“Are you serious? You have the chance to ask anything and that’s what you choose?” His voice was teasing, but he bent his forearm around my waist, hiding the tattoo, as if I’d forget about it if I couldn’t see it.

Lucky for him, it was more cute than frustrating. “It’s pretty much the only thing I think you’ll answer. Besides, I really want to know. Is it something you can tell me?”

“Did I mention that you’re absolutely fucking incredible?” He squeezed his arms around me, putting pressure on my breasts, and making the buzz in my core send a high voltage flash through my veins.

Jesus, I was so lit up, so in need of an orgasm.

But I wanted to know about the tattoo. I had an idea about it, and I was burning to have it confirmed. “Are you stalling?”

“No.” His arms loosened, but he kept them around me. “I’m sincerely in awe that you let me keep my secrets. I’m an asshole for expecting you not to pry, and you’re amazing because you don’t. Thank you.”

I sat with that for a second, trying to decide if that was his way of saying, I’m not answering. And also, since I didn’t really think he was an asshole for keeping his secrets, I wondered if there was something wrong with me. I frowned. “You know, I’m starting to feel like maybe I’m not so amazing but more like an idiot. But you’re welcome. I guess. Now are you going to answer my question or not? A flat-out yes or no would help to clarify.”

“It was the day Corinne died.” Or that. That was definitely clarifying.

It was also what I’d guessed. The minute he’d said he’d been engaged, the minute he said she’d died—it was obvious she haunted him. How much of him was a remnant of her? Was there even any room for me in his world with her ghost?

I hadn’t expected more, but he surprised me. “I don’t know why I thought I needed to ink it on my skin. It’s a date I’ll never forget. Maybe that’s why I did it. It was already so permanently etched in me that it seemed only appropriate to have it etched on me as well.”

“You loved her.” Stupid. Of course he loved her. He was going to marry her. Saying it, though, helped make it real for me. So that I could look at it and see what his love for her meant about me. Selfish. Self-centered. Also, self-preserving.

“I loved her.” His tone was definite. “Now I love you.” Just as definite. “There’s been no one in between.”

“Really?” I twisted to try to see his face. But my nose hit his jaw, and all I could see was the curve of his face, the skin of his neck.

“Nope. Just you.”

I nuzzled him with the tip of my nose as I let his revelations settle over me. I was hard—I prided myself on that. But my time with JC had softened me. And I was also just a girl with girly doubts and jealousies. I was envious of this dead woman. There was no denying that. I’d have to deal with that. I imagined it might require time.

Then there was the rest of his admission. Just you. He’d said that when he came looking for me at the club, said that there was only me. And that was bigger. That was harder to hold. Because who was I? Out of everyone who must have looked his way, of every woman who slipped him a room key or a phone number, why me?

I had one guess. “Am I like her?”

“Not even a little bit. Well, actually, you’re headstrong like she was. But that’s where the similarities end.”

I sat up and turned to perch on his thigh. Pictures of a woman with dark hair and eyes filled my mind. A woman thin where I was curvy. Warm, friendly. Loveable. “Why me, then?”

“Why not you?” His eyes flicked to my breasts and back to my eyes. “Do I need to remind you that you’re absolutely fucking incredible?”

I folded my arms over my chest, wanting to have this conversation without the distraction of arousal. “You didn’t know that when you started this arrangement. What did you see in me that made you want to—”

“—have sex with you? Let’s see, blonde, perfect, round, full tits, long legs, absolutely flawless face. Did I mention the really perfect tits? I was hard within a minute of first meeting you. Painfully hard.”

“And that’s what it was? My looks? That’s why you pursued me?” I realized it was silly as soon as I’d asked. “I mean, I guess that makes sense. You were looking for a physical relationship. I’m sure you had many of them between Corinne and me.” God, I was trying to make myself jealous now.

JC put his hands on the edge of the tub and leaned toward me. “Yes. Many physical relationships between Corinne and you. Not a single one of them had me interested in anything besides where they would let me put my cock.”

He settled back, sitting straighter than he had been. “I told myself I was pursuing you for the same reason. Which was bullshit because you were a challenge, and I usually don’t like to have to work that hard to get laid.” He waited until I delivered a begrudging smile before going on. “Truth was, I saw something familiar in you. After Corinne died, I packed everything inside. I shut down. I stopped living. Then someone—Matt, actually—reminded me that she wouldn’t have wanted that. He was right. So I got the other tattoo—the Buddhist tattoo—”

“‘The current age is but a brief moment in the greater scope of existence.’”

His expression said he was impressed that I’d remembered. “Yes. And I decided to start living for today. Which didn’t work out too well at first because I spent a lot of time drunk and unconscious.”

“Waking up in strange places with no memory of the night before.” I’d remembered everything he’d ever told me. They were the things I’d clung to in my daydreams.

“Exactly. Not very productive. But when I stopped drinking, I was a lot better. Still sad, but better.”

I hated the idea of the JC he was describing. I could see him vividly, though. With eyes that held sorrow. Sitting at the piano in the dark playing mournful melodies. Those were fragments of a grief that had once likely encompassed him.

But I hadn’t been grieving when I’d met him. “So what was the familiar thing you saw in me?”

“God, when I saw you…” His face brightened in a way that made my heart pinch. He cupped my face with his hands. “I saw someone who had stopped living.”

My eyes started to fill. I blinked to keep any tears from spilling.