Page 33 of The Inquirer

I laughed. “Not yet, but I won’t say never.”

“Damn. Sounds like he really rocked your world.”

“That’s an understatement,” I muttered. “I’ll be feeling him for days.”

“Shit,” Kaimi whispered, then lowered her voice even more. “Did you just come from fucking him?”

She spoke so low that I barely heard the question. She didn’t shelter Rose, and she swore around the kid from time to time, but when it came to talking about sex, she tried to keep it matter-of-fact, sometimes cliché, but rarely vulgar slang.

“About an hour ago,” I said. “The whole Check & Sons thing happened earlier today.”

“How much earlier?”

I placed my hands over my eyes. “Are you asking about my schedule for the day or wondering about how long he lasted?”

“Both?”

I laughed. “You’re a married woman, and you want all the dirty details from my sex life?”

“I’d share mine if you wanted to hear them.”

This banter between Kaimi and me, mixing the serious with our brand of humor, helped me relax better than anything else could.

I shifted in my seat, and my body gave a painfully pleasant throb.

Well, almost anything else.

“I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, Kaimi,” I said, my mind turning back to one of the reasons why I’d called. “I mean, I’ve never wanted a relationship. That’s why I only hooked up with guys at Club Privé. I could tell them I only wanted sex, and they’d get it. I mean, I rarely fucked a guy more than once.”

“Is this thing with Bradyn the same, though?” Kaimi asked. “I mean, you’ve had sex with Bradyn more than once and not at a club.”

“Does that really mean anything? There’s a club down here that’s sort of like Club Privé, but he lives right here on the ranch so it just made sense to keep using him.” I winced. “No. No, not using. That’s not the right word.”

“You care about him, Nyx.” Kaimi’s voice softened. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be calling me. Hell, you wouldn’t have gone to him after seeing that name if you didn’t feel something for him.”

Dammit.

“Maybe I just wanted to be distracted,” I suggested. “Trust me. Sex with Bradyn is very distracting.”

“I’ll bet it is,” Kaimi said. “But forgive me going a little psychologist here, but I doubt you’d go to someone you don’t trust when you’re emotionally vulnerable.”

I scowled. “‘Emotionally vulnerable’?”

“I know you don’t like that phrase, but even big-bad you can have emotions and be vulnerable.”

“Come on.”

I could hear the smile in Kaimi’s voice. “I love you, Nyx, but you’ve got issues when it comes to people.”

I snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“All right,” she said. “You called me because you wanted me to tell you that you shouldn’t trust Bradyn or that it was pointless to start anything with a guy when he lived hundreds of miles away.”

“I didn’t do–”

“Let me talk now.” Kaimi rarely cut people off, and it surprised me enough that the words stopped in their tracks. “That might not have been exactly what you were thinking, but I know you, Nyx. Better than you know yourself most times.”

She wasn’t wrong.

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