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The frustration is gone. Now he wears a patchwork mask over sadness.

“No matter how much I want to have sex with you, it wouldn’t be right. Not after what you’ve just been through.” He takes another step toward me, eyes imploring. “Let me be here for you in every other way while you heal. And I swear to God, if you still want me down the line, I’m all yours.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

wilder

When the bedroom door closes behind her, I fold forward and release a silent scream into my fists.

I don’t know if that was the best, most selfless thing I’ve ever done in my life, or a decision I’ll regret until the day I die. Either way, it seriously fucking sucked.

Silently cursing myself and the universe at large, I retreat into my bedroom and close the door. The room is dim, only a small bedside light on. Before I’d given in to impulse and knocked on her door, I’d been reading some dry-as-hell philosophy book my dad gave me for Christmas, hoping to bore myself to sleep. And that was after back-to-back orgasms in the shower failed to exhaust me.

My body vibrates with frenetic energy as I sit on thebed and lower my head into my hands. Thumbs on my temples, I massage as I count my inhales and exhales.

It doesn’t fucking help.

All I see is her endearing, stammering nervousness. Her fear and courage. The lascivious gleam in her mismatched eyes when she finally let herself look below my waist.

Mostly, though, I see the last, stricken look she gave me before she closed the door. She thinks I rejected her. Ididreject her.

“What have I done?” I mumble.

She’s probably going to leave, might be packing right now.

The thought brings me to my feet right as my bedroom door swings open and slams against the wall. Flash frozen, I stare at Evangeline as she strides toward me.

When she’s a few feet away and still moving like she’s on a warpath, I open my mouth to say fuck-knows-what.

“No,” she snaps, jabbing her index finger into my chest. “You said your piece, now I get to say mine. Two months ago, you told me I was powerful. A ‘force to be reckoned with.’ Was that a lie?”

I croak, “Of course not.”

She waves a paper in my face until I take it. Anglingit toward the light, I see what looks like a letter from a doctor’s office. But it’s in Spanish.

“What is this?” I ask, but then I turn it over and see a series of familiar-looking words, all of which haveNegativoin bold next to them.

“That’s my clean bill of health because I don’t want to use a condom. As long as you can produce a similar report. Can you?”

“Yes, but?—”

“Good. I’m still on birth control.”

She pulls the paper out of my hand, folds it into a square, and shoves it in a pocket of her sweatpants.

Then she pulls her shirt off.

And she’s not wearing a bra.

Pressure instantly engulfs my cock. I’m so hard there’s a notable pulse in my shaft, and the soft flannel of my pants has turned to sandpaper.

Evangeline’s breasts are every bit as perfect as I remember, teardrop-shaped and fuller on the bottom. Her nipples sit high like offerings of dusty pink hard candy. Now they’re even more delicious-looking, each framed by two small, silver balls begging to be flicked, licked, and sucked.

I close my eyes. Open them.

Nope. Not dreaming.

“I want you to prove it, Wilder,” she says sharply.

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