A current of anger ran the length of my body as I jabbed at the keys on my phone. I never cursed being born. And I didn’t have the destructive kind of depression that led to self-harm. I tended to turn rage inside out. I ranted. Raved. Broke things.

Like this motherfucking phone.

Ready to hurl the piece of shit at the nearest wall, I took aim, but my rational side seized control at the last second.

Break the phone, and then what are you gonna do, genius?

I let my head fall forward at the same time my arm dropped limply to my side. My sour stomach and lingering hangover precluded any serious drinking, but one shot would make it easier to unscramble the knots in my parietal lobe. And yeah, irony was a fucking whore. Because at some point I’d been forced to commit to memory the exact spot in my dysfunctional brain responsible for unlocking the mysteries of the written word. But I couldn’t actually read.

Smiling bitterly, I unscrewed the cap on the mini bottle of Jack. “To Irony.” I toasted the air in my empty suite. “You’re one sadistic bitch. Say hi to your sister for me.”

That would be Fate.

Because, the two had to be in cahoots. Fate put Victoria in my path. And now the girl was under my skin. Which was the reason I was sitting in a dark room, trying to decipher the papers she’d left on my fucking pillow.

There was a note on top as well, but fuck that—it was in cursive. However, I did fold up the scrap of paper and put it in my wallet for some unknown reason.

Rolling my head from side to side, I continued the painstaking process of typing the letters from the document into the text to talk app on my phone.

What else did I have to do?

I’d rushed back to the hotel after the show without bothering with the meet and greet. So there wasn’t even anyone here to party with.

My head snapped up when I heard the door whoosh closed in Tori’s room.

Be cool.

Yeah, no.

Cool went right out the window when her voice drifted to my ears. She was singing. And not just any song. The tune we’d been working on.

I jumped to my feet, only to skid to a stop at the door. It was open, just a crack. But if I knocked she might not answer. And if I barged in she might be naked.

No … she was never naked.

Tori changed in her bathroom, and on the few occasions I’d been around, she locked the door behind her. Girl was shy. And why did that get me hard?

Shoving my depravity aside, I knocked as I entered, figuring that was the safest bet.

Tori spun around, and her water bottle landed on the floor. Clear liquid spread at her feet, soaking into the plush carpet.

I blinked at her.

Rosy cheeks. Wild hair falling out of her ponytail in damp strands. Dewy skin. And the clothes—tight little shorts and an oversized T-shirt.

The girl looked like she just rolled out of someone’s bed, and Dylan wasn’t anywhere in sight. Along with anyone else she knew. Interesting. But only in the way that made my blood boil and my fists clench.

I leaned a hip against the doorframe. “Where you been?”

Flushing a brighter shade of pink, she eased into a crouch to pick up what was left of her water. “Nowhere.”

Cocking my head, I closed the gap between us. “Well, you weren’t here. So you had to be somewhere.”

She glared up at me through impossibly long lashes. “Obviously.”

“So what’s the big secret?”

Shaking her head, she wobbled to her feet, and out of habit, my hand darted out, curving around her wrist so she wouldn’t fall. She was hot. And not in the way that made my balls ache. Her skin was warm.

With my free hand, I tucked a damp curl behind her ear. “You’re flushed, Victoria. Wanna tell me what you’ve been doing?”

“I was at the gym.” Two beats and those eyes met mine. “Don’t look at me like that, Logan. I used to run five miles a day. I hiked and cliff dived, and I even bungee jumped once on my twenty-first birthday. And I would’ve done it again, but, you know …”

All that righteous indignation faded, and I saw her. The real Tori. Sad and strong, and beautifully broken. But it had nothing to do with her body.

Since I wasn’t the right guy to fix her, I dropped her hand. “Time to stretch, princess.”

“Yeah I was about to do that. You should go.”

She averted her eyes as she unfurled the mat, and that’s how I knew she didn’t want me to leave.

Her gaze snapped to mine when I knelt down beside her. “I will. After I help you stretch.”

She pondered for only a moment before taking her place on the mat. We went through the usual routine, until I got to the butterfly stretch. With her legs spread, so inviting, I moved closer until I was between her thighs and our faces were inches apart.

Bracing one hand by her head, I moved the other to the outside of her leg. “How does that feel?”

My question had nothing to do with stretching, and everything to do with my fingers digging into her flesh as I molded her thigh to my ribs.

Her eyes rolled back on a sigh. Taking that breath and the gasp that followed, my lips ghosted hers.

“How about this? You like this?”

Whatever self-control I had flew right out the window when she squeezed her legs together, trapping me against her warmth. My mouth crashed into hers, my tongue dipping inside. And I was right. She tasted like sugar and cinnamon and vanilla and … Victoria.

The combination made me hard in all the right places and so fucking weak I couldn’t hold myself up.

Her eyes popped open when I pulled away. “Wha …?”

Sinking back onto my heels, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You want to tell me about your note?”

All those endorphins flooding my brain, my cock hard enough to cut diamonds, and that’s what I wanted to know? Not how hard she wanted me to fuck her. Or which position she’d prefer when I ate her sweet pussy.

Yeah, this wasn’t good.

Her brows drew together over lust-filled eyes. “I … uh …”

Suddenly the idea of facing her while she explained was too much. So I patted the outside of her thigh.

“Roll over. Your hamstrings are tight. You can tell me while I get the knots out of your back.”

Nodding, she pushed herself up and then turned around. But at the last minute, she tugged her T-shirt off.

I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, my gaze fixed on the ink shading her skin. Dragon wings with sad eyes in the center spanned the entire width of her back. Between the wings sat a single letter, an R in bold font, with a crown on top. The tattoo had no color, except for some opaque strands weaved into the design here and there.

Mesmerized, I brushed a finger over one luminescent thread and froze. It wasn’t ink, but a tiny scar. There were dozens of them. A web of pain she’d turned into art.

“I was in one of the bunks in the back when the truck hit the bus,” Tori said after a long moment. “The impact knocked me through the window. Through the glass.”

She glanced over her shoulder, a raven curl falling over her eyes. The same eyes from the portrait on her back

“It could’ve been worse, I guess,” she said, smiling sadly.

My hand curved around her hip, and she flinched. “How?”

Turning back to the wall, she whispered, “I could’ve been facing the window.”

Gazing over all the tiny threads, my stomach twisted. Every instinct told me I wasn’t worthy of her trust. That I should leave. I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

It was meant to be a goodbye. Because I knew I’d probably fuck everything up in the end. But I couldn’t stop, and my lips moved north along the soft skin of her neck.

“You’re beautiful, Victoria.” I ran my nose along the shell of her ear. “All of you.”

It wasn’t some bullshit line to get into her pants. The truth was, I hadn’t needed to use a line on a woman in years. And even if I were inclined to pull one out of the archives, it would never fly with Tori.

She let out a sigh, melting against me. And though I wanted to fuck her more than my next breath, to show her how beautiful she was and look into her eyes when she came undone so she’d know it was true, I simply slid my arm around her waist and held her.

Her hand covered mine. And when her fingertips brushed lightly over my knuckles, we took our first shaky steps out of the friend zone.