“Yeah,” I say, hating the fact that he’s audibly turned the lock. How embarrassing. How prudent. “I’m sorry I’m weird to you.”

“That’s okay.” On the other side of the door, Tom is getting naked. Come on, Maison de Destin. Collapse your walls. “You forget, I’ve known you a long time.”

“And I’ve been weird to you the entire time.”

“Yeah.” There’s a banging noise, then a blast, and he yelps. “These pipes.” I can hear the shower curtain flutter. I slide down the wall and Patty looks like she has a twin sister. I’ll keep one when he leaves.

“What a fucking lucky drain.” The wine has knocked my legs out and maybe I should be worried. I didn’t have much. Am I dying? My heart feels steady, ticking away valiantly. I look at the two little faces next to me. “Patties, that shower doesn’t know how good life is right now.”

Let’s review how this night has turned out.

Tom Valeska is putting his flawless face under the spray of my shower, suds sliding down, rinsing his gold skin. Muscles dripping. I have seen him climb out of pools roughly ten billion times by now, so I think I know what he looks like. Almost.

I pull up the bottom of my top and blot the sheen from my face and neck.

He’s got legs for days and a beefy butt. Straddle-worthy hips. Those shoulders? Streaming with water now. The shower’s off, and now one of Loretta’s towels is probably around his waist. Those towels barely wrap around me.

I am having mental images that need to be taped shut inside that box of dildos, like it’s a cursed sarcophagus.

I don’t think this can be happening. I’ve fallen asleep on the couch and am having a delirious, dehydrated sex dream. But if this were a dream, the door would be ajar, steam curling out to me. If he asked me to come in right now, I would pull the pins out of the hinges with my teeth, spitting them on the floor.

I can say this with absolute certainty: No man has ever made me want to lick a foggy bathroom tile before. “Megan, Megan,” I whisper to myself, icy-white diamonds behind my eyelids as I drag myself to my feet.

In my room, I scrub my eyes with makeup wipes and change into leggings and an old band T-shirt. I’ll let my teeth decay tonight. When Tom appears in the doorway, wearing another tight T-shirt and sweatpants, I’m starting to doubt reality again.

“You’re forgetting something.” He points a thumb next door. “That room.” His jaw tenses and he swallows a yawn. My hospitality leaves a lot to be desired. “Where do you want me?”

“In my bed. Not with me! I’m on the couch tonight.” I eye my bedside drawer. “Wait, let me burn the room down real quick.”

He laughs like he’s got my number. “I’ll take the couch.”

“You can’t fit on it. Here.” I pull the blankets back, take him by the wrists, and toss him down. It’s weirdly easy. Shouldn’t he be difficult to manhandle and throw down? Maybe I’m super strong. Maybe he’s light as a feather.

Or, most realistically, he’s exhausted. But still, he gives me a look that makes my inner thighs quiver. And when he pulls up the comforter, it’s low on his hips. He looks like a beautiful big Viking, even under candy stripes.

“I shouldn’t.” He leans back against the headboard and contemplates my nightstand with sideways eyes. I don’t feel too worried. This here is a cast-iron moral compass. Mine, on the other hand? Not so much. I need to get out of this room. Out of this country.

“Jamie would kill me if I let you sleep on the couch or the floor. Consider me the hostess with the mostess.”

I sound incredibly drunk. How strange; I’m starting to feel very sober indeed. I dig around in the big wooden chest at the foot of the bed, searching for a quilt. I hear an uneasy mattress squeak. The sound seems to come from his soul.

I tsk at him. “What? Sleeping in my bed isn’t cheating on Megan. And they’re fresh sheets, before your mind goes there.” In my peripheral vision, he regards the empty space where Vincent would go with slack-jawed horror.

I avoid looking in his direction as I snatch up a pillow. I don’t have to look to know that Tom fits my king-sized bed like a dream. One of those dreams you defile yourself after.

“Okay, good night.” I retreat backward down the hall, knocking my elbows on everything, and fall onto the couch.

I cocoon myself, knowing it’ll be icy in this room by morning, and then I decide to set myself an impossible little target.

It’s nothing too aspirational. It doesn’t involve my finding the courage to loosen my fingernails from the edge of this couch and walk back down the hall. Skin-on-skin-on-sweat physical contact isn’t in the realm of possibility.

Not now, not ever, not Tom.

I thought that having just 1 percent of Tom Valeska’s heart feels like hitting the jackpot, but I think I was wrong. It’s now not enough.

I’m going to make him 2 percent mine.

Chapter 6

I didn’t sleep much last night, because I kept thinking about that time a long time ago when Tom told me exactly how he felt, and I didn’t understand. That time when I was possibly at 100 percent and didn’t know it.

I was eighteen, putting black platforms on over my fishnets to go hang out with a bad crowd, and Tom had leaned on my door frame and asked me not to go out. It had been no secret that he didn’t approve of all the black-clad guys and how I stayed out all night. I thought it was typical Valeska-in-the-snowdrifts stuff. Tug, tug, away from danger.

In my careless way, I’d snapped at him. Why not? Why shouldn’t I go?

Tom told me in a steady, reasonable voice: Because I love you. And I’d replied without thought or gravitas, I know, because I’d always felt it. How could I not? How many times had he saved me? I’d have to have been a moron to not know it. To this day I know he loves me, in that old, stitched-into-my-family way.

Turns out, I know wasn’t the right reply.

He’d rusted over with embarrassment and left. He wouldn’t turn around as he walked down the front stairs, through our front gate. He wouldn’t stop even as I chased him across the street and he shut the door in my face.

That was the very first time I tore up a once-in-a-lifetime offer.

I bailed on my friends and I went to Loretta’s house instead. When I told her what had happened, she said, I saw that coming. What else would I expect from a fortune-teller? She shook her head. That’s not what she meant.

That boy would take a bullet for you.

We sat outside and shared a joint, and it was a thrill. Don’t tell your father! How’ d I birth such a prude? It grows in the earth, for God’s sake. She told me about her first husband, way before she met Grandpa. I never knew she had been married twice, so I was gobsmacked.

I was just a kid, she mused, eyes narrowed on her inhale. Maybe if I’ d met him ten years later … it was a terrible mistake. I hurt him badly, because I was too young and immature to love him right. I still regret it. Let yourself grow up and live your life. You’re a wild one, just like me.

I’d laughed and said there was no risk of me getting married. This was just me and Tom kissing, if it didn’t feel weird.

Loretta hadn’t been remotely amused. He loves you more than that. I can see you don’t take this seriously.