“Nuts? As in, building a vitamin-manufacturing facility in their garage? As in, paying tens of thousands of dollars for advertising in the AARP magazine?”

I blinked over to her. “What? Who did that?”

“Your cousin Bull,” she answered, shrugging. “Henry told me some stories on the phone the other day. Apparently it’s his new venture. He’s going to make a pitch this week for some financial backing from Will and Max.”

“Why am I even surprised?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Families are supposed to be a handful, Bennett. Otherwise you’d never leave them. And mine isn’t quite all there, either. You know my aunts are . . . let’s just say they’re really going to enjoy the Ryan family gene pool. I hope you packed your running shoes.”

“Well—” I began, but stopped as she crossed her legs in front of her. “Chloe?”

She picked some nonexistent lint off her nonexistent stockings. “Hmm?”

“What in the fuck are you wearing?”

“You like?” she said, lifting her foot and moving it from side to side. Her shoes looked positively dangerous. Spiked heel, deep blue patent leather.

“Were you wearing those when we left the hotel?”

“I was. You were on the phone with your brother.”

I wasn’t one to catalog everything Chloe wore, but the familiar stirring in my pants told me I’d most definitely seen these shoes before—over my shoulders, if I wasn’t mistaken. “Where have I seen those?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She was a rotten liar. “At home?”

At home, in our bedroom.

The dirty little box we kept under our bed. The things we did when that box was out.

I remembered the night she wore them, almost two months ago. We hadn’t seen each other in weeks and I couldn’t get close enough, touch her enough, fuck her hard enough. She’d pulled out those shoes along with something new she wanted to try: a bottle of self-warming wax. I could still remember the heat as she’d dribbled it along my skin; the way goose bumps began at that warm puddle of wax and radiated out, spreading along my body. She teased me for so long I actually promised her I’d kneel and hand-feed her breakfast the next day. I came so hard I almost blacked out that night.

“You’re doing this to fuck with me, aren’t you?” I asked. “This is about the let’s-wait-to-have-sex-until-after-the-wedding thing, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely.”

We found a parking spot about a block away from Barbarella in La Jolla and I stepped out, walking around to open Chloe’s door. I took her hand and watched as she climbed out of the car—tan legs that went on forever, shoes you could easily impale yourself on—and shook my head at her the entire time.

“You’re a demon,” I said. “I feel like a bride guarding my virginity before the wedding.”