“You don’t know anything about me.” My voice is slight but strong, my need to assert myself front and center despite his calling me on the carpet.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Socks. I might not know where you’re from or why I ruffled your feathers today, but I know you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. Whatever it is that you ran from back home, you did it. You got out and are making it on your own. That takes guts and you deserve mad props for that. I know you like things messy and are goddamn cute when you’re tipsy. I know you’re stubborn as hell and gorgeous as fuck. And that your kiss tastes like an aged whiskey: something I want to sip slowly, feel on my lips, savor on my tongue, and take my time with before I get drunk on it.” With a lift of his eyebrows and a nod of his head, he walks past me, leaving me with my mouth agape and eyes wide.

I can’t move. Just stand staring at the door in front of me as I try to process what he just said, what he meant by it, and yet there’s no use because we just had a whole one-sided conversation and that need to banter with him is gone. Lost to the tingling in my lower belly and the wild spinning of my thoughts.

“Oh, and, Getty?” Zander calls out to me from the kitchen, refusing to continue until I turn to face him, standing there unabashedly shirtless. “If you ever call me pretty again, we’re gonna have a real problem. I guarantee you there is nothing pretty about me.”

I almost smile at the fact that out of all of the crappy things I said to him, that is the one that bugged him the most.

“You are kind of pretty, though,” I murmur, unable to resist goading him further, needing to try to get us back on an even playing field. Because hell if right now I don’t feel like I’m on the low end of the teeter-totter.

His immediate response? A snort to signify that his chiseled abs and the tall, dark, and handsome thing he’s got going on are nothing more than average.

“Last warning, Socks.” His eyes flash with mirth. And what looks like desire.

An unexpected part of me—the one who usually hides and doesn’t ever take a chance—wants to say it again. Just to see what he’d do if I did.

“So damn pretty.” I don’t know who’s more shocked at my comment, him or me, but we stand there for a moment, gazes locked, unspoken words warring across the distance between us.

He walks toward me with a predatory gleam in his eyes and a salacious smirk on his lips that catches me off guard. “I know I said you were brave, Getty, but now you’re just playing with matches.”

I draw in a long inhale as he steps right in front of me. I can’t look at him. My nerve is suddenly gone. Outside, rain pelts the roof. The constant drip into the bucket in the hallway serves as a metronome to this anticipatory silence we are dancing in. The goose bumps on his chest are the only thing I can focus on.

When his thumb and forefinger direct my chin up so I’m forced to meet his eyes, every part of me hums from his touch. From the want of something I don’t quite understand myself and couldn’t ever put into words. Our eyes meet—his intense, mine searching for answers that aren’t his to give—before his gaze flicks down to my mouth and then back up again.

“Not yet, Getty.” He closes his eyes for a beat, and I see what I think is restraint reflected in his grimace, before a ghost of a smile spreads on his lips. “I don’t think you’re ready to light this fire just yet.”

Hugo

She’s all I thought about for the last four years.
Since I left after her high school, and eighteenth birthday, celebration, Sabine had been on my mind.
Four. Fucking. Years.
I closed my eyes and pictured her.
I always thought about Sabine.
I could picture her long black hair … strands I wanted to wrap around my hand as I made love to her.
I imagined her blue eyes staring up at me, wide, pleasure-filled, as I thrust into her body.
I could picture my hands, mouth, and tongue moving along her womanly curves.
Four years of me wanting a woman I knew I shouldn’t desire, but whom I couldn’t get out of my head.
She was so much younger than I was, but that wasn’t an issue. The age difference didn’t bother me in the slightest. She was a woman, twenty-one years old, and she was smart, perfect for me. Sabine had always known what she wanted out in life, and she’d excelled at what she put her mind to. I might not have seen her in years, but I knew she had only gotten more determined in that regard. That wasn’t a trait someone just let go of.

I also didn’t care that she was Leo’s—my childhood friend’s—daughter. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t let a complication like that stop me from aching for her in a way that made it hard to think of much else.
It had been four long years since I’d even been intimate with a woman. I just couldn’t bring myself to go there with them, not when the only one I wanted was Sabine.
After all this time, I knew she was the only one I’d ever want, and as experienced in life as I was, I knew this wasn’t a passing desire.
I ran a hand over my face, breathing out wearily.
“Would you like something else to drink, Mr. Alfonso?”
I looked up at the flight attendant and shook my head. “No, thank you, Marcella.” I had three more hours to go before I landed in New York, and another hour drive to get to get to Leo and his wife Annabelle’s house. And by the time I even got to their home, it would be too late to see anyone really.
Getting a hotel would have been a simpler option, but it was out of the question, not when Leo and Annabelle insisted I stay in their guesthouse. I knew better than to argue with either of them.

I should have been here earlier.
I’d missed Sabine’s graduation, and even though I’d known about this event for some time, switching my business obligations around hadn’t been possible. That didn’t stop me from feeling this immense guilt.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the white leather box. Opening it, I stared down at the diamond tennis bracelet I’d bought for her.
Sabine was the only woman I’d ever given jewelry to, and although it might seem like an innocent gesture, a congratulatory gift for her accomplishments, the necklace, and now this bracelet that I’d give to her, meant a little more to me than she’d ever know.
She meant more to me than she’d ever know.

****

Sabine

It had been four years since I’d seen him.
Four years of me wanting a man who I knew I could never have.
Four years of me comparing every guy I tried to have a relationship with him … Hugo.

I’d told myself I needed to wake up, to realize I could never have a man more than twice my age and my father’s lifelong friend.
But telling myself what I should and shouldn’t want was a lot harder to accomplish when what I wanted was unattainable, yet still within my reach.
I stared across the table at my parents. We’d finished throwing a small dinner party in celebration of me graduating college and getting my bachelor’s degree, and now it was just the three of us. I should be focusing on graduate school, getting my Master’s in education, but knowing Hugo was coming in tonight was all I could think of.
Hugo Romanov.
Just thinking his name had my skin prickling with awareness, had every part of me speeding up. Adrenaline rushing through my body gave me this reaction.
“He’ll be here sometime tonight, although I’m not sure what time.” I looked at my father. He leaned back in the dining room chair and lifted his wine glass to his lips. He looked over at my mother, who also had a wine glass in front of her.
“It’s been what, four years since he was last in the States?” my mother asked.

My father nodded. “Yes, for Sabine’s high school graduation. Although he came back about a year ago on business, he couldn’t take the extra time to fly out to see us.”
My heart sped up knowing he’d been here, probably states away, yet still closer than when he was in Europe.
“I bet you’re excited to see Hugo again,” my mother said and took a sip of her wine, looking over the rim at me.
I shrugged, not about to show how nervous I was, or how much anticipation thrummed through me.
We’d finished off a bottle of wine between the three of us, and the second bottle was already half empty. I reached out and ran my finger along the base of my glass. “It’s been a long time,” I replied softly, thinking about the last time I’d seen him. I remembered vividly the way he smelled of dark and delicious cologne. But he’d also smelled of aged books and experience, and it was such a heady, intoxicating aroma. On instinct, I lifted my hand and touched the rose gold feather necklace he’d given me. It had been a present from Hugo for my accomplishment on graduating high school, but also making valedictorian.
I’d worn it every day since receiving it.
“You two always had this special bond.”

I looked up at my father after he spoke. “Not really.” He might have been more of a presence in my life when I was younger, and he lived in the States, but I’d never say we’d been close.
“Of course you did. Hugo would spend hours with you at the kitchen table teaching you Russian. Remember?”
I did, vividly. Our last lesson had been when I was seventeen years old, and he’d come to visit after being away on business in Russia.
“That’s because Dad wanted him to make me more ’rounded.’” I smiled at my dad. He’d been teasing when he’d made the suggestion I start learning a language, but Hugo had taken it seriously. For the next two years, from the age of fifteen to seventeen, whenever Hugo was in town, he’d spend hours with me, teaching me his native language—one of the four he spoke fluently.
The truth was I could only speak a handful of phrases of Russian, mainly because I wasn’t able to concentrate when he was near.
But I’d tried to come to the realization that my personal reality did not include Hugo in it.
And even after all these years, it was still hard to make that sink in.