Page 46 of Cocky Brutal Sinner

I do. I love the way Beau is in Italy. He’s still as charming, cocky, and playful as he ever is, but the current of anxiety that runs under him at home is gone here. He’s just him, and it’s intoxicating. I sip the delicious wine, letting it settle into my body as I watch Beau cook. Soon, delicious-smelling steam rises from the pots, filling the kitchen with a mouth-watering scent.

After he stirs the sauce again, Beau extends a wooden spoon toward my mouth. “Taste it.”

The sauce explodes on my tastebuds, fresh and tart and complex. I nod. “It’s amazing, Beau.”

His lips turn down. “It must need something. Enough salt?”

I sigh. He does this every time, asking me to tell him what’s wrong with his sauce when it tastes absolutely perfect to me. “The perfect amount of salt.”

“Is it sweet enough?”

“Seriously, Beau. I could drink a whole pot of this. I have no notes for the sauce.”

He dips the spoon into the sauce again and drips a little onto two of his fingers. He holds those up to my mouth, a challenge in his eyes. “Try it one more time.”

It’s so cheesy that I want to be annoyed.

I’m not annoyed.

I suck his fingers into my mouth. My tongue swirls over the tips, licking off every drop of sauce and watching while Beau’s eyes darken. I release them with a small pop of my lips.

“How does it taste now?” he rasps.

“It’s still perfect.”

The way he’s smiling at me feels so perfect, suddenly it’s just too much. The contradictions of our life together come crashing down on my head. He cooks for me, but his mother looks right through me. He teases me and listens to me and believes in me, but I was stuck kissing him in a coat closet while all my friends swayed with their husbands or boyfriends on the dance floor.

He’s my boyfriend today, and for two days after that. But I’m lying to myself if I think that’s enough.

The words spill from my mouth before I can really think them through.

“What are we doing, Beau?”

15

BEAU

Brinley’s voice isn’t angry or accusing. Just…tired. Her dark brown eyes plead with mine, asking for answers I don’t have. All I can think is that today has been too perfect to ruin. We still have two more days together. If this conversation goes badly—and I don’t see a way where it ends well—then our Italy retreat is over.

I flick off the burners. The sauce might crust into the pan, but I don’t give a fuck. I can make more sauce. I won’t have a second chance to save my relationship.

I don’t know how I’ll keep from crumbling if our one safe place is gone.

“Don’t do this now,” I murmur. “Not here.”

“We have to,” she says. “We both know it. You and I are good together, Beau. That’s not the problem.”

“So let it stay good.” I move around the counter and grab her hands, pulling them to my chest. “Be here with me, Brinley. Don’t worry about what happens when we’re home or what happens months from now.”

“It’s not that easy.” She blinks up at me, her eyes shiny with the ghosts of tears. “We only have a few days. Do we really want to spend them playing pretend?”

Yes. I want us to savor these few days without the specter of ending things, even though I know it’s beyond selfish for me to ask. Brinley deserves a boyfriend who can treat her like she deserves. Who can take her on dates, show her off to the world, prove to her that he’s proud she’s his.

I’m just not ready to lose Luke yet. Once he knows, he won’t just take the betrayal sitting down. Our friendship will be over, and once he’s gone, the other guys will be, too. I don’t get to have both my friends and the woman I love.

She must feel how fast my heart is pounding under her palm. The sound of blood pumping through my ears is deafening, my entire body rejecting the reality that this is how I lose her. Here, in the villa that always reminds me just how much I love her.

Her lips part, and I know she’s about to say something that will devastate me. I can see it in her eyes. The dare she hesitates to make.