Darkly (Follow Me 4)

“No.” She shakes her head vehemently. “Of course not.”

I don’t reply right away. I will take Skye at her word, but I can’t help but wonder… Does she consider for a moment that I’m trying to sabotage Addie? Does she think I’d resort to such pettiness? Because it is pettiness. Addison and I have a history—a history that is mostly negative.

I drain the rest of my Wild Turkey. “Addison is a troubled woman.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“Don’t you? You’ve been working with her for more than a year. Isn’t it clear that she has to be the center of attention? And when she’s not, she sprouts claws?”

“I see your point,” she says. “Can you tell me more about her?”

I pour myself another Wild Turkey. “Nice try.”

“I don’t understand. Why won’t you talk about your time with Addison? You were both young. Surely it couldn’t have been that horrible.”

“‘Horrible’ is too tame a word.”

Try scandalous. Terrifying. Shocking.

Try the one thing in my adult life that truly scared me.

She swallows. “How was she in bed?”

I stay silent. I can’t answer that question. First, Skye doesn’t actually want to know. No woman who ever asks that question of a man about another woman truly wants the answer, no matter what it is.

Second, I won’t go back to that place. Not for anything or anyone. Even Skye Manning. Even with that pleading look in her beautiful eyes, her lips parted in that way that makes me heart gallop.

“Tell me, Braden. Please.”

“Why do you care?”

“I just…do.”

“For God’s sake, Skye. We were kids. Neither one of us knew what the hell we were doing.”

“So you did take her virginity.”

“Who said that?”

She doesn’t answer.

That question didn’t appear in her mind out of thin air. Someone planted it there. Addie? All these years later, she’s going to violate my confidence? Or someone else? Which means Skye’s been making queries she shouldn’t be.

I advance toward her. “Why does any of this matter to you? Do you want to know if she was better in bed than you are?”

No response.

“Do you want to know about all my previous lovers? There are a lot of them, and I won’t apologize for anything I did in the past.”

She trembles. “I’m not asking you to.”

“Then exactly what are you asking, Skye?”

“I…don’t know.”