I strutted up Bleecker without care that I probably had mascara all over my face and my hair looked like a dirty mop. Because Kash made me feel like a million and one bucks. And tomorrow night, he’d do it again.

And if I was lucky, again and again.

I wasn’t even myself, and I couldn’t find it in me to care. And why should I? All my life I’d done what I’d thought I should rather than what I wanted—Brock might have been right in that—but that first shot started a war in my heart, and there was no going back. There was no undoing it, no unringing of the bell. I was the new and improved Lila who damned the rules and did what she pleased.

Presently including Kash Bennet.

God, he was perfect. Attentive in ways that had left me flushed, not just for what he’d done to my body, but in the small ways he made me feel like the only woman on the planet. Buttoning my shirt with care. Holding my face like it was porcelain in his palm. That look in his eyes that promised he could be whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted him.

And oh, how I wanted him. After being without for so long, I didn’t think my body would be slaked so easily. Already I could see our ‘day off’ looming, and felt like a hoarder, vowing to stockpile as much Kash as I could tomorrow night to hold me over.

Tomorrow. It seemed like a lifetime until tomorrow.

Up the building’s stairs I floated like a loose balloon, and through the front door I went, smiling like I’d just learned how.

At my entrance, Ivy and Dean froze in the kitchen, dumbstruck as they looked me over.

“Hello,” I chirped, setting my bag on a dining chair.

Dinner sizzled in a pan, neglected by Dean, whose dark forehead furrowed, spoon midair, head cocked like a bird. Ivy blinked, dishes in hand and blue eyes narrowed in confusion, red hair piled on her head and belly so comically large, she was a marvel of physics. I wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t about to tump over.

Her gaze combed over me, head to foot. “What happened to you? You’re filthy.”

I cleared my throat to stifle a giggle. “I got caught in the rain on my way to Longbourne.”

“And?” she prompted, rolling her hand to get me to continue.

“And Tess wasn’t there. Kash was.”

My face must have said it all because Ivy gasped, hands flying to her open, smiling mouth and auburn brows brushing her hairline.

“Oh my God!” she squealed behind her fingers. “No! You didn’t!”

Dean still looked confounded. “Didn’t what?”

“Sleep with Kash Bennet,” I said archly.