You have to go to the mat.

For about the millionth time since I left the island last night, Liam’s words fill my head. I’d taken them to heart and sent Dallas a text message before I’d climbed into the ’copter.

Now, I read over what I sent for the umpteenth time, trying to decide if I could have worded it differently. Somehow written it in a way that actually got through his thick skull. But honestly, it says what I wanted it to. He’s just ignoring it.

I get why you’re upset, why you backed off and walked away. But don’t stay away. You don’t want to and I don’t want you to. We can try again. We can try a hundred times.

Or we can not try that at all. That’s okay, too. I just want you. YOU.

Please don’t think so little of me that you actually believe what happened makes a difference in how I feel—in how much I need you.

You know me better than anyone. Surely you know that, too.

So far he hasn’t answered, but I open my texting app for the hundredth time that morning and check again. Just in case my phone forgot to beep in signal of an incoming message.

There is, of course, nothing.

Since I’m already looking at my phone, I decide that I probably should check my email, since I haven’t even opened it since Saturday when I left for the island.

It’s mostly subscription crap or unsolicited newsletters and I barely glance at each message as I slide it off the screen and into the archive.

And then there it is.

[email protected]

J—

We can’t play this game. More important, I can’t, for a lot of reasons, and you know every single one of them.

I don’t want to write you out of my life—hell, I already miss you. But we have to find a way to move on, and if cold turkey is what it takes, then that’s what we do.

Hate me if you want. Maybe that will make it easier.

Your brother,

Dallas

For one minute I let myself consider the possibility that he’s right. After all, we’ve lived at arm’s length for years and survived. But that’s all it was—surviving.

And now that I’ve touched him, talked to him, just plain been with him again, I know that I don’t want to just survive anymore. I want to live. Fully and completely and with Dallas—my best friend. And, yes, my lover. Forbidden fruit be damned.

Honestly, the thought that he thinks differently—that he could just turn back to that emptiness, pisses me off. Either he’s lying about how he feels about me, or, more likely, he’s willing to sacrifice both himself and me on the altar of lost erections, bullshit incest laws, and ridiculous social taboos.

Idiot.

Damned, stupid idiot.

For just a moment, I let myself rage at him. Then I very calmly and deliberately squeeze my fury down into a neat little box and I tie a pretty red bow around it.

Done. Finished. Nothing to see here. Just move along.

Because anger doesn’t do me any good. I want to go to the mat, yes, but I’m not interested in stomping on his face when I get there.

But now that he’s officially thrown down the gauntlet, I’m faced with the biggest question of all: how exactly do I fight a man who just won’t engage?

“Easy,” Brody says when I present him with that very question at Starbucks three hours later. “The same way you got him in bed with you on the island.”

I’ve told him the whole story up to the real reason for the lack of follow-through. I figure that’s the kind of thing Dallas wouldn’t appreciate me sharing, and so I blamed it on an attack of conscience.

“I jumped him in his bungalow after we watched each other masturbate on a beach,” I say flatly. “I’m thinking reproducing those circumstances won’t be easy.”

“Mental masturbation,” he says with a grin. “Sexting. Send him naughty pictures and even naughtier suggestions. Eventually, he’ll either block your texts or fuck you blind.”

I frown, because at the moment I think the blocking possibility is very, very real.

But I also don’t have a better idea.

Unfortunately, I also can’t think of what I want to say that doesn’t sound like I write porn scripts. I enlist Brody’s help again, but he makes my porn-a-licious sext attempts sound like a Disney movie.

“Well, I can’t help you if you don’t press send,” he says after I reject his fifth attempt. “If you won’t text him then go back to door number one and accost the boy.”

“Unfortunately, he’s not in the habit of forwarding me his daily agenda. And while I could monitor Twitter and chase him all over town, I really don’t think that’s my best option.”

It’s only Wednesday morning, but already the King of Fuck is back in business, and Twitter is lighting up with Dallas sightings all over the city, with a different bimbette—or two—on his arm at each and every location.

“If I knew ahead of time that he was going to be somewhe—”

“What?” Brody asks.

“A party,” I say as I congratulate myself on my own brilliance. “Turns out I do know at least one place he’s going to be.”

I take my phone from him and start typing out a new text.

You say you don’t want to play the game. You say you want to move on. But I know better. Because I know you. I see you with all those women, and I see what no one else out in Twitterland does.

I see you watching me. Imagining me.

I’m right, aren’t I? You slide your palm over a brunette’s ass and you pretend it’s mine.

You cup a blonde’s tit and you remember your mouth on my nipple.

Do you slip your fingers in their panties on the dance floor? I bet you do. And I bet they’re wet for you. But not as wet as me. And while you finger-fuck them to Lady Gaga, you remember the way it felt when your tongue made me come.

Don’t try to deny it. I know it. And I’ll see you soon and prove it.

I glance at Brody, whose mouth is hanging open just a little. “Shit, woman. Who are you and what have you done with my innocent little Jane?”

I roll my eyes, because I have never been innocent. “Just expanding my palette,” I say as I think about how incredible it felt to masturbate on the beach with Dallas watching. “Trying new things.”

I read my draft text again, and I’m just about to send it, when Brody’s steady voice stops me.

“Wait.”

I tilt my head, confused. “Not the right tone? I thought you liked it.”

“No, that’s not it. Shit, Jane,” he adds, then runs his fingers through his hair. “I’m about to break some rules that matter to me, I want you to know that. But the truth is, you matter more.”

He looks flustered, and I don’t remember Brody ever looking flustered.

“What the hell, Brody?” I don’t even know what the trouble is, and yet I’m worried. “What is it?”

“You know I take clients to The Cellar.”

“Sure.” I’ve never been, but I’m familiar with the downtown kink club. “So what?”

“What goes on there—who goes there is confidential. Telling someone who’s not a member is grounds for expulsion. So I shouldn’t be saying anything at all. But I love you, and I want to make sure you know what you’re walking into. It was one thing to fuck him out of your system, but if I’m reading you right, now you’re hoping to fuck him right into your life.”

“I am,” I say, a little bit numb as I process everything that Brody is saying—or, more accurately, not saying. “You’re trying to tell me that Dallas is a member.”

“He’s a dom.”

I raise my brows. “Professionally?”

Brody laughs. “No. But when he plays, he tops. He’s not there all the time, but often enough that I’ve seen him. Never spoken to him, don’t know him personally, and I don’t think he’s into the lifestyle so much as he’s into control.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“And that control translates to kink.”

“What kind of kink?”

“I don’t know. That’s my point. I’ve heard rumors that he’s got a playroom set up in that fancy Hamptons house of his.”

“Really?” I think about the huge basement that used to house a Ping-Pong table and a variety of freestanding videogame machines. I haven’t been down there in ages, and now I’m wondering just how Dallas has redecorated it.

“Just what I hear, although he must not use it all the time—you told me he was with those two girls in his bedroom, right? But I doubt it’s gathering dust. So you need to think about that. If you start this thing, are you willing to follow where it leads?”

I know Brody is thinking about our sessions and my less than enthusiastic reactions. But the truth is that the thought of getting kinky with Dallas is already making me wet. I can imagine him blindfolding me. Spanking me. Flogging me.

And, yes, I know that he may like it a lot darker than that, but the question isn’t what Dallas likes, but where I’m willing to go.

With Dallas, I’ll go to the ends of the earth.

With Dallas, I think I might—might—even be able to do bondage.

I meet Brody’s eyes, then rise up out of my chair so that I can kiss his cheek. “Thank you for telling me. It means the world that you did.”

Then I sit back down and very firmly—very deliberately—I send my reply to Dallas.

I catch Brody’s eye, and he’s grinning. “Guess that answers my question,” he says.

“Guess it does.” I get up to make a cup of coffee. The truth is, I don’t expect to hear back from Dallas soon. Maybe not ever.

The phone pings before I’ve even poured the cream.

Don’t play these games, Jane. You won’t win, I promise. And it’s a losing battle. We can heal apart. Together, we’ll just keep fucking each other up.

I’m so euphoric that I prompted such a quick reply that I don’t even care that he’s trying to shoot me down. My reply is swift and firm:

We never fucked each other up. We healed each other. And I think you know it.

I’m about to send it when Brody snatches the phone from my hand. “Hey!”

“Just wait.”

He taps out an additional sentence, and as he does my hand goes to my mouth. “Okay?” he asks.

I nod. Honestly, I love it. And at this point, I have nothing to lose.

(P.S. I’m going to still play this game. You can’t stop me, but a spanking might punish me.)

He sends the text and then grins at me. “So where is this party, and do Stacey and I want to go, just to watch the show?”

“Don’t even think about it,” I say firmly. “I’d be a nervous wreck. As for where, I’m just about to find out.”

This time when I pick up the phone it’s to dial Gin Kramer.

“Ms. Martin,” she says. “What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping you could help me. I’m so scattered. But I know that somewhere on my desk is an invitation to a party that Peter Crowley is throwing, and I can’t find it anywhere. Didn’t you RSVP for Dallas when I was in his office the other day?”

“I did, yes. What do you need?”

“Just the time and the address. And if you wouldn’t mind sending in my RSVP?”

I imagine there will be a guest list with the doorman. And anyone who RSVPs through Dallas’s email account will be added without question.

“Of course,” she says. “And it’s this Friday at eight in his apartment on Fifth. I’ll email you the address so you have it handy.”

“You’re wonderful,” I say, then hang up and look at Brody. “Friday,” I announce. “It’s countdown time.”