Page 53 of Unexpected Hero

“I promise you, Stella. I’m not imagining this. After he said he had an opportunity for me, I asked for more details.”

“So far, you’re making sense. Get to the point where you jump to kinky conclusions,” she interjects.

“Get this. He said it was better to talk about it in person. Then he asked me what I knew about BDSM.”

I let that detonate.

And it does.

Boom.

With vehemence and an Oscar-worthy amount of drama, she chops out, “What. In. The. Himalayan. Alps. Have. You. Gotten. Yourself. Into?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Ah-ha. Yet. You said yet!” A grumbling sound meets my ears as she pours on the dramatics.

Hysterics is more like it.

“Calm down, Stella. I didn’t agree to anything yet.”

“You said yet again. Stop saying yet. It’s not helping your case.”

“Why are you so mad at me?”

“Lettie, Lettie, Lettie,” she starts, reminding me of how James shook his head at me toward the end of our coffee date. A butterfly swirls around my insides at the thought of him.

Gah. I’m a straight-up mess.

“Don’t Lettie to the third power me,” I snap, but with absolutely no heat.

“Sweetie, listen to me.” Oh boy. Her tone has shifted. She’s in serious friend mode. Not a great sign. “I know you went down there to find yourself and carve out your own path in life. Sadly, this is not the best way to do it.”

“But —”

She cuts off my objection instantly. Damn her. “But nothing, Lettie bear. I want you to be happy. I want you to have all the things, including an exciting sex life. You deserve the world after everything you’ve gone through in the last year. But getting involved in the kink community is too much for you. For now.”

Involuntarily, my lips roll into a pout. “Why?”

“You need to experience normal shit first. That’s like learning to swim in the open ocean with no land in sight and no life preserver. Maybe you can swim the English Channel one day, but not your first time in the water.”

“You’re a dream crusher.”

“Perhaps. But also the voice of reason. For a change.”

“Maybe this is my act of rebellion. You had yours. Now I want mine. As for this particular path, it wasn’t what I planned, but I’m curious. And I like him.”

“You’ve known him for two days,” she contends.

“Totally fair. And this is a transition period in my life, which likely isn’t the best timing. But I feel like this could turn into something good.”

“You’re not a fortune teller, Lettie. We stopped asking the Magic 8-ball our futures a long time ago.”

When I don’t respond, she continues her cold-blooded hope homicide. “As much as you want James to be your Prince Charming, he’s more likely to be the bad influence sent to tempt you. He’s the apple.”

“Stop with the religious shit. We don’t do that anymore, remember?”

A rock settles in my gut, and I grind my teeth.

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