Free Never Kiss a Stranger by Winter Renshaw Page A

balcony. “I had no idea we were neighbors, either. When were you going to tell me?”
    “You didn’t want to know anything about me.”
    Sometimes it felt wrong living there, as if it were paid for by my mother’s death in some fucked up, roundabout way. But my aunt reminded me that it was what my mother would have wanted. She would’ve wanted me to live comfortably with the world at my fingertips, the way she never could.
    I came up behind Addison, slipping my hands around her waist and bringing them up to her ripe breasts. My lips found the curve between her jaw and her neck as she melted into me.
    “I don’t know if I have the energy.” Her words were a faint whisper. She turned to face me, halting my opportunity to devour her inch by inch. “Please. Stop doing do this.”
    “Stop doing what? I’m doing a lot of things right now, lovely. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
    “Stop making me fall for you.”
    Frozen by her plea, I obliged, letting my hands fall away from her soft skin.
    “I told you you could control my body.” Her words were broken and jagged, her crestfallen face laced with regret. “But I never said you could control my heart. I didn’t want to get to know you. I didn’t want to let you in. I didn’t want to give two shits about anything other than…”
    Her words trailed off, her eyes landing on the acid stained concrete floor.
    “I should go.” She pushed past me, stepping into her shoes and getting back on the elevator.
    With my hands in my pocket and words caught in my throat, I watched her go.

 
     
     

     

    “Coco, can I come over?” I asked as I stood outside Wilder’s apartment building. Glancing over my shoulder every two seconds, I just prayed he didn’t follow me outside. Then again, he didn’t talk me out of leaving. He didn’t stop the elevator. He let me go.
    “Addison, it’s late,” she said. “Aren’t you usually in bed by now?”
    “Aren’t you?” I asked. She usually got up around three to get ready for work.
    “Come on over,” she said.
    * * *
    “Hi, Harrison,” I said as I stepped into their loft. He glanced up from his weathered leather chair, his feet kicked up on the ottoman as he did a New York Times crossword.
    “Pleasure to see you, Addison.” His words were dry, and I watched as he glanced up at the clock above the mantle. I knew it was well past a proper visiting hour, but I needed my sister. Harrison always had a stick up his ass, anyway. I’d learned over the years to let him roll off my back. Most of the time, I’d razz him back and call him out when he was being a giant asshole, and we’d laugh and be fine. But I wasn’t in the mood that night.
    The fireplace glowed, bringing a warmth to their home that I’d come to love over the years. I’d found them their apartment years ago when they were just newlyweds. Before she’d landed the spot on the morning news show. Before they’d thrown in the towel on what seemed to be a perfect union.
    Coco’s fiercely guarded nature rivaled mine, though, and she never did tell me exactly why she’d divorced him. She never did tell me exactly why they were still living together two years later, either.
    Coco left Harrison, at least on paper, around the same time Kyle and I had crumbled to the ground. Too many times she’d set her own personal issues aside so she could deal with mine. She was amazing like that. Coco wasn’t just my big sister, she was my best friend. My protector. My person.
    “Come on in,” she said. “Ignore him.”
    “Not getting along today?” I whispered.
    She rolled her eyes. “He’s got a giant stick lodged up his ass right now.”
    “The one that’s been there for years?”
    “Yep. The one passed down from generation after generation of Bissetts before him.” Coco lead us down the hall to the master suite, the one she inhabited all by herself. Somehow she’d convinced Harrison to take up residence in the guest suite.
    I perched on the