Page 40 of The Art of You

“Hearing you talkabout your past and men who broke your heart will make my trigger finger itchy.” Constantine always had a way with words. Like, direct and to the point.

“You may want to go, too.” Bella didn’t look up at me, but she was clearly talking to me. She tried to pull off unbothered, swiping her finger along the frosting of the donut.

And I wanted to be the one to suck it off, even if Idid want to go. She was right. I was uncomfortable for too many reasons.

It didn’t help that I could feel my best friend staring at me as if he was considering taking the proactive route when it came to me. Kill me just in case I rolled the dice and gambled with his sister’s heart, becoming the next in line to break it.

“I’m fine,” I said, finally coughing up an answer. “I’ll stay.”

“While Hudson’s time with the Bureau was brief, I’m sure his training stuck with him, so it’s a good idea for him to stay.” Picking up on the tension in the room, Adelina employed a firm but polished tone as though she were trying to broker a peacedeal.

Constantine dragged his hand along his bearded jaw, eyes on the floor. The dude was contemplating murder.

We all breathed a sigh of relief when the thorn in our sides finally removed himself from the room.

He was like a brother to me, but what brothers always got along? The growing problem continued to be how Bella was sure as hell not like my sister.

Adelina took a seat across from us. After a subtle throat clear, she clasped her hands on the white marble counter and asked, “Shall we start?” The moment her gaze swept to my face, I felt her second unspoken question hit me:Or is there air we still need to clear?

“Whenever Bella is ready.” Because I’d never be ready for a walk down memory lane regarding Bella’s past relationships. And yet, in the back of my head, some sick and twisted part of me needed to hear what she had to say. For instance, were my lips the last she’d touched like hers were for me?

“Go ahead.” Bella poked at the donut, adding more frosting to her finger, still not licking it off.

“Well, for starters, are you in a relationship now?”

I already knew the answer to Adelina’s question, even if Bella never explicitly told me. First of all, when would she have time to date? She was always working.

Secondly, no way would Bella be fucking with my head every hour of every day these last few months with her just-below-the-radar flirting and all of her read-between-the-lines remarks if she was seeing someone. The woman was trustworthy and loyal. So, no, the only guy in her life was me, which was problem number one. I couldn’t be her anything.

But here I am.Wanting to be her everything.To hang on to her every word.Make a list of targets to punish as needed while simultaneously growing nauseous thinking about the men who knew her body better than I did. Men who’d had the chance towake up next to her. To see how the sunlight would catch in her hair in the morning. To brush their mouth over her smile before bed. To be the reason for her to smile in the first place.

I blinked my focus up to Bella, realizing I’d lost myself to my thoughts and didn’t hear her answer. And she must have said something because Adelina was on to another question.

“When was the last time you were in a relationship?” Before Bella could answer, Adelina quickly added, “Some of these questions may seem ridiculous and too personal, but in my experience, if anyone is watching you and they sent that photo, then it’s someone you’ve already met and know. Someone close to you. Whether that be physically in proximity, like someone living across the street, or a person you dated.”

“Like a long-term thing?” Bella made ahmmmnoise as if feigning thinking, but there I was hung up on her word choice.

I was about to skip to my own line of questions if she didn’t answer soon, starting with:Who were you with for a short-term thing? And when?

“Nothing long-term since my ex last year. A few dates here and there since, but none that made it to a second. But it’s been”—she chose that exact moment to pull her focus from the donut and glance at me—“months since even that.”

I did the mental calculations, assuming those “months” were at least four since our kiss happened at the end of May.

For a woman who couldn’t be mine, we’d both done a bang-up job of remaining faithful to an imaginary relationship.

Hell, I hadn’t realized I’d been in one with her until this moment, but there it was. Clear as day.

The reason I turned down women’s advances at my bar was sitting next to me. ThewhyI gave up my normal one-night stands and chose to read, playCall of Duty, or hunt predators at night instead was finally licking that frosting from her finger.

Did it take getting knocked in the head and smashingmy face into a steering wheel to realize my disinterest in other women was because the only woman I wanted was my best friend’s sister?

“You okay?” Adelina asked, but I couldn’t acknowledge herorstop staring at Bella’s mouth as she sucked more of the frosting free.

Well, that’s it, I’m screwed.Because if Adelina wasn’t in the kitchen, I wasn’t sure if even Constantine being down the hall would stop me from begging this woman to let me put my face between her legs and eat her instead.

“Hudson?” Adelina mused, somehow reading my dirty thoughts. “You with us or lost in your head?”

I’m lost somewhere, all right.

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