Except I can’t stop thinking about her.

I can’t stop thinking about her as Scarlett kneels between my legs and makes me feel good. I can’t stop thinking about her as I go back to my penthouse and clean up the dishes Aiden left in my sink. I can’t stop thinking about her as I shower and fall asleep, and then the next day when I go into the office and after, when I help my mom get discharged from the hospital. And the day after that.

And I especially can’t stop thinking about her as I sit in my mother’s infusion room, reading aloud the most recent Wakefield Saga novel, In the Arms of the Disgraced Duke.

“‘And what about my dowry?’” I read. “‘I suppose that means nothing to you?’”

“‘It’s meant nothing since the day I first laid eyes on you,’” I continue, adopting the disgraced duke’s deep baritone. Or at least the deep baritone I presume a disgraced duke would have.

“‘Which day would that be, my grace?’” I say in the young Eleanor Wakefield’s voice. “‘The day I was born and my father promised me to you in order to satisfy his debts with your family? Or the night you first saw me as a grown woman at my coming out?’”

“‘I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you both?’” I read as the duke.

“He’s lying,” the oncology nurse says. “He didn’t think of her as anything but a cash cow until the party at Almack’s.”

“No, no,” Emmett says from the recliner next to Mom. He adjusts the blanket around his legs and sticks up a pale, knobby finger to emphasize his raspy words. “His feelings about her were always complicated, because here was this girl he was betrothed to, but she was too young to do anything but ignore for so many years. But then he lost everything and saw her again in the same week—”

“I think he always felt like he could love her, money aside,” my mom interrupts, waving her bottle of Mountain Dew, “but he didn’t want to fuck her until the party.”

“Mom.”

“What? It’s true.”

“I know it’s true, but—” I make a gesture around the infusion room, where the ten or so people inside are all my mom’s age or older. “We’re in public. And you know…” I lower my voice to a discreet whisper “…the aged.”

“Son, I fought in Vietnam,” Emmett rumbled. “You think I haven’t heard the word fuck before?”

“It’s in the book,” the nurse adds. “I think the duke even says something along the lines of, ‘I want to fuck her right here on the balcony, dowry be damned.’”

“Sean, look at me,” my mother says, and I look at Carolyn Bell. At her slightly-too-wide mouth and her dimples—just like all of my brothers and I have. At the smooth, barely wrinkled lines of her face, rendered unearthly and strange by her lack of eyebrows and eyelashes. At the silk scarf wrapped around what used to be thick chestnut hair and now is nothing but scalp.

“Yes, Mom?”

She tilts her head and very deliberately pronounces, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—”

I put both hands over my face and mumble into my palms. “Oh my Godddddd.”

“Keep reading, son, I haven’t got all day,” Emmett says, and Rosalie on the other side of Mom grunts her agreement, even though I know for a fact she usually naps through most of Sean Bell Story Time.

For the last three months, the Thursday morning infusion crew has been listening to me work my way through the last two Wakefield Saga books. Mom and I have been buddy-reading romance novels since she caught me sneaking In the Bed of the Pirate back to college with me after Lizzy’s funeral, and instead of teasing me, she loaded me up with the next two paperbacks in the series. Ever since then, we’ve been devouring books together in our little Bells-only book club, and while we like some romance novels set in the here and now, we really prefer our books with rogues and roués and castles and shit. And when Mom was diagnosed with cancer, we both knew we needed some mental comfort food, so back to the Wakefield Saga we went, to the very books that founded the informal Bells-only Book Club.

Plus it makes the chemotherapy sessions go by faster.

I wonder if Zenny knows what she started with that pirate book all those years ago.

I keep reading, ignoring the protests from literally every patient in the room and the nurse when I skip over the sex scene.

“Oh come on,” Rosalie groans, her eyes still closed. “We’ve been waiting weeks for this.”

“Guys,” I sputter. “I can’t read this in front of my mom.”

“Pretend I can’t hear you,” Mom says. “You were really good at pretending I couldn’t hear you when you were a teenager sneaking girls into your room.”

“I’m going to leave. I swear to all that’s holy, I’ll do it. I’ll leave you here to watch Ellen all day.”

“If you leave, make sure you leave the book,” Mom says crisply, my threats as useless as they were when I was a boy. “And then I’ll read the sex scene out loud.”

Somehow that is much more mortifying to imagine, and after the patients threaten to revolt and physically take the book out of my hands, I relent and read aloud the scene of the disgraced duke finally claiming Eleanor’s maidenhead.

There is applause throughout the room as Eleanor climaxes and the duke finally unleashes his torrents of passion into Eleanor’s womb.

“‘It was everything I dreamed of,’” I read in Eleanor’s voice.

“‘But the duke winced at this,” I read, and my own conscience prickles uncomfortably as I speak the words. “‘He immediately felt the guilt of what he’d done, the terrible weight of it. He’d vowed once upon a time to protect this girl, and here he was tumbling her without the slightest hint of what she deserved from him. She deserved a wedding, a future, a promise of love. And all he’d given her were a few moments of pleasure and a lifetime of regret.’”

* * *

“Sean, my boy.”

I look up to see the one person that I would happily see castrated and then dragged behind a team of wild horses and then maybe castrated again for good measure. (Okay, maybe not, but I’d definitely draw a dick on his face if I ever found him passed out.)

“Don’t come in,” I tell the man standing in my doorway.

“I’ve got to say, you really know how to pick them,” Charles Northcutt says, coming in. He’s white, my age, possibly in better shape, although it could be that he just dresses to show it off more. He’s also a pompous dick and Valdman’s other favorite employee.

I hate him.

“Don’t sit down,” I say.

He sits down. “That nun, Zenobia, holy fuck, she’s something else. I bet the body she’s got under all those Jesus clothes is to die for.”

The cloud of red anger is instantaneous. I look down at where my hands rest on my laptop keyboard and they’re shaking. What the fuck is wrong with me? I hate Northcutt and I think he’s a dog, but I’ve never gotten so personally incensed at the stupid shit he says—although maybe I should have been getting personally incensed before.

“What do you want, Charles?” I ask in a flat voice that makes it clear that I don’t care. Except maybe I care a little bit if it’s about Zenny; I have to push away from my desk and cross my arms so that he doesn’t see how fucking furious I am to hear him talking about her that way. Which is purely because she’s Elijah’s little sister. And I promised to keep her safe…and Northcutt is not safe.

Unfortunately, Northcutt is not fooled by my forced nonchalance, and a new glitter enters his eyes. “So why’d you hand this back over to Valdman, eh? The nun turn you down?”

“I keep my dick in my pants when I work,” I bite back, which is a lie, and we both know it. I’ve never crossed any kinds of lines with subordinates or coworkers, but I’m the king of the work party fuck, the convention hotel bar hookup, the entertainer of bored wives. And I’ve literally never cared, except right now I do care, because I don’t have any moral high ground on Charles, and that’s not a good feeling. I would like to think of myself as very different from him. I mean, I’m a white man myself, but the first white man to make another white man go oh God the privilege is real was Charles Northcutt.

“Well, whatever the reason you handed her over to me, I wanted to thank you. I think I’m going to have a lot of fun peeling the virginity off that one.”

Thwack.

I’m just as surprised as Northcutt when my hand comes slamming down on my desk, but I don’t stop to analyze what I’ve done. “You stay the hell away from her,” I growl.

“Or what?” Northcutt asks, his eyebrows raised in mild amusement. “You were the one who stepped back, Sean. What did you think Valdman was going to do when you asked him to find someone else? Trust your potentially firm-destroying mistake to an intern?”

I’m pissed because he’s right, and I should have known all this, planned for it and thought about it before I asked Valdman for permission to step away. But fuck. I was so messed up from Zenny and my promise to Elijah…and that broken-off kiss and my sleepless night with Mom at the hospital and—

Northcutt stands up, buttoning his jacket and giving me a smile so devoid of true human expression it could only be called sharklike. “See you around,” he says, turning to leave, and I hate that I’m playing right into his hands by calling him back, but I can’t help it, I’m too furious and also too scared. I don’t want this shark anywhere near Zenny.

“Charles, I’ll handle it from here on out, okay? If this was your way of trying to dump this back in my lap, you’ve succeeded. You won. I hope you’re happy.”

More shark teeth. “Oh, not at all, Mr. Bell. I like this girl, and I’m going to keep working this little shelter project of yours with her until I’m done liking her.”

“This isn’t a fucking daycare, Charles. It’s not like taking dibs on a toy.”

“And this isn’t fucking dodgeball, Sean. You don’t get to change sides whenever you feel like it, and there’re real-life consequences in being shit at the game. So I’m going to fix this mess for you, look good for Valdman, and have fun while I’m doing it.”

I stand up, not caring how ridiculous it is that I’m considering getting in a legitimate fistfight in my own goddamn office. “Stay away from her.”

He laughs a laugh as cold as his smile. “Just try and stop me,” he says as he walks out of my office.

“You can plan on it,” I mutter to his back, and once he’s out of sight, I kick my desk, I kick it extra fucking hard, and then I go to find Valdman.

* * *

Valdman isn’t in his office, and according to Trent the Secretary, he won’t be in until the following Tuesday. I have Trent forward a message that I want Northcutt as far away from the nuns as possible—for the sake of the company and the company’s reputation.

Trent glances up at me as I’m dictating the message. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Am I saying that Northcutt has joked about fucking a nun? Yes.”

Trent makes a face. “I hate that guy,” he says sotto voce.

“Me too.”

After Trent finishes the message, I lean onto his desk, keeping my voice low. “Can you see any of Northcutt’s schedule?”

Trent gives me a slow, wary nod.

I hold up my hands. “I don’t want you to do anything shady. I just want to make sure that he’s not scheduled to meet with any of the Good Shepherd sisters before I can have a face to face with Valdman.”

This seems to resonate with Trent’s personal moral code, and he goes into Northcutt’s schedule, verifying that the nuns are safe until Tuesday, at least. Thus marginally reassured, I decide to call it a day and head home, even though it’s barely time for lunch. Tonight is Family Dinner, which is definitely not about checking up on Mom and extra definitely not about checking up on Dad. I’ve hired a company to provide all of Mom and Dad’s meals while she’s going through chemotherapy, which is pleasant and reassuring for a lot of reasons, but it does mean I don’t have an excuse to go over early to help with cooking. If I go over now, Mom will accuse me of hovering and flap at me until I stop making her “feel like she has cancer.”

No, it’s better just to stay away until dinnertime.

I get in my car, think of all the eggs and kale waiting for me in my fridge, and steer my car toward my favorite greasy food dispensary, an ancient joint called Town Topic. After devouring a triple cheeseburger and fries right there at the diner counter, I decide to head home and properly sort out this nun mess once and for all. I’ve already found a few good leads for a shelter replacement this week; I’m going to find the perfect spot, pitch it to Zenny (safely…like over the phone), listen to her voice light up in admiration and relief, and then I can extricate myself from this tangle.

It’s as I’m driving home that Aiden pulls out from the Kauffman Center (it’s unmistakably his car—a black Lexus LFA with the license plate BELLBOY and a healthy coating of gravel dust from his dumb farmhouse commute).

I lay on the horn until my center console lights up with a phone call.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Aiden says, by way of greeting.

“What is wrong with you? You’re the one driving a Lexus covered in dirt. Get a goddamned truck.”

“No.”

“Or maybe move back to the city?”

“No.”

“You’ve got probably the only LFA in this town, and you’re driving it covered in dirt and rock dings, and I don’t even want to know what the undercarriage looks like.”

“Don’t think about my undercarriage, you pervert,” Aiden says, but the insult lacks his usual levity. In fact, he almost sounds…nervous?

“Everything okay?” I ask, watching the back of the dust-covered Lexus as it turns off the street and into the parking garage for his firm’s office.

“Yep. Fine.”

“Were you at the Kauffman for a work thing?” I ask, and as I’m asking, I realize that what I really want to know is if he saw Elijah and if Elijah said anything about Zenny. Or, God, what if Zenny were there? What if Aiden had just seen her? And what if seeing him had reminded her of me? Or what if she talked about me? What if—

Christ. I’ve turned into a teenager. I’ve turned into a teenager because of a girl who’s barely not a teenager, and now even the idea of seeing someone who also knows her is electric. Like her presence has infused itself into the city on a quantum level, and every place and everyone that’s connected to her makes me as skittish and eager as she herself does.

Copper-ringed eyes spark through my mind as Aiden finally answers stiffly, “It wasn’t for work.”

“Did you see Elijah?”

“What would make you think that?” Aiden demands, and there’s a sharpness to his words that makes me think we’re beyond our normal brotherly ribbing.

“I don’t know, because he works there, asshole? And he’s my friend?”

There’s a pause.

Then he says, “I’ve got to go.” And hangs up.

God, what a fucking weirdo.

I’ll see him tonight at dinner and make him explain himself. And in the meantime—the shelter. Getting this Zenny problem all sewn up so I can stop thinking about her all the time. So I can stop imagining what it would be like to kiss her again, what it would feel like to hoist her on another counter and then drop to my knees and prove to her how little oxygen I need when I’ve got a pussy to eat.

And now I’m hard. Just fucking great.

I park the Audi in my building’s garage and limp over to the elevator, my stride hampered by my raging hard-on, and once I’m inside the elevator car itself, I can’t help but to give myself a couple rough strokes through the fabric of my trousers.

Those soft lips.

Those white cotton panties.

Fuck.

I stumble inside my penthouse already peeling off my suit jacket and reaching for my cock. Just a quick jerk to take the edge off, just a few fast strokes to clear my head, I won’t even think about Zenny—

That’s a lie. She’s all I can think of; it’s her kisses and her hands trembling and clinging around my neck and her legs parting for me to step between and the small scratch of her nose ring against my own nose as I claimed her mouth…

The way she lifted up her skirt to show me her pussy…

I drop my coat on the floor and fish out my cock, as fumbling and eager as if I were about to actually fuck her, my blood pounding raw and hot and urgent, my own hand shaking with excitement as I wrap it around myself. I shouldn’t be thinking of her like this, I shouldn’t be imagining it’s her slender fingers wrapped around me now. I shouldn’t be getting off to the thought of those fingers being nervous and inexperienced. I shouldn’t be swelling and leaking as I think about her showing me the cunt that she’s promised to keep pure and untouched for her church.

But I am, I am. I’m hard and aching over Zenny Iverson, someone I held as a baby, someone I’m supposed to keep safe, someone far too fucking young and also consumed with a faith I have spent my entire adult life rejecting. And after nearly two decades of screwing all kinds of women all over the globe—women who are paid to fuck and women who fuck like it’s their job anyway—I have no idea why it’s Zenny who’s got me like this.

Because I can’t fuck her, ever? Because I actually care about her wellbeing? Because she isn’t impressed by me and that makes me want to impress her?

Because she’s actually a good and interesting person, and stirs up a part of me that wants to be the same?

I tighten my grip around my cock, watching the fat, dark head pushing through my fingers. Fantasizing about Zenny’s fingers instead. About her pretty pussy, exposed for me and me alone—

Fuck. Gonna come.

I speed up my strokes, ready for it, ready, ready—and then there’s a knock at the door.

For a moment, I consider ignoring it. I’m three strokes away from spilling, and I need this, I need it bad, and there’s no way I can spend the afternoon thinking about Zenny without needing to come, so I just need to do it now. You know, for my wellbeing.

But then the knock comes again, and reality clears up the hormone mist a little. Realistically, it’s probably just a grocery delivery or the cleaning company coming early, but if there’s even the slightest chance it could be about Mom…

With a pained grunt, I zip myself back up into my pants, try to arrange myself so that my boner isn’t stupidly obvious (it still is) and go to open the door without bothering to check who’s on the other side.

And I open it to find Zenny standing there in her postulant’s jumper and bright yellow flip-flops, a nervous smile on her face.