I’m all too aware of what this man could do to me. He’s the type to pin you down as he takes you how he wants you and doesn’t stop until you’re screaming. And I can’t lie, just that thought alone makes me desperate to say yes.

He takes another step closer as I stand with the door wide open and hesitate to answer. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he manages a shrug as if it’s a casual question.

“Just one date,” he adds as he looks at me with a raised brow and his version of puppy dog eyes. It’s enough to force a smile on my face.

“And what am I supposed to do? Meet you here at ten?” I ask him.

“How about at Jean-Georges in Central Park?” he asks and I’m taken aback. It’s an expensive place and my eyes glance back to his car, to his ripped body and tattooed skin. There’s something about the air that follows him that screams he’s no good. The danger in the way he looks at me is so tempting, though.

“I just want to feed you,” he adds as the time ticks by slowly and a short, older man with salt-and-pepper hair walks out of the exit, stealing our attention and making my hand slip slightly on the handle.

I chew on the inside of my cheek. The answer is an easy one. No. Simple as that. He’s a bad boy who only wants one thing, but I can’t deny that I want it too.

I said yes.

To the date, and then again a year later to marrying him.

That initial yes, pushed through my lips by an undeniable attraction, was my first mistake on a list of too fucking many.

All because I can’t tell him no.

Evan

I try to shut the front door softly, as quietly as I can so I don’t wake up Kat if she’s passed out.

I know she told me not to come back. She says a lot of things and then apologizes and changes her mind. Silence isn’t better, though. It still hurts, just in a different way. Our loft is small and the walls are thin so you can hear everything in here. I stop in the foyer, setting down my duffle bag and luggage then toss the bunched-up chenille blanket that’s in a puddle on the floor onto the sofa in the living room.