Misery clung to her voice. “Please, Reed, don’t make me go home like this. I’m aching. I’m…God, I need this.”

The anguished plea snapped the last thread of his control. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. He just released a wild growl and pushed her against the wall again. He shoved one leg between her thighs, his groin throbbing to the point of agony.

“Damn you,” he hissed out.

She gasped when his mouth latched onto hers again. Reed’s brain turned to mush as he kissed her. All he could concentrate on was the softness of her lips, her intoxicating taste, her sweet vanilla scent. One trembling hand cupped her firm ass to keep her tight against him, while the other drifted up to her chest so he could squeeze one full breast. Her tank top was enticingly thin, her bra even thinner, and he groaned when he felt the outline of her puckered nipple poking into his palm.

“I’m gonna come,” he choked out. “Any second now. I can’t stop it.”

Darcy shuddered, her tortured moan heating the air between them. “Neither can I. I’m too close…I’m…Oh!”

Pure male satisfaction slammed into him as she cried out in bliss, shaking in his arms as she found release. Her orgasm triggered his own, the force of it nearly knocking him off his feet. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling the addictive fragrance of her shampoo as bone-melting pleasure pulsed inside him. Jets of release soaked his boxers, but still he kept moving, rubbing his c**k against her, digging his fingers into her ass and breast.

It took him a while to remember how to make his brain and limbs work. At least a full minute before he was coherent enough to unglue his lower body from hers. He leaned his forehead against hers, ragged puffs of air leaving his mouth and rustling her hair.

Darcy’s eyes were huge. Swimming with confusion, amazement, and worst of all, anticipation for more.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he wheezed. “We can’t…this can’t…damn it, we shouldn’t have done that.”

The guilt hit him hard and fast, like a flash flood bearing down on a village without warning.

He’d made out with his best friend’s girl.

He’d dry humped her, for f**k’s sake.

And he’d climaxed.

Jesus. Forget the fact that in order to get up to his office and change his pants he’d have to walk through the club with a wet stain on his jeans. He could endure that humiliation.

But fooling around with AJ’s ex?

He would never, ever be able to come back from this.

“Reed,” she started. Then her mouth closed, and the same paralyzing guilt he was currently feeling seized her pretty face. “Oh my God, you’re right. We shouldn’t have done that.” Her breathing became unstable. “We’re terrible people.”

Although he wholeheartedly agreed with her about the sheer crappiness of their actions, he refused to let her take the blame for any of it.

“No,” he said sharply. “This is on me. It’s my fault.”

Her eyes blazed. “No, it’s not. We both did this.” She stumbled to the side, effectively putting some much-needed distance between them. “I have to go. I shouldn’t have come here tonight.”

“Darcy—”

She dashed through the curtain like an Olympic sprinter, leaving him alone in the alcove.

Rather than chase after her, Reed sucked a rush of oxygen into his lungs. Christ, AJ was going to kill him.

And yet his best friend’s wrath would be nothing compared to the self-directed anger and loathing bubbling inside him right now.

A helpless groan slipped out of his mouth. There was no way to ignore the truth—he hadn’t changed at all. Clearly he was still the same screw-up he’d always been. A man who acted on impulse, whose good judgment flew out the window the second he decided he wanted something, and to hell with the consequences.

But there would be consequences to what he’d done tonight. A whole lot of them.

And not the good kind.

Chapter Four

Four days later, Reed strode into Paddy’s Corner Pub in the heart of Southie and reluctantly made his way to the booth where AJ was already seated.

By some miracle, he’d managed to put off this confrontation for days. It helped that Sin was closed on the first three days of the week, which meant not having to see AJ at work, but when his friend had called earlier and cashed in on Reed’s offer to go for drinks, he’d had no choice but to say yes.

The pub was one of his favorites in the city, a total man cave with simple wooden booths, plenty of dartboards and pool tables, and blinking neon beer signs hanging on the walls. And luckily, every patron in the bar tonight was male. Reed had been worried that AJ might want to chat up some girls, but after his explosive encounter with Darcy this weekend, the thought of scoring a hook-up was about as appealing as dyeing his hair pink.

Though if AJ’s drawn features and beach bum attire were any indication, the guy wasn’t in a lady-killer mood tonight, either.

Reed raised a brow at his friend’s threadbare T-shirt and ratty old jeans with an honest-to-God hole in the knee. AJ was usually a sharper dresser than that, and Reed couldn’t stop himself from making a smartass remark. “Jeez. Are you wearing the latest designs from the hobo collection?”

AJ sighed. “Dude, I haven’t done laundry in days. I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here.”

Keegan, the sole waiter at Paddy’s, approached the booth. He was a former boxer with a full red beard and a crooked nose that had been broken at least a dozen times.