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“Yeah,” said Vincent in a low voice. “I do always say that.”

“He expected you to do it,” I said. “He used your guilt against you.”

A long pause. “You’re at your apartment in the city?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“No traffic this time of night,” he said. “I think I could be there in twenty minutes from the suburbs.”

“Oh,” I said in a different voice.

“Not that I’m inviting myself over or anything,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, that would be really forward of you, after everything. You’ve kind of strung me along here, Vincent, and you’ve never really treated women well in all of the years that I’ve known you, and I’m not going to send you my address or anything.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and texted it to him.

I could hear him talking even though I had the phone away from my ear. “That’s fair, and I don’t want to take you for granted, Leo. I don’t want to be like him. I don’t deserve—” A pause. “Shit.”

I laughed, putting the phone against my ear.

“Okay,” he breathed. “So, then, I’m on my way.”

“Okay,” I said.

CHAPTER THIRTY

PROBABLY, I SHOULD have talked to him when he got there. I should have made him make me promises. I should have figured out exactly what this meant, his coming over in the middle of the night. I should have made him apologize. I should have told him exactly how I felt about the way he’d been with Damian.

But I opened the door and grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him inside. I shut the door and slammed him back against it and pressed into him.

He groaned and wrapped his arms around me, and we were kissing.

We kissed like that for a long time, hands inside each other’s clothes, me exploring the topography of his bare chest, a chest I’d seen bare a ton of times but had seemingly never had an opportunity to touch, at least not like this.

I was only wearing my pajamas, a silky button up shirt and silky pants, and my skin slipped against the soft fabric and against his skin, and everything felt decadent.

Until I realized—

“This is the first kiss,” I breathed, moving back so that our lips were no longer touching.

“Shit,” he said, “This, um, this is not how I wanted the first kiss to be.” His thick fingers found my jaw. He traced the outline of me. “I wanted something romantic and gentlemanly and, uh, restrained. It is kind of hard to be restrained with you, Leo.”

“Well, as kisses go, it was a good one,” I said, giving him a little smile.

“Better than good,” he said huskily.

And then we were kissing again.

It got frenzied again relatively quickly.

I was practically climbing him, and he touched me through my pajama shirt, eager, and he had a handful of my breast when he gasped, “I don’t think we should be doing this.”

“Tell me to stop, then,” I said, arching my back, pressing my breast into his hand. “Alpha me, and order me around. I’m an omega, and I’ll stop if you tell me, you know. Run the show, Vincent.”

He groaned again.

He did not stop.

I did not stop.