Lucy Lennox

He’d said it was only for tonight. We’d both said it. But how could I let him go when he was the only person besides my sister who seemed to see through my bullshit?

Wanting to sleep with him? Yes. Wanting to hold him and care about him? No thanks. Nico was a proven flight risk. An angry, surly man who had a history of choosing himself over others. The kind of person who could pawn off his own niece onto a pair of strangers so he could go back to his own self-centered life. He wasn’t a kind, sweet man but an instigator with a chip on his shoulder against all things Hobie.

“Come with me now voluntarily, or I will throw your sexy ass over my shoulder and take you by force. Is that what you want, Nico?”

Tonight he’d let that control falter. He’d let me slip through the cracks. But that didn’t mean when morning came he wouldn’t revert to who he was before. Seal the cracks, shore up his defenses, double down on his need for distance.

I felt tears threaten again. I let them come. Because the moment was too perfect, too real, and I wanted it to last forever.

I remembered my long-standing vow never to trust my initial lust reaction to a hot guy.