“I understand.” There were suits that would cover it completely, but even I wasn’t emotionally dumb enough to realize the general sentiment. Her whole body repulsed her.

Jesse released a disbelieving laugh, rolling her eyes so I wouldn’t see the tears hanging on her lower eyelashes, “It’s disgusting, huh? I know.”

“Don’t,” I said, wanting to elaborate but not wanting to admit aloud what I was already beginning to come to terms with—she was gorgeous in the way a lot of girls were, but the demons inside her made her beautiful in a unique, once-in-a-lifetime way.

“But it’s the truth.” She bit her inner cheek, wiping her eyes quickly. The boom of the bass outside hammered against the door. “My Own Summer” by the Deftones. “That’s why I’m not really mad about you not wanting me. I get it, Ba…Roman. I get why you wouldn’t want messy and scarred.”

What the fuck was she talking about?

“Who said I…”

“Did you enjoy whoever you were with last night? And the night before? You must like the variety.” She sniffed, jerking her chin up. I’d actually bailed on yesterday’s client in favor of getting high with Beck and watching porn. But, of course, I couldn’t admit it, because then she’d ask why, and then I’d have to answer, and the answer was very fucking clear, even to a liar like me.

She was still sitting on that crate when I turned around, walking toward a tall table where the boxes of coffee capsules stood.

“You want the truth?” I asked, bracing my hands on the surface. Now I needed a goddamn shield to talk to her without fucking her. Great. Things were going just great.

A sound that was closer to a yelp but supposed to be a groan left her mouth. “I’m definitely getting tired of the lies.”

“I want your ass. Happy? Want it with the scars. With the fucked-up, tragic story. With every fiber of my body. I want to fuck you, and own you, and bruise you, and save you. But I can’t do any of those things. Why? Because you’d hate me afterwards, and that’s a fact, not a speculation. Mark my words. For reasons I can’t tell you right now, fucking you will break you and ruin me. And I may be a bastard, but I’m not the fucking villain.”

That was the closest to the truth I was willing to offer her. “So, here’s the truth, Snowflake—whatever this is, we’re going to have to fight it.”

I was so tempted to say fuck this shit.

So what if I didn’t build the surf park? Mikayla, my cousin, never got a unicorn for her birthday. She’d survived. So would I. Thing was, it was too late for me to back out, because I had been busy spending a shit-ton of that money on the hotel and fixing stuff at Café Diem, and now I was in debt to Darren. And I really was in no position to be in debt to anyone. I was already drowning in businesses and endeavors, trying to prove God-knows-what to Lord-knows-who.

I stared at her face, waiting for her to tell me that she got it. That she understood. She slid down from the crate and shimmied out of her leggings, sliding them all the way to her ankles then kicking them off, along with her shoes. Her black cotton underwear was next in line. She stood in front of me, her pussy shaved and slick and mouthwateringly delicious, on full display. Then, Jesse sauntered to the door flippantly, her round ass swaying from side to side, turned the lock, made the same casual walk to the crate, hopped back on it, and spread her legs, flashing a pink slit of heaven.

“You don’t have to touch me to ruin me,” she croaked, her tongue sweeping her lower lip.

Let the record show that I tried to resist. Sort of.

I responded with the only way I saw fit.

“Oh, shit.”

Over and out.

OH, SHIT SOUNDED ABOUT RIGHT.

I didn’t know where my lack of inhibitions came from. Maybe it was because of the way he’d looked at my stomach, so differently from anyone else. I’d had a handful of people stare at it after The Incident. The doctors. The nurses. Pam. Darren. All of them were horrified and sickened. It was the exact opposite of what I wanted to see on people’s faces. I was hoping for an ‘it’s-not-so-bad’ look, as opposed to ‘someone-pass-the-emesis-bag.’ But Roman looked at me like I was still pretty. I could see in the bob of his throat under his bushy beard that he thought more about my flat stomach and curvy waist than he did about the scars that covered them.

And that gave me strength.

I wasn’t proud of what I had done—seducing him against his will. But it made some kind of backward logic in my mind, that I was the one chasing sex with the most sexual man on the planet, who happened to think us sleeping together was a bad idea.