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I wasn’t sleeping because I was lying awake thinking about the night in my bed, the night in Renzo’s office, trying to figure out where things had clearly gone wrong in each instance for her to walk away like she’d done.
Like it meant nothing at all.
Normally, I would be thrilled about that.
Nothing ruined some good, mutually satisfying fun like someone pulling the whole “So, what are we?” thing.
Sex, for my entire goddamn life, had been uncomplicated.
Until now, it seemed.
Because there was nothing simple about what it felt like was going on between myself and Cinna.
A cynical part of me wanted to claim it was simply because she was also a colleague and friend. That it was just the confusion of all those lines getting blurry.
The other part, though, knew it was more than that. I mean, yeah, it factored in. Because I was pretty sure if I’d fucked Cinna back when we first met, I wouldn’t be feeling as mixed up as I was about it right now. Getting to know her as a person absolutely was the biggest factor in this.
Because I just genuinely… liked the woman.
Respected her.
Enjoyed her company.
Add in the physical shit, and yeah, things were complicated and confusing and I had no fucking idea what to do with the tornado of thoughts constantly twisting and turning in my head.
All I knew was that, for a brief moment in that office, Cinna felt it too.
It was why she’d taken control, why she’d fucked me hard and rough. It was why she’d made sure she was the one to blow it off and walk away.
Because if there was anything Cinna hated, it was feeling out of control. Of anything, sure. But I imagined it was doubly so about her own feelings.
And there was no doubt in my mind that as she leaned back against me and let me hold her, that for one glorious moment, she’d been all caught up in her feelings.
About me.
About us.
About whatever the fuck was growing between us.
Cinna was great with anything that required hardness and brute force. If you wanted someone to have your back, to plow her way through anything and anyone, she was your girl.
But she’d never been good with soft.
I think the only time I’d ever seen her show even a hint of that was when she’d first become friends with Lore, when she’d gone toe-to-toe with the boss about his treatment of her.
Even then, though, her concern had been forceful.
Because she’d been protecting the softness in Lore. She hadn’t wanted to see Lore turn hard like life had forced her to become.
I knew, though, that underneath that outer shell of hers, there was hidden tenderness that I wanted her to trust me with.
She just wasn’t there yet.
And I had to learn to be patient.
No matter how frustrated I was feeling. Sexually and otherwise.
“We waiting for something?” I asked Rico as we stood outside of a local butcher shop that, apparently, hadn’t paid the family what it owed us in six weeks.
