Page 123 of Playing With Danger

“Not getting any?” Shiloh rightly guessed.

“I get plenty. I don’t get to give and I don’t get the main event but I get everything else.”

I had no reason to be grumpy. Valentine was generous with orgasms. He stayed up late and talked me through the bad dreams. He held me every night. He loved me and told me often. He thought I was hot, sexy, beautiful, smart, and he gave that to me daily. But he would not let me return the favor. Not physically.

I needed more. I needed to get back what we had. I needed to give him what he needed.

“You didn’t see what he saw,” Liberty gently said. “You didn’t see him. His whole world ended, Sophie. He couldn’t find your pulse and I swear I saw him die right there. Your body needed time to heal. And maybe he needed distance from seeing you…” She stopped and shook her head.

She didn’t need to finish.

He saw me covered in blood.

We’d talked about it. I made him tell me what happened. It wasn’t pleasant, he’d retreated and tried to stonewall. But he’d given in and given us what I knew we both needed.

But it had been three months. I wasn’t healing, I was healed.

“Thank you for…everything,” I whispered.

I knew she caught my meaning when she softly returned, “You’re welcome, Soph.”

Yeah, she knew I knew she was the one who shot my crazy-ass sister before she could stab me again. Or stab Valentine when he jumped on me, prepared to take the blade.

“Gotta shower real quick, baby, then I’ll hit the store if you start the potatoes.”

We were having grilled steaks and twice-baked potatoes later. The potatoes needed to be baked early so they could cool before I doctored them up into fluffy, cheesy, calorie-ridden yumminess. And our house was on the way to the butcher Valentine used so he’d stopped to shower.

I tossed my purse on the chair and watched him hit the stairs. Actually, I was doing more than watching, I was salivating. He was hot and sweaty and I was over him putting me off. I understood what Liberty had told me. He did need distance from seeing me covered in blood, but those images were never going to be completely wiped from his memory. The same as I’d never forget his dull, haunted eyes when I came to in the hospital. I’d never forget his pain as he sat next to me while I gave my statement to the police. Those things were forever embedded—they were a part of us. We’d never get rid of them, but I was not going to allow them to define us.

I needed my man mindless. I needed him to take me with him to a place only he could take me.

Before I followed him, I pulled my phone out of my purse and called Hayden.

Since we were back to normal he answered my call instead of sending me to voice mail, which had been annoying and frustrating.

“Yo.”

“Change of plans. I need another hour. Come over at five instead of four.”

“Everything good?”

“It’ll be great when I hang up on you and join my man in the shower in the hopes I can seduce him and get myself a happy ending.”

“You know when I used to tell you to go out and have wild monkey sex that didn’t mean I wanted the actual details.”

“Deal with it, Winslow. And for the record I’m not giving you details. But I’ll confirm it’s wild?—”

“See you at five.”

I smiled and tossed my phone on the couch.

Then I joined my man in the shower.

Christ, she was killing me.

How in the fuck had I let her talk me into this?

“Soph,” I groaned.

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