Tom chooses his words carefully. “You want my opinion on your fuck buddy? I’ve got a sledgehammer in the truck. I’d be glad to show him how it works.”

A spiky thrill unfurls inside me. “See. You always tell the truth. I’m going to do the same. How the fuck isn’t Megan just hugging you permanently? You’re one hell of a hugger.” Her name aloud brings me back to the scene on the footpath. “Why’d you bother lying to Vince before?”

He knows exactly what I mean. “I didn’t lie.”

“Of course not. You never lie. Except … Megan. You haven’t broken up.” I pull apart the pizza crust with my fingers. “He’s hardly going to feel threatened, or care, if you live here with me.”

“We did. We broke up.”

“Hilarious. Really funny. Quit fucking with me.” I offer a corner of crust to Patty and dust my hands on my pants. I wait, and he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me. “But you’re going to force me to be your wedding photographer. You’ll ask, and I’ll say yes. You’ll both be sickeningly photogenic.” I put a hand on my hip. I glare at him but he doesn’t crack. Is he serious? “Exactly how long has my phone been in the toilet?”

“We broke up about four months ago. I told your family that I’d tell you in person.”

“But it’s just a break. You’ll get her back.”

“No,” he says gently. “I won’t.”

“But you want her back. I’ll help you.” He just shakes his head. And I briefly lose my mind.

I dodge sideways toward the back door—I need air. I need sky and stars and cold; I need to sit on the rings of Saturn dangling my boots into the black universe to be alone, but he steps easily around me, and now I’m the one leaning on the sink.

“Stay here.”

“Are you okay?” I want to grab him by the shoulders and check for physical damage. I’ll crack open his chest to check how bad his heart looks.

“Me?” He thinks for a second. “Everyone just asks if she’s okay.”

“Yeah, because she’s just lost you. Are you okay? Do I need to go and beat the shit out of her?”

I notice one of the cabinets above me is ajar. For something to do, I put a hand up to close it. When my fingers hook into the tiny handle, the web-thin hinge breaks. Now I’m standing here with a broken door in my hand. I lean it against my leg and try to look cool, but I’m practically auditioning for SmackDown.

Unwillingly, he laughs.

I am going to beat Megan with this door until she realizes what a fuckup she’s made. He knows exactly what I’m thinking.

“You’re always so vicious, DB.” A smile quirks at the edge of his mouth as he looks at the damage I just inflicted. My viciousness thrills him. “How do you know it’s not me that deserves the beating?” He takes the cupboard door from me. More to himself, he says, “This is going roughly how I thought it would.”

“Is your heart broken?” I reach up and yank off the next cupboard door along with a satisfying crack. I hand it to him.

“It’s … sore. Not broken.” He looks up at the next cupboard door along. Something like fuck it crosses his mind, and he breaks off a door himself.

“Who ended it?” Crack. Another door gone.

“Well … I’ve been trying to work it out. After eight years, it was kind of a joint decision, like most things. I’m sorry. I know you really liked her. Actually, no. I never could tell if you liked her.”

I pull off one of the lower cabinet doors and try to break it in half over my knee. I can’t do anything else with this energy. He’s single. The first time in eight years. And I need carpet burn on my knees and a wall against my back, and to lick the shower spray off him and feed him cold pizza in the middle of the night so he keeps up his strength.

Megan is a red stain behind my combine harvester, and that’s the extent of my pity for her.

He tries to ease me with a hand on my shoulder. “Why are you doing this?”

“If I don’t do this, I’ll do something else.” Something so deeply irreversible we won’t be able to make eye contact when we pass each other in the nursing home hall. Fuck it. That complete honesty I pledged? Here it comes. Up my throat and out loud. One big terrifying blurt.

“Are you going to put your hands on me, or what?”

Chapter 10

Tom looks at his own hands, holding a cabinet door. He tries to compose a sentence for a long time. Finally, he manages, “Excuse me?”

“ ’Cause I swear, I need your hands more than I’ve ever needed anything.”

I wipe my hand over the back of my mouth. Fuck it. He’s a big boy, he can handle pizza breath. My body is taking over. Everything is boiling up out of me—years of stolen looks and tight T-shirts and that bone-deep certainty that the animal in him wants me, too.

How else could he always make me feel this way? Brighter, darker, hungrier? No one else has me standing in a cold shower or breaking down a kitchen with my bare hands. I want him crying with pleasure. I want to be the only one he can think of.

“Take your shirt off. Shoes off. I’ll do the rest.” Lust has broken my voice box; I’m raspy. I point at my bedroom door. “Bed. Get in it.” I’m looking at the solid square of his belt buckle.

“Are you out of your mind?” He’s stunned.

When I reach for him like a creepy sex zombie, he steps away, almost cowering against the fridge—a huge man terrified of my outstretched fingertips. He reaches up and pulls down the broken retractable blind from the window and throws it on the floor between us, as if it could possibly keep me back.

“Darcy, are you joking?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” I watch him swallow and his jaw tenses, the tendons like ribbons. I think I look like I’m a predator. “I’m not joking. I just told you, I’m telling the truth from now on. I want you, bad. I feel how much you want me. So show me what you got.” My breath is puffing out of me, light and fast.

“DB, you have lost it. Quit messing with me.”

Holly’s right. I’m not romantic. I’ll fix it later. “Tom Valeska, get in me.”

He lets out a shaky breath and there’s a light of fear in his eyes. I’m a scary bitch. He’s a bashful sweetheart with pink cheeks. Valeska is nowhere in sight. The first moment of doubt hits me, and I narrow my eyes at his face. Seriously? I thought I’d have teeth on me by now. “Well?”

He pushes at his belt buckle like it’s uncomfortable. “I’m sorry you’ve had a shock. I should have told you as soon as I arrived.”

He turns his waist away and I’m certain. He’s got an iron erection, and it’s for me. I’m having it, pressing in an inch at a time until I can’t even blink. This house can go to hell.

The look in my eyes makes his breath crack in his lungs. I don’t need a mirror to know I must look fucking intense.

I’ll give him a second to compose himself. “Why didn’t you? Jesus, Tom. I’ve been making a complete ass of myself. How many times did I bring her up, and you said nothing?” I go to the pantry door. The big fucker. It’s all I can do.