“Hash browns, extra crispy with ketchup,” I add.

“You know what,” he says. “Just bring everything. Send all of your breakfast items and if you’ve got ice cream, send that too. Thank you.”

Aleck hangs up his phone and slides it across the countertop. Then he leans back in his stool, looking over my face like I’ve got something important to tell him. The only thing I want to tell him is take me, but that can’t happen.

This is going to be hard. Very hard. It was easier to ignore how consuming Aleck can be when he was just an asshole. He’s still an asshole, but now that I know him, he’s a playful asshole, a funny asshole, a giving and sometimes sweet asshole.

“I like the way you eat,” he says, moving his knee so it rubs against mine.

“I like the way you eat.”

I did not just say that! Yes, yes you fucking did.

“You can’t say things like that if you don’t want me to carry you to the shower and bang you so hard against the tile wall, I’ll have to buy you a donut pillow to sit on for the next week.”

A shudder courses through me violently, and god help me, I hide it as best I can. But Aleck is a lion, a blood thirsty lion who can smell fear and lust, and I’m locked in his sights. He knows I’m on shaky ground. He knows my dedication to going no further with this thing we’ve started is weak.

“I-I already showered,” my only retort.

I already showered? I’m as good as dead.

Aleck laughs, then unbraids his legs from mine, and stands up. With every step he takes, I feel him getting further and further away and I don’t like it.

“I’m going to shower.” He smirks, then grabs his phone and starts toward the hallway. “Alone apparently. Don’t eat my egg whites if I’m not back in time.”

I snort a laugh. “No chance of that happening. Just don’t ask me to save you any ice cream.”

“No need. I got enough sweets last night when I ate your pussy,” he calls over his shoulder from the hallway before shutting the bathroom door.

Jane Austen’s ghost, help me.

THIRTEEN

ALECK

Pushing the door open for Winter, we enter Candlelit Hall, ready to meet Preston and Sondra’s photographer. The Hall is currently set up for another wedding, which, if I’m being honest, is fucking hideous. Everything is drenched in pink. Deep pink tablecloths, soft pink covered chairs, pink lace fabrics so light they’re almost white draped over everything. Pink, pink, fucking pink.

It’s disgusting.

The only redeeming accent of this wedding are the bouquets of pink roses on each table. Something about the newly budding flowers in such a soft shade of blush reminds me of Winter’s beautiful little pussy.

I’m not the most romantic man in the world, and I rarely give a cunt I’ve already had a second thought, but Winter’s hasn’t left the vicinity of my mind since my face was buried so deep in it I think I suffocated and died, then came back to life with an obsession for her taste. Now I don’t just want to hit it and quit it, I want to hit it and keep hitting it until my dick falls off.