Page 52 of Save Your Breath

“Not all of us lived with our hands in our pants the way you did, Aleks.”

“Maybe you should have.” I shook my head. “Let me guess, perfect boyfriend Austin Westbrook made you come as he made sweet, sweet love to you in a bed full of rose petals?”

Mia narrowed her gaze, picking a piece of bacon off her plate and flicking it at me. “Why do you always have to ruin it? Just when I think you’re not a prick, you go and prove me wrong.”

“I have a reputation to uphold.”

She sucked her teeth, stacking a few penne noodles on her fork. “If you must know, it wasn’t him.”

I couldn’t hide my genuine shock at that confession. “Um… but didn’t you two start dating when you were twenty-two?”

She nodded, swallowing her bite and reaching for her wine.

“Don’t tell me you reallydidcheat,” I said, but couldn’t help but smile at the thought. Not that I was a fan of cheating, but I was abigfan of that golden boy asshole getting what he deserved.

“Of course I didn’tcheat,”Mia spat back. She couldn’t look at me as she toyed with the food on her plate. “But he wasn’t responsible for my first orgasm. I was.”

“Oh, I like where this is going,” I said, leaning in for more.

“Well, too bad for you, that’s all of the story you’re going to get.”

“Come on! You can’t leave me hanging like that. What’d you use? Your hands?”

“Aleks!”

“A vibe?”

“Stop,” she dragged out the word on a grin, her face turning bright red as she covered it with her hands.

“It was a vibe, wasn’t it. Dirty girl.” I smirked. “What kind was it? Was it big, or just one of those little clit ticklers?”

Mia laughed, throwing another piece of bacon at me. “You’re such a perv.”

I drank my wine with a grin, watching her over the rim of my glass. My smile faded as my curiosity got the best of me. “What’s the real story of what happened between you two?”

“What, you don’t read the tabloids?” She waved her hand toward her phone. “Obviously, I’m a crazy, neurotic, jealous drama queen, and he couldn’t fix me.”

I just waited, watching as she ran her finger through a glob of cheese and slipped it into her mouth.

“I don’t want to bore you with my relationship woes.”

“I asked,” I reminded her. “And we used to talk about relationship woes all the time.”

Her eyes flicked to mine then, and she didn’t have to say a word for me to know what she was thinking.

That was before.

Before I was helping her stumble into her room after getting too drunk at a party. Before she confessed she wanted me. Before she tried to kiss me.

Before I’d told her I couldn’t.

The memory of that night had haunted me since, the little devil on my shoulder always whispering and wondering what would have happened if I’d have given in. But she wasn’t sober enough to give any kind of consent that night, and when shewassober again — she’d laughed it off, making light of it, pointing out the fact that she was drunk and being silly.

And by the time we were out of her parents’ house and I was settled in Seattle, it was too late for me to make a move of my own.

She was moving to Los Angeles.

And then, she was dating some pretty boy rock star five years older than us.