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He didn’t regret it.

What he regretted was that violence lived so close to the surface of his skin, and there would be no way to protect Esme—or Alex—from it forever.

Esme was young, and she was so…sweet. She wasn’t being sweet to him at the moment, but there was a sweetness to her, even though she had a sharp tongue. She wasn’t jaded in the way that he and Alex were. She wasn’t hard. Somehow, she had lived through all the things they had and had emerged with a brilliant, enthusiastic and optimistic spirit.

She was perfect and lovely, and he had always known that he could never touch her and get his brand of darkness on her.

The truth was, staying in Alex and Esme’s life had always been unfair to them. They credited him with a lot. But they didn’t really know him.

They knew what he wanted them to see.

Nothing more.

Esme was throwing that challenge out to him without really understanding what she was doing. Without really knowing who he was.

By design.

“Little girl,” he said. “I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that.”

Her cheeks turned pink, and he fought the urge to reach out and touch the charming blush there.

A virgin.

Of course she was. Because she was just that perfect. That pristine.

As if she could be even more forbidden to him.

She deserved a nice man who would at least pretend that he could fall in love with her.

A man who would be gentle. A man who didn’t need it dark and rough in order to have a good time.

He could far too easily imagine pushing her so that she was bent over the bar, gripping her hips and…

“Little girl?” She lifted a brow, her round blue eyes glittering. “Are you trying to sound like bad book porn?”

He leaned in, and called her bluff instantly. Her cheeks turned bright red, and she was practically pinning herself to the bar. It would be far too easy to close the distance between them, and let her feel the effect that she was having on him.

Seeing sweet Esme Brown in that dress had nearly given him a coronary when he saw her on the security feed.

He’d known it was her without even seeing her face.

Unfortunately, and adding to his many sins, he was so familiar with the shape of her body that he would’ve known it was her even though the dress was out of character, even if he hadn’t seen her face. So well that he knew the curve of her hip, the indent of her waist and the shape of her perky breasts.

It was the only thing he counted as a guilty pleasure. Because he otherwise didn’t possess guilt.

Alex was mad at him, but he really couldn’t tell him: the issue is I want to fuck your sister on one of these desks, and I think about it most days.

He also couldn’t say: I nearly beat an asshole to death for daring to get near her because I want her safe, untouched and pristine unless I’m the one ruining her.

No. He wouldn’t be saying that.

Putting distance between himself and the two of them was the only valid option.

It hadn’t gotten better—it was only getting worse—and he hadn’t been able to live with it, or himself.

“If I wanted to sound like porn of any kind you would know.”

Well. That wasn’t putting the kind of distance between them that he should be putting between them.