And he’d probably fight dirty.

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” The man taunts Tyler. “She sounded pretty into the idea of coming to my place and letting me fuck her brains out two minutes ago. Or did you want to come and watch?”

Tyler stiffens like he’s ready to pounce, but then he takes a step back from the man, pulling me back a bit with him. My arm stretches uncomfortably.

With his free hand, Tyler pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. “Are you a betting man?” he asks idly, sliding five crisp hundreds from the billfold in the stranger’s view. My head swims with confusion for Tyler’s sudden change of pace. What is he doing?

“What’s the wager?”

Tyler eyes me and I cringe, seeing disappointment in his eyes. “I’ll bet that my cousin here isn’t your type.”

The man frowns, his eyes bouncing from me to the bills in Tyler’s hand. “Then you’d lose. One drink and she was ready to leave with me. Easy is exactly my type.”

Tyler’s jaw tightens and his body tenses against mine, but he keeps his temper in check. “You see easy? I know better than that. You’re out of your league if you think you can get her to come home with you. And five hundred dollars says you’d rather skip the trouble and go find another girl.”

The man looks at me, tucked tightly into Tyler’s side, and drops my hand as if I’m contagious. He snatches the bills from Tyler.

“Better go find a girl you can rent by the hour,” Tyler hisses.

The man turns and strides out of the bar as I cower against Tyler, shaking. That man almost had me. He thought I was easy.

And it’s true. I feel disgusting.

My stomach heaves and I lurch from Tyler’s side, slamming through a dark wood door and into a toilet stall. I empty the contents of my stomach and every last drink into the toilet bowl.

I cough, choking up thin, pinkish waves. Each retch looks and smells so disgusting that I heave again.

The water runs behind me and Tyler passes me a dampened paper towel.

As lows go, this is one of my worst. I wish the puking would empty my brain of the throbbing weight of alcohol that sloshes inside it, but I feel barely more sober.

When I’m sure there’s nothing left inside me, I get to my feet shakily, blot my face with the damp paper towel and wash my hands in the sink. I scoop several handfuls of water into my mouth, swish and spit, all the while feeling Tyler’s towering presence at the door behind me.

Waiting. For what, exactly? For my humiliation to be complete? For me to apologize? I honestly don’t have it in me. I was drunk and he was ignoring me, and someone else wasn’t.

“Go away, Tyler,” I whisper. “Go back to the group. Go talk to Teal. I’m sure she’s much better company than I am.” I just want him to stop looking at me, and I stare at my shoes and the bathroom’s small hexagonal tiles to avoid his gaze.

“No.”

I move to get around him but he’s blocking the door and I’m too wrung out to try to push him aside.

“Please?” I whimper.

“No.” Tyler’s voice is firm but his arms are open. He’s letting me in.

I let my body collapse against his chest and I cry it out. The humiliation, the fear, the hurt, the anger. Why do I keep going down this self-destructive path thinking it’s going to end somewhere different and better?

I feel like the stupid virgin in a horror flick who opens the door on the dark and stormy night. What does she think will be on the other side? Flower delivery? It’s always the killer. Always.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I always say a bad boy can’t break your heart. But he can’t heal it, either. Maybe only a good boy can do that.

Tyler strokes my back as my sobs subside. Someone pounds on the bathroom door because we’re taking too long, but he ignores it. When I finally have the courage to look at him, he holds my face in his hands, his thumbs tracing gentle strokes down my cheeks.

“What do you want from me?” I sniffle, mixed up from his gentle touch, the humiliating bet, calling me his cousin and letting Teal snuggle so close. Tyler, the master of mixed signals.

“Nothing. I just want you.” Tyler’s simple declaration tears down my last remaining wall and I slump against him, my arms wrapped around his waist as my chest fits against his, like pieces of a puzzle, the way we were on the bridge.

“I thought—I thought you didn’t want me. When you were talking to Teal like that.” Jealousy looks pretty lousy on me, but I need his reassurance.

“And I thought you didn’t want me when you were going to leave with that guy,” Tyler counters. “But the difference is, I wasn’t going to let you get away. I fought for you, Stella, and I want you to fight for me.”

I look up at him. “How can I, when thousands of women throw themselves at you? I’ve got more competition than I can possibly—”

Tyler touches my lips with his index finger to stop my rush of words, the same electric touch I felt in our first cab ride together. “Not like that. I let that get out of hand and that wasn’t fair. This is all kind of new to me. This attention. But I want you to fight all this negative shit that keeps you running away from me. Fight to stay.”

TWENTY

Tyler leads me out of the restroom and through the Bowery Hotel’s bar, past the couches where our friends sit.

“We’re going home,” he says, and I can’t miss Teal’s scowl. Beryl nods and her eyes are clouded with concern, but I’m floating on that word: home.

We’re quiet on the cab ride, our fingers laced together, and quiet as we walk an extra block to his warehouse. This time, instead of a piggyback ride up the stairs, Tyler scoops me up in his arms and carries me against his chest as he climbs five flights to his loft.

He puts me down by my bed, but he doesn’t let go of me all the way. “How are you feeling?” he asks, gently removing my shoes.

“Terrible.”

“Let’s wash this day off of us.” He points me to the bathroom and I nod, scooping up a T-shirt and fresh underwear before I go to the bathroom and undress, getting into the shower that’s as hot as I can stand it.

The light dims in the bathroom and the shower door opens. I feel Tyler behind me, his hand on my shoulder. “Is this OK?”

I turn and he’s just outside the stream of the water, his eyes holding mine. He’s naked and I want to look at every part of him, but instead I pull him close to me under the stream, letting it flow over our skin.

We stand like that, just holding each other, for several long minutes as the shower washes everything away. My hurt and humiliation, images of Jet Black and Teal, and too many shots that made my brain pound and stomach churn.

My muscles uncoil under the water and Tyler kneads his fingers into my back. My face is pressed to his chest and my lips are inches away from his pierced nipples, but I’m not looking for the roller coaster thrill of sex right now.

I want intimacy. I want our connection to be real.

I want Tyler.

I run my hands along his back and then down the tattoos on his arms, feeling the strength of his muscles beneath them. He grabs a bottle of body wash and squirts some in my hands, stepping just out of the stream of water so that I can wash him.

My hands skim across his chest and flat stomach, the soap suds lingering as they ooze below his waist and down his legs. I keep my eyes on his, though, learning his reactions, and I don’t feel brave enough yet to touch him where I’m most curious.

Instead, I turn his shoulders away from me for access to his back and I soap and lather it. I work my fingers into the muscles at the top of his shoulders and along his spine, letting my hands slide down past his waist to feel his ass in my hands. The slippery soap helps my fingers skate across his skin.

When he turns back to me, his eyes are darker, more intent, and his erection grows. He leads me out of the shower stream and ducks under it himself, letting the soap slide off his body as he squirts body wash in his own hands and begins washing me.

Shoulders, arms, hips. Breasts, ribs, stomach. I falter as his thumbs graze my nipples but his brown eyes, flecked with gold, hold mine. They beg me not to look away.

I let his hands work, soft and insistent, touching and exploring. When he turns me away from him I feel lost without his gaze, but I close my eyes and imagine he’s still fixed on me, his hands working the tension from my shoulder blades and lower back. His hands cup my ass and the back of my thighs.

My body is on high alert, humming with energy as I give myself over to him completely. I let him touch and wander, and when he pulls me close to him beneath the spray, I feel him hard against my belly.

Where is this going?

In every other relationship, I could tell you exactly what was next—sex, obviously. Simply insert Tab A into Slot B and move with it for a while. Release. Repeat.

But this feels completely different. It’s calm and caring and tender. It’s gentle and exploratory. It doesn’t have a clear destination, and for once, I’m OK with that. I’m willing to follow where Tyler leads.

Tyler sluices the water over my hair and down my back, gentle strokes that melt me deeper into him. I feel almost weightless in this space with the sound of the shower drowning everything else out, the low lighting in the bathroom letting my eyelids droop, the scent of Tyler’s body wash filling the air around us.

I pull his body more tightly against mine, reveling in the connection that is deeply physical but not overtly sexual. Although I am naked, my breasts are pressed against his chest and he can’t see most of my body. I can’t see his, beyond his shoulders and arms that hold me.