He flinched, gazing at me with angry eyes. Why didn’t he get it?

Then he surprised me.

“If you’re leaving BA for good, then kiss me before you go,” he said.

“What? Still making your bargains?” I said.

“Why not?” He clenched his fists. “Do you want me to pay you for it?”

And that comment crushed me, but I powered on. “I forgave you, Cuba. Where’s your forgiveness for me?”

His eyes dropped mine as the words pinged around us, and that was his answer, but I needed to hear it, so that on nights when I had to do the thing, I could remember that it didn’t matter anyway.

“Cuba? Talk to me. Tell me the truth about how you feel. For once.”

At his continued silence, I changed gears. Laying it out. “Do you still love me?”

“Love is overrated,” he said, his face hard.

I spoke in a rush, my voice skipping over the words, trying to get it all out before I changed my mind. “That loanshark Sarah borrowed from? He’s my father. I grew up watching him beat my mother, who was a hooker—” my voice caught but I yanked it back, sucking in a sharp breath. I pivoted away from him and faced the opposite wall.

“Dovey—” he said, but I help up my hand. I had to get this out.

“He wanted to punish me the same way he does everyone else. He promised me he’d make us pay. He threatened Sarah and Heather-Lynn and me with death—or worse. They are all I have, and I have to protect them. And he was following me around, watching me. How was I to know he wouldn’t use you or Spider against me. So yeah, I had to do it. He’d wanted me to sell drugs, but I chose me instead.”

He came up behind me and turned me around, his hand on my shoulder. “Drugs?” His face was pale.

I nodded. “He wanted me to pay him back by setting up a connection at BA.”

“But you couldn’t?”

I shook my head.

“You lied to me,” he muttered. “Even from the very beginning that night when the Mercedes was at your house. Why couldn’t you just trust me to help you?” he said roughly.

I shook my head. “Because you lied to me and broke my heart. Why should I trust you?”

His jaw line tightened at my words, perhaps remembering the past. But then his eyes blazed with what I interpreted as heat.

I backed away from him.

“Come here and kiss me,” he demanded, his eyes heavy. “I want to wipe that bastard’s mouth off of you.”

“No,” I said, but I wanted to. I wanted to clutch him to me and grind our mouths together until we both bled.

Since I wouldn’t go to him, he came to me, our feet automatically aligning, our chests touching. I inhaled him, my body throbbing with need.

“This means nothing,” I lied, looking up at him.

“Nothing,” he rasped, his full lips finally settling on mine.

He groaned at the first taste of me, and I grasped his shoulders and held on, giving back as good as he gave. He kissed me hard, like I needed, his mouth vicious, his tongue an explosive invader. And just like all our kisses, it wrecked me with too much heat, too much need, too much everything. It broke me up in tiny pieces and then stitched me back together again. I’d take whatever I could get, and if this furtive moment was all he had for me? So be it.

He pulled my shirt up and off, his fingers going for the clasp on my bra. It opened and he hissed, his lips finding my nipples, his hands holding them for his attention as he sucked them painfully. I jerked at his touch. So fast. So wrong. Yet right.

And after that, it got hazy. Hurry, hurry, rush, rush. We became a frenzy of skin on skin, touch on touch. We tore into each other, driven by forces we’d both denied for a year. I unsnapped his jeans and took him in my hand, and he lost it.

“Dovey,” he called out, making me hot, making me insane.

Our clothes flew off, and he worshipped me, his fingers driving me higher and higher. Like a madman, he inhaled me, traversing every single inch, memorizing my body with his hands, his tongue. I egged him on with breathy words and promises I couldn’t keep. He didn’t care. He just wanted me.

I’d like to think it was love that made him crazy for me, but it was darker. Still my hands sought him out, memorizing his bumps and ridges and muscles.

He spread our clothing out on the ground, his eyes glowing like embers, his face flushed, his eyes full of the same need I felt in myself. He pulled a condom from his jeans, put it on, and positioned me beneath him. He entered me there, his hands braced on the ground, and I gave in to it all, arching and crying out as he hitched my legs up around his hips, moving me the way he wanted.

And even though this was about punishing each other, the loft disappeared as I closed my eyes and pictured the moon and stars above us. I imagined we were at his lake house, and it was my first time. I thought of how things might have turned out differently if we’d waited to have sex. If I hadn’t been so insecure; if he’d gone home that night when she called.

Would we have made it?

“Stay with me,” he muttered, his fingers grasping my face.

“I’m always here,” I panted. “I never left.”

He grunted and took what he wanted, sliding in me, doing things I’d dreamed about, only with him. His fingers plucked my nipples to the rhythm of his thrusts, sending me over the edge. My pulse hammered and my need rose until I came hard around him, my cries echoing up into the ceiling, my sweat-slicked body pulsating.