Ayla

I can’t breathe when it’s over.

I can’t speak either.

“Jesus, Ayla.” Rhett’s just as breathless as I am when he pulls his spent cock from me. My body is peppered in goose bumps from his ice-cold apartment, and I turn to gather my clothes from ... everywhere.

What. The hell. Did I just do?

Taking deep breaths as casually as possible and trying to gather any ounce of calm I can find, I do what any normal girl would do in this situation and slap a big old satisfied smile on my face.

I mean, I am satisfied. Abundantly. The sex—and everything else we did—was amazing.

But something tells me this is going to end very badly for me.

Sliding my leggings on and slipping my bra over my shoulders, I give him a wink when I catch him watching.

“I should probably get your number,” I say.

He wrinkles his nose. “Why?”

“I don’t know. In case I wind up pregnant or something. You came a lot. And condoms aren’t always one hundred percent.”

His expression turns to ash until he realizes I’m kidding.

“Anyway.” I pull my blouse over my head and fluff my hair around my shoulders. “Thanks for that.”

I’m halfway to the door with my purse over my shoulder when he says, “Thanks for that? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just an expression. What am I supposed to say?” I shrug. If I tell him it was amazing and we should do it again, then it’s going to turn into a thing. A big, ugly, complicated thing that I won’t be able to explain my way out of.

“Nothing,” he says. “Just say nothing. You don’t have to make it all awkward by thanking me for sex. Who does that?”

“I’m sorry. Does that make you feel used?” I hide my chuckle with my hand, and he comes at me with a giant smirk on his face, pressing his hard-as-steel chest against my body until my back’s against the door.

“God, you have a smart mouth.” His hand lifts to my face, and he drags his thumb along my lower lip, his eyes fixated there as if he’s replaying the last thirty minutes in his head.

I’m painfully aware of the fact that our mouths are inches, maybe even mere centimeters apart. If he wanted to kiss me again, I’d let him. I wouldn’t say no. I wouldn’t protest or try to stop him, even though it’d be the right thing to do.

Kissing Rhett feels different from any other man, and I’m not sure if it’s because of his powerful, complicated aura—or the fact that something so morally, ethically wrong could feel so dangerously good.

I want to ask what he’s doing when our gazes catch. I want to know what this is. And why me? But I know this can never be anything, so asking would be pointless. Besides, more than likely he’s just a horny guy who saw a girl in a bar and decided to go in for the kill.

In my heart of hearts, I know our time together was more about convenience than poetics.

“I should go,” I say, releasing a sheltered breath.

His smirk fades, along with the dimples I’m just now noticing, and his steely gaze darkens.

“Yeah,” he says, as if he’s suddenly drawn the same conclusions but for reasons all his own. “You should.”

* * *

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up a sec.” Bostyn’s jaw hangs when I finish telling her the sordid details of the last twenty-odd hours of my life.

I hold nothing back.

I tell her the truth.

I tell her what I’ve done and how I did it.

And I hang my head when I’m finished.

“Do I even know you right now?” Bostyn’s clear blue eyes dance between mine.

“What shocks you most? The fact that I slept with a stranger or the fact that I haven’t exactly told him who I am?”

“Uh, both,” she says, her tone insinuating that I should’ve read her mind. “You’re literally the most honest person I know. And the most distrusting. You trust no one except, like, me and your mom. And you always tell the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. This isn’t you. This isn’t you at all. There’s someone else in the control tower of that big old brain of yours.”

“Feels that way.”

I slink to the floor of my brother’s living room, pulling my knees against my chest as Bostyn stares like she’s seeing me for the first time.

“You want to grab drinks?” I ask. “Since last night didn’t work out? I still haven’t told you what I was going to tell you last night.”

“Oh, yeah. Prescott Club?”

“What is it with you and that place?”

She laughs. “Worried you’ll run into him again?”

“Yes!”

“He won’t be there.”

I huff, feeling my lips begin to curl when I think of running into him again. I’m so bad.

“How do you know he won’t be there?” I ask.

“Gut feeling. Anyway, I’m telling you, stiffest drinks in the city. Plus, the Tuesday night bartender has a thing for me. He hooks me up with free drinks, and I don’t get paid until Friday, so ...”

Inhaling, I imagine how awkward it would be to bump into Rhett there again, but the odds of that happening are slim to none without a doubt.

No one drinks on a Tuesday, and if they do, they sure as hell don’t return to the same bar they visited the night before, not in a city with 1,784 other options.

Screw it.

“Fine,” I concede. “Let’s go.”