Page 67 of The Liar's Reckoning

And it’s messing with me.

Like right now while Avery’s trying to get me hard. Loud porn plays in the background, and there’s a fresh Band-Aid from her implant removal on her arm. Despite all the moaning and sucking blasting from the sound system, I can’t maintain an erection.

“It’s okay,” she says, letting my dick slide out of her mouth. “We’ll get some Viagra or something. We don’t have to do it tonight. It’ll probably be a few weeks before I ovulate anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, meaning it. It’s embarrassing, and it hasn’t been a problem yet, although anyone could have probably seen it coming.

She pauses the TV, and the apartment fills with glorious silence as she gets off her knees and takes a seat next to me. I tuck myself back into my sweatpants. The screen is frozen on theface of a pretty twink deep throating a cock. The tip of his nose is pressed to the other man’s hairless pelvis. Maybe the twink is why this isn’t working. Not my type.

Wait—do I have a type?

Silas’s deep voice and lean, muscled body come to mind uninvited. Broad shoulders, thick thighs, big, rock hard ass. He may keep himself virtually hairless, but there’s nothing feminine about his body or his bearing.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” she says, rubbing a hand comfortingly across my chest. “What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve heard that sometimes when it gets real—like when sex could actually result in a pregnancy—it can freak guys out.”

I nod, not that I’m agreeing, because while she’s still going through the motions of acknowledging my sexuality—hence the porn and the easy forgiveness—I think there’s some part of her that’s beginning to believe she has the ability to turn me on, too. That I might not be as gay as I claimed, or she’s opening my mind. Avery—above all else—wants to be special.

And she is, God bless her. At this point, I don’t know how I’d survive without her. To be clear, I’ve been on my own in my life more than not, but without her, I’d probably have six cats, order take out every day and try to publish a book about constitutional law—which wasn’t my primary specialty. I might have let my life become so small, I would have collapsed in on myself.

“I’m ready, I promise,” I tell her. “For kids.”

She smiles and gives my cheek a gentle pat. She strokes her thumb over my cheekbone and looks deep into my eyes. And then she leans in.

I close my eyes and let her soft lips brush mine. For a long, painful second, all my muscles seize, frozen in place. Then I turn my head, and she draws away. “Sorry,” I whisper again.

“I’m just excited,” she tells me. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I might take a walk. Clear my head.”

“Yeah, okay. I get it.”

I don’t need her to get it. I just need to get out of here. But I nod, letting her have the last word as I shove my feet into some old sneakers by the door and pull on a coat. Grabbing my keys from the hook on the wall, I leave the apartment. I feel disheveled and gross. I wish I’d thought to grab a beanie or something because my recently showered hair has likely dried in a way that makes me look like a mad scientist. I don’t know. Don’t want to know.

And yet, when Silas spots me in the lobby, I’m hyperconscious of all of it down to the remnants of Avery’s saliva on my dick.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

I haven’t seen him since the morning we spent in Chelsea. I tend not to come and go from the apartment often at night, and on the odd occasion I have, he hasn’t been here. It’s been one week. Not long, and yet, I wondered if I’d never see him again.

“You all right?” he asks as he takes me in.

“More or less,” I tell him.

He stands like he plans to walk me to the door. I rake my gaze up his long legs clad in black slacks, his chiseled torso in a slim-cut black sweater with his name tag. He looks like he’s had a haircut and a beard trim. All his angles are sharp and appealing.

“You don’t look all right,” he tells me.

“Wow. Thank you. I’m just going for a walk.”

“It’s twenty-seven degrees outside.”

“Is it your job to know that?” I ask.

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