“Holy fuck, Loz.” Max gives a dark laugh and watches me wipe blood from my shoe with the T-shirt of the man groaning at my feet.
“What?” I snap.
He looks down at the man on the ground and shakes his head. “You just used that guy’s face as boot scraper.”
“So? He’ll live. Barely scratched him.”
Max blinks at me, a smile on his face but confusion in his eyes. “He only asked you where the fucking restrooms were.”
“People who use restrooms in shitholes like this are likely to get dysentery.” I shrug. “I did him a favor.”
“Dysentery? What is this, the 1600s? We were only supposed to ask questions about the deputy superintendent,” he reminds me.
I look around the whorehouse, my nose wrinkling in disgust. It’s not an upmarket place where the hookers are looked after; it’s a shitty old house where drugs are cheap and hookers are cheaper. It makes my skin crawl to even be here.
“I want this place fucking shut down, Max. It’s fucking unhygienic.”
“And what about the women and men who make a living here?”
“Find them somewhere nicer to work,” I suggest.
“Fuck me. Like I have nothing better to do with my time,” he grumbles as we head out the door.
“Shall I ask Joey to do it? She’d have this place turned over in a fucking day,” I snap.
“The fuck you will. I’ll fucking handle it.”
I crack my neck. “Good.”
Max glares at me as we climb into the car. “Threatening to have your baby sister deal with pimps just to prove a fucking point isn’t fucking funny, jackass.”
I glare right back, spoiling for a fight. “Sort it then.”
Max slams his hands on the steering wheel. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re always a pain in my ass, but you’re in rare fucking form today.”
“Just drive, Max.”
“Not before you tell me what the fuck is going on,” he snaps back, folding his arms over his chest. “You’ve been acting like a bear with a hornet’s nest up its ass all fucking day.”
“Have not.” Fuck, I sound like a child.
“On top of your little outburst back there, you punched a fucking steel door and almost broke your hand, and you smashed the butcher’s window with a meat cleaver because he didn’t have any prime rib left. What the fuck’s going on with you?”
I let out a long breath. This asshole isn’t going to let up. “I slept with Mia.”
He gapes at me.
“Max?”
“Fuck, Loz.” He shakes his head. “How was it?”
“What the fuck, dipshit?”
“What?” He frowns, face a mask of hurt. “She’s the first since Anya, right? It’s normal for me to ask how it went.”
“That is not a normal response, Max.”
He finally starts the car. “It is. That’s what I was expecting you to ask me after you found out I banged your sister,” he says, deadpan.
I turn in my seat, ready to unleash hell on him, but he’s bent over the steering wheel, laughing so hard that I can’t help but laugh too—just a little. “I should fucking cut your throat for that, you know.”
Wiping his eyes, he sits up and shoots me a wink. “But you won’t. Your sister would kill you in your sleep, and you know it.”
I shake my head and stare out the window while he pulls out into traffic.
“Seriously though, Loz. How was it?”
“The fuck, Max?”
“I don’t mean how was the actual sex, fuck-nugget. How was it”—he waves a hand around—“like after and stuff. How were you? Is it an ongoing thing?”
“Never happening again.”
“And is she good with that?”
“More than good,” I snap.
“Oh?” He glances at me before turning his attention back to the road.
“I don’t think she …” I swallow.
“Don’t think she what?”
I scrub a hand down my face. “Enjoyed it,” I mumble.
“Sure she did,” he insists. “You’re like a top fucking Dom or something. I see those women drooling over you whenever we go anywhere near one of those clubs you used to go to.” He arches an eyebrow at me.
“I didn’t make her come, Max,” I blurt out and immediately wish I could take the words back.
“Well, uh, it’s been a long time.” Giving me an awkward look out of the corner of his eye, he clears his throat. “You didn’t expect there to be anyone after Anya. That’s some deep shit to process.”
I rub a hand through my hair. “I feel so fucking guilty.”
“About Anya?”
“And Mia. I should’ve shown some fucking restraint.”
“She’s a beautiful woman, Loz. You’re both grown-ass adults. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but—”
I cut him off before he can finish the platitude. “Don’t you dare fucking tell me Anya would have wanted me to move on.”
“Okay. I won’t tell you then. Does Kat know?”
“I don’t think so. It meant nothing. I told Dante it won’t happen again, and I’m pretty sure Mia won’t mention it.”
He’s quiet for a few moments before he speaks again. “You did nothing wrong, Loz.”
I don’t answer. If that’s true, why do I feel so fucking torn up about it? Why can’t I stop thinking about how I betrayed my marriage vows?
Would I feel better if it truly had meant nothing? What if I had fucked a random woman? Because the only thing that consumes me more than my guilt is the memory of being buried inside Mia. Her taste. Her scent. The way her soft flesh yielded beneath my fingertips. How her hot pussy molded itself to my cock like it was made for me. The way it almost ripped my fucking heart out when she told me we had no chemistry—the knowledge that if I still had a heart, she would have eviscerated it.
