“I saw the law firm’s name and had a flashback. The kind that put me on the floor and made me want to throw up.”
“Oh, hon.” Kaimi never pitied me, but she also never hid how seeing me hurt made her hurt too. “I wish I could’ve been there.”
“When I came out of it, all I could think about was getting to Bradyn. Even with everything, he makes me feel safe.”
“And he makes you forget.”
“That too.” I rubbed my forehead. “One look, and he knew I’d had a panic attack. He didn’t ask me what it was about, just what he could do.”
“And that’s when you had sex with him.”
“Yes.” I sighed. “But that’s not all. I mean, afterward, he apologized for how he’d behaved. For all of it.”
“I suppose that’s good.” Kaimi’s tone said she didn’t entirely agree with the words.
“I think he meant it. I mean, he jumped to some conclusions, but it wasn’t like he’s lied about anything. Not any more than I did. He’d told me his last name before. I just didn’t know how it connected.”
“But you’re hiding the law firm stuff from him.”
“Yeah, for now anyway.”
Kaimi was silent for a moment, and then said, “If he’s just a one-off, then it doesn’t matter, but you’re calling me, which means there’s more to it than that.”
“There is.”
“Then spill it.”
This was why I’d called my best friend in the first place. She spoke her mind about everything, but she didn’t judge or look down on me, no matter what her opinion was.
“He told me that he cares about me.” Saying it out loud sent a shiver through me, and I could almost feel his hands on my body, the heat and weight of him. “He called me my little firebird.”
Silence.
I waited, letting her figure out what she wanted to say. It couldn’t be easy, dealing with my shit all the time.
“Did he say what he wanted? With you? From you?”
“Um…he, uh, said he wanted us to spend time together while I was in Savannah.”
“Is that ‘spend time together’ as in go to dinner and talk or more like a ‘hooking up whenever you get the urge’ thing?”
“He said he wants us to get to know each other, to see if there could be something more than sex between us.” I tucked my feet underneath me. “But he didn’t take sex off the table.”
“Does that mean you’ve had it on the table already?” Kaimi teased.
I laughed. “Not yet, but I won’t say never.”
“Damn. Sounds like he really rocked your world.”
“That’s an understatement,” I muttered. “I’ll be feeling him for days.”
“Shit,” Kaimi whispered, then lowered her voice even more. “Did you just come from fucking him?”
She spoke so low that I barely heard the question. She didn’t shelter Rose, and she swore around the kid from time to time, but when it came to talking about sex, she tried to keep it matter-of-fact, sometimes cliché, but rarely vulgar slang.
“About an hour ago,” I said. “The whole Check & Sons thing happened earlier today.”
“How much earlier?”
I placed my hands over my eyes. “Are you asking about my schedule for the day or wondering about how long he lasted?”
“Both?”
I laughed. “You’re a married woman, and you want all the dirty details from my sex life?”
“I’d share mine if you wanted to hear them.”
This banter between Kaimi and me, mixing the serious with our brand of humor, helped me relax better than anything else could.
I shifted in my seat, and my body gave a painfully pleasant throb.
Well, almost anything else.
“I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, Kaimi,” I said, my mind turning back to one of the reasons why I’d called. “I mean, I’ve never wanted a relationship. That’s why I only hooked up with guys at Club Privé. I could tell them I only wanted sex, and they’d get it. I mean, I rarely fucked a guy more than once.”
“Is this thing with Bradyn the same, though?” Kaimi asked. “I mean, you’ve had sex with Bradyn more than once and not at a club.”
“Does that really mean anything? There’s a club down here that’s sort of like Club Privé, but he lives right here on the ranch so it just made sense to keep using him.” I winced. “No. No, not using. That’s not the right word.”
“You care about him, Nyx.” Kaimi’s voice softened. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be calling me. Hell, you wouldn’t have gone to him after seeing that name if you didn’t feel something