Page 19 of Lessons in Heartbreak

I smiled, but it was tight at the edges. In fact, I’d felt tight and edgy ever since walking away from that bench, leaving Griffin King sprawled on it like it was a freaking throne.

Because I had a healthy sense of vanity, I had managed not to look back until I’d cleared the library doors, finally allowing myself a peek around the corner to see what he’d do.

For a few minutes, he sat there, staring at the creek, that big, muscled arm still stretched along the back of the bench. Then he stood, unfolding his body with the kind of unhurried grace that you couldn’t fake. That was a man who was comfortable in his skin, and I watched him walk away with a pinprick of foreboding digging into the back of my mind.

The research started immediately.

For as much as I’d watched those boys when I was younger, I had never really thought about looking them up. Why would I?

But the moment my search engine caught wind of their names, I sat at that computer with my jaw hanging open. Apparently this was the stuff I missed when I delegated the periodicals section to Kenny.

The King brothers weren’t just talented, and they weren’t just successful—they were famous. Article after article had my eyes widening.

Griffin King: The Next Defensive MVP? Behind His Quest to Break the Offensive Streak

Barrett King Retires at 28: The Hidden Dark Side of the League’s Head-Injury Problem

The Brain vs. the Brawn: The Biggest Showdown in Football Happens This Weekend. Which King Brother Will Come Out on Top?

Marital woes overshadow Barrett King’s triumphant second year of coaching. Is his playboy brother part of the problem? Our body language expert dissects their tense on-field exchange.

Sexiest player in the league? Griffin King breaks down why he’s not sure marriage is in the cards.

That last article came with a few photographs—practically indecent photographs that answered at least one of my questions.

Griffin—as one might imagine, if they wanted to imagine such a thing—looked incredible naked. The first photo, bigger than the other two, featured him standing in a dimly lit locker room, holding a football over his groin. The rest was skin. Skin and honed musclesand a dangerously attractive facial expression that had me pressing my thighs together.

Honestly, his body should’ve been in a museum somewhere.

The bend of muscles under flawless golden skin, curves over his shoulders, stacked squares on his stomach and the mouthwatering cut of the V-shaped muscles below his abs, the impossibly rounded biceps and the veins roping along his forearm where his big hand held the ball—it was all just a bit much, if you asked me.

Probably why I stared at it a little too long, but that was completely irrelevant.

“Whatcha staring at?” Lo asked, leaning closer to my desk.

I snapped the laptop shut. “Nothing. Just doing some research.”

She arched an eyebrow. “So ... the hooker.”

“Could you say that just a little louder?” I hissed, looking frantically past the door of my office. It was, quite blessedly, empty. “Theescortis probably back at his hotel. It didn’t ... the meeting didn’t happen. Someone I knew from when I was younger showed up, and I got all ...” I waved my hands next to my head.

Lo smiled. “I hate when that happens.”

“It threw me off,” I admitted. “Then I really started thinking about how it looked that I was hiring someone to help me build my confidence around men. Who needs that?”

“You don’t,” she said easily. “Many people live very happily without romantic companionship. It’s only a problem if it bothers you.”

Did it?

There was no one presuming on my time. If I wanted to lie in bed and watch Jane Austen movies all weekend? No one could stop me. If I wanted to read for days or go out to eat with friends and live on cereal for a week straight or ... or ...

The thoughts fizzled there.

Yes. It bothered me.

When I lay alone in my bed, nothing but the sound of my own heart to distract me from my thoughts, I wanted to know how it felt. All of it. The sweet parts and the simple parts and the dirty parts too.

I didn’t need it all the time, mind you. The thought of man sounds and smells and ... everything in my house made my nose wrinkle. He could stay in his own place, thank you very much. It was about possessing the knowledge. A reference point for comparison.

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