It turns out, I love learning to live by myself. I love turning this apartment into a home of my very own. And I love YouTube, because it doesn’t matter what I want to know—someone has uploaded a step-by-step tutorial about how to do it.

And it’s all so fun. Even chores as simple as washing my new dishes or sweeping my wooden floors. Maybe one day the thrill will wear off, but two weeks after moving in, I’m still enjoying all of it. Especially laundry, and that moment when I pull the clothes from the dryer and they’re so warm and smell so good. And after taking on so many projects at home, God knows I dirty a lot of clothes. The apartments each have hookups but I haven’t bought my washer and dryer yet—and I don’t know if I will. When I use the small laundry room in the basement, the whole process feels like an adventure. First sorting the clothes. Then traipsing down the stairs. Then feeding the machines detergent and quarters.

As far I can tell, only a few people in the building use the coin-operated machines, so the laundry room is always quiet. I use both available washers, colors in one and whites in the other. Then I race upstairs again, praying the door across the hall won’t open while I’m running around in my little shorts and thin sleep shirt…and also praying it will.

It doesn’t.

So I just have to fill the time until my laundry’s dry and until I go to bed. I prop my tablet on the kitchen counter and fire up an episode of The Great British Bake Off while I mix up some muffins—which turned out to be surprisingly easy now that I have all of the ingredients and equipment. My results won’t look anything like the bakes on the show, but a girl can dream and the contestants are all so nice. I slide the first batch into the oven before running down to throw my clothes into the dryers. About a second after I make it back to my apartment, I hear Cole leave his. I stand there with my hands braced against the door, forcing myself not to spy on him through the peephole, wondering if he’ll ever knock.

He doesn’t. Instead the faint ding of the elevator arriving on our floor tells me that he’s going out.

On a date? It’s Sunday night and probably too late for that. Maybe just picking up something from the corner store.

Suddenly torn by worry, I gnaw my bottom lip. It’s snowing outside. The sidewalks are pretty slick. And he’s getting around more easily now, especially in the mornings. By the afternoons, though, he usually seems to break out the crutches—and crutches plus snow and ice might be a problem. So maybe if I don’t hear him come back before I go to bed, I’ll make a trip to the corner store, too.

Then he’ll probably think I’m stalking him. I see him almost every day. We leave for work about the same time, come home around the same time. We don’t say much when our paths cross in the hallway. Usually he just answers my greeting with a stiff nod and a brooding glare.

And just like before the shooting—and before I moved into this apartment building—I occasionally see him while I’m at work. The difference now is that he sees me, too. Every time I notice him, he’s already noticed me. His dark gaze never leaves me. Then I pretend to be unaware and get out from under that unrelenting stare as fast as I can. It’s cowardly, I know. But I don’t know how to handle the crazy way my heart starts pounding when he’s near. And I can’t bear those stiff greetings, as if he’d rather not talk to me at all. It’s gotten so bad that I’ll use the stairs so I’m not stuck in the elevator with him, my heart going a mile a minute and my body on fire, while he watches me. Doesn’t talk to me. Just watches me.

Like he did on Friday morning. Since Cole’s on light duty, most of the missing persons cases are being funneled in his direction. So when a call came in regarding a missing elderly man only a day after an elderly man was found slumped over dead on a park bench, with no identification and no signs of physical trauma, it’s no surprise the detective came down to the autopsy suite to see if the unidentified man was his missing person.

Also no surprise, it was his missing person. Preliminary identification turned out to be a simple matter, thanks to a distinctive military tattoo.

The surprise came when Cole stayed through the rest of the autopsy—saying he would wait until Dr. Childers discovered a probable cause of death. My boss is both meticulous and methodical, so the autopsy takes anywhere from a full hour to an entire morning. And it’s gruesome. I don’t mind that, but most people do. Even cops. So they typically don’t hover; they’ll wait for Childers to call with her preliminary findings. And given the deceased’s history of heart disease, this case was pretty clearly going to be filed under ‘natural causes.’ Nothing unusual, no foul play. Just a man who went for a walk but who probably had a cardiac event before he made it back home.

Cole had to know it, too. Yet still he remained. And every time I looked up, he was watching me. I would like to think it’s because I looked sooooo sexy that day…but as an autopsy technician, I’m dressed head-to-toe in shapeless blue scrubs, a surgical mask, and a hair net. Only my eyes are visible, but even they are shielded by clear safety glasses.

So yeah. Cole probably didn’t stay because I looked so damn hot. And he didn’t talk much. Just followed me with his brooding stare while I took photos and samples and opened the skull.

I might have thought the quiet was usual for him, since he doesn’t ever talk much around me. But partway through the procedure, Childers teased him for his atypical silence and asked if he was trying to scare her new technician—me—before assuring him that I’d already seen worse than anything he could deliver.

I’m not sure that’s true. I suspect that if Cole tried, he could do terrible, terrible things to my heart. He just wouldn’t leave any visible marks.

Three minutes before my second batch of muffins are supposed to come out, my timer goes off to warn me about the end of the dryer’s cycle. I wait to pull the muffins from the oven before racing downstairs.

And Cole’s not at the corner store. Instead he’s in the laundry room, wearing nothing but a pair of light gray sweatpants, casually leaning back against one of the washing machines, his phone in hand. The noises coming from the device sound like he’s watching a football game, and a half-empty beer bottle sits within his reach on the nearby table—as if he’s been killing time down here instead of running back and forth like I have been.

I stop dead, suddenly far too aware of my thin shirt and my little shorts.

And his bare chest and stomach. His torso appears carved from granite. Holy shit, the pectorals on the man. And the abdominals. And the Adonis belt. And there’s a happy trail of dark hair running straight down. And a soft bulge beneath his waistband.

I tear my gaze upward again and meet his eyes, which are narrowed on my face.

Scowling, he asks, “Is your shit I’m waiting on?”

My cheeks flame. Even I know that when there aren’t any available machines, leaving your clothes in the dryer is not proper communal laundry etiquette.

“Sorry.” Grabbing my basket from the table where I left it, I edge past him. Bending over in front of the machine, I begin pulling out clothes as fast as I can. They’re still hot, my face is hot, everything in this laundry room is burning me alive. “You need both?”

“Just one.”

“Okay. This one’s empty.” I slide my basket over. My heart’s pounding like I just dug a six-foot-deep hole instead of emptied a dryer. Desperately I search for something to say. “How was your weekend?”

“Long.” He starts throwing handfuls of wet laundry into the first machine. “Yours?”

I try not to stare at the flex of his biceps but it’s hard. His arms are beautifully cut, muscles and tendons like organic steel, all working in gorgeous harmony. “Productive.”

He grunts and slams the dryer shut. “Is ‘productive’ why I smelled paint in the hall?”

I nod and drag the last of my clothes into the basket. “I’m sampling different colors on my walls before I commit to anything.”

“You’re painting your place yourself?” His voice sounds doubtful—but if he doubts that I’d do it myself or whether I can do it myself, I’m not certain.

“I was going to hire someone, but…” I shrug. “Home Depot has a ton of online tutorials and do-it-yourself workshops at the store. So I can learn to do it. And I’m not in a rush, so if I screw it up I can do it over.”

“Or hire someone to clean up your mess.”

I probably won’t. But we’ll see. I heft my basket onto my hip. Usually I’d take it all upstairs to fold and put away, but…he’s talking to me.

And his chest is bare and tanned and sprinkled with dark hair.

I set my basket onto the folding table. He starts his dryer and walks over to my side—not limping. But when he leans back against the edge of the table, he keeps his weight off his left leg.

Then he just looks down at me.

Every inch of my skin feels flushed and prickly under that dark stare. My nipples are hard little bullets poking against the thin fabric of my shirt, but it’s not cold in this basement. Not cold at all.

Cole reaches for his beer. “When I heard you were working for Childers, I figured you were filing papers or some shit. Not opening up DBs.”

Dead bodies. “Oh, I file a lot of papers, too. The day I’m not writing up a report is probably the day I’ll be on that slab.”

That brings a faint smile to his lips. “You and me both. So how’d you end up in the morgue?”

Probably the most frequent question I hear, aside from “How can you stand it?” I suppose a detective who investigates how those people end up in the morgue knows how I stand it. He has to stand it, too, in his own way.

As for the rest…I suppose there are a lot of reasons. But most are reasons that expose too much of me and are difficult to share. So I give him the easier one.

“I like puzzles,” I tell him. “And figuring things out.”

Childers does most of the figuring out; I just help. But after a few years, I’ll probably go to medical school and study forensic pathology, and eventually do the same thing she is. I’m not in a rush, though. I’ve got time to get there.

“You like puzzles, so you decide to take people apart and sew them back together?” He shakes his head. “You could just pick up a Sunday crossword, instead.”

“I already did that today. In pen. So if I didn’t work in a morgue, what would I do with the rest of the week?”

He grins in response and my heart skips a beat. It’s the first time I’ve made him really smile. I can barely tear my gaze away as he lifts his beer, takes a swig.

“So what about you?” I reach for a pair of jeans, careful not to touch the hot metal rivets. I learned that lesson last week. “Why’d you become a detective?”

If Cole also has reasons that are difficult to express, he’s not sharing them either. “Because I hate puzzles. I like the world better when the mysteries are solved.”

I laugh. “Fair enough. Though if you like things solved, you’re in the wrong business.”

His eyes narrow again. “I’d argue that our solve rate is pretty damn good. It’s just in the courts where it doesn’t look as impressive.”

“Because most of the time you can figure out what happened?” But proving it is another matter. “Yet finding evidence that holds up against a legal defense is a little more difficult.”

He nods and takes another drink, then holds out the bottle to me, silently offering.

I hate beer. And it’s a little warm. But taking that bottle, placing my lips where his have been, and tipping back a small sip feels like the sexiest thing I’ve ever done.

“Thank you,” I whisper huskily and hand the beer back. Despite the drink, my tongue feels thick and my throat dry, but the rest of me is so, so wet. Deep inside me, everything’s melting, tightening. And that bulge beneath his waistband isn’t soft anymore.

I’m playing with so much fire here. I know I am. I’m not ready for this kind of thing. But I think it’s going to happen anyway. I just pray my heart has enough armor to survive the inevitable end.

He’s watching me again, with a dark, smoldering gaze that burns every inch of my skin. “You’re one hell of a puzzle to me, Mia.”

A pang strikes my chest. Softly I ask, “Does that mean you hate me?”

“No.” And his voice sounds deeper, rougher when he says, “I just wonder what the hell you’re doing here, instead of living in your daddy’s big mansion overlooking the city.”

“What I’m doing here, aside from folding laundry?”

“Yeah.”

Asking why I’m renting an apartment in a building I could easily buy, then. Or maybe asking why I’m here beside him. The first question’s easier to answer. “Have you met my father?”

“Unfortunately.”

That blunt response makes me smile. “Would you want to live with him?”

His bark of laughter is answer enough.

I shrug. “Puzzle solved, then.”

“I don’t think so.” But Cole doesn’t add what he does think. Instead I’m aware of his gaze settling on my breasts. On their hardened tips.

Which just makes them feel tighter, hotter. Aching for something more substantial than a look.

This time when he takes a swig, the heated intensity of his expression suggests that he’s imagining something else on his tongue. Heart thundering, I reach into the basket for the next item. Soft cashmere slides beneath my fingertips…and my sweater is now the size of a doll’s sweater.

Struck by dismay, I lay it out on the table. Cole chokes on his beer.

“Oh no. It’s my favorite winter sweater,” I mourn, trying to stretch the tiny white sleeves back to their original length. They aren’t going. “But I looked at the label. It said you could wash it on the delicate cycle.”

His broad shoulders shaking with his laughter, Cole asks, “What’d it say about drying?”

“I don’t know.” I look inside the side seam for the tag—which is the same size as it was before, but seems huge now in that tiny garment. “Oh. ‘Lay flat to dry.’ Whoops.”

“A hell of a whoops.” His amusement settles into a wry grin. “You sure you want to give up all those maids and that mansion now?”

Why does he bring that up again? Suddenly irritated, I tell him, “You know you’re kind of an asshole, right?”

“You only say that because you don’t know me very well.” His gaze slips down my body and lingers on my bare legs. “When you get to know me better, you’ll see there’s no ‘kind of’ about it. I’m a complete asshole.”

Despite myself, I have to laugh. At least he admits it, I guess. And it’s nothing I didn’t already know. “You can have it,” I tell him generously and hold out the tiny sweater. “You can use it as a mitten. Just tie the neck closed and stick your thumb into a sleeve. It’ll be super soft and warm.”

“For one hand?” He raises a brow. “Usually I just use lotion.”

My cheeks heat. I only meant to turn my silly mistake into a joke but he’s turned it another direction. But I won’t back down. “Well, it is really soft. And if you get it all messy, it’s washable.”

His voice roughens. “On the gentle cycle.”

A little breathlessly, I nod. “Then while it’s wet, lay it out flat.”

His gaze locked on my face, he sets his beer aside. “Are you flirting with me, Mia?”

Oh god. Am I doing a terrible job of it? So bad that he isn’t sure whether I am or not?

But no backing down.

“Yes,” I whisper.

Something in his eyes hardens. “Not getting enough attention upstairs, then?”

Considering that he ignores me… “Not really.”

“Fuck.” A bitter laugh breaks from him. “Well, if you’re so desperate for more, I don’t mind giving you my attention.”

Desperate? I can’t even say he’s wrong, though. I feel desperate right now. For a kiss, a touch—anything he’s willing to give. Still, he’s a jerk for throwing it in my face.

“You are an asshole,” I tell him.

“I really am, angel.” Before I can react, he spins me around. I come to a stop with the small of my back against the edge of the folding table, his palms flattened on the surface at either side of my hips, my body caged by the iron strength in his arms. With his gaze fixed on my lips, his head lowers until his mouth hovers just above mine. “But I’ll damn my own soul to Hell for the chance to touch you.”

Bracing my hands against his chest—his gloriously hard, warm, bare chest—I pant against his lips. “It won’t cost your soul. I swear.”

“Kiss me, then,” he rasps, and his long fingers tangle in my hair. “But if you start this, Mia, it’s all on you.”

What will be on me? His soul? Why is he making this all sound like a horrible decision, as if someone other than me might be hurt by it? As if he might be hurt by it?

Is it that bad, what I’m doing? Suddenly uncertain, I hesitate.

Abruptly Cole’s face softens. “Forget everything I just said,” he tells me gruffly. “If you need me to, I’ll take all the blame.”

What blame? But suddenly it doesn’t matter, because his mouth brushes mine. He kisses me as if I’m soft and delicate, gently coaxing my lips apart. A shiver races over my skin when his tongue slides deeper, yet this is nothing like I expected. Everything I know about Cole Matthews is sharp and direct. But his kiss is restrained, as if he’s covered his every rough edge beneath a blanket of warm velvet.

Still it’s hotter than anything I’ve known before. A soft moan rises from my throat. My thighs clench as if trying to ease the melting ache between them. Maybe he won’t lose control, but I’m already on the verge of it.

God, I want him to lose control. I want to drive him crazy with lust. I want him to feel like I do.

I drag my fingernails down his chest. Hardened muscles become chiseled stone in the wake of my touch. When my hands reach his ridged abdomen, he abruptly crowds closer, pressing his body full-length against mine. And he’s big. Everywhere. Surrounding me. Against me. His thick erection pushes against my stomach but I want that rigid length between my legs, where I can rub against him. Whimpering with desire, I link my arms around his neck, trying to lift myself to the height I need.

A rough growl reverberates through his chest. In a sudden movement, he tears his mouth from mine and hefts me up onto the table, then steps between my parted thighs.

His dark gaze bores into mine. Unlike his restrained kiss, his voice is harsh and unyielding. “This is what you want, angel? You and me, messing around in this dirty basement, where anyone might walk in and see?”

“Yes,” I breathe. “I’d want this anywhere.”

“Fuck,” he groans the curse like my answer hurts him. Hands braced beside my thighs, he rocks back and takes a long look at me, from my bare legs to my kiss-swollen lips, as if deciding where to go next. After an endless moment, his gaze drops to my chest. I’m leaning back slightly, my palms flat against the table’s surface, my spine arched and my hardened nipples on display beneath the thin cotton of my shirt. “You going to let me get my mouth on those pretty tits, angel?”

A shudder of desire rips through me. His eyes darken as I tremble against him.

“If you want to,” I whisper.

“More than my next breath.” His voice roughens. “And your pussy? You going to let me lick that, too?”

Oh my god. Just hearing him say it makes me dizzy with need. My heart thunders, my pulse filling my ears and making my response seem thick and slow, as if I’m speaking underwater. “If you’d like to.”

Grimly he shakes his head. “Wrong answer, angel. What matters is if you would like it.”

How could I know if I’d like it? But I think I would. Just imagining his mouth between my legs makes everything inside me feel so taut and hot. The reality has to be as good.

“I would.” And I’ll beg him if I have to.

I might have to. Because he still doesn’t move. From his great height, he studies me, tension holding him in a steely grip, his every muscle standing in sharp relief beneath his skin. As if all this restraint is taking effort. As if he wants me almost as much as I want him, but he’s not ready to give in.

Apparently for good reason. With a tortured groan, he tells me, “If I touch you now, angel, there’s a real chance I won’t stop. If I don’t stop, we risk getting busted for indecent exposure. Maybe you can survive that—but if I lose my head, I lose my job. So does touching you sound like a good idea?”

Yes. But I shake my head.

A gleam in his eyes tells me he’s thinking the same. Yes. But no. “That doesn’t mean you can’t touch yourself.”

My breath stops. “Me?”

“I won’t let anyone see.” His head dips closer, his gravelly voice abrading my skin with every teasing word. “You can touch yourself the way I want to. Slide your hand right into your little shorts, see if your pussy’s hot and wet.”

I don’t know if it’s a suggestion or a command, but I immediately comply—feeling sexy and naughty and in love with the way his expression goes hard and hungry when he realizes what I’m doing. His gaze zeroes in on my hand as I dip my fingertips past the waistband of my shorts.

“Right in there, angel. Fuck, yes. Get those fingers all over your pussy.” He groans again when my hand disappears beneath the soft fabric. “Tell me how wet you are.”

“So wet. Drenched.” Simply drowning in desire, and the caress of my fingers over my clit feels so good, but I can’t tear my gaze from his face. He’s watching the concealed movement of my hand as if everything he wants and needs is right there. “And so hot.”

His hands grasp the edge of the table in a white-knuckled grip. Holding himself back. “Are your fingers all slippery?”

“Yes.” My answer is hardly more than a soft moan.

“Give me a taste of it,” he growls the order. When I pause, uncertain how to do that, his burning gaze lifts from between my legs to meet mine. “I’m going to lick those pussy juices right off your fingers.”

Oh god. Trembling with excitement, my heart racing, I pull my hand free of my sleep shorts. My glistening fingers quiver a little as I begin to raise them, but I don’t go fast enough, because Cole abruptly grips my wrist and brings my hand to his mouth.

His ravenous gaze holding mine, he slowly drags his tongue up the length of my middle finger, and that long, hot lick seems to touch every part of me, inside and out. My entire body clenches when he sucks lightly on the tip of my finger, then melts into a dizzying swirl of need. I’m shaking all over, my breath coming in soft pants, my senses a riot of sensation and overwhelmed by sheer erotic thrill. Because Cole Matthews is licking my fingers in the basement of our apartment building as if the taste of my arousal is the sweetest treat anyone could give him.

I laugh breathlessly. “This is the dirtiest thing I’ve ever done.”

“This is?” His tongue flicks into the juncture between my first and second fingers, so unexpectedly suggestive that it steals my breath, and I can only nod in response. “Jesus fucking Christ. If that brainless frat boy doesn’t do anything dirtier than this, no wonder you’re looking for more.”

I’m so aroused, I apparently can’t even think anymore, because I didn’t understand any of that. “What frat boy?”

His jaw clenches, and he releases my hand. Bracing his palms beside my legs, he lowers his head until his face is right up in mine. Through gritted teeth, he says, “That fucker Jason Lewis. Your pretty little boyfriend. Remember?”

I stare up at him, too astonished to even laugh. Beyond the absurdity of someone as gorgeous as Cole Matthews calling anyone else ‘pretty’ like it was an insult…well, there’s all the rest of the absurdity. He thinks Jason is my boyfriend? “You must be the last person in this city to know that while my mother was pregnant with me, my father was cheating on her with his secretary—and he knocked her up, too. All this time, I thought that I was the last to know. But I’m apparently only second-to-last. Yay.”

A frown darkens his face. “What does that mean?”

“It means the brainless frat boy is my brother.” And the laughter is starting to break through. Brainless frat boy. Jason will get a kick out of that.

Cole’s body is utterly still. Hoarsely he echoes, “Your brother?”

“Half-brother, technically. But not half in all the ways that matter.”

I’m not sure Cole really hears me. He seems thunderstruck, disbelieving. His gaze wildly searches my face.

Then it all changes. His expression settles into taut lines—a look that grabs me by the throat, hot and feral and possessive.

“Fuck the risk,” he rasps, then clasps his palm around the back of my neck and drags me in for a devastating kiss.

No restraint this time. His fingers tighten in my hair, angling my head back for a deep stroke of his tongue. Need clamps down hard within my center and explodes through my veins. This. This is what I wanted. Just like this. He devours my mouth with hungry licks, his palm cupping my breast, his thumb teasing my nipple. Every flick across the hardened tip sparks erotic wildfires deep inside me, scorching every nerve on a direct line to my clit.

His steely forearm drops around my waist and he hauls me closer. His huge erection lodges against my pussy—and this is it, this is going to happen. We’ve got almost nothing between us, just a pair of sweats and a pair of shorts. A few tugs of fabric and a thrust and he’ll be fucking me, because neither one of us is slowing down. This is not how I imagined my first time. It’s even better than I imagined, because he’s so hungry for me, and I’m desperate for him, not just giving into curiosity or settling for someone who doesn’t drive me this crazy. His big hand pushes down the back of my shorts, palming my ass and holding me firmly against that thick length as he rocks between my legs, forcing my sensitive flesh to feel every solid inch that will soon be deep inside me—

And he goes absolutely rigid. His body. His mouth. His hands.

“Cole?” I whisper against his lips.

His breath slowly hisses through his teeth. And I realize he’s pushed up against me, and my legs are tightly wrapped around him—and either one of those things could have pulled on muscles that shouldn’t be pulled. Not considering where he was shot.

Hardly daring to breath, I ask, “Your leg?”

A short nod is the answer. Then a gritted, “Fuck.”

“It’s okay,” I say and carefully begin to unwind my legs. “Stop me if I make it worse.”

“You’re making it worse,” he immediately grates out.

I freeze.

A tremor wracks his big frame, followed by a soft grunt. A laugh, I realize. The best laugh he can manage right now. “Bad enough we have to stop,” he says a moment later, his voice strained. “Not having your thighs squeezing me tight is worse.”

It is. I hate letting him go.

I hate hurting him even more. Slowly I scoot back farther onto the table. His eyes are closed, his mouth in a flat line edged with white. “Was it me pressing against you? Or the way you were moving?”

“Moving.”

His clipped reply tells me the pain isn’t easing yet. Softly I bite my lip, waiting, afraid that anything I do will jar his leg and increase his agony. “Should I run upstairs to get your crutches?”

“No. It’ll just be a minute.” He gives another short grunt of a laugh. “Though maybe a lot longer before I can follow through on what we started.”

Before we can have sex. A hot little thrill races through me again at the thought of it—and the wondrous delight of knowing that he eventually wants to try again—but I do my best not to seem like an overeager dork with a crush when I say breezily, “That’s okay. I’d rather not have you crying and screaming while I’m trying to get off.”

He laughs again, harder this time, then his muscles go rigid again and he groans. “Shit. And me, I’m glad I’m not poaching on another man’s territory, after all.”

Which must have been the reason for all that talk about damning his soul and blaming. Because he’d despised the thought of touching someone else’s woman. Yet he’d wanted me enough to touch me anyway.

For an instant, that feels amazing. Like a blast of warmth through my heart, which is so used to the cold. My mother’s frigid disdain. My father’s icy control. In all my life, Jason’s really been the only person to want me for who I am.

And Cole wanted me so much that he’d betrayed his principles just to have me.

But it only feels amazing for an instant. Because in the next moment, I realize who Cole believed I was. A woman who would cheat on her boyfriend. Who would flirt with a guy and fuck him in a laundry room, even though she was seeing someone else. And if he believed that of me…well, that’s not the kind of woman you’d want anything more from than a fuck in a laundry room.

Cole might have wanted me. But if I was who he’d believed, whatever he felt couldn’t be the kind of want that would last beyond a furtive screw or two.

And he knows better now, but the ache of that realization is blooming in my heart like a corpse flower. Maybe it won’t bloom long, but right now it’s huge and fetid, turning all the sweet warmth into a rotten poison. He believed I was a cheater. Someone so selfish, I would hurt a guy as sweet as Jason without a second thought.

He wanted me. But whoever he wanted—that selfish, cheating girl—isn’t who I am.

And I knew my heart didn’t have enough armor yet. Which must be why it hurts so much now. I was so stupid to start this. So desperate for someone to see me, to want me. And if that someone was Cole Matthews, who’d fascinated me from the moment I first saw him? To suddenly have him kiss me was like a wish come true.

Maybe I should have been careful about what I wished for.

Throat aching, I avert my face, unable to bear seeing his pain, unable to bear how helpless I am to stop it—unable to bear how beautiful he is to me. I haven’t dared move much, so he’s still incredibly close, his hands braced on the edge of the table, my knees drawn up between us.

For a long time it seems the only sound is the tumble of the dryer. But it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two before his quiet, “You all right?” draws my gaze to his face again. His eyes are dark and intense on mine, with a frown shadowing his expression—as if he can sense the hurt that’s still blooming inside me.

And I might not be a selfish cheater, but I’m apparently a liar. “Yes,” I tell him. “You?”

“Yeah. But wishing I’d killed Lowery.”

The man who shot him. Despite the pain in my heart, I have to smile at that blunt reply. But I don’t have it in me to give any other response. I simply don’t know what to say.

“Shit.” Hard fingers catch my chin, force my gaze to his. His eyes search mine. “You’re not moving, but I can feel you backing away from me. What’s going on in your head?”

A whole mess of things that I can’t control and don’t want to share. I don’t know how to do this relationship stuff, even if that relationship only consisted of a few hot kisses. And I don’t know how to get out of this without hurting more and exposing how stupidly vulnerable I am.

Voice thick, I finally say, “I think that maybe I better go now.”

And wait until this storm of uncertainty passes. Until I can think clearly again.

His brows push together in a dark frown. Bitterness laces his harsh tone. “You’re disappointed, then? Maybe wishing you’re with someone in good enough shape to give you what you need.”

The pain that pierces my chest leaves me speechless. I had been afraid of more hurt. But I didn’t know it was actually coming. Because maybe now Cole doesn’t see a cheater when he looks at me, but he must see someone shallow and petty to suggest something like that, even though I’ve never given him reason to believe it. Which makes him a judgmental dickhead who’ll immediately assume the worst of someone—and makes me an idiot for thinking he might be different.

But I’m not sticking around to let him hurt me some more. Jerking my chin out of his grip, I hop down from the table and began tossing my clothes into my basket. “This was a mistake,” I tell him, and only the tightness ballooning in my chest keeps the tears burning in my throat at bay.

“A mistake?” he echoes hoarsely. His hot gaze follows me as I push past him. “Seems to me you were having a fucking good time. So you’re just walking away from what we could have had here?”

No. I’m not walking away; I’m running away. Before I cry right in front of him.

But pride stops me before I take a single step. My breath hitches, yet still I manage to force out the words. “I’m not who you think I am. And if I’m disappointed, it’s only because you’re even more of an asshole than you said you were.”

Then I run.