We all want to find that perfect guy. We’re all looking for love—the big kind, the kind that will change the world as we know it.

We spend so much of our time waiting, searching, and going through the motions of dating until we find what we’re looking for.

Or maybe it’s not like that. Maybe there is never a first or second date. Maybe it starts with sex. Yet still, a relationship blossoms. 

But we know it can’t last. It’s not meant to. Still, we have hope.

And I had hope.

I have hope.

Yes, I have been texting Landon, but only on a platonic level, and I gave myself the excuse that since I wasn’t “carrying on” or fucking I wasn’t breaking Brooklyn’s rule, but I was, and I knew it.

I can’t explain why I didn’t just let Landon go. Not even now as I sneak out of my brother’s house and over to Brooklyn’s, where I have to explain it to him.

He’s finally home.

I saw him being dropped off an hour ago.

I’ve been home much longer.

Once the wedding was officially canceled, all the guests were helicoptered off the island. Brooklyn put me on one of those choppers and arranged for his driver to take me to Cam’s. He told me he was going to hang back to be with Chase, and although I believe that was probably true, I also know he wanted me out of his sight. Gone.

And he was just way too polite about it. The way he huskily uttered that one single word, “Goodbye,” it practically broke me. When he walked away, I waited for him to look back. He never did.

Finding the hidden key near the rear door, I unlock it and step inside. The house is dark. Really dark, and there is not a light on anywhere.

Familiar enough with the layout, I sidestep Gracie’s dog dish—Gracie is Maggie and Keen’s dog that they bring with them on the weekends—and make it through the galley kitchen without a sound.

“What are you doing here?” The words come out of the dark of the living room and are directed toward me.

I have to stifle my scream. I hadn’t seen Brooklyn sitting on the couch. “I want to explain,” I tell him, switching on the light on the side table just outside the kitchen.

It is dim, but I’m able to see him. “Nothing to talk about, Amelia. Go to your brother’s until it’s time for you to go home.”

“Those texts are not what you think.”

A half-empty bottle of whiskey and an ashtray filled with cigarette butts sit on the coffee table in front of him. Brooklyn holds up a near-empty glass. “It’s exactly like what I think. I was the bad you were craving, and he is the good, the guy you see as the one.” He grits the words the one through his teeth, like it’s painful.

Feeling ashamed, empty, and heartsick, I sit beside him, not touching him. “Brooklyn, that’s not true and you know it. That’s the way you see it, the way you always have, which has been the problem all along, hasn’t it?”

His hair is rumpled, his shirt unbuttoned, his bow tie hanging loose around his neck. “The problem,” he says fiercely, “is that you’ve been sneaking around like I’m a dirty little secret, and I let you.”

Nausea curls in my stomach. “Bullshit!” I scream. “You didn’t want my brother to know and I went along with it. So face the real reason, Brooklyn. You knew you wouldn’t be staying with me and didn’t want to deal with the aftermath. That’s the truth.”

His face twists into a snarl. “That, Amelia, is bullshit.”

“No! No, it’s not. You never stay with anyone. It’s like no one person is enough for you, and you knew I wouldn’t be either.”

He runs a hand down his face and draws in a long, ragged breath. When he blows it out to look at me. I can smell booze and cigarettes when he talks. “Is that really what you think of me? That I’m just that pantydropper our brothers call me? Because if that is true, you don’t know me at all.”

I am looking at a wounded man. All I want to do is make this right. And because of this, I act before I think. I move toward him. I’m very close to his lips when I say, “I do know you, Brooklyn, I do.”

Doubt lingers.

I move closer still.

Then even closer.

I’m a breath away.

And then with that aggression he harbors so well, he takes my mouth for a bruising kiss. His lips move relentlessly over mine, his hands wander, firm and punishing, down my body, and then he pushes me back on the couch cushion.

And God help me, but I want this. Need this. As much as he does.

Frantic, he pushes down my yoga pants and then opens my thighs to dive between them.

His mouth is on me in an instant, and I cry out when he licks me. It feels so good, and I feel like it’s been forever, when it’s only been a matter of days. Those soft lips of his move against my clit, and I cry out some more. When he pushes his fingers inside me, and he groans against my pussy, I find myself unable to hold back my orgasm and I scream out his name in pleasure.

Within seconds, his fingers are fumbling with his belt, and then his cock is pressing against me right before he pushes into me.

Unable to remain quiet, I cry out again in pleasure when he fills me.

Hot.

Wild.

Crazy.

Unabashed.

Brooklyn buries his face against my neck and I throw my head back. His teeth press my skin, then bite. A burning strike that is more pleasure than pain.

We move together in the most feral way. Animalistic, our need for each other is all that matters.

To get deeper, his hands move under my ass, pushing me against him, and I tilt my pelvis to allow him that pleasure, and myself, too.

The couch protests as we rock it.

Normally, we would have both laughed.

There is no laughter now.

Brooklyn fucks me hard and fast, and I rake my fingers over his back, giving myself up to him.

This is his final goodbye to me, and all I can do is say it back in the same way.

He says my name when he comes. Then again, lower. Softer. He slows the pace, thrusting once more. Then again. That last press of his pelvis to mine pushes me over the edge into orgasm, but this time there are no rainbows or unicorns.

Breathing hard, Brooklyn presses his forehead to mine. Whiskey breath caresses me. When he pushes himself off me, I feel the loss instantly.

He doesn’t look at me as he slides to the other end of the couch. My feet still so very close to him, yet the small space between us now seems like a giant divide.

Within moments, he pulls his pants up, and then waits for me to drag my yoga pants up.

Pulling my legs closer to me, I do just that.

I want him to stop me. To crawl on top of me and look at me. I want him to tell me I’m his. That he wants me more than the earth and the sun. That I’m his everything. That we’ll tell my brother together and everything will be okay. This isn’t where we end. This is where we begin.

Of course, he doesn’t.

Instead of looking at me, he looks down, pours himself another drink, and sips it. Then he sets the glass on the coffee table and stands up.

I stand, too.

He starts for the kitchen. “You should go.”

His back is to me, and as I follow him, I wipe the tears from my eyes with the heels of my palms. Rubbing them on my pants, I watch him as he opens the door. Watch the strong, confident man that I didn’t make mine, and have to stifle my cry.

The cool breeze hits me, and I shiver.

Brooklyn does too, although I doubt he knows it as he stands there, waiting for me to leave. To get out of his life.

I push up on my toes and kiss him softly on the mouth. “I’m sorry, Brooklyn,” I say in a low, hoarse voice. “I wish you could see that.”

He shakes his head, just a little. “Don’t be. We both knew how this was going to end.”

End.

There it is.

Yes, we did know all along that when we ended…it would be messy.

And messy, it is.