“The dude’s getting laid.”

“Has to be.”

“Regularly.”

“Definitely.”

“Legit.”

I stop where I’m at, in the doorway of the Brocade’s break room, interrupting myself from my badass humming of Believer—I’m positive I’m going to make a billion dollars once Imagine Dragons hears this and demands I go on tour with them—to pay more attention to Wade and Fershan’s back-and-forth.

“I mean, come on.” Wade stabs chopsticks into his ramen and twirls the noodles in emphasis. “The Hagakure ramen bar today and Sandwich Heaven last Friday? Fresh flowers on all the tables in here?”

Fershan cocks a brow. “Flowers are what you notice? We both got instant cash bonuses for positive guest satisfaction.”

“Which were whose idea to begin with?” I use the line while sliding between them to grab an edamame pod from the bowl they’re sharing.

Fershan chuckles. “I officially bow to the queen of good ideas.”

“Bows not necessary.” I swipe a few more of the pods. “Just more of these, please.” I moan while sucking out another of the tender green beans from their warm casing. “Damn. So good.”

“Fine,” Wade says. “Props to Em for the bonuses. But the rest of these bennies?” He swirls an empty chopstick in the air before stabbing it toward the hotel’s main tower. “I’m sticking to my theory. Methinks, my friends, the weird one in yon gilded tower has been dipping his golden wick with blissful frequency.”

“Ew.” It’s a fast way to disguise my furious blush, which I hide further by turning for the ramen bar. Though I could make a meal out of the edamame alone, I force myself to mull over the sauce choices while regaining my composure. Reece’s little “gifts” for the team, sprinkled with care throughout the last two weeks, have meant more to me than jewelry, candy, or stuffed animals. As for the flowers? He’s made sure they’re part of my world every day—even here in the basement break room.

My hero. Sweeping me off my feet…in all the ways that matter.

“Forsooth.” Fershan snickers while adding on to his friend’s theory. “Methinks I doth agree with you. Our prince must be wooing a lady fair and extending his happiness to his people.”

Wade groans. “Wooing? What the hell is that, man? Wooing?”

I toss a scowl over my shoulder. “A lot better than ‘dipping his golden wick,’ that’s what.”

“Whoa.”

“Wade, the man’s ‘wick’ is none of our—”

“No. I mean whoa.”

The stab of shock in Wade’s voice is a compulsion, causing me to pivot around as he snatches the remote to the break room’s TV. As he scrolls the volume up, a heart-halting image consumes the screen. A muscled figure in black leather is leaping through the air like rockets are powering him.

Holy wow.

“Our dude’s up and at it again,” Wade exclaims. “Literally.”

Fershan rises, dropping his chopsticks in favor of hoisting a hearty geek fist. “Oh, snap it up!” His eyes go wide. “Wait. Is that the power plant out at El Segundo?”

“Duh.” Wade snorts.

“By the gods. What is he doing there?”

“Kicking ass, power-pulsing dickheads, and saving the city.” Wade’s tone implies the second Duh.

“Indeed.” Fershan skirts the table, intensifying the whoop-whoop fist. “Bolt, my man!”

Actually… I slip into a chair at the table behind theirs, smirking like a loon, as they both spin into fanboy mode. He’s my man.

But in instances like this, I don’t mind sharing. Not one damn bit. The only thing I do mind is throwing my own mask on. And, in many ways, I don a whole outfit to go with it. The guise is invisible but in place as blatantly as Reece’s leathers and eye cover—a façade that allows me to oooohh and ahhhh along with everyone else but hold back the rest of what I feel when watching him jump, spin, battle, and bash with the body I’ve come to know, desire, and cherish.

And love.

Oh God, how I love him.

And oh God, are there moments when it sucks harder to mask that fact. Like right now.

“Fucking badass,” Wade exclaims.

“He’s rocking it!” Fershan adds.

“You should see him with a finger vibe and some lube.” My barely audible utterance is absorbed by the guys’ excitement.

“He’s rocking this shit.”

“Rocking it out loud.”

I smirk a little wider—and squirm a little more. My boyfriend’s rocking this shit. Out loud. That means he’ll have a lot of extra voltage to fry off tonight…

Lucky, lucky, lucky me.

But first, there’s getting to watch him—how did Wade phrase it?—kick ass, power-pulse some bad guys, and save the city.

There’s just one thing missing about that theory. Big-time.

I notice it at the same moment Wade and Fershan do.

“Where are…all the dickheads?” Fershan leans forward, asking it first.

Wade stands up. “He doesn’t have any dickheads.”

Fershan rises too. “Just a dick…girl?”

As I push to my feet, my heart plummets the opposite direction. It thuds in my stomach, exploding like a bad cold fusion science project, spreading shards of terror throughout my body. “N-Not a girl.”

“Huh?”

I hardly hear Wade’s comeback.

“Em? Are you all right?”

Or Fershan’s anxious probe.

“Not. A. Girl.” I seethe the words this time through my gritted teeth. “A bitch.” I compel my feet to move, stumbling in front of them both. “A bitch he needs to kill.”

I’ve never spoken such words before. But I’ve never been captive to such ruthless terror, which is worsening as the scene on the TV plays out even more. Only it’s not a “scene.” It’s the truth, happening beyond my control and despite my horror.

The news station, only able to carry an aerial feed, shows Reece in full Bolt mode, dashing across ducts and roofs at the huge power plant across town, next to the ocean. Sure enough, it looks like he’s chasing absolutely nothing, until the cameras pan to show another figure sprinting—with cascading blond hair, the legs of a stripper, and the boobs of a porn star. The whole damn world now knows this, thanks to Angelique’s leather corset, matching mini skirt, and blood-red hip boots. Any shred of doubt I’ve had about her identity is erased by the sight of her upper back, where a red and black tattoo of angel’s wings spreads from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.

Frankly, I don’t care if the woman is sporting a tramp stamp and a genie girl outfit. She’s throwing down one-on-one with the man I love on behalf of the criminals who kidnapped him, held him prisoner, and hijacked his bloodstream in the name of their higher science. They took his life—only to return now, ready to end it.

I don’t know how else to interpret what I see Angelique doing to him.

For every energy pulse Reece throws, she has a comeback in the form of a giant shield, somehow connected to the force of the station itself, deflecting and then reflecting the punches. In strategic places, she stops to throw her weight on massive levers, unleashing smaller versions of what seem like electromagnetic pulses. As lights flicker, steam billows, and alarms blare, Reece crumples to the ground like a dog hit with a silent whistle. As soon as the pulse finishes, he gets back up, though he is visibly weakened by the smackdown.

My heart shoots to my throat. My mouth erupts with a terrified moan. I grab the edge of the table, the only thing preventing my knees from crumpling. But what good will that do? What good can I do at all? I can’t be there next to him, as my soul yearns. I can’t run to him, help him, be there for him. I can’t even yell at him to get up, as Wade and Fershan can. What if I lose my shit and spill his name? I can only watch, clutched by the same mortification as the rest of the city, as a female dressed like a Santa Monica hooker and moving like a million-dollar action star keeps driving their super hero to his knees.

After the fourth electromagnetic pulse, Reece can no longer struggle to his feet. He unfurls from the fetal position and rolls to his back, dusty and defeated. I stagger closer to the TV, unable to stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks and the air from pounding in and out of my lungs, despite my attention being fixed on someone else’s chest… On any sign of life from the man I love, still sprawled on the ground in a hailstorm of power station sparks, fighting to accept he has, at last, been defeated.

I sense it even as I watch him from this distance, through this impartial lens. Hell, maybe the news cameras make me see it better, sense it deeper. It’s as if I’m soaring in there next to him. I almost know what he’s thinking just by watching him…

He’s giving up.

“No,” I rasp.

Preparing himself for the inevitable.

“No!”

Defeat is written in the rigid set of his head. The fists formed at the ends of both arms. The pallor of his skin, noticeable even from the altitude at which the helicopter hovers.

“No!”

Any moment now, Angelique will appear at his side, gloating like a triumphant Deneuve, missing only her Balenciaga tote and her fancy French cigarette. Doubtful she’ll be toting a glass of water for her new captive either.

Unless…

The glass of water finds a way to the party anyway.

Unless…

The miracle for which I’ve just given up hope is delivered by the angels themselves, in the form of mist that turns to rain. Inside a minute, the concrete slab under Reece becomes a solid wet sheen.

And then one of the loose power lines flies over, touches down, and ignites the slab with blinding ribbons of electricity.

Shooting the man I love straight into the dark sky.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

“Fuccckkkker!” Wade shouts.

“Booooyaaaahhh!” Fershan yelps.

“Reece!” It detonates from me in the same instant. I’m beyond caring. I can only spin and race where I dropped my purse, diving into the thing for my cell. Once it’s in my grip, I can’t get to the speed-dial list fast enough. Tears blur my vision, and I cuss as I tap on the wrong window. Calling the dry cleaners for a rush job right now is the last thing on my mind. Summoning Zalkon for the same thing? As Reece would say—Bingo.

Reece.

His name is the only thing I allow into my mind. The only thrum of importance. The only thought that matters. And yeah, that includes how my two coworkers follow every inch of my movements like kittens after a laser, finally finding their opening in the forever it seems to take Z to pick up my call.

“The hell?” Wade blurts.

“Krishna’s balls,” Fershan gasps.

“Not now,” I snap at them both.

“But—”

“But—”

“Not. Now.” I leave the room with the phone locked to my ear. The second Z picks up, a smartass one-liner prepped to fling through the line, I interrupt him too. “Reece needs us. Don’t even bother with getting me at the front of the hotel. I’ll meet you at the employee entrance. Hurry!”

“Wh-What the hell?” I mutter. “Where the hell—”

“Ssshhh.”

In the chaos I used to call my senses, this woman’s voice is the only thing of worthy clarity. It cuts through the raging voltage in my blood, the flooded capacitors of my muscles, the torched circuits of my brain. “Emma?”

“Sssshhh.”

“Fuck.” I fight to push up. “C-Can’t stop, Velvet. Not now. Angelique—”

“Is gone.” She says it simply, but there’s a terrified wobble beneath it. Her fear isn’t ribbons. It’s gigantic ropes, holding her back. No. Holding her in. She’s keeping her shit together. For me? Why?

I stow that question in favor of the easier one to answer.

“Dead?”

I’m not proud of the bald hope in the cold word. Angelique told me enough about her life that I believed, and still do, in some kind of good tucked deeply inside her. More than that, I’m an asshole, not a murderer. But with everything else in my system fried, I can’t help tossing my filters into the fire too.

“We don’t know.” Her tone still shakes, though I barely hear it as a huge truck rumbles by. I gather enough of my senses to realize I’m lying in two inches of mud in a shallow ditch halfway between the power station and the road.

“Holy shit,” I mutter.

“No kidding.” The interjection belongs to Zalkon, braced a few feet behind Emma. His tie is loose, mud spatters his black suit, and freaked-the-hell-out is written all over his swarthy face.

“There was an electrical burst.” Dots of mist outline Emma’s profile as she eyes the power station, now crawling with police, firemen, and energy company reps. “A live power line came down on the wet cement, and—”

“I remember.” At least I think I do. It’s hard to think straight. My brain is a ball of pain. The careening lights of the emergency crews are red and blue lances on my throbbing gray matter. “Damn. I must have been thrown all the way over the fence.”

Emma smooths a chunk of hair back from my forehead with shaky fingertips. “Do you remember anything else? What happened before that?”

“Yeah.” It’s dark, and I’m still fifty kinds of dizzy, but I fumble a hand up to grasp hers. “Mostly.” As shitty as I feel about it, I borrow her warmth, which lends me strength to speak. “I got a ping on my police scanner and couldn’t ignore it. They said there was a break-in at the plant. Some person was packing serious heat, looking like they were going to fuck with the city’s power grid.”

Emma stiffens. “And it was her.”

“Yeah.”

“Knowing exactly how she could fuck with you in that environment.”

“Yeah.” I feel like a bigger asshole when she violently shivers, right before her composure breaks on a messy sob. Desperately, I pull her down, absorbing the flood of her grief with my shoulder. “Hey. Hey, beauty, it’s okay.”

She twists a hand into my hair and detonates a new sob against my neck. “It’s not okay!”

“Emma?” Z steps back over.

I shoot him a thank-you-but-stay-away look, soothing my protective caveman but screwing my reformed douchebag. I have no right to be holding her like this. Fuck, I hardly can hold her like this. My arms feel like noodles. My brain’s still filled with excruciating fuzz.

While I know the drain on my system is temporary, the implications in my life aren’t. Never has a moment been more symbolic of that truth than now. She should be at home tonight with a man like—well, like Z. A good guy in a nice suit, with a steady job and ready humor. Someone who will always be there for her, not a drained sap in a ditch, offering her nothing but agony, tears, and mud.

“I’m fine.” Her protest is watery but determined. She pushes up, squaring her shoulders. “I’m fine. But I swear to God, if Angelique La Salle ever thinks she can come near you again—”

I cut into her rant with a hard squeeze to her forearm. “Then I’ll be more prepared than I was tonight.”

“Who’s Angelique La Salle?”

“Bet your hot ass you’ll be prepared.” My girl rocks her head with more swagger than a rapper, stabbing her free hand into the air. “You’ll be prepared with me at your side, ready to show her bad pleather and hip waders with heels only work on desperate johns in Santa Monica.”

Z goes silent. Clearly, he’s not sure whether to laugh, growl, or high-five my girl. I’m in the same boat—technically, mired in the same ditch—only with one more available option, which I readily grasp.

I kiss her.

Then again.

Then a third time, letting our lips linger longer, taste deeper, twine tighter. I groan hard, drinking in her strength like a damn vampire, especially as the force of her passion works its way into the electrons of my blood, the power cells of my spirit, the fiber of my muscles.

And in that moment, I know.

I’ll never be able to live without her.

Which is why I must live without her.

Never has a decision felt more right—or more shitty—in my life. It hits my heart like a sea change and moves mountain ranges in my mind. It feels catastrophic and cataclysmic, but destined…and determined. When I figure out why, I bark out a soft laugh.

I’ve just made a choice not involving a shred of my own needs.

“Reece?” My reaction hasn’t been lost on Emma. She subjects me to her anxious scrutiny, her hands furtively feeling my face. “What is it?”

“You mean, other than the fact that h-he’s…” Z’s voice disappears on a stunned stutter.

“Ready to fire on torpedo bay one?” I laugh again, waving my glow stick digits as if to zap him. “Guess the boss is a fun guy now, huh?”

An easy grin spreads across Z’s rugged face. “Just tell me where the Death Star is and we’ll blast off, sir.”

I roll to my feet as my strength starts regenerating. The electrons, zooming through me like a squadron of fighters zooming at their own Death Star, send me sprinting toward the Mercedes. With Emma still so close, I float an educated guess about what quadrant of the universe for which they’re hitting the warp-speed switches. “Now that you know the classified shit, I’ll have to kill you.”

Z, keeping pace with me until now, halts in the sludge with a loud slup. “Errr—”

“Kidding.”

“Thank fuck,” he mutters.

“Thank God,” Emma rasps at the same time. In the second I take to frown down at her, standing in the space between the car’s door and back seat, she darts a nervous glance up through her lashes. “Because I might have been a little stressed when the news outlets broadcasted your showdown with Angelique…”

“And?” I prompt.

“And…I might have told Wade and Fershan about you too.”

Zalkon, standing next to the driver’s seat, snickers. “Which, in those guys’ minds, really did turn you into the coolest boss on the planet.”

Emma giggles. “No argument here.”

I lean down, kissing the playful tilt on her lips. “Even if I decide they have to be killed too?”

“Oh, no.” She blinks wide doll eyes. “Not that, Mr. Richards.”

“Well…” My stare dips down the length of her body. “Maybe I can accept your penance for it.”

Her gaze flares. “My penance?”

“Mmmhmmm.” I nod with lascivious languor. “I’ll take it out of you…in flesh.”

“Oh. In that case.” She topples backward onto the seat, yanking me into the car after her. I barely drag the door closed before Z has the motor gunned and the car in motion, lurching my lips onto hers through the sheer magic of Newton’s first law.

I keep letting my mouth fall over hers. I bite her and dominate her and sweep into her, roaring my tongue into the dark, hot cavity of her, plunging in a simulation of what my cock’s about to do to her pussy. She groans her acknowledgement, reaches her hands for my neck, and lets me continue to fill and possess her mouth.

“Z.” I raise my voice at the guy but don’t look away from her. “Put up the barrier.”

Emma’s mouth twitches. She lifts a leg, thunking one of her pumps against the sliding door between us and the front seat. She giggles again as her shoe falls off, clunking to the car’s floor. “Looks like he already did.”

“Good man.”

She shrugs, a good excuse for bringing her hands to the front of her button-up blouse. “He works for the coolest boss on the planet. Of course he’s a good man.”

I watch her fingers, mesmerized with every new inch of alabaster skin she exposes, especially as the lace of her bra comes into view. But the recognition hits, hard and violent, that this will be the last time I’m with her like this. Gazing at her open and exposed like this. A spell only begun with her physical perfection…

But what an amazing place to start.

“I’m not a good man, Emma.”

The growl unfurls from my throat as I push my hands up her legs and grip her black pantyhose with my fingernails, ready to rip them with rough urgency—only to learn the hose are actually thigh-high stockings secured to her legs with a sexy-as-fuck garter belt. At the center is a tiny triangle of black satin that, in some crazy alternate universe, can be called underwear.

My breath snags in my throat. I snap my stare back toward her face. Her smile of impish seduction already awaits. “Well, what do you know?” She swings her other leg out, raising it over my shoulder. “I’m not good either, Mr. Richards.”

Before I can help it, a laugh erupts from the depths of my belly—and the core of my soul. This woman. This incredible, unforgettable creature. The lightning in my blood might be responsible for how I met her, but the storm she’s left in my heart will never, ever subside.

I let that secret confession take hold of my mind while compelling my hands to shove the panties from her gorgeous cleft. “My sweet, shiny surprise.” I slide a finger in, trailing through her trembling folds from top to bottom.

“Thought you’d like it.” She rests her head back against the car’s door while lifting her chin with sensual invitation. “I got them online. It was a little weird putting them on in the bathroom at work, but they made me think of you the rest of the day.”

I stroke her again, deliberately zeroing in on her clit. “I’m glad you did.”

Her hips buck. Her lips fall open. “Maybe I should get a few more.”

And maybe I need to change the subject. Fast.

Hating the fuck out of myself as I do.

Maybe I shouldn’t lend a hand in destroying this set.

I am not a good man, Emma.

If I were, I wouldn’t be pushing out her leg a little more, absorbing the heady sight of her pussy, wet and waiting and spread and slick. I wouldn’t be whipping at the fastenings of my leathers with such primal urgency, groaning as my dick surges out in readiness. I wouldn’t be positioning myself at her dark slit, working my rigid bulb between her waiting lips, lubing the opening with my burning drips of pre-come.

If I were anything close to a good man, the nasty words in my mind wouldn’t be turning into filthy promises on my lips. “It’s time for your penance, Emmalina—and I’m going to exact it by fucking your cunt raw.”

Her whole frame shakes. Her lungs, pumping heavily, push her breasts into her waiting hands. She claws aside the edges of her bra from the middle out, baring herself in a wild rending, a la the most famous super hero move on earth—with a twist that’s uniquely, erotically hers.

Sassy, gorgeous siren.

Sexy, incredible super heroine.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

If only for this last, ill-gotten collection of moments…mine.

The sight of her naked tits, plucked and abused by her own greedy hands, drives my sanity past the edge of control. I surge forward, stretching her pussy with one push of my full erection. I fuck her so full and hard and deep, she sighs and shudders and screams with the force of me.

“You want more, Velvet?”

“Yes. Yes.”

Gladly, I give it to her. Over and over and over again.

“More?”

“Yes! More of your cock. Please, Reece!”

“You want this cock to make you come?”

“Fuck.” She whips her head from left to right and back again, consumed by erotic ecstasy.

“I asked you a question, Emmalina.”

“Y-Yes,” she manages. “Damn it, yes. I want your cock to make me come!”

“Then do it.” I roll into her, scraping her exposed nub with the pressure of my abdomen. “Do it,” I order through locked teeth, even as I feel her thrumming around my dick, milking me with the force of her release.

Pulling the orgasm out of me too. Taking it all from me. Taking all that is me.

Until more astounding words form on my lips.

“I love you, Emmalina Crist.”

A song bleeds over from Z’s playlist in the front seat. The guy’s into every icon of classic rock, meaning David Bowie’s voice doesn’t come as a surprise—nor does the song. Perhaps it’s the rightness I feel about this moment. The recognition that this is the choice, at last, of a super hero—no matter how fucking hard it’s going to be, especially after just slapping my heart on my fucking sleeve.

Especially as the song ramps up more. Bowie sings, in his Bowie way, about nothing but everything mattering. About forever and ever existing in one day.

“I love you too, Reece Richards.”

Her admission doesn’t shock me—but it doesn’t make me feel great. Not as great as I’d expected. Her voice is a sparse rasp on the words…as if they make her more sad than joyous. As if she agrees with the bittersweet ache of Bowie’s croon, blending its dystopian feel with the rumble of the wheels on the freeway. I pull my body from hers as the song talks of guns and kisses, of a king and a queen…and of becoming heroes…

She turns so I’m embracing her from behind. I already hate feeling this detached from her, though bitch-slap myself for the mush. Do I want to know that she’s close or safe? What would have happened if she’d been anywhere close to me in El Segundo? What would Angelique have done to take Emma out of the picture—out of my picture—in a remote location like that?

I refuse to focus on the answer to that. I’ll accept tonight as the easier way to learn that lesson—and I’ll do it with gratitude.

Our silence continues as downtown’s distinctive landscape looms closer. The circle-shaped tops of the US Bank and 777 Towers. The proud obelisks of the Aon Center and Union Bank Plaza. The huge purple dome of the arena at LA Live, and the City Hall building used in hundreds of films and TV shows.

And tucked between them all, the stylized gold tower of the Brocade.

The moment the hotel slides into view, the woman in my arms releases a weighted breath. Again, she doesn’t sound happy. More like…resigned.

And sorrowed.

“You’re getting out there, aren’t you?” The same conflict crowds her soft challenge. “At the Brocade.” She presses a hand to my chest, as if the move will give her a temperature reading on my heart. As if that will work—or tell her that what my heart wants right now isn’t what I can give it.

“Emma—”

“Just answer me, damn it.” Her voice thickens as if tears are about to break through, though her eyes are dry as desert skies. “You’re going to get out, ride up to that penthouse, and shut out the world, me included, like you have for the last goddamned year, all because of your idiotic fear—”

“Idiotic?” I push away. I stuff my cock back into my leathers and refasten them. If she wants fear, I’ll give it to her. “You were watching tonight, right?” I charge. “You said you were.”

“If I said I watched, I watched.” The syntax is defensive, but her tone goes far beyond. She’s clearly pissed. Good. Maybe pissed is where I need her to be so she’ll clear the love out of her ears and listen.

“So you saw what Angelique tried to do to me?” I snarl. “What would have happened if you’d been there with me? What would have happened if we were just out on a date together, instead? What’s going to happen if she ever finds out I’ve split the sidewalk falling this hard in love?”

Her lips quirk, despite her obvious effort to control the knee-jerk at my metaphor. “You think I don’t know how to handle the sidewalk, even with Angelique on it?”

I steel my jaw. “I think you don’t understand The Consortium. They’re not some fringe band of radicals with a weird scientific hair up their ass, Emma. They’re cold, they’re methodical, and they’re ruthless—and I’m the loose thread in their ugly orange sweater. They’re determined to sew me back into the thing or cut the thread loose, including any other threads that are now attached to it. It’s a no-win game, and I’ve been just fucking fine with letting them come after me for that win—”

“Until now,” she supplies dismally.

“Yeah.” I finally unclench my teeth enough to talk again. “Until now.” I slide my grip back into her hair. I crush her brilliant strands with the intensity of my fist, gulping while imagining her sprawled on a sidewalk, killed in the name of The Consortium’s crazy quest. “It’s not going to happen,” I vow. “It’s not going to happen.”

She lifts her head to fervently search my face. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’m taking myself out of it. And you. Fuck. Especially you.”

I enforce it by yanking her up and kissing her hard. Goddamn, she still tastes so good. And feels even better. She compels my mouth back to hers with an aching whimper, her fingers twining in my hair. She pulls to the point of pain, accelerating my blood from the heady rush. I can’t refuse the stab of her tongue any more than I can turn down air. We make out like that, hot and horny as teenagers at the beach, Bowie still crooning as Z exits the freeway and winds through the noisy avenues of downtown.

When we part, taking in huge gulps of air, that sad sound flows from her again. She launches at me, clutching hard, begging in a whisper against my neck.

“Don’t.” Her nails dig ruthless half-moons into my nape. “Don’t, Reece…please.”

I wrap my arms around her. Inhale her, all rain and honey and grief, and force out my answer. “I have to.”

“You never have to hide.”

I duck my head against her hair and shake it slowly. “Right now, hiding is beating them.”

“Hiding is losing to them! Damn it, if—”

She chokes into silence as soon as my fist rams the car’s window. The reinforced pane is a sudden burst of textures, almost resembling stained glass as the shards reflect the colors of the city. That’s the pretty way of looking at it—and maybe that’s best, since the air in the car fills with hard truth and uncomfortable acceptance.

A couple of minutes later, Z rolls the car to a stop beneath the lonely awning of my private entrance to the hotel. I suck in a huge breath and shove it back out, trying to reconsider her words. Is there another way, or do I have to be that brand of douchebag too? Yeah, the one who just screwed his girl with the full intention of leaving her afterward. The one who told her he loved her somewhere in that mess.

The one who’s now going to leave this car yearning to touch her once more in some small way, but instead ordering myself to get out with barely a glance backward. Taking one more breath. Fighting through one more second, which will be like the other disgusting seconds, torturous minutes, agonizing hours, and miserable days of the lonely weeks and years to come.

“Send me a bill for the window, Z.”

“Of course, Mr. Richards.”

“I love you, Emmalina.”

“Fuck you, Mr. Richards.”