“Wait here. I’ll clean you up.”

“The bed is broken,” I reminded him. “This is not a movie. I’m not going to luxuriously rest on a bed that’s tilted down.”

He rolled his eyes at me theatrically. “Cramping my style.”

He lifted me, honeymoon-style, and carried me to his en-suite bathroom. In there, he hoisted me on the counter, took a towel, rinsed it in hot water, and cleaned between my legs. I watched him the entire time. There was no way he did that with all of his hookups.

Stop thinking about them. Stop obsessing over the many girls he’s been with. There are more to come, and anyway, it’s none of your business.

“You handled things in a really badass way today,” I said after a while.

The silence was comfortable, but watching his face as his eyes focused on cleaning my most intimate places unraveled me. I still couldn’t believe I’d slept with someone who wasn’t a steady boyfriend of sorts.

Hunter shook his head. “I learned from a young age that women are not here to stay. My parents sent me to boarding school when I was six. I had nannies coming out of my ass whenever I was home. I don’t think my mom consciously knew she wasn’t there for me, but that doesn’t change the fact that she wasn’t. The nannies were interchangeable and frequently replaced. Da made it a point to change them every season so I wouldn’t learn to rely on a woman. I think it scared him to think one of his boys wouldn’t be fully independent. He did it with Cillian, too. Only difference was, Kill was born with a soul ten shades darker than a normal human—his father’s son through and through. We both grew up learning that women were disposable, born to serve us, and sire heirs. Da cheated on Mom. Mom cheated on Da. Kill…fuck knows what goes through his head while he samples his endless string of meaningless flings, but he knows how to do it quietly.”

I touched his face, urging him to say more. I could practically hear the wheels in his brain turn as he thought about it.

“What Da didn’t take into consideration was that I wasn’t Cillian. I wasn’t born a cold-blooded, self-serving degenerate with a taste for pain. So I went for the closest thing—a poor imitation. But it always came off without that Cillian Fitzpatrick shine. My flings are messy and public and, as it turns out, really fucking expensive.”

I laughed at that last part, cupping my mouth. Hunter let loose a tired grin, throwing the used towel onto the floor. The housekeeper would wash it when she came tomorrow morning, just like this was a hotel.

Maybe that’s how Hunter had always felt—like a guest, even in his own apartment.

I hopped down, pressing my hands to his chest. My whole body was sore. From the waist down, I felt like I’d been wrecked. From the waist up, every inch of my skin was covered with a red rash from his unforgiving stubble.

“Thanks.” I kissed the corner of his mouth.

“For what?”

“For being real. I know it’s hard.”

I started to my room, resisting the urge to invite him to my bed, seeing as his was broken. Never mind that we broke it together. I decided to be very careful with Hunter when it came to things that could be viewed as clingy or too relationship-y. Not just for his sake, but for mine, too.

The minute I stepped over his bathroom’s threshold, though, his hand snaked and caught me by the waist.

“Where do you think you’re going, aingeal dian? If you can still walk, that means we’re not finished yet.”

He carried me to my own bed and did unspeakable things to my body three more times that night.

Then fell asleep on top of me, our limbs tangled together.

And when we woke up the next morning, true to his promise, it was almost impossible to walk with the soreness between my legs. It felt like I was peeing fire, and I actually feared to do a number two.

But what I worried about most was my heart, which felt ten pounds heavier, and so swollen I almost tripped over my own feet.

The next six weeks passed quickly.

I was drowning in work and essays, but never missed a chance to fuck my roommate, who—it was safe to admit now—had turned out to be the best roommate in the history of roommates.

Just to be on the safe side, I didn’t get my bed replaced. It made slipping into her bed every night seem more practical and less…whatever. Even after Sailor got back to training full-time and started waking up early again, I still found time to fit in a morning quickie, even if it meant waking up with her.

It really took the edge off the rest of the day.

Bonus points: Da didn’t seem to be pissed at Sailor after that bullshit dinner, so there was no immediate threat to my inheritance. While he was careful not to talk to me, and limited our already-restricted communication, Sailor told me he’d been emailing her more frequently and had even used the term of endearment “sweetheart” (insert throwing up emoji here).

“He said he respected the way I stood up for you and gave him a piece of my mind, but at the same time, he knew I was smart enough not to get involved with you,” she told me the day after that dinner, ironically minutes after I’d used her thighs as ear-warmers and eaten her out for twenty minutes.

My lips were still glistening with her juices when I laughed, throwing one arm behind my head.

“Maybe I’m not that smart.” She nuzzled her head in the crook of my arm as her fingers played with my chest hair. I fucking loved when she did that. I didn’t even know why. Sometimes she tugged at them real hard, but it was an intimate gesture no fling had ever done.