As the adrenaline starts to taper off, my blind rage fades and my blurry vision returns to normal and finds Kat standing before me.

That jump up the balconies really sobered me up, and it’s a good thing too, since I haven’t been in an actual fistfight since fucking grade school.

Think that doesn’t go on at preppy private schools? Think again.

I had to take Scotty Logan out for getting into my whiskey stash. I fucked his sister, though, so it all evens out in the end.

This fight was not as exciting. I’m still not exactly sure what the fuck happened.

I was on the street, looking up, when I saw her. I couldn’t wait to get up to her, and I saw a shadow move in the apartment.

I knew something was wrong.

Okay, I had half an idea she might have replaced me already, and I really wanted to surprise them.

Whichever way it went, the balconies were the way to go.

“Will.” Kat comes over, cradling my hand. “You’ve hurt your fingers.”

“I’m okay,” I assure her, brushing off the concern but secretly enjoying the attention. “I need to top up. Do you have…ah! Yes, you do!”

I see a bottle of my favorite whiskey by the couch, and Kat comes over with me and we sit down.

She’s trying to fuss with my hand while I take long swigs out of the bottle. Once I put the bottle down, I start fumbling for my phone.

“Look, gimme my hand back. I came over here for something, and I’m not fucking this up.”

She really won’t give me my hand back, so I start getting into the phone left-handed.

“I’m deleting every single woman in here. Look, Elsa Tonique, dancer. Speaks seven languages and bendy as gumby. Check out this one, Cheryl Wilson, ex-Miss America contender. Got kicked out for sexual harassment—twice. There’s that fucking golf caddy. This one’s a millionaire, but lives in the slums because she thinks it’s good for her image. This one—”

“Will,” Kat interrupts. She’s paused from blowing on my knuckles, gently stroking my palm. “I don’t care about any of that. Honestly, I trust you. No man has ever excited me the way you do, and that messed me up. I thought I was falling for a total horn dog who couldn’t appreciate my feelings. But I can see how upset you are—I can’t have any doubts.”

She’s grinning this really sly, gorgeous grin.

The look on her face might unsettle me, if I wasn’t so in love with her. It’s a self-assured, contented look, and I’m not sure I’ve had a woman look at me like this before.

What convinced her?

My heroic climb up the balconies, punching that fuckwit Paxton…there’s a good few million out the window.

Sarah won’t be happy. I really don’t know.

But I’m hoping it’s the tone of my voice and the look on my face. It’s painful.

I need her to trust me. I feel like I can’t survive without it…can’t move.

“You really wrecked your hand,” she says softly, still stroking my palm and checking out my knuckles.

“I’ve seen worse,” I say, minimizing it all. I take another sip of whiskey. “Look, I’m not done.”

I start going through the phone again—into bad territory now, where I can’t even remember the girl’s names and I’ve labeled them things like ‘wicked anal’, ‘loves to suck cock’, ‘threesome guaranteed’, ‘likes double penetration’, and ‘uninhibited AF’, to name a few.

I hold the phone out to Kat.

“I want you to see how serious I am. These are all going—deleted. I can’t tell you the day I’ve had today. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I tried to amuse myself in lots of ways, but nothing satisfied me.”

I put my poor bruised hand on her cheek.

“I just want you,” I confess.

“Will…” She leans into my hand. “I want you, too.”

“Actually.” I have to laugh. “It’s all kind of Sarah’s fault. Again.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. After I split from here, I took off out the back of the country club, and she found me there. She was trying to scare you off, but only because she thought I would move on by then. It really kind of blew her mind that I was out there feeling miserable. She didn’t think it was even possible. But she’s the one who told me to come here and tell you…”

“Tell me what?” She’s grinning right now.

Its gold, it’s priceless. So mischievous.

She knows what. But she’s always going to tease me, and that’s what I love so much about her.

I find myself grinning, too—that ridiculous ‘fuck you’ grin that pisses off the young and old.

“To tell you I love you. That I can’t live without you.”

“And what about poor…” She lifts my phone. “‘Only from behind’?” she asks, chuckling. She scrolls. “Or ‘into toe stuff’?”

“Deleted.” I take the phone back, scrolling and deleting. “‘Ms. tiny boobs’, gone. ‘Ms. short skirt’, gone. ‘Twin sisters’…hmmm. Hard one, but gone. Oh! ‘Ms. likes-to-be-fucked in trees’, gone!”

Kat leans in and kisses me, pushing the phone away. First it’s just a quick, slow kiss, but she keeps moving forward, pushing me down on the couch as she crawls on top of me.

The whole time, she’s spoiling me with soft, hot, lingering kisses.

“Will,” she whispers into my mouth.

There goes my cock, rising to the occasion.

Thank fuck it’s not broken. It just got trained.

Seems like all I needed was a strong-enough woman to educate the monstrous fucking thing.

I let Kat sink into me, finally letting that hard, cold feeling go.

She’s here.

She’s mine.

She’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.