Patrick is hard.

So hard, I’m not even hard is the right word for it. Doesn’t begin to adequately describe what I’m feeling. I forgot how big he was. How having him inside me danced along the edge of pleasure and pain. I haven’t had sex in almost a year—not even the self-serve variety. Thinking about it sends a rush of heat through me, soaking my panties almost instantly. 

“Then why—” I swallow hard and lick my lips, my knees tightening reflexively around his hips. The rigid shaft of his cock jerks against my throbbing center in response. “Is it because you’re still mad at me?”

His hands tighten on my thighs for a second, looking away from me while shaking his head. “No, I’m not mad at you.”

“Then what?” I say, confused. “You almost kissed me—twice now—and twice you stopped.” I angle my head to catch his gaze. “Why? Why aren’t you kissing me?”

“Because I can’t.”

After seeing him on the cover of that magazine, I’d resigned myself to the fact that every woman in Boston was probably throwing themselves at him but I never considered the fact that he might actually be with someone. I think of Sara, his ex-girlfriend and a wave of jealousy hits me. “Are you with someone?”

“No.” He shakes his head, laughing a little like what I just suggested was ridiculous. “I’m not with anyone, Cari. I haven’t been with anyone since you.”

You can run to hell and gone—I’m still going to be here, and I’m still going to love you. You do whatever you need to do to figure out what I already know. I’ll wait.

He said he’d wait for me and he did.

“Then why?” I tip my face upward, my gaze searching his. “Why can’t you kiss me?”

“Why...” He moves his hands, skimming his fingers along the swell of my hips before planting them on either side of me, caging me between his muscular arms. “It’s real simple, Cari,” he growls softly, hooded green gaze pinned to mine. “If I kiss you, I’m going to keep kissing you.” He pushes harder into the space between my thighs, so hard the ridge of his cock presses the thin fabric of my yoga pants against the seam of my pussy, soaking them instantly. “I’m going kiss this perfect mouth of yours until it isn’t enough for either of us—” His gaze drops to my mouth, skimming over my lips and throat before settling on the throbbing spot above my collar bone. “and then I’m going to pull your shirt over your head, so I can lick and suck your nipples until you’re begging me for more...” The hands on the counter press flat, his arms flexing around me like he’s fighting the urge to put his filthy words into action. “and then I’m going to lay you out on this counter and peel these tight little pants down your legs and take your perfect little ass in my hands...” He leans in even closer, his mouth pressed against my ear. His throbbing cock pressed tight against my wet entrance. “and then I’m going fuck you with my tongue.” He says it all in that maddeningly calm tone of his. The one that drives me insane. So matter-of-fact and deliberate that I’m shaking. He’s not even touching me, and I’m a quivering mess. “After you’ve come in my mouth and on my fingers, screaming my name about a half-dozen times, I’m going to fuck you with my cock, against every flat surface I can find in this goddamned place.” He pulls back and looks me in the eye. “That’s what’s going to happen if I kiss you.”

“Yes.” I breathe the word softly, nodding my head, 100% on board with everything he just said. “Okay.”

“No. Not okay,” he says, jaw tight around the words.

“What?” I feel like I’ve been slapped. “Why? Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to just fuck you, Cari. I want to keep you. I want you to be mine.” His green eyes glitter, shards of black and gold dancing around his irises. “I want forever. So, if you say okay, you better be sure. You better be ready because I’m not going to settle and I’m not going stop.”

I catch my bottom lip between my teeth, thinking about what he just said. “Because you love me,” I finally say. Looking at him, I can see it.

“Now you understand.” His mouth quirks, the corner of it inching up in a smirk. “Is that what you wanted to talk about? Why I won’t kiss you?”

It wasn’t. Not even close. What I wanted to say was infinitely more complicated. Confusing. Instead of trying to put my feelings into words, I nod and simply say, “Yes.”

“Good.” He straightens, stepping away from me completely. Turning toward the stove, he turns it on and adjusts the controls. It has six gas burners and a large, indoor grill in the center. “I’m hungry? Are you hungry?”

I stare at the back of his head, trying to catch my breath. Trying to calm the pounding between my thighs and the way my swollen nipples are screaming for attention. I clear my throat and pick up my wine, taking a long sip to cool my burning throat. “I could eat.”

He laughs at my response. “So, what have you been up to?” he says, throwing me a quick look before focusing on the stove. Heating the grill, he moves further down the counter, unwrapping a couple of thick-cut steaks. sprinkling the steaks with a generous amount of salt and pepper.

What have I been up to? He just got finished describing what he’d like to do to me, in excruciatingly hot detail, and he wants to make small talk? I open my mouth, sure nothing will come out of it. But I was wrong.

As soon as my mouth opens, I tell him about spending time with Grace—how she’d sneak into my room in the middle of night with a bottle of cheap wine, she lifted from the bar she waitresses at on weekends, so we could gossip about all the weird stuff our neighbors got in the mail—Mrs. Seever’s monthly packages from a company that makes sex toys or how Mr. Garret has several female prison pen pals. I tell him about setting up my easel in the backyard and painting while Molly played in the sprinkler I attached to the hose. About how my dad is afraid he’s going to get laid-off from his factory job. About how my mom will be devastated if Grace decides to stay in Boston with me because she loves Molly so much.

He cooks me dinner while I tell him everything. The good and the bad. He listens, and he laughs.

He’s Patrick—only different. More confident. Self-assured. It makes me wonder if this is who he’s been all along or if what happened between us changed him somehow—that some of the temporary insanity we both suffered took root. Made him into someone I know but don’t recognize. Like I’m having a familiar conversation with a total stranger.

“So,” I say, taking a sip of wine. “Have you heard from Sara?”

I expect the question to stiffen his shoulders. Make him defensive. Maybe even a little angry. It doesn’t. Instead, he laughs. “No,” he says, flipping the steaks before shooting me a look over his shoulder. “Oh... Tess didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” I say, setting my glass down carefully.

He pulls a skillet off the rack hanging above his head and sets it on the stove. Turns on the burner and adds a drizzle of olive oil. “Aside from the money Con squeezed out of her dad, he also made the old man agree that Sara would move back to Chicago,” he says, dropping fresh, chopped veggies into the sizzling skillet, giving them a practiced flip in the pan while he seasons them with salt and pepper. “She’s not allowed in Boston—like, for forever.”

“Good,” I say. If I never see Sara Howard again, it’ll be too soon.

I don’t ask about James. I don’t have to. I receive monthly updates about him through my victim advocate. After the attack, he was arrested and charged with stalking, extortion, felony assault and unlawful imprisonment. He was arraigned from his hospital bed, after which he spent nearly a month recuperating from the beating Patrick gave. After his release from the hospital, he took a plea. In exchange for a guilty plea, the DA dropped everything but the assault charge. Even that got knocked down to a misdemeanor. He was given six-month in jail. With good behavior, he was out by Christmas.

Even though I know he’s out and wandering around Boston, I’m not worried. James will never bother me again. He knows what happens when you mess with a Gilroy.

“What about Lisa?”

“I’m not sure.” He shrugs. “Once the lawsuit was dropped she disappeared.”

“You didn’t press charges?” I say, confused. “She almost ruined your life?”

He shakes his head. “She was James’s puppet,” he says, brow furrowed slightly, attention focused on the veggies he’s sautéing. “Besides—I carry some of the blame for what happened. I never should’ve...” He looks at me, his expression heavy and hard to read. “What I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have used her like that. She had a right to be angry.”

“If you carry some of the blame then so do I,” I tell him. “If I hadn’t—” I look down at the glass of wine in my hands. “I never meant to hurt you.”

When I finally force myself to look up, I find him watching me. Waiting. “We hurt each other, Cari,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching, the movement too fast and small to be called a smile. “I don’t think either of us planned what happened—I know I didn’t.”

Planned? No. I didn’t plan any of it. Knowing that doesn’t change the way I feel. Instead of arguing, I let it sit for a while, watching Patrick pull the steaks off the grill, letting them rest while he finishes the veggies. “Can I ask you a question?” I finally say, taking another sip of wine.

He gives me a grin, a wicked flash of teeth and dimples that sends a flurry of butterflies through my stomach. “You already know why they call me Boogey Nights.”

Heat erupts across my chest. I remembered that night. The way I felt when I realized the answer to my own question. Flustered. Nervous. Not unlike how I’m feeling now. “Is that a yes?” I say, amazed at how together I sound.

He laughs, not at all buying my calm, cool and collected act. All he has to do is look at me to know how much he rattled me. “You can ask me anything you want.”

“Where did you learn to cook?”

“That’s it?” he says, pulling a pair of plates from the rack next to the stove. “I give you free rein to ask me whatever you want and that’s what you want to know?”

“Yup.” I slide off the counter and take the plates from him, holding them while he transfers a steak and vegetables to each of them. “For starters.”

“Okay,” he drawls, shaking his head. “I worked summers at Benny’s.” Grabbing our wine, he leads me through the kitchen to the dining area. “Started out as a bus boy when I was thirteen, just a few days a week.” He sets our glasses down and pulls out a chair before taking one of the plates from me. “By the time I was fifteen, I was in the kitchen full-time.”

I set my plate down before sitting, letting him push me in. “Did you like it?”

“Kept me in breakfast burritos,” he says, laughing. “Anything else?”

“How much money did your uncle give you?” I watch him round the table, looking closely. Waiting to see his shoulder stiffen or his face to twitch. I don’t really care. I’m more interested in his reaction to the question than the answer itself. Eleven months ago, the thought of his uncle passing his own sons over to make him his sole heir was enough to send him into a tailspin.

“One-hundred sixty million,” he says, cutting into his steak while the sum rolls off his tongue. No tailspin. No wincing or side-stepping. “Give or take. A good chunk of it is tied up in real estate.” He forks a bite into his mouth and chews. He shrugs, looks almost bored. “Some of it’s tied up in a few projects I’m finishing up.”

One-hundred sixty million. The sum makes me dizzy, makes the zeros parked in my bank account seem like pocket change. “Wha—” I think about Patrick’s uncle—his faded bowling shirts and work-callused hands. “How?”

He laughs at my obvious stupor. “Depends on who you ask,” he tells me. “If you ask my dad, our great-grandfather came over from Ireland, already a rich man. The way Uncle Paddy tells it, he wasn’t exactly begging in the streets... but bootlegging during Prohibition is what made him rich. Then he bought and sold half of Boston. That made him stupid rich.”

“One-hundred sixty million...” I look around the apartment, shaking my head. “That’s a lot of responsibility, Patrick.” Responsibility. Pressure. Expectation. I want to ask him how he’s taking it. How he’s holding up, but I don’t. He seems to be holding up just fine.

Catching my expression, he laughs. “I don’t want to talk about money. Ask me something else.”

I nod, as eager to leave the subject behind as he is. “Okay...” I cut into my own steak, noting it’s cooked a perfect medium rare. “Why didn’t you call me?”

He shrugs. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t know.” His counter question catches me off guard. “I guess I was afraid you were angry with me for leaving after...”

“I was.” A look passes over his face, too quick for me to catch it. “But you did the right thing.” He shakes his head. “You needed to go, and I needed to let you,” he says, cocking his head, stabbing his fork into the pile of vegetables on his plate. “Ask me something else.”

“Alright...” I tap my finger against my lips like I’m thinking, but I already know what I’m going to ask him. It’s something I’ve wondered since this whole thing started. “Where did the dirty talk come from?” I ask, and he laughs, the broccoli speared on the end of his fork stalls, half way to his mouth, his ears going bright red—a sure-fire sign that he’s embarrassed. As embarrassed as he is, he recovers quickly.

“I don’t know,” he tells me, pushing food into his mouth, chewing slowly while he considers the question. “I’ve never done it before you.” He cocks his head and laughs. “I never did a lot of shit before you...” He takes a long sip of wine before setting his glass down. “My sex life has always been neat. Tidy.” He shoots me a crooked smile. “Predictable.” Hearing the word, I groan, and he laughs, sitting back in his chair. “But, you do things to me.” He looks at me, and suddenly I can’t breathe. “Make me want things. Make me someone I don’t understand. Can’t control. Can’t predict. I’ve spent the last eleven months getting to know him.”

Him. The other Patrick. The Patrick nobody knows but me. The wolf he hides beneath his good deeds and nice guy smile.

“And?” The word comes out soft, pitched low. “What did you learn about him?”

“And...” Patrick’s mouth twitches. “as it turns out, he’s not such a bad guy after all.”