“Why? Did you sleep with him?”

Cassie ignored her aunt and checked behind the pictures.

“Mmm-hmm.” Frieda stood and ambled to the kitchen counter. “I’ll take the lack of answer as a confirmation. So, does he suck in bed?”

No-no-no-no-no-no. No thinking of Kir in bed.

But it was too late. The same pleasant swirl she’d felt that first night he’d sauntered up to her at Bacchanal Wine and aimed that devastating grin at her took root low in her belly. If she dared to think about the way his body had felt against hers—how his low and graded voice had sounded in her ear, thick with a Russian accent and muttering all number of deliciously naughty things he wanted to do with her—she’d be daydreaming and sleeping restlessly for weeks. “I could have sworn I brought it in here. Maybe I left it in the car.”

“...and he’s stellar in bed. Good to know!” Frieda lifted Cassie’s purse from the white Formica countertop. “It’s right here.”

Thank God. Sweet diversion.

Cassie marched the handful of steps to her purse and rooted around the massive hobo bag for her phone.

Of course, Frieda showed no mercy. When it came to seizing life by the balls (as she put it), the woman was a veritable hound. “If you’re out taking pictures of him, you’re clearly interested. Why not just go up and start talking to him?”

“I wasn’t taking pictures of him because I want to sleep with him. I was tailing him.”

“Why?”

“Because all of my leads have dried up and I need a story!” The admission burst forth a whole lot more forcefully than she’d intended. What was worse was the guilt she’d somehow stuffed for the last month crowding around her like a malevolent ether out to choke the life force from her.

Frieda studied her for long seconds, concern and caution etched across her face. “I’m confused.”

All the fight, worry and conflicted emotions she’d wrestled since late last year bled out of Cassie at once, leaving her deflated to the point she was lucky there was a chair right behind her. She sat and stared up at her aunt. “Me, too.”

“Okay, so break it down for me. Tiny bite-sized chunks.”

Right. Tiny bite-sized chunks. The same way she pieced together her stories until the message came together and made sense.

“We met at Bacchanal last year. He was charming and hot and seemed like a really good guy. We slept together and it was exceptional. We’re talking Oh my God, this is what I’ve been missing my whole life exceptional. When he called me to go out on a real date, I was giddy. Euphoric. And the time with him in and out of bed was everything right out of an insta-love story. But that’s when he gave me the leads on Alfonsi. He called me after to go out for a third date, but I never returned his calls.”

“Why? By all accounts he’s amazing and those stories got you a raise at the station, right? That sounds like a damned fine reason to go for date number three and then some.”