Page 52 of Love Me Reckless

I did like Sawyer encouraged and asked Birch to kiss me as if hewanted me. His face twisted in worry. “You’re my fiancée, of course I want you.”

He did kiss me, but I didn’t feel a difference.

Ava asks for help with a different color, and Lisette hurries off.

Resting my forehead against the door, I take several slow breaths. I stroke my grandmother’s opal pendant and replay one of her famous pep talks.You’d be surprised how many problems can be solved by not giving a fuck.

I don’t care what Birch thinks, because I’m enough—just the way I am. That he sees it differently doesn’t make it true.

I don’t need anyone’s approval to feel good about myself.

Next to me, Ava steps out of her dressing room. “I’m going to check out the romance books and maybe browse a bit. Do you need sizes or anything?”

“No, I’m good,” I manage, and sink to the fluffy chair. I huff another sigh and gaze up at the ceiling tiles. There’s a crack running through two of them that looks like a cartoon lightning strike. It makes no sense why my nose feels hot and my eyes prick. I’m so happy to be here with my friends, goofing off like this, being curious and daring.

So why do I feel like crying?

“Kirilee?” Sawyer asks in a soft voice.

I jolt. How long have I been gazing at the ceiling, wallowing in what I can’t change? “Yeah?”

“You okay?” He sounds alarmed, like he’s picked up on the edge in my voice.

“Of course.” I hurry to change out of the lingerie set and hang it back up.

“Ava says there’s a homemade ice cream place around the corner. I guess it’s part of the bookstore. Do you want to head there next?”

“That sounds amazing.” I use the mirror to clean up my eyeliner.

When I open the door, Sawyer is standing with his back to the wall, one foot propped up behind him. With his shirt sleeves still rolled up to reveal those corded arm muscles and that tattoo and hishair swept across his brow, he looks like the bad boy biker ready to be my escape. And right now, a part of me is longing for it.

Even though I shouldn’t.

He pushes off the wall. I expect him to tease me about the lingerie or say something suggestive, but he focuses on my eyes. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m enough, right?”

He gives the colorful selections in my hand a glance and arches an eyebrow. “You are one thousand percent enough.”

I try to smile, but my cheeks feel like they’re going to crack.

“You want to give me a private fashion show, so I can prove it to you?”

I laugh. “That’s very, um, kind of you to offer.”

“I’m helpful that way.” He smirks.

I carry my rejects to the rack next to the dressing room, and I’m about to give them all back when I remember the set I liked because of the soft, stretchy fabric and the pale pink polka dots on the cream satin. I reason that nobody has to see me in them. Nice undies are something I buy for me and nobody else.

After Lisette wraps up my purchases, she slips a bottle of the salted caramel lube into my bag. “Little treat as a thank you for coming in.” She eyes Sawyer waiting for me by the front window and gives me a sly grin. “And congratulations.”

“Oh, he’s not…” I gulp a breath in surprise. “My fiancé isn’t here.”

Lisette sets my pink shopping bag on the counter and gives me a bright smile. “Oh. My mistake.”

I fight my sense of confusion. Sawyer is just a friend, but if Lisette is picking up on something, I need to shut it down.

Immediately.

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