Did I think Lex was serious about me? Her cutting words haunt me well into the week. She’s been avoiding me, darting past me when she sees me coming, not taking my calls, ignoring my texts. Her roommate asked me to please stop pounding on the door at all hours of the night. She said we were both batshit—that we probably deserved one another. God, I hope she’s right about that second account. Unfortunately, she’s most likely right about the first. I realize pegging your girlfriend as batshit isn’t anything to be proud of, but it’s Lex’s wild side that I love about her. Shep called her scary. So what? I like scary. It’s appropriate that we christened our relationship on Halloween night.

My stomach grinds as I glance out at the parking lot. I’ve been at the Witch’s Cauldron for an hour now. It’s cold as, yes, a witch’s tit. It’s two nights till Christmas and not a sign of snow, but the storm coming tomorrow night promises to bring a flurry. It was right here just a few weeks ago that I proposed to Lex. It was the best night of our lives. She said yes, took my grandmother’s ring, and then everything fell to shit faster than a hammer falling on my head.

I texted Lex earlier in the day, told her this was it. I needed to speak with her. I pleaded with the reasonable side of her, reminded her that we were adults. Okay, so I begged her to show up. I told her that every good breakup deserved a blowout, and if she had any heart she wouldn’t deny me ours. I thought she might get a kick out of that one. If I’ve learned anything about Lex over the past fifteen months, it’s that her love language bites with searing sarcasm. The truth is, I need us back together. I need a nice shiny bow on the two of us because I want us to work, and because I promised my parents a big announcement on Christmas Eve. I happened to get their hopes up for something significant just a day before Lex sliced me out of her life.

A pair of headlights turns into the lot. I hold my breath for a moment until it makes the turn and the moonlight exposes it for what it is—a white sedan.

She’s here. A giant rush of relief washes through me. Adrenaline spikes through my bloodstream, and I resist the urge to pump my fist in the air and shout for joy. She showed. Lex is here. Everything is going to work out.

My own cryptic words come back to bite me in the ass. Surely, she’s not here to offer up a blowout. Nobody in their right mind drives a half hour up the switchbacks to oblige someone they claim to hate with an argument of all things. That would be so very ludicrous. My heart sinks because that would also be so very us.

The slam of the car door. The shuffle of shoes across the gravel. The moon hits her with a burst of light and her hair lights up like a flame. Lex is a walking birthday candle. Those sultry hips of hers slowly sashay toward me like a promise, and for a second I fully believe she’s here to offer up a mouthwatering proposition.

“You came,” I say as the moon illuminates her features.

Lex slices through me with a look that says hold onto your balls, and that knot I’ve been nursing in my belly cinches right back up.

“Bet your bottom dollar. I showed up with bells on.” She strides forward with a dark smile curving on her lips, and any hope of a reconciliation flees from the scene. “I came to give you this.” She holds out a balled fist, and I’m slow to offer up my palm. I already know what happens next.

Lex drops my grandmother’s wedding ring into my hand and I stare at it a moment too long. She didn’t give it back that night in Founder’s Square. I thought she might keep it—she might keep me. It looks like any prospect of regaling my family with an engagement on Christmas Eve just dwindled down to nothing.

“I don’t want this.” I sniff hard at the sight of the lonely band. The gold grows cold so fast it burns its impression over my skin.

“It belongs to your family,” she huffs incredulously as if I were a moron for not wanting it back. “You’ll find someone in New York to give it to.”

“I won’t. I’m not going, Lex.”

Her eyes hook to mine with a fire all their own. Her anger over the fact I refuse to head north has her irate all over again.

“What don’t you get?” My voice shakes with a fury of my own. “I don’t need NYU. I need you.”

“You want NYU. It’s been your dream.”

“You’re my dream. I’ll sacrifice NYU for you. I’ll sacrifice everything for you, Lex.”

“I don’t want you to sacrifice anything for me!” she bellows so loud her voice ricochets around us like a boomerang. “I refuse to be the reason you’re not happy. I refuse to be the one you can point the finger at when you start to contemplate why you stayed. We are not working. We are broken. We are over.” Her voice softens to just above a whisper. Her eyes though. I’m begging for a sign of life in this strangled relationship, something to gauge whether or not she means the words she’s throwing at me so convincingly. But there’s not a tear in sight. Not on her end anyway.

“We’re not over.” I close my fingers over the ring as if maybe we are. “We’ll never be over, Lex.” I take a step in and caress her cheek with my finger. “I love you. You’re hurting, and I don’t want that for you. Whatever happens between us, Lex—I want you to know I’m putting you in power of where we go from here. What do you need from me, Lex? I’ll meet you there. I promise.”

A single tear rolls down her cheek, and relief comes rushing back to the party. Lex cares. Lex is human. Lex loves me. This much I know for sure.

In a brazen move, I wrap my arms around her waist and bring her close to me, warming her body with mine.

She sniffs back her emotions, blinking hard as if disowning the tear that escaped without her permission. “I need you to go to New York,” she whispers while staring out into the dark just beyond the parking lot. “And then I need you to understand that we need to take a break.”

“A break,” I repeat numbly. A break is simply a step up from a breakup, but at this point I’ll hang onto whatever she wants to give me.

Her eyes meet with mine, a genuine disquiet about them. Lex’s eyes were always telling me something, hating me, loving me, openly laughing at me—with me. But at the moment, they are stone cold silent.

She gives a single nod. “We’ll be friends.” Lex slips past me like an apparition. She’s in her car and barreling down the mountain before I can catch my next breath.

Friends.

My soul aches with the sting of grief.

We both know Lex doesn’t believe in friends.

* * *

Lex. She’s back in my life. I can breathe again. I can see the light, and it just so happens to be streaming from her beautiful eyes. I’m just about to step into The Sloppy Pelican when my phone rings. It’s Teagan, so of course I pick up. After Emilia passed, I never let a call slide from either Teagan or Shep. You learn to value family—especially when pieces of it are stripped from you.

“What’s up, kiddo?” I head over to the old oak barrels set out near the valet parking that most people utilize for selfies. That and the pelican himself seated on the roof are the two fan faves when it comes to social media.

“Dad just came out of a meeting with someone named Abby Wilcock.”

“Wilcox.” I cringe at my sister’s innocent mistake. Pretty much anything of a sexual nature has me cringing when it comes to my baby sister. “She’s a—friend.” It’s probably best my dad see her as an acquaintance of mine rather than an employee. If I want to off this girl to Collins Enterprises, I need to market the crap out of her. I know for a fact Abby gets under Lex’s skin. And knowing that Abby has sent out a proposition my way more than once makes me that much more eager to give her the boot. I would have fired her if I didn’t think she were an opportunist who didn’t find a sexual harassment lawsuit against her employer something beneath her.

“Dad wants to know if she’s a nutcase or if he should give her the keys to the kingdom.” I can practically see her sneering as she says it, and it strangely warms me. Teagan is still the cute little girl in pigtails in my mind’s eye, so listening to her strain my father’s eloquent speech through a childlike sieve makes me want to chuckle.

“Give her the keys.” My father has spent the last year snapping up prospective entrepreneurial pursuits, and I’m guessing Abby has concocted one herself. “I’m sure whatever Abby presented him with is solid.” Aside from being a tad too flirtatious she’s got a good head on her shoulders and a degree to back it up.

“You sure?” Teagan balks at the idea. “The girl looks like a serious ditz.”

“She’s not. She’s a great person. Dad will be lucky to have her.” A brief visual of Abby linked arm in arm with my father flits through my mind. Crap. That’s the last developmental deal I want him to close with her. “I’m sure they’ll work great together.”

“Whatevs. Tell Lex I said hi. I’m emailing her a few last minute changes. Oh, and if you’re wondering what to get me for my official Freedom Fest, give yourself a night off next Friday. There’s no way I want you around my friends and me. No offense, but having an overprotective big brother breathing down my neck will sort of cramp my style with the boys.”

A laugh rumbles from me. “That won’t be a problem. Lex specializes in all-girl events. In fact, she’s working on a big no boys allowed sign as we speak.”

“Very funny. I’m hanging up now. Love you!” And she does just that, hangs up.

The Sloppy Pelican is the last place I want to be with Lex tonight, but as fate and my lousy scheduling would have it, The Sloppy Pelican demands our presence. There simply isn’t anyone to cover Lex’s shift. Abby called in and that stretched my already skeleton crew to beyond the grave. So here we are. Lex in that short skirt, that blouse that highlights her curves, those high heels that make her legs look as if they go on forever.

A hand swats me over the chest, and I look over to find Brody crossing his arms.

“You’re drooling.”

“You would be too if you spent half a minute staring at her. But don’t or I’ll have to beat you into tomorrow.”

“Funny,” he grunts, giving a sullen glance around. “Man, I miss this place.”

“It doesn’t miss you.” I bounce a dry smile on my lips. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in a corner somewhere counting beans?”

He groans as he folds his arms over his chest. “I’m all numbered out. It’s time to outsource this shit. Hire a real accountant. Hell, hire an entire fleet of them. I’m tapped. I can’t make heads or tails out of anything. Just when I think I’m getting somewhere the asshole telling me what to do shoves it back in my face. It’s an exercise in futility. I’m done. I’m back. You can walk right out. I’ve got this, dude. I may not be able to solve the puzzle of the missing numbers, but I sure as hell can staff this place better than you can.”

I glance over at Lex. She’s mine again, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to give The Pelican the kiss-off and head back to the judicial world. Nope. Lex and I are still green. We need to be nurtured, and this place has played a huge part in getting us back on the right track.

“How about you give it until after the wedding? Hell, make it the honeymoon sweetheart.” I wink while egging him on. “I’m not kidding. Levi is already pretty stressed out. He’ll freak if we announce we’re hiring a team of financial exterminators. You know they’ll hook a hose up to our checking account and we’ll go down fast. Not even Low can pull us out of that one. Once he gets back from his honeymoon, we’ll knock our heads together and see what we can come up with.”

He scratches the back of his neck, looking unconvinced by the idea. “You know—I realize he’s getting married, but dude, all he has to do is rent a tux and walk down the aisle. He hasn’t been here in months.”

My stomach grinds because I’m starting to feel a bit guilty. Maybe it was a bit much to sic my friends in the financial world on Brody. And drowning Levi in real estate prospects probably wasn’t the brightest idea I had either. Low stopped by the other afternoon, and I heard her telling Lex every time they get excited about a property it’s yanked from under their noses. She’s starting to feel cursed. She says she’s afraid her wedding will fall apart just like their dream home has time and time again. Believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was cast a pall on their wedding. Perhaps this has all gone a bit too far.

Mojo calls for Brody to cover him at the bar, and lucky for me, Lex is walking this way with a smile that says hold onto your boxers, big boy, things are about to get heated.

A laugh bubbles from her as she passes me on the way to the kitchen. “Someone looks like he’s already craving dessert.”

“It’s always been my favorite meal of the day,” I call out as I get to work with a spring in my step.

The next few hours breeze by with Lex stealing glances my way as she works her station—with me stealing wet, heated kisses as I pull her into the darkest corners the establishment has to offer.

“Are we done yet?” Her erratic breathing matches my own. Lex and I have worked ourselves into a frenzy. So much for taking it slow.

“Half hour,” I say, tapping her lightly over the thigh, and she rolls her eyes at the move.

“If you think this night entails a little role play between a boss and his waitress, you’re sadly mistaken.”

I can’t help but smile at the way she drags her words over me as if they were a punishment. It’s almost masochistic how much I love it.

“It’s not considered role playing when it’s a reality.” I wag a playful finger her way. “Now, get back to work before I fire you.”

Lex grunts, and just the sound of that guttural expression gets me going. Lex and I can’t get out of here fast enough.

As soon as the bar closes, I hit the door and take Lex with me.

“What about my car?” Lex laughs as I sail her toward my truck.

“I’ll have it impounded. Employees aren’t allowed to park overnight.” I give a slight wink as I help her into the passenger’s seat.

“You wouldn’t dare impound Frank!”

My heart tenders because I happen to have an affinity for all the things Lex insists on personifying.

I drill my gaze into her and try to memorize the way the stars fracture in her eyes. The whole world readjusts itself to accommodate her beauty. “Frank will be missing his grille unless his owner submits to all of my demands tonight.”

Her mouth falls open, and her eyes widen with devilish delight. Lex gets off on this banter more than she’s willing to admit. “Let the hostage negotiations begin.”

“Great. You can start tossing offers onto the mattress as soon as we get to the penthouse. It looks like this abductor needs to take his victim to a second location.”

She bites down on her ruby red lip for a second. “So many roles to play in so little time. I can feel the Stockholm’s syndrome coming on already.”

And with that, I hop into the truck and speed us off to Jepson.

* * *

I dim the lights, start an early autumn fire—her favorite, and set the mood music playing on a loop.

Lex peels off my shirt, slow and easy—she undoes my buckle and works off my pants as I step out of the last of my clothes.

I take my time working down her skirt, gliding her panties down along with it. I carefully unbutton her blouse, and she slips it past her shoulders. Her bra bounces off as if it were set on a spring. Here we stand, two dark shadows with the flicker of a fire highlighting our outlines. Her body is a classic hourglass silhouette. The first time I saw Lex naked I gasped. She took my breath away, and I couldn’t believe the paradise she was offering up to me on a platter.

Lex and I graze one another with our eyes, engaging in an almost ritualistic examination of one another’s bodies. Those creamy thighs, her smooth hips, those sweet, sweet girls that have my mouth watering. My muscles shake as the urge to take her builds in me.

“I like seeing you.” I pick up her hand and give her fingers a tug. “You’re beautiful. I don’t know why you bother with clothes.” It’s true. Lex is a celestial being who stepped down from Mount Olympus just to mingle with the mortals. There is no greater truth than that.

She laughs at the thought of the clothing-free lifestyle I’ve just tried to impose. “Mostly it’s the jail time that would follow my nudist pursuits that keeps me from engaging. Otherwise, I’m without a stitch when I’m home.”

My brows cinch. “Raven must be amused.” I know for a fact Levi’s little sister is staying with Lex, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. She supposedly has an outrageous PR career in fashion and her own penthouse in Jepson.

“She is rather enamored by my bush.” Her left shoulder hikes up a notch, and I can’t help but give the idea of a laugh.

“I’m enamored by it, too. I’ll be sure to pay my homage when the time is right.” I run my fingers from her lips straight down to the area in question, and Lex sucks in a quick breath.

She scoops up my hand and plunges my finger into her mouth.

Crap. Lex has me harder than I’ve ever been. I hope she’s in for the long haul tonight. This won’t be a race. This will be a very methodical marathon that some neighbors might interpret as a shouting match. Hearing Lex shout my name has always been the goal.

Her head ticks to the side. “So is this what you meant by taking it slow?” She places my hand back down where she found it, and I claim what’s mine once again.

“I meant emotionally we should slow it down.” I can feel the heat from her body, and God knows once I pull her skin to mine all traces of conversation will be over. “We have a long history of running hot and cold. Let’s tear down those towers we’ve been hiding behind one brick at a time. Once we discover what makes one another tick, we’ll understand the blowouts a little bit more.” I wince when I say the word blowout. It’s a throwback term I wish I never brought up, but instead, I landed it in the room haphazard as a landmine.

“Blowouts, huh?” She grazes her finger over my lips and belts out a soft laugh as if she didn’t mind the reference. God, I love seeing her happy. “So those bumps in the road are inevitable?” She takes a moment to glare at me, and there’s something endearing about that look. Perhaps because it’s the one she’s gifted me most frequently. Lex has always been a firecracker, and I’ve always been a big fan of the Fourth of July. We are essentially a match made in a dynamite factory.

“Each and every one. There’s not a couple on earth who doesn’t go there on occasion.” I brush her hair off her shoulders before picking up a crimson lock and coiling it around my finger. Her sweet perfume calls to me. Same scent she wore way back when—French lavender she once told me. I never forgot that scent. I didn’t need a bottle to remind me of her. I had it ingrained in my gray matter. Lex’s French lavender soul has haunted me in and out of my dreams.

“Even Levi and Low?” She wrinkles her nose when she says their names, and I can’t help but offer a sarcastic smile.

“Even Levi and Low.”

Lex steps in, her breath warming my chest in bursts. “But I don’t want to talk about them.” Her lips graze over my neck, and it feels so good I can’t exhale.

I lean in and brush my mouth over her ear. “Do you want to talk about us?”

“I want to reinvent us.” Her breathing becomes erratic as her hips singe against me, and I suck in a quick breath through my teeth. “I want to shine what we have and watch it sparkle in the light. I want to leave the past hidden under a dusty canvas.” She lands a kiss over my shoulder. “I don’t want the memories. I don’t want the pain—the fear or the rejection.”

And there it is. Rejection is exactly what Lex felt in the end, and I take full responsibility for that.

“I think you’re onto something.” I slide my lips from her ear to her mouth. “Let’s move on to the new us. The better, sparkly version.” A laugh trembles from me as I slip my tongue into her mouth. Lex meets me right where I want to be with meandering passionate kisses that have no end in sight. Carefully, I pull us down to the rug with Lex landing by my side, her body holding a tangerine glow from the fire. “We don’t need to hurry.” My fingers glide over the sharp curve of her hip. “We have all the time in the world.”

“We have tonight.” Her brow lifts with amusement. “I don’t live here.”

“Yet.”

The idea of a laugh bounces in her chest “I’m not one for a series of Southern sleepovers.”

“I know. You’re the marrying kind.” I lift her hair off her shoulder, exposing her to me fully. “So am I.”

She offers a playful frown. Her cool knee glides between my legs and edges up toward dangerous territory. “Is that a proposal?”

“Nope. I promise—when I’m proposing, you won’t need to question it. You’ll know without a doubt.”

“Without a doubt.” She shakes her head, her lime-colored eyes secured to mine. “That’s something we never seem to be.”

“That’s about to change,” I whisper as I pull her onto me. Her chest glides soft and easy as it expands over my flesh. “I’m going to bark out orders without a doubt, and you’re going to follow them.”

Lex tips her head back and belts out a laugh. “You wish, Collins.” That triple X pendant I gifted her dangles just inches from my mouth so I catch it with my teeth. “All right. First, we make love, slow and easy—something exploratory where I get to taste and see every last inch of you.”

Her cheeks pinch with color by the light of the fire. “Every last inch of me?”

“Yes, Lex.” Sure, we’ve had countless sessions that qualified as damn near pornographic, but Lex has always made sure the lights were off, the covers were on. For as brazen as she can be, behind locked doors she’s quite shy about her body. “Every last inch.” My hand slips between her thighs, and I can feel her knees lock together in protest. Then in an instant she loosens. Lex opens for me like a flower under the warmth of the sun, like a dare.

“Every last inch,” she says it just below a whisper. “I’m giving it to you.”

I pull her mouth down to mine, and we begin in on something that feels entirely new. Lex and I aren’t dragging the past into this room tonight. We’ve finally managed to unleash ourselves from our baggage—if only for one night. The problem with denying the past is that you’re destined to repeat it. And God knows I have no intention of repeating our thorny past. Maybe just the best parts.

Lex glides over me, landing that sweet spot between her thighs square over my lap.

Yes, this part for sure.

It wasn’t all so bad.

Was it?