincere. ‘It wasn’t my intention to make you feel uncomfortable.’

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Between the mild shock of realising I had never been drawn to the normal good guys, and the fact that Vinnie had just laid this all out like a confession over a shot of whisky, I found myself at a rare loss for words.