“All I am is average to you, so excuse me while I go wallow in self-pity.”

“I can take care of it for you, if you want.”

His eyes snapped to mine as the flames in my cheeks heightened even more. I slapped a hand over my mouth. “Ididn’t—That wasn’t—You don’t—”

“Kit Kat, as much as I appreciate the offer, there’s no fucking way the first time we do something like that, will it be me getting a handie from you,” he immediately inserted, saving me from the rush of embarrassment.

And then through the curtain of shame came a crash of anger. “Excuse me? Why not? Because you don’t think I’d do as good of a job as you can do yourself? Or as good as some other girls or guys have done before?”

He inhaled deeply. “That one’s on me. I walked myself into this,” he muttered under his breath to himself, and then gave me a smile, closing the space between the far counter and the kitchen island.

Standing across from me, he leaned forward against the counter and raised his brows. “Kat, if your hands end up in my pants, I’m fucking you, and I am not about to let your first time having sex be some shameless five-minute romp because of me. Okay?”

My mind spun, the heat rising in my core from hearing how absolutely blunt he was. Part of me wanted that, not caring at all how amazing or not it ended up being. My body wanted him. As simple as that.

“So, that’s it? All or nothing from you?” I quietly asked, my voice squeaking.

His gaze darkened, and a smirk caressed his lips that I suddenly wanted smashed against my own again. “No. I’ll gladly give you any pleasure you want or need. In whatever way. Because you’re in control of all of this.”

“You’re saying you’re going to not have a single orgasm until you can…you know…put it in?” I cautiously questioned. “Yet you’ll give me some…if I wanted?”

He nodded once. “Yep. Pretty much.”

Raising a brow, I switched my tactic. “Even by yourself?”

He pursed his lips with a teasing glare. “Now that’s just cruel.”

Giggling, I leaned forward and closed most of the distance between our faces.

“You still left without a word, asshole,” I whispered, quickly wiping the smile from my lips.

His eyes darted down to my breasts briefly, then returned to my gaze. “I had some things I needed to do that required cell service, and it was easier than announcing I’d be leaving.”

“Why?”

“Questions, Kit Kat. All of the damn questions from your family and Wyatt that I wasn’t going to answer.”

“What were some of these ‘things’?”

He sighed and pushed away from the counter. “The situation with Wyatt, your brother, and the drug gang they’re caught up in.”

“Gang?!” I shrieked, shooting up.

He nodded. “Come here, I need to show you something.”

Calloused fingers clamped down around my wrist, and suddenly I found myself following without protest or restraint behind Bernie. Around the dining table and up some stairs, he walked with the silence of a ghost. An apparition that wasn’t ever meant to be here, but he was all the same.

Rounding a corner, something brushed against my bare ankle, and I jumped sideways as Muffin quietly slipped ahead of us. I heard a soft chuckle leave Bernie’s chest, but he made no other move to indicate that he saw my momentary squirmish.

I studied his back, involuntarily attempting to memorize every valley that rippled along his muscles as he walked. It was art itself, the way they bunched and coiled, then loosened and relaxed with the casual swaying of his arms. The familiar silver chain holding his dog tags sat around his broad neck.

Sturdy. He may have been built for a world of violence, but he’d fare well in mine as well. Maybe I could make a cowboy out of him yet. Filling my lungs with fresh oxygen, the spin of Earth slowed. Each step we took moved as if time had completely stopped.

The random littering of ink across skin that knew hardship in a way I didn’t, drew my gaze. Scars, faint but there, were splotched across the single barrier that I just knew often became his last line of defense. A cut here and there, a few shallow burns along his forearm I’d hardly noticed before and would’ve never seen if I hadn’t found myself studying him in such a quiet casual moment. He mindlessly lifted his free hand and scratched at the back of his neck, the veins rippling with the movement as if they were rivers guiding me down a pathway that I shouldn’t have taken but had stepped upon long ago.

My heart twinged, half in excitement and half knowing that at some point, whatever dance we were dueling, would fade away.

He would leave.