6

“Donovan Kincaid doesn’t know what to do with a kid. This is you

trying to keep him from me, like you always do.” This conversation

reaffirmed my decision to get a second apartment in New York City—

so that I could visit more often and have more access to Aaron.

“I’m not keeping him from anyone. You are delusional.”

“And you’re ice. Cold and bitter and mean. Exactly the qualities

that drove me to leave you.” Maybe I was going there after all.

“You didn’t leave me because I was cold and bitter. You left

because I cheated on you.” She’d destroyed my heart with her

betrayal and she almost sounded like she was gloating.

To hell with her.

“You were ice cold and bitter before that. It simply took the act of

you cheating on me to recognize that I couldn’t…” I paused and

inhaled deeply. I didn’t need to relive this. I didn’t want to remember

how deeply I’d once believed in her. In us.

“That you couldn’t save me?” she finished for me. “Couldn’t make

me whole again? Is that what you were going to say?” She was

callous and cruel as she pointed out how naïve I had been to think

that I could love her better.

Yes, Ellen, we are in agreement there.

I’d been stupid in those romantic notions. I was wiser now. And I

didn’t see any point in returning to naivety, regardless of the pull my

heart occasionally gave.

“I’m picking Aaron up from school when he’s done with the day,” I

said firmly, refusing to dwell on the past any longer. “I’ll make sure he

reviews his Latin before I drop him off at home. And, by God, Ellen,

you better have me approved to retrieve him or I’ll get my solicitor

involved.” Then, before she could refute me, I said good night and

clicked off the phone.

What a goddamned shrew.

I was energized with rage, my heart racing with the power of it.

But underneath my temper was a dangerous longing. A yearning

for a different time. A time when I could afford the innocent

enthusiasm for human connection. Before I knew how cruel people

could be. Before I understood the downfalls of being vulnerable.

What a rose-colored world it had been—a prettier, more tolerable

world—when I’d believed wholeheartedly in commitments and

forever. When lust and love were two sides of the same coin. Sex,

an expression of feelings rather than just a pleasurable release.

I longed to be free of the reality that I wore like chains around my

neck.

And then! Then I could ask a girl back to my hotel room without

caring about age differences or impropriety or what state my suite

had been left in. I could get lost in the breathlessness of her kiss, not

worrying about anyone’s feelings or what might inevitably happen if I

put my trust in her embrace. I could imagine it so vividly, what it

would be like to be that kind of a man again, what it would be like to

kiss a girl like Audrey, undress her, teach her. Make love to her.

My trousers were bulging again with the fantasy. I was throbbing

and thick. I couldn’t make it to the shower if I tried.

I shoved down my trousers and pulled out my cock, fisting it with

my right hand as I sat down on the chair. With my eyes closed, I

remembered vividly the weight of Audrey on my lap, remembered

the pleasurable burn of her rubbing up and down along the

imprisoned length of my hard-on. Remembered the press of her

breasts against my chest, her nipples so taut they spiked through the

layers of clothing between us. Remembered her mouth as it gave in

to my wicked desire, my tongue caressing and schooling her at

once. My lips memorizing her and debauching her.

My palm stroked angrily across the inflamed skin of my cock,

faster and faster, punishing myself even as the pleasure built and

built and built, like static on a balloon when rubbed against a headful

of hair. Like stockinged feet, trudged across the carpet. Like too

many plugs jammed into a wall socket, my orgasm surged through

me with electrical shock. Cum spilled out over my fist as I tugged

and tugged, past the point of comfort, until everything inside me had

fallen in thick ropes across my bare stomach, dirty and filthy and

obscene.

I sat for several minutes, staring at the mess I’d made, my hands

shaking from the release as, little by little, the delirious flash of bliss

dissolved into cold, hard reality.

I was alone. I would always be alone.

I’d learned the hard way that alone was the most sensible way to

live.

There was no benefit of vulnerability. There was no “making

love.” There was no reason to trust. Hearts were for pumping oxygen

through the body. They didn’t break. They beat on.

Audrey had called me a liar when she’d suggested that I secretly

believed in her religion of romance, but she was wrong.

I wasn’t a liar. I was a man who could no longer believe in the lie.

FOUR

AUDREY

“HE KISSED YOU?”

Of course I told my sister.

I told her as soon as she walked through the door. Mostly,

because I wanted to be sure it wouldn’t be a surprise if Dylan said

anything to her, but also because I shared everything with Sabrina.

Well, almost everything. I never actually talked about sex with

her, but that was because she had a barrier like a thirteen inch

cement wall surrounding her when it came to the subject. Talking

about sex made her tense and agitated. I’d decided that meant she

was either asexual or into some weird stuff in the bedroom. Not that

I’d knock her either way.

“More like I kissed him,” I said, since I’d initiated the whole thing. I

didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about the situation. Because

there had been absolutely nothing wrong about that kiss at all—

except that it had been too short.

Just remembering the way Dylan’s mouth fit so perfectly against

mine brought a swarm of butterflies to my tummy.

“You kissed my boss?” Sabrina seemed to be having a hard time

wrapping her head around the fact. Obviously she was stuck on her

own relationship with the man.