I spent the rest of the afternoon putting the final touches on the set. Part of me wanted to perfect it, to get the wood siding on the houses touched up, the windows cleaned. I wanted to polish everything up before I saw Tristan again, so that I could take off for this mystery retreat of his without feeling guilty.

But the truth was, I’d become utterly useless. Every time I focused on a task, my mind flashed with the exquisite image of his tongue lapping greedily at the place between my legs. I began to imagine the feeling of my own mouth on him, fingers raking their way down his thighs as he hardened between my lips. I wondered what his cock was really like—how big, how long. How it would feel inside me.

All I wanted was to find out. To get to know him better, to spend every moment that I could with him before this volatile, insane relationship of ours came crashing to a fiery end. So I had no choice but to spend the remaining hours of Friday in a hot and bothered state, my body craving more of what I’d only just begun to taste.

But one thing was bothering me.

Before I saw Tristan again, I wanted to talk to Marcus. The man who was all but a brother to me would probably have something to say about the fact that Tristan had asked me to spend two days straight with him. There was no way Marcus was going to like that idea. No way he’d approve.

I wanted to know why.

When I got home at six, my roommate was sitting on the couch in his sweats. It was a relief to see him looking relaxed. He almost seemed back to his old self…except for the fact that he didn’t look happy to see me.

“How’s it going?” I asked, trying to sound chipper, rather than like a woman who’d all but gotten her rocks off with a forbidden man a few hours earlier.

“It’s fine,” he said, turning my way, his gaze sliding over me from top to bottom. His eyes narrowed in scrutiny as he stared. I looked down, wondering if I was covered in paint, or worse.

“You saw Wolfe today. You were with him,” he said. “Weren’t you?”

A shot of adrenaline told me to flee the scene. Holy shit. How the hell would he even know that? Were all the men in my life stalking me now?

“Yes, I saw him today at lunch,” I replied, my chest tightening defensively. “So what?”

“At his office?” he asked.

I nodded, swallowing. “Why do you ask?”

“I can smell him on you,” he replied, his lip curling with something that looked an awful lot like disgust.

“Jesus, Marcus, I wish you’d tell me why you hate the guy so much.” I didn’t ask him how the hell he could smell Tristan from several feet away. How had I never realized how strangely acute my roomie’s sense of smell was? “What has he ever done to you?”

“Let’s just say that he and I are born enemies,” he said, turning away to stare at the television.

“Is this something to do with your boss? Are he and Tristan business rivals or something?”

For a few seconds he clammed up. I could see him grinding his jaw, like he was trying to figure out how to answer the question.

“Sort of,” he said, leaning back and taking a swig of the beer he’d been holding in his left hand.

I moved over and perched myself on the arm of the couch. “You’ve never really told me what it is that you do, you know,” I said. “Never explained any of it. Is this about some shady real estate or something?”

“You might say that,” he muttered, but he didn’t expand on it. Instead, he just reached for my hand and squeezed, without actually looking my way. “The thing is,” he said quietly, “I don’t want to have to become your enemy too, Ari. I don’t want us to lose what we have.”

I could have sworn that my heart swelled up three sizes when those words met my ears. Suddenly I felt loved—a sensation I hadn’t experienced much in my life, unless you counted Clarissa and the family members that I’d lost along the way. “I could never be your enemy, Marcus,” I murmured. “You’re my family. You’re just about the best friend I have in the world right now, what with Clarissa leaving town. So I need to know that we’re going to survive this—whatever this is.”

He turned, looked up at me, and threw me a genuine smile. Warm, friendly, and sincere. I knew then that we were going to be okay.

“I’m good if you are,” he said. “I love you, you know. I’ll do anything for you. I’d jump in front of a bus to save your ass, even if you do have shitty taste in men. Just don’t make me jump in front of Wolfe to protect you.”

“I won’t,” I chuckled. “I love you too. Now stop worrying. No one could ever turn me against you. Not even a super-hot man who’s trying to give me my very own Off-Broadway theater.”

“Wait—what?” he asked. “Seriously?”

I nodded, pulled out the deed and handed it to him. “Is that crazy? It’s crazy, right?”

To my surprise, Marcus shook his head. “No. I mean yes. I mean—take it. For fuck’s sake, take it. Unless you think it’s a bad deal.”

“You think I can trust Tristan?”

He ground his jaw for a second then said, “Wolfe wouldn’t screw you around about something like that. He has too much honor. It’s kind of his schtick. For all his negatives, the guy doesn’t lie.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. Well, fuck,” I replied. “Then maybe I’ll have to accept. But not right now. I need to rest my brain before I can be bothered to reread the paperwork. There’s probably a clause in there somewhere about how I have to give him blowies every four minutes in exchange of the theater’s upkeep.”

Marcus chuckled. “He’s a smart guy, so yes, he might just have added something like that.”

It seemed that Marcus’ sense of humor was slowly coming back. Or maybe he was warming up to the idea of Tristan after all.

“Can I join you on the couch?” I asked. “I need to vegetate.”

He patted the cushion next to where he was sitting. “Sure, come watch a stupid movie with me. I want to forget about the world outside of this apartment and just hang with my roomie for a few hours.”

“Excellent,” I said as I plopped down next to him. “Uh, there’s something I should tell you, though. Something you might not like.”

“You’re going to see him again,” he replied.

I nodded. “Tomorrow morning. He wants to take me away for the weekend.”

Marcus sighed. “You’re allowed to do whatever you want, Ari. I won’t try to stop you. That is, unless I’m worried that you’ll get hurt.”

“I might. The weird thing is, I don’t trust most men,” I said. “But there’s some part of me that really wants to believe that Tristan is good. I want to believe, for some crazy reason, that he’s not just out to screw me over. It feels important, but I’m not sure why.”

“You know what I think?”

I shook my head.

“You should see if he passes the litmus test,” Marcus said.

“What litmus test?”

He turned towards me. “Would you tell him about your past?”

I clenched my hands in my lap and stared down at them, all too aware of how white my knuckles had just turned. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m not sure I trust him quite that much yet.”

“Fair enough. But just remember that if you won’t let him in, it’ll be hard for him to trust you, too.”

“I suppose you’re right. I just need a bit of time to get to know him. To figure out who he is.”

“What if you don’t like who he is?” he asked.

“Then I’ll walk away.”

“What if you can’t walk away?”

The words sent a chill down my spine. It was as if Marcus already knew just how addicted I’d grown. How much it scared me to be so drawn to Tristan, to feel so much hunger, so much need of him. My housemate had warned me that this would happen. He’d known, somehow, even before I had.

“If I can’t walk away,” I said, “I’m in serious trouble.”