I laugh softly. “You say that to all the girls?”
He pulls back enough to look at me. “Only the ones who take me to dive bars and absolutely destroy me at darts.”
“And pool …” I add with a smirk.
He chuckles. “I was only focusing on one to save my ego.”
I leave his building, smiling like I’ve forgotten how not to.
I replay the night while a private driver that he called for me takes me back to my apartment. It’s not how I’m used to traveling through the city, but I’m not going to overthink it. Especially since it’s a colder April day.
Instead, my brain drifts to the way he laughed without restraint, the way he fit into my world when money and status weren’t part of the equation.
At no point during the night did I think about how wealthy he was.
That feels important.
When I unlock my apartment door, I barely make it two steps inside before I know I’m not alone.
Kayla is stretched out across the couch, laptop open, coffee mug balanced dangerously on the armrest. She looks up once.
Just once.
Her eyes widen. “Oh,” she says slowly. “You had sex.”
I drop my bag and collapse onto the couch beside her. “Hello to you too.”
She snaps the laptop shut and turns fully toward me, grinsharp and satisfied. “I don’t even need details yet. Your face is doing all the talking.”
“I don’t know where to start,” I groan, dragging my hands over my face.
Her grin widens. “That’s how I know it was good.”
I stare up at the ceiling for a long moment, letting out a breathy laugh. “I genuinely thought romance-novel sex was exaggerated.”
Kayla freezes. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I thought it was fiction,” I say helplessly. “Heightened. Dramatic. A thing that only works on paper.”
She blinks at me. Slowly leans back against the couch.
“Are you telling me,” she says carefully, “that I’ve been writing lies?”
“I’m telling you,” I say, sitting up, “that I didn’t know it could be like that. I thought it was all glorified to add drama in between the pages.”
Her jaw drops. “Well, fuck. I thought it was all fiction too.”
I lift my head off the couch and look at her, and then we both burst out laughing, loud and unrestrained, the sound bouncing off the walls.
“It wasn’t the sex,” I admit when we calm down. “It was him. The way he lost control. I didn’t expect that from someone so … contained.”
Kayla’s expression softens, teasing fading into something more sincere. “Did you feel safe?”
“Yes.”
“Did you feel wanted?”
“Completely.”
