He murmured, “I’m trying to be dashing here to distract you from your sister.”

I jerked my head up and down. My hand lifted to rest on his chest and I felt his cement-like strength there. I absorbed it because, to be honest, talking to Mena had taken some of my fight. “Thanks. I need that.”

“Should I ask how it went or do you really want to be distracted?”

I lifted a shoulder. My eyes lingered on his lips. One touch from them and all feelings would be wiped away. He could make me forget. Bryce used to be able to do that. He was hot and passionate. He made everything disappear and melt away, but then it came back. It always came back, but it was different with Corrigan. Corrigan transformed the world for me. He lifted me up. He spun me around. He made the world look like a beautiful painting. I was craving that feeling again. He could make everything feel all right. Even Mena. Everything would be all right with her. I could handle it, if Corrigan was at my side.

“Sheldon?” His hand lifted to my cheek and he traced his thumb over my skin, a gentle caress.

I let out a soft sigh. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

The corner of his mouth lifted up. “Yes. This morning. I think you told all our neighbors, too.”

I laughed and moved into him. Resting my forehead against his, I breathed out, “I do. I love you.”

His voice dropped to a husky whisper. He said back, “I love you, too.”

“You make me feel like a pansy-ass girl.” I wrinkled my nose. “I was way more hardcore with Bryce. What the hell, Raimler? You’re making me weak?” My tone was teasing, but my god, I was addicted to him. I think I always had been. A few words from Corrigan had always been needed to make me feel better.

He tightened his hold on my hip and jerked me farther against him, aligning our hips so there wasn’t an inch of space between us. He leaned down and nipped at my lips, grinding into me. “If I do, then you do the opposite for me. Trust me, Jeneve, I’m rock hard right now.”

I laughed and swept a hand down between us. He sucked in a breath as I slid my hand inside his jeans. I didn’t go farther. I held my hand there, my fingers touching underneath his waistband, and I let them linger.

Corrigan laughed hoarsely. “Yep. I’m now like a rocket. Thanks, Jeneve.”

Grazing his lips with mine, I teased, “Maybe we should head home and do something about that, huh?”

He groaned and pulled his lips back, but resting his forehead to mine, he looked at me, peering right into my eyes, his green eyes suddenly sober. “We have that dinner premiere thing tonight.”

I let out a matching groan and lifted my head back. “For real?”

He nodded. “You promised Steele we’d go.”

My hands lifted from him and raked through my hair. I shook my head. Corrigan’s hand fell back to my hips. I said, “I totally forgot Denton was opening his restaurant tonight.”

“Bryce is bringing his new girlfriend, too.”

A litany of curses spewed from me then. “Way to really make me not want to go.”

He laughed, his eyes scanning my face, then falling and resting on my lips. “Bryce said he really likes this one so you have to be nice to her.”

I snorted. “Nope. No way. Once he finds a girl who can handle me, then maybe I’ll give my approval. Until then, sorry, buddy. I’m not holding in my bitchiness so he can keep getting screwed by some weak-ass wannabe.”

“Sheldon.”

“Not going to happen.” My eyes flashed in warning. “I’m protective of him. That’ll never change. You know that.” Bryce would always hold a special place in my heart. Corrigan knew this and understood this.

He said, “You’ve consistently started to get meaner and meaner to them since the first one.”

I shrugged. I didn’t care. Things had been tense and awkward during Mena’s trial. There was supposed to have been time apart once my decision had been made known, but it hadn’t happened. Because of the trial and all the legalities since Bryce had been there when Corrigan flipped her wrist so she stabbed herself, the whole idea of giving the other person space from me hadn’t happened. Instead, Corrigan and I figured out our new relationship only when Bryce wasn’t around. When he was there, things had gone back to normal, how the three of us were all only friends. When the trial ended, Bryce did go away then and six months ago, he resurfaced with a new girl at his side. Corrigan and I ran into him by accident at Denton’s newest movie premiere, but we should’ve known. Of course, Denton would invite Bryce, and of course, he would invite Corrigan and me. But seeing the model attached to Bryce’s side had been hard at first.

Bryce was my first love. A new wave of sadness and grief came over me that night. I didn’t love Bryce the way I loved Corrigan, but that had been another night when I started to relinquish my hold on him. He would find another girl. I knew this. He wasn’t mine anymore, but it still stung at moments. Corrigan had pressed me when I grew quiet that night. I hadn’t known how to talk about this with him. I was with him, but mourning another guy? But he understood. Corrigan always understood and he said to me that night, “Bryce is yours. He’s mine, too. He’s family. You let him go a long time ago, but you still care for him. You still love him. Those feelings, as strong as they were for you, won’t disappear overnight. I’m still here, no matter what. I understand, Sheldon. It would be the same thing if you had chosen him. You wouldn’t be able to stop loving me in one night. He would’ve understood that, too.”

“It makes me the worst person in the world.”

He pulled me to his chest and whispered, cradling my head to his shoulder, “It makes you a person who loved. That’s all it does.”

And the tears had started, but he was right. I didn’t love Bryce the way I loved Corrigan, but releasing him took a while . . . The more girls he brought around us, the more territorial I grew, but I was to the point where I only wanted the right girl for him. If she wasn’t worthy of him, she wasn’t going to get him. I wouldn’t let him have anyone less the best.

Hearing that he had another girl coming, I only gave Corrigan a smile. “We’ll see how she handles me.”

He shook his head, rolling his eyes, but he couldn’t stop a grin. “You need to let him find the girl, not you.”