Page 80 of Kiss Me Tonight

Me: … I can smell your lie from here.

Topher: Not a lie, Mom. Just a fabrication of the truth.

Me: Big words can’t distract me, dear son. Don’t oversleep. I’ll be by to pick you up at nine.

Topher: 9:30? And can we bring Harry home? His mom can’t pick him up in the morning.

Me: Sure, and 9:15 is my final offer.

Topher: I think you hate me.

Me: I can’t hate you. You’re my favorite kid.

Topher: Mom, I’m your ONLY kid.

Me: Exactly.

Just as I move to pocket my phone, it vibrates again and I peer down at the screen, fully prepared for another incoming text from Topher.

Dominic.

My heart squeezes in anticipation.

Swiping to unlock my cell, I quickly read his message.

Dominic: I’ve entered hell.Send help.

Me: I’m surprised you need assistance. I thought you’d be welcomed there with open arms . . .

Dominic: Har har. You’re hilarious.

Me: I’ve been told that on a few different occasions.

Me: Call my curiosity piqued, though. What’s hell like nowadays? I don’t make a habit of visitingregularly. All that soot and brimstone . . . not exactly my thing.

I glance up at the mirror behind the bar, only to find a huge grin on my face. It’s been less than a week since Dominic kissed me. Ravaged me, more like. And it was . . . delicious, in the best possible way.

I want to feel his lips on mine again.

Willow thinks I’m sexphobic or however she put it, or that I’m afraid of commitment, but the truth is that I’m neither. I don’t fear sex. I don’t fear relationships. It’s just that, in my experience, neither has particularly worked out in my favor. Rick never cared about my pleasure—and he certainly never prioritized it when we did sleep together. And commitments fracture. They shatter and they splinter, and if I had a penny for every time Rick promised me that “he’d do better,” I’d be so loaded I could buy myself a private island.

At the vibration of my phone, I glance down and promptly choke out a laugh.

Oh, my God.

He looksmiserable.

Seated at the bar of the Golden Fleece with his customary baseball cap in place—and with it flipped backward—Dominic scowls at the camera. Sharp jaw line. Slightly crooked nose, no doubt from a football injury at some point. I follow the line of his bulky shoulder to where he’s pointing up above his head to the TV behind the bar.

The photo has frozen an image of Dominic on the screen, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs, alongside another twelve or thirteen guys who are all dressed in nothing but different forms of underwear. Briefs, boxers, tighty-whities. One guy is even decked out in a G-string, which terrifies me more than it arouses me. Plus, how the hell did he arrange his junk in that thing? Did he push itback?

You really don’t need to be thinking like that.

My phone buzzes again.

Dominic: Shawn’s turned my stint onPut A Ring On Itinto a betting bracket.

Another photo comes through, this one depicting a chalkboard posted up on the bar with a bunch of names scrawled in white.

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