When Max and I were kids, I figured out by the age of five, when he was ten years old, that he was the real-life version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not everyone saw the different sides of Max because he was good at hiding the darker side of himself. But he was completely unguarded around me. So I was there when he knocked over a vase and blamed it on the dog, even as my dad smacked the poor unsuspecting mutt on the rump. I was there when Max was twelve and tripped a girl his own age at the playground and called her a whore as he flipped up her skirt. Or the time he used his slingshot in front of me to knock the neighbor’s cat off the fence, laughing hysterically.

All cruel, as symptoms of a bully, but not necessarily psychotic.

But I was accidentally there years later when I walked in on him with another girl while he was dating Miranda. He had taken my iPod without permission and I stormed into his room to retrieve it. I was pissed off that he was stealing from me when I knew full well he was selling weed and wasn’t paying rent to our parents. There they were, Max and a brunette fully naked, the girl riding him like she was on the pro rodeo circuit, fondling her own nipples. She did pause long enough in her groaning and squeezing to smile at me and give me a friendly wave. “Oh, hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

I ignored her. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked Max. “Does Miranda know you’re fucking other girls?”

Max gave me the stare. The one that only myself and a handful of other people had seen. The one that said I could die and he would not give a shit. In fact, he would enjoy watching. “Get the hell out of here,” he said. “Or I will shoot you.”

His hand went into his nightstand drawer and I was already backing up. I knew he had a gun in there. And suddenly it was out and pointed at me. And I had seen enough in our lives to know the truth. He could shoot me without hesitation. I had no doubt about that. The girl let out a squeal.

“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to maneuver herself off his dick, her expression one of alarm.

The gun shifted from me to her. “Don’t you dare stop fucking me,” he said. “I don’t like a dick tease.”

She went completely still for a heartbeat. I regretted riling him. I should have said something later, when she was gone. But I was so pissed off for Miranda that I had broken the cardinal rule of life with Max—don’t poke the guy with the weapon. “Max, leave her alone,” I said quietly, trying to stay calm.

But now he ignored me. He was focused on the girl, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. “Are you a dick tease?” he asked her, his voice like steel.

She shook her head rapidly and settled back on him, her thighs spread on either side of his chest. She started to move, her face leeched of color, all pleasure gone. He relaxed a little, his arm dropping down slightly.

At fifteen, I didn’t know what to do. He was twenty, bigger than me, muscular, and crazy. I couldn’t rush him, knock the gun out of his hand. That would be a huge risk and it wasn’t just me I would be jeopardizing. I knew he wouldn’t kill the brunette intentionally. But if I intervened further, he might by accident. So I did what I had always done in life with Max—I backed out. But I stood in the hallway, watching around the doorframe, just to make sure nothing went south. I felt sick to my stomach, horrible, in agony for the girl. She was moving faster now, spurred on by his hand smacking the back of her curvy backside. Her yelp was one of fear, not pain, and certainly not pleasure. He still kept the gun pointed at her, and I knew that I had inadvertently given him a new form of torture pleasure. Sexual domination. Fear mixed with sex.

It was my fault.

The wait felt endless. Interminable. But finally he gave a grunt of satisfaction as I sat with a noxious pit in my gut. A minute later she came out of his room, tears streaming down her face, her clothes in a bundle in front of her nudity. When I locked gazes with her, she sucked in a breath and recoiled from me. She was halfway across the living room before she paused briefly to pull her shorts and top on with trembling fingers, not bothering with undergarments.

“Do you need a ride home?” I asked her, my offer small comfort but sprung from genuine compassion for her.

She just ran out of the front door.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course, that my parents knew about Max’s other side as well. Every time I tried to rat him out or complain about his behavior, they always shut me down. Acted like I was imagining it, or exaggerating. Eventually I stopped trying, never knowing that they had fretted and talked and wondered and ultimately had decided the key was to keep him calm, and sweep up any messes he made along the way.

We were the Garcias, a regular working class family living in South Miami, and we were harboring a sociopath.

And because we were all afraid to trigger Max, we ignored it.

And made it worse.

I watched Miranda repeatedly glance over at me, her smile warm, but uncertain. Lola Brandy’s suite was immense, with a balcony that wrapped around three sides of the building, offering views of the Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami. I loved the skyline at night. There was magic in the lights of Miami, dancing over the inky blackness of the bay. I had no desire to ever leave my hometown. Everything I could ever want was here—sunshine, the beach, clubs, women, music, food, money.

And now Miranda was even back.

Asking me to give her a baby.

The suite was filled with laughter and cocktails. Not a jam-packed party, but a dozen or so people mingling and chatting and lounging on the white leather furniture. Someday white furniture will go out of style in Miami, but not today. It was still the perfect backdrop for the deep blue of the bay.

Lola had changed out of the sequin jumpsuit into pajamas, but not like the kind you’d grab at Walmart. These were satin and luxurious, displaying her cleavage, and giving the air of Old Hollywood. I didn’t know much about her other than what you would hear when a musician was dropping a new album. Sound bites. But she seemed friendly and not pretentious.

I was nursing a beer and moving from group to group, talking, laughing, watching. It was one of my best skills—being social under any circumstances. I introduced myself, answered questions about being a bodyguard, flirted mindlessly with a backup dancer named Zoe who had hit on me. But all the while all I could think was that Miranda had punched a hole into my stable life and squeezed my heart and my dick simultaneously. Not a good fucking feeling.

Miranda made her way to me, still wearing the stage costume. I thought it was weird that there were no arrangements for her to change when Lola herself had clearly ditched the sequins. But in my business as a bodyguard I had spent plenty of time around rich people and a huge percentage of them did shit that made no sense to a regular Joe like me. Or a regular Alejandro. The thought made me smile.

“You okay?” she asked.

I knew what she was asking. If I was upset with her. But I wasn’t going to address what she had sprung on me here at this pop star post-concert get together. “Of course. How are you?” I gave her a smile and gestured to her feet. “Aren’t your dogs barking?”

She gave a little laugh. “I had forgotten how much you sound like my grandfather. No, my feet are fine. I’m used to dancing and walking in heels around the clock. But thank you. How is the beer?”

Miranda had retreated into polite. Fine by me for right now. My thoughts were swirling into dark and dangerous places and I didn’t need to have an emotional scene go down here. “It’s wet.”

Like I wanted her to be. Wet and writhing in ecstasy beneath me. Open to me, physically and emotionally. Eyes glassy with desire. Heart full of love.

Oh yeah. Not a goddamn thing had changed in the three years since I had seen her last. I still craved Miranda with every inch of my oversexed body. Maybe I even wanted her more because now she was a woman and I was a fully-grown man and I knew, I just fucking knew, that if she could forget my dickhead brother had ever existed, I could satisfy her. Love her.

I drained my beer and set it down on the wet bar, with a harder slap than I meant to do. It drew the attention of Miranda, who looked alarmed, and Lola, who glanced up from the sofa.

“Miranda, bring your friend over here so I can meet him.” She smiled and waved us over.

I didn’t wait for Miranda’s response, who seemed to hesitate, but strolled over to Lola. “Hi, I’m Alejandro. Thanks for letting me join the fun.”

“Thanks for keeping us all so safe.” She took a small sip of her champagne and winked. Still in full stage makeup, she was a lot of false eyelashes and bronzer. But you could see the natural beauty there in the high cheekbones and the amber-colored eyes. “Those are some guns you have there,” she added, gesturing to my biceps.

“Fully loaded.”

Lola laughed at my over-the-top answer. I was flirting and she knew it. Probably expected it. “Let me feel them. Take your jacket off.”

Hey, I work out. Nothing wrong with a little appreciation for it. Besides, it wasn’t like Miranda cared what I did or with who. She just wanted my sperm, not me. Was I pissed off about that? Hell yeah. It’s a weird thing to have someone say they want to recreate your likeness in the form of an infant, but they don’t actually want you.

I wanted a reaction from Miranda. Maybe just a little jealousy. So I stripped off my jacket and tossed it on the coffee table. “Shirt too?” I asked Lola.

“Of course not!” Miranda said. “This isn’t Chippendales.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lola said. “If he’s willing, I’m wanting.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind. This is Miami. I’ve had stranger requests than this.” I gave Miranda a side glance. She blushed.

“Then by all means, take your shirt off.” Lola turned to another woman sitting on the sofa with her. “Chloe, maybe you should close your eyes. I’m not sure you can handle all this man chest.”

Chloe, a brunette with cleavage I could lose myself in for days, snorted. “If I get scared, you can hold my hand.”

I undid the buttons on my dress shirt matter-of-factly. I wasn’t going to put on a show, but I wasn’t going to be shy either. I was already picturing bragging to the guys about how the pop star Lola Brandy had wanted to see my muscles. They would give me shit for days, but at the same time they would be jealous as hell. There was something so damn satisfying about pissing my buddies off.

Once my shirt was all the way off and I draped it over the table, Lola clapped. “Bravo.”

That made me grin. I liked that she wasn’t a diva taking herself far too serious. She was just having fun post-show and I appreciated that. Part of me was aware I wasn’t helping my cause with Miranda. I wasn’t exactly showing her how much I wanted her. But I have a habit, ten years deep now, of pretending I don’t give a shit about Miranda and me, and I cover those feelings up with flirting, fucking.

Casual as shit, that’s me. It’s also the world’s biggest lie.

But if Max and I have anything in common it’s that we’re both amazing liars.

Lola reached out and slid her hand across my abs. “A little lower,” I told her.

Her laugh was practiced, melodic. “Aren’t you a bold one? I like it.”

This was what I got for being impulsive and not sticking to my original plan of asking Alejandro to lunch. I was standing there third-wheeling behind him as he bared his chest for my boss. I was mortified. Mostly by the fact that I felt things that I should not be feeling. I was used to his attention being on me. It wasn’t exactly a huge secret that as a teenager he’d had a crush on me. So in the past, his flirting had been directed towards me, and what woman doesn’t like a little harmless crush?

He’d been discreet when his brother was around, obviously, and never took it so far as to make me uncomfortable, but I knew. It was because he had watched me carefully and had opened doors for me and rushed to help me with a bag of groceries when I went over to the Garcias. He had liked me.

Now he just seemed unconcerned with my presence. He’d been talking to everyone in the suite but me. But I couldn’t exactly complain, because hello, I had just put him on the spot in a major way. Also, I had never given him any encouragement or any reason to think I would be okay with him flirting with me. In fact, the one time he had gotten a little too close to me, I had snapped at him and put him on guard, offering a sincere apology. I couldn’t exactly expect him to sit around and think about only me for a decade. That teen crush was in his rearview mirror apparently.

Ricky, a dancer who had been on tour with Lola for three years, sidled up to me, his eyebrows raised. “Girl, where did you find this guy?”

“We grew up together, so to speak. I dated his brother when I was younger.” But I realized immediately I should have just said we were old friends, because now Ricky, a well-known gossip, seemed intrigued.

“So there is another one who looks like this? Are they single?”

“Straight,” I told Ricky. “Sorry.” I didn’t want to go into details and the whole sob story and tell him Max was missing. That he had disappeared and was presumed dead. People alternated between horror and gruesome curiosity and I wasn’t up for that. “As for being single, I can’t speak for Alejandro.”

Another thing I had intended to ask Alejandro before I blurted out I wanted his sperm. It wasn’t exactly fair to ask for a sperm donation without consulting his partner, if he had a girlfriend. Not that he looked like he had a girlfriend, given that he was now allowing both Lola and Chloe to pet his chest, but I still needed to ask.

I could see why they were enamored of his body. I only had a view from behind and it was still a great one. His shoulders were broad and muscular. His back was rock solid. He had tattoos on his biceps. A cross. A skull. Those were new. This was all new. He hadn’t looked like that as a teen, and I hadn’t had this reaction to him in the past.

I felt… warm. In my cheeks. In my womb. In my inner thighs, which suddenly seemed really damn exposed in this piece of nothing bodysuit. I basically had two inches covering my pussy and I shifted in my heels, feeling suddenly like desire was shooting out from me like a laser beam.

Panicked, I clapped my thighs together and crossed my arms over my nipples. Thank the Lord for pasties. No one could see the taut buds that were betraying me without warning.

“Whoa,” Chloe exclaimed. “I went too low there, I’m sorry. But holy shit, your biceps aren’t the only thing that’s huge.”

Everyone laughed. Everyone but me. Alejandro had a big dick? Why didn’t I know that? Hell, why would I know that? Did I want to know that? My body seemed to think so. Confused, I decided since this was my last night on tour, there was literally no reason why I couldn’t have a drink. I took a glass of champagne off the wet bar and took a massive sip and tried to tell myself my feelings were the result of emotions running high. I wanted a baby desperately. My hormones were playing tricks on me in pursuit of conception.

“You know what they say—speak softly and carry a big dick,” Alejandro said. “I let it do the talking for me.”

Again, a swell of laughter rose up from the room. Glad everyone was having such a grand old time. Though it was a scene that wasn’t unfamiliar. Life on tour was a party, filled with sexual innuendo and jokes. Only now, it was different. I felt left out.

Alejandro belonged to me.

Not sexually, but he was my friend, my past. And here he was stepping into my world and yet ignoring me.

Lola patted the spot on the sofa next to her. “Have a seat, Mr. Big Stuff.”

Some pop stars put on a show of flirtation but draw the line at sleeping around on tour, not wanting entanglements, stalkers, unexpected pregnancies. I had been with Lola for two years, and on three different tours before hers. She was the only one who didn’t give a rat’s ass about playing it safe. She loved a good boy toy in her bed and I knew that look in her eye. She wanted Alejandro.

And she would get him. Because she was Lola Brandy and no single man was going to say no to a piece of pop star ass.

Normally I could give two shits who Lola had sex with. She was a beautiful, talented woman. Men wanted her. She was single and at the top of her game. I wasn’t even jealous of her success. She worked her ass off and deserved it and treated her staff well.

But this? Her interest in Alejandro made my gut hurt. It was a weird mingling of my two worlds and I did not like it. Not one freaking bit.

Given that I had no right to feel anything at all, I decided it was time for me to go back to my own hotel room. It was my last night on the tour. The next day I was moving in with a friend for a few days, and then on to my own apartment. My first real apartment in years. That was a pleasant distraction.

A home. Just me and eventually a baby. It had been the focus of all my financial goals the last few years and here it was—the big moment. A total life change. That’s why I was feeling strange. Touring with Lola had been my world ever since Max had disappeared. My distraction, my passion, my family.

They had replaced that aching hole in my heart after Max had disappeared.

It felt so emotional to be leaving them, but also to have Alejandro mingling with my friends. It was overwhelming and all I wanted to do was run. Down the hall and in to the future.

I drained my champagne. “I’m heading off to bed, everyone. Tomorrow is a big day for me.” I smiled at Ricky and gave him a hug. “Crap, I’m going to miss you so much.”

“You’re going to bed this early?” Chloe asked, surprised. “I thought you’d go hard tonight.”

“Well, I am thirty, you know,” I teased, not wanting anyone to read my true emotions. “Old lady alert.”

“Oh my God.” Lola rose and opened her arms, her lips turned down in a pout. “What am I going to do without you? My favorite mirror.”

That made me laugh. I was no dead ringer for Lola but close enough for subterfuge. She had been good to me as a boss and I would miss her enthusiasm and endless energy. “You’ve been awesome,” I told her. “And the next time you roll through Miami I will have my culinary degree and I’ll be fat and happy. I’ll cook you an amazing dinner.”

“Send me cookies. You know how I feel about baked goods.”

It was her weakness, just like mine. “You got it.”

Alejandro grabbed his shirt off the table and started to pull it on. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine.” Now why in the hell did I say that? Was I an idiot? Apparently. Because under no circumstances did I actually want him to say okay and stay behind and party.

“Don’t be stubborn,” he said. “I’m your bodyguard. Let me guard your body.”

“Girl, if you say no, I’m going to put on a gold jumpsuit and pretend I’m you,” Ricky said.

That would be interesting to see Ricky attempt to pull that off, but not tonight. Alejandro was standing with his shirt open and his ab muscles descended in a V into the waist of his dress pants. I didn’t mean to but I glanced and saw precisely what Chloe had been talking about. Huge, indeed. I swallowed hard. “Fine, you can walk me to my room. Good night, everyone, love you all.”

“Glad you’re in good hands,” Chloe called out gleefully.

“I like to think very capable hands,” Alejandro said with a smile that must have caused many pairs of panties to drop over the years.

Damn good thing I was in a jumpsuit or I feared I might find my own panties on the floor. I fanned myself. Something I hadn’t missed about being home in Miami? The damn heat. And I was not talking about the NBA team.

Wishing I had grabbed another glass of champagne, I started back to my hotel room.