Page 121 of Hate You More

“Have you been having sex with other people?” His eyes are suddenly a fiery shade of gold.

“No. But I thought—”

“Then you thought wrong,” he mutters gruffly.

“Okay.” That knowledge is more than okay with me. “Good to know,” I add softly.

“You should’ve fuckin’ asked.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have assumed,” I say pertly.

“Keep that up and I’ll put you over my knee.”

“In your dreams, Templeton.” Or maybe in mine given the way my body responds.

“Back to the parameters.”

“Fine. We’ll only have sex with each other but not in the apartment.”

“Not—what the fuck for?”

“Because this is where we live. It’s where things are most real. Where we eat together and talk. I think it’ll be safer if we have sex elsewhere.”

“Okay.” But he doesn’t sound convinced.

“We’re not going to be friends in those moments.” My heart freezes as though he might correct me. “We’re just going to have hot, nasty sex.”

“Fuck.” He swipes a hand down his face.

“Is that okay with you?”

“I’ll take you however I can get you.”

It’s not a romantic response by any measure, but still my insides melt.

“I just.” I inhale over a growing lump of emotion. “I just can’t go on like this, not safely. And I do think we need to work this thing out of our systems before—”

“It ends.”

That anvil drops in my rib cage. I meant before things escalate, but ends might be more appropriate. Even if it feels like a complete lack of hope, it’s what I needed to hear. To remember. Three months is all we have. Or what’s left of it.

Troy sits up, the morning sun unfairly gilding him, taking him from 1980s-book boyfriend to deity. He’d be Bacchus’s better-looking friend—the twin brother of Venus. The god of desire and revelry. Make love, not wine would be his brand with none of the polite tiny-penis business the classics prefer.

“Kind of sounds like an affair.” He rubs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure you can have an affair with your wife.”

“Fake wife.”

“Real marriage,” he says. “Fake sentiment.”

I close my ears to that. I’m getting pretty good at ignoring stuff. Like my good sense.

“But if it’s what you need, I’m happy to fuck you like my mistress anytime you like.”

“Thank you, I think.”

His mouth hooks up, amused. “What other plans you got going on in that head of yours?”

“That we could make it fun.”