What a shitty fucking day. I thought today would be one of the highlights of my year, if not of my whole damn life. Peter and Wendy are broken up for good, which means there’s no one standing in my way to claim Peter as mine, just like he was always meant to be. So why aren’t I ecstatic and jumping for joy or reveling in my victory over Wendy the Sickeningly Good Witch?

Probably because the man I love is more miserable than I’ve ever seen him.

If he was this upset ten years ago, I didn’t know it. We didn’t see much of him that last week he was at the school. Then we didn’t see him for a long time after he moved out. The boys and I knew he was still around because Croc always checked himself every time he went to raise his hand. If Peter had disappeared, there would’ve been no stopping that barbarian from doing whatever the hell he wanted.

Eventually, Peter started coming back around and making plans with us for when we got out. Years later, he made good on his promise to keep us all together with a house and a business of our very own. I mistakenly thought that as I got older, Peter would notice me as a woman—not the little girl he convinced was a magical fairy who’d lost her wings. I was content just being with him, certain one day he’d look at me with something in his eyes other than friendly affection.

When Wendy showed up, I realized my mistake. I shouldn’t have been so complacent. Lily says that if a woman wants something, she needs to go after it, balls-to-the-wall, not sit back and wait for it to come to her. But by then, it was too late. Peter fell right into her trap, just like he did when we were kids.

Peter didn’t come into LB today. Hell, I’m not even sure if he got out of bed. After Wendy left yesterday, he pulled down a bottle of whiskey from the bar and sucked on it for hours. His only communication was to growl at people or tell them to go the fuck away. Not even Thomas could get anything out of him.

I’d sat on the stairs for hours, watching him between the slats on the railing. He didn’t shed a single tear, but the expression on his face looked like he was being ripped to shreds on the inside, and it killed me. I hated knowing he was so upset, but I told myself it was only temporary. Pretty soon, he’ll forget all about Wendy Darling, just like last time, and then I’ll tell him how I feel, and he’ll realize how blind he’s been. That the woman he needs has been right in front of him all along.

The phone rings, so I pick up the reception handset—I volunteered for desk duty since I’m too distracted to work with tools today—only the phone keeps ringing. Realizing it’s my cell, I put the other phone down and swipe to connect the call.

“Hey, Lil.”

“Don’t you hey Lil me, Ms. Bell. When the hell are you getting this gigantic crate of stuff out of my shop? Why is it even here? Don’t you need this to finish that car?”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I set my elbow on the desk and squeeze my eyes shut against the rising headache promising to wage war on my brain. “Not yet, I don’t. I’ll grab it on Sunday, okay?”

“But the event is tomorrow. What the hell good is Sun— Oh, bitch, tell me you aren’t doing what I think you’re doing.”

“Fine, I’m not doing what—”

“Yes, you are! Tink, are you fucking kidding me? Is this why Tobias and Ty are blowing up my phone about Peter going off the deep end?”

Quick, change the subject. “Why would the twins be blowing up your phone?”

“Nuh-uh, don’t even try that shit with me. This is serious. You’re going to ruin everything. Not just Peter and Wendy’s relationship, but her reputation as a planner, and her company will take a hit. What the hell were you thinking?”

I spin the chair around to face the back wall and hiss into the phone. “I was thinking that if I could hide the shipment of parts and prove to Wendy that Peter won’t always come through for her, she’d realize she doesn’t belong with us or with him, and leave us the hell alone once and for all. That is what I was thinking.”

“Were you now?”

I yelp in surprise at the deep voice behind me, spinning to face the front with my hand pressed against my racing heart. “Oh, shit,” I whisper.

“Yeah,” Michael says. “Oh shit is right. Hang up the phone, Tinker Bell.”

The combination of Michael’s husky and commanding voice and his hazel eyes pierce my free will, rendering it too wounded to fight back. Dropping my hand, my thumb hits the red button that disconnects my call with Lily as she shouts at me to tell her what’s happening.

Michael Darling doesn’t look like he did that day at the hospital. He looks better. His hair is back to its natural shade of golden brown, and instead of a ridiculous Prince Charming costume—okay, somehow, he made it less ridiculous than it should’ve been—he’s wearing black slacks and a slate gray dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up his muscular forearms. I’ve never gone for the white-collar type, but I’d be lying if I said Michael doesn’t fill out his fancy threads rather nicely.

When we were kids, he was clingy and soft, a naive boy from a good home who had no idea what hardship or abuse was like. It made me hate him, just as I hated Wendy and their other brother, John.

But it’s hard to compare that boy with the impressive man standing in our front reception area with steel in his eyes and arms crossed over his wide chest. Clearing my throat, I greet him with plenty of my usual ’tude. “What do you want?”

“I came here to ask Peter why my sister’s been crying for the last twelve hours, but I guess now I know.”

“You don’t know anything.” Ooh, good comeback, Tink. Doesn’t matter that he literally heard you spill your guts all over the linoleum.

Michael’s eyes dart behind me at Peter’s office. “Boss man in?”

“Nope,” I say, my smile dripping with sarcasm I don’t feel. “He’s taking a personal day.”

“Good.”

Before I know what’s happening, Michael crosses behind the counter, grabs my upper arm, and drags me into the office before locking the door and dropping the mini-blinds over the shop window.

Breathing fire, I yank my arm out of his grip. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are but—”

“I’ll tell you exactly who I am,” he says, crowding me against the wall. “I am your reckoning. Your moment of wake-the-fuck-up.”

Less than a foot separates us, and the heat from his body teases my exposed skin like warm fingertips trailing from clavicle to navel. His scent is a mix of starched cotton and city sunshine, like he came from a stroll downtown in his dressy duds. I’ve never been this close to a man who didn’t smell of axle grease and motor oil. It’s different. Not bad different, just…fresh different.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you coming to the realization that you are, in fact, not in love with Peter Pan. Not by a long shot.”

I’m so taken aback by that absurd claim from left field that I laugh. “And how would you know that? Last I checked, I’m in charge of my own feelings, not you or anyone else.”

“That’s right, you are. But you’re too innocent to understand the difference between loving someone because he’s always been there to care and watch out for you—” His gaze rakes over my body. “—and the kind of things a woman feels when she’s attracted to a man on a much more visceral level.”

Damn. I’m having a hard time breathing, like he’s sucked all the air out of the room with his know-it-all attitude, and it’s pissing me off. I think. I’m not entirely sure what I am right now. But I’ll rip my nose ring out with a pair of pliers before admitting any of that to this prick.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me that I have these feelings of attraction for you?”

“Absolutely.”

I snort. “That’s rich.”

“Would you like me to prove it to you?”

I shrug, but my shoulders feel weighted down, so I’m not even sure it works. “Whatever sparks your plugs, London.”

Not sure where that nickname came from, but it totally works. Reminds me—and him—that we come from two very different worlds. He can no sooner understand me than I can him. Michael braces a palm high above my head and leans in, forcing me to meet his gaze. I lift my chin in a direct challenge. Take your best shot. You don’t scare me.

“Here’s a physiology lesson for you on some of the things that happen to your body when turned on. Your breathing becomes shallow, your heart rate and blood pressure both rise. Your nipples harden and become more sensitive. You also blink more often, and your pupils dilate. Irises darken in color, like yours, going from spring green to a deep emerald.”

Shit shit shit. I do my best to steady my breathing, hold my eyes open, and will my heart beat to slow down, but it doesn’t seem to be working. His voice is rough and sweetly abrasive, like my favorite vanilla sugar scrub, revealing a new layer I didn’t know existed.

Swallowing, I gather the few drops I have left in my normally-endless well of sarcasm and hope it’s enough to make him go away. “Looks like those college courses paid off, London. Good for you.”

“No, what’s good for me is that I can see all of these things on you…right now.”

He drags his eyes from mine, down to where my pulse is beating against my neck like a tattoo machine at full speed. Then lower, where my nipples are straining into the cotton of my bra, my heaving chest waving them around like twin flags of surrender. Without ever touching me, his gaze leaves tingles in its wake, and my body starts to arch toward him of its own volition.

What the hell is wrong with me? I feel raw and exposed, like a live wire dancing near water. It’s dangerous and seductive, knowing I could fall at any moment and get the shock of a lifetime, and it’s starting to feel worth the risk, even if it means I short out and die.

La petit morte. The little death. It’s what the French call an orgasm. The thing I’ve refused to give myself, despite my best friend’s insistence, because I wanted Peter to give me my first. But now I’m confused because this…this feels…

Michael cups my face and lifts it with his thumb under my chin, then brushes it over my cheek. “I’ve always had a crush on you, Tink,” he says, his voice thick and sugary like molasses. “I thought you were pretty when we were kids. Then I saw you dressed up as Cinderella with your combat boots and colorful tattoos, and thought you were damn gorgeous. But now…” His eyes drift up to my short, platinum hair, then skate over the various piercings and tattoos adorning my body exposed by my crop top and jean cutoffs. “Fuck, you’re so goddamn beautiful.”

I frown. “No, I’m not. I’m punk. I’ve been called cute, hot, fuck-hot, and even sexy by a few drunks at the Lagoon. But never beautiful. That’s for girls like your sister.”

He’s shaking his head before I’m even finished. “Bullshit. I’m the one looking at you, and I say you’re beautiful. And sexy. And fuck-hot,” he says with a smirk that has me biting my cheek to keep from smiling.

“Whatever,” I try. “I don’t want you like that.”

“Really?” He drops his hand from my face and grazes his knuckles in a circle around my belly button. I drag in a sharp inhale, sucking my stomach in, but he merely follows with his hand. “You don’t feel that butterfly sensation in here?”

Oh God, I do. I do, I do, I do. Hundreds of tiny wings beating inside my belly so hard they might lift me off the ground. My breath shudders through parted lips, but no words follow. I can’t think, can’t rationalize. I can only feel, want, need—fucking hell, what is this need, this black magic he’s weaving to make me want to jump his bones like I never thought I would with anyone other than—

His lips cover mine on a growl, full, warm, and hungry. I’m helpless to do anything other than open, inviting him inside to plunder and claim. He eats at my mouth, tasting and twining our tongues. I’ve been kissed by men before—I wanted to make sure I knew how before doing it with the one man who mattered—but I’ve never experienced anything like this. Those were boring, almost clinical. An experiment in how to move one’s lips and tongue while avoiding the teeth and tonsils.

This…is not that. This is fire and ice and the heat of a good battle.

A moan creeps up the back of my throat as I match his intensity, fisting my hands in his hair and arching against the hard length pressing into my belly. He slips a leg between mine and grinds his thigh against me. Electricity zaps through my body, and I jolt in his arms on a gasp that breaks our kiss.

A devilish smirk carves into his too handsome face. “And that is what happens when you’re so turned on by someone you can’t think straight.” He chuckles through labored breaths. “Myself included, damn.”

Small consolation? At least I’m not the only one ready to melt into a puddle of horniness here. Comparing my libido up to this moment is like a lifelong asexual finally discovering a kink that actually does it for them. Apparently, my kink is Michael Darling. Fuckity Fucksticks.

I snap at him, “What’s your point, London?” Because that’s what animals do when they’re cornered, they lash out at the hand reaching for them.

He takes a step back and adjusts himself, wincing like he’s dealing with an uncomfortable situation down there. It amuses me to no end, but I keep my expression schooled with uninterest.

“My point is that you’re not in love with Peter. If you were, I never would’ve had a chance with you just now. You would’ve ripped off my balls and fed them to me for dinner.”

I arch my pierced brow at him. I mean, he’s not wrong. I’ve kneed guys in the junk for looking at me the wrong way. But then that means…

Sighing, I rub my temples. “I don’t know what to think. I’m confused.”

“I know you are, chère. And I don’t expect you to fully believe what I’m telling you right away. But what you did to Wendy and Peter was wrong,” he says, his tone going soft and gentle—and did he just use a French term of endearment? “Even if you were in love with him, I’m sorry to say that he will never reciprocate that. He loves you like a best friend, like a sister. But he’s deeply in love with my sister. Destroying them as a couple doesn’t do anything more than destroy them as individuals. It won’t get you what you think you want.”

“What am I supposed to do? Peter will be so angry with me,” I say, my voice sounding as small as when I was a dirty little orphan with a bell around my ankle.

“Yes, he will. But he’ll forgive you, especially if he has my sister back. What he won’t forgive is if this ends up losing him Wendy forever. I promise you that.” Leaning in, he places a sweet kiss on my forehead that turns my insides to mush. “Do the right thing, and do it soon. There’s not much time to fix this.”

In less than ten minutes, Michael has managed to slice through the armor I’ve built up for over twenty years, and now I stand here flayed open and vulnerable. Clinging to the bits of what I have left, I raise my chin and cross my arms over my chest. “Thanks for stopping by, London.”

“It was my pleasure, pixie,” he says and crosses to the office door.

“I’m a fairy, not a pixie.” Jesus, anything to be contrary.

He cocks his head to the side, then shakes it. “Nah. A fairy is what I call my brother when I feel like getting punched in the face. I like pixie better.” He opens the door and walks through, but just before he closes it behind him, he adds with a wink, “Oh, and start answering my calls.”

Then he’s gone, leaving me to reel from his visit and think about the reckoning he promised and delivered with utter absolution. “Shit,” I hiss as I call Lily. When she picks up, I shush her incessant questions and ask one of my own. “Can you bring that crate over to the house?”