"I thought you said my plan to stay in watching horror movies and having spooky sex was a good one."

"And it was, until I found out about this Halloween rave."

"Winston hates raves and so do I."

Vienna flips through the racks of costumes. "Sometimes it's good to get out of your comfort zone. Besides, I don't see a problem. Winston will be there so we won't have a repeat of the Red Room incident."

I shoot her a look. "That's not the issue."

"Then what is it?"

I sigh. "I'm tired of partying all the time. I need a break. Can't we just do something...I don't know, normal?"

"But thats boring!" Vienna pouts.

I cross my arms. "Look. I always go along with your crazy schemes and ideas. But I'm sitting this one out. I'm sure you and Danny will have a great time without us."

Vienna groans. "Ughhhh fine. But don't come crying to me when you're old, knitting away in a rocking chair regretting the days of your wasted youth."

"At least I'll reach old age. With the way you're going you might not make it to thirty."

"In the wise words of Drake, I'm here for a good time, not a long time."

I shake my head as Vienna continues talking. "Now since you're not going with us, you have to help me find a good costume. Something subtle yet sexy. And please nothing cliche like a cat or playboy bunny. And I swear if I see another Harley Quinn costume..."

I yawn. Halloween is only a couple days away and Vienna has spent the weeks prior searching for the perfect costume. Today was no exception. We've been shopping for hours now and I'm supposed to meet Winston for lunch soon. It's one of the rare weekends he has a day off, but being the good friend that I am, I agreed to help out Vienna beforehand. Too bad nothing is matching up to her impossible standards.

"Look V," I sigh. "I don't think you're gonna find what you're looking for in a store. Why don't you and Danny come up with something unique yourselves?"

Vienna furrows her brows. "In only a few days? Like what?"

"Like...what's that anime you two love watching together? The one about the guy who writes peoples names in some notebook and they die?"

"Death Note?"

"Yeah that one. You two could go as characters from the show or something."

Vienna's eyes light up. "Light and Misa! Kennedy you're a genius!"

I flip my hair. "Well duh."

"Okay, you're free to go now!" She blows me a kiss and winks. "I know you're meeting up with your hubby."

I roll my eyes but smile. "See you later."

...

I should have never told Winston I hated sushi. As soon as he learned this, he dragged us to a sushi place downtown called Ki Sushi.

"You've just never had good sushi before," Winston says as he opens the door for me. "A lot of people think sushi is just limited to the basic California roll, which is gross by the way, but it's not. And sushi isn't just raw fish. You can have it cooked too."

"What are you, a sushi connoisseur?" I giggle.

He grins. "Something like that."

He was relentless, so I agreed to have a taste. Instead Winston goes all out. He starts us off with the shrimp and vegetable tempura with dipping sauce and two bowls of miso soup. Then he orders the sushi deluxe plate from the sushi bar.

"It almost looks too pretty to eat," I admit as the waitress sets down our plates.

"Believe me, it tastes even better," Winston picks up his chopsticks and digs in. I purse my lips and stare down at the food. I said it looked pretty, but that didn't mean I wanted to eat it. When Winston notices I'm not eating he laughs.

"Alright. What will it get you to try at least one?"

"I'd rather just admire it from a distance. The shrimp and soup was good enough for me."

He raises a brow at me and I sigh. "Fine. Just one. But if I hate it I'm spitting it out on you."

"Fair enough."

I pick up my chopsticks and choose a random roll of sushi. Lifting it up to my mouth I take a very small bite from the edge and chew. Winston watches me.

"So?" He asks.

I finish chewing and swallow. "It...could've been worse."

I end up eating the rest. Winston tells me it's called the Heaven Roll. It contains fried tempura made of imitation crab sticks and coconut shrimp. He lets me have the rest of them since it's the only one I'm willing to try. Baby steps.

After lunch Winston and I decide to act like tourists and spend the day in Times Square. Neither of us have gone for fun before.

"Let's take a picture!" I wave Winston over to a sign.

I ask someone to snap a few photos of us together. Then I choose one and send it to Vienna.

Me: Times Square!!!!

V: oml you are so lame!!! 👎🏻

Me: 🥳

Winston and I walk around hand in hand while window shopping. When we pass Hershey's Chocolate World, I can't resist dragging him inside.

"Don't tell me you're a chocoholic," he says as I pull him after me.

"Don't judge me okay? A girl needs her chocolate."

I end up purchasing some candy and we get s'mores cups. It tastes like heaven on my tastebuds. We also stop at the Disney story and Winston buys me Minnie Mouse ears despite me repeatedly telling him not to.

"It's not funny," Winston laughs as he forces me to wear the ears. I cross my arms. "This is stupid."

"Maybe, but it's what a tourist would do," Winston replies.

"Well if I have to wear these, you have to wear Mickey ones."

"Never said I wasn't," he winks. Afterward he coerces me into taking a selfie, and just to annoy me more he posts it on social media.

"You don't use your Instagram in months and that's what you decide to finally post?" I say as I open Instagram to see the post. My mouth falls open when I read the caption. "Minnie tickles my Mickey? What the fuck Winston! That's perverted! Delete this!"

He doubles over with laughter and dodges the Winnie the Pooh plush I throw at his head. "You're the pervert," he smirks. "What the hell are you thinking?"

"Oh please," I scoff. "We all know that caption is far from innocent."

"Or you just have a dirty mind. What's wrong with Minnie tickling Mickey?"

I resist the urge to throw something else at him.

As payback for having to suffer through that embarrassment, I make him carry me around on his back for the rest of the day. Despite my protests, it's still a fun day, and probably the most carefree and childlike I've been in a long time.

"Let's go back to my place," I suggest when it starts getting dark. "My parents are on a date night. They won't be home until late."

Winston raises a brow. "Are you insinuating you're gonna tickle my Mickey?"

"No, but I will push you into traffic if you ever say that around me again."

"Harsh. I could die you know."

"Exactly."

...

It dawns on me Winston has never seen my room before, which is why he's more fascinated than he should be when we go in.

"So this is the Davis lair," he muses. "Will I make it out alive?"

"That depends," I shrug off my jacket. "Are you going to say anything stupid? Because I could just as easily push you out the window and it's about a fifteen story fall."

"You're surprisingly violent."

I smile sweetly at him before shutting the bathroom door. After I pee and wash my hands I re-emerge to find Winston messing with the colored lights. He switches from blue, to red, to green, then finally settles on purple, turning the brightness down.

"Come here," he says in a low voice. I shake my head and bite my lip.

"No. You come here."

"Now Kennedy."

I feel a rush of wetness flood my panties at his tone, and take a tiny step towards him. When I'm about a foot away I stop. Winston regards me for a moment before speaking. "Strip," he says simply.

He's not even touching me, but the way his eyes rake over every inch of my skin as I peel off the layers of my clothing makes it feel as if he's the one undressing me. I squeeze my legs together in a futile attempt to relive some of the pressure. When I'm left in my green lace bra and matching thong Winston beckons me closer. I pause.

"You have to take off something too," I say. I'm not gonna be the only half naked one here.

I watch as Winston slowly removes his shirt, my mouth practically watering at the sight of his naked torso. Good Lord, he needs to come with a warning label. Warning: This product may be too hot to handle.

Once he's shirtless I take another step forward and climb onto his lap. He kisses me, his hands traveling down my waist, gripping my thighs, then squeezing my ass. I moan into his mouth, feeling his hardness poking my stomach and desperate to get it in and relieve the ache between my legs. I start fumbling to unzip his jeans. Winston's fingers dig into the flesh of my hip as I grind against him. Only the thin layer of my underwear separates us and soon even that doesn't exist as he rips my thong off. I start to guide him into me when Winston grabs my wrist, stopping me.

"Wait. Condom."

My chest is heaving up and down. "Do you trust me?" I whisper, staring into his eyes. I got on birth control like two weeks ago, but I never told Winston so we've still been using condoms whenever we have sex. Now I want to see his reaction before I tell him.

Winston searches my gaze for a minute before slowly nodding. He slides into me and my mouth falls open in an O shape. I can feel every inch of him pulsing inside me, and I almost orgasm right then and there.

"Jesus Christ," Winston groans. I push him back so he's lying flat on the bed and lift my hips, sinking back down on him. I rock my hips in a semi circle, lift up, come back down, then repeat. My head falls back as I ride him, moaning, whimpering, and everything in between.

"Fucking hell Kennedy. Holy shit," Winston's chest starts heaving as I gain speed. "Fuckkkkk."

He starts meeting me thrust for thrust and I thought this only happened in movies but the headboard starts banging against the wall so I'm really glad no one is home. When he thrusts again he hits my G-spot and I spiral, screaming his name. I manage to hold myself up long enough for him to orgasm too, before I slump down on him, both of us breathing heavily. I feel some of his cum trickling down the inside of my thigh.

My eyes are closed when I finally gain the strength to speak. "I'm on birth control."

Winston skims his fingers down my back. "I know."

We lay like that for a few more minutes before I decide I want to take a shower. Of course Winston joins me and at first it really does start off innocent. We take turns washing each other's back and I throw soap suds at Winston, which causes soap to get in his eyes. This turns into an all out suds war. Then Winston starts getting touchy again and we end up going for round two. Sex in the shower is not what books and movies make it out to be. Sure it's great, but I almost slipped and cracked my skull open. Winston is still laughing about it by the time we step out of the shower and I glare at him as I pull on a new set of underwear.

"Shower sex is never happening again."

"Never say never," he smirks. "Although that would have been a hilarious trip to the ER."

"Yeah, for you maybe."

By the time we're finished getting dressed it's almost ten thirty. I warm us up some leftover lasagna from last nights dinner and then we share a tub of ice cream from the freezer.

"Do you work tomorrow?" I ask.

"Unfortunately," Winston sets his spoon down. "I wish I could have more days like this."

"Me too," I place my hand over his. "Is everything okay at work?"

"I guess. We're still trying to navigate the waters of this Hudson deal."

"No I mean..." I take a deep breath. "Is someone embezzling money from you?"

Winston's mouth parts and he stares at me. His eyes narrow and he draws his hand back. "Who told you that?"

"No one," I respond quickly. "I mean, I talked to my brother Austin, and he told me our dad mentioned a little bit about the case he's working on with your father to him. He thinks it's embezzlement."

Winston lets out a humorless chuckle. "Well your brother is certainly smart."

My eyes widen. "So it's true then? You have to catch them!"

"What do you think we've been trying to do?" Winston shakes his head. "But they're smart. They're covering their tracks, really well might I add."

I'm almost afraid to ask. "How much have they stolen exactly?"

Winston clenches his jaw. "A quarter million."

"What?!" I shriek. How the hell did this person think they could steal a quarter million dollars and actually get away with it? They have to be insane. Austin was right. It has to be someone on the inside.

"We've fired every single person within the accounting and finance departments, and slapped them all with NDA's, but money is still disappearing each month," Winston sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "If this continues and word gets out, we'll lose the Hudson deal and our reputation will go down in mud."

I frown. "That doesn't make sense. If someone is stealing from you how does that ruin your reputation?"

"How can it not? People are trusting us with their hard earned dollars, and there's a thief within our company that we hired. That puts the blame on us. Not to mention all the legal backlash we'll face. We have no idea where the money is. If the embezzled funds are just sitting in a savings account gathering interest, we'll lose money and investment potential. But if the money is being used to handle payable accounts, pay taxes or to repay investment and bank loans, there could be serious legal problems if we don't have enough money to handle the claims. There was a title company in Texas who had an employee embezzle eight-hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the business. They had lawsuits coming in for years, stemming from cancelled insurance policies and people whose property transactions were affected for several years after the embezzlement was discovered."

Jesus. I open my mouth, but no words come out. Winston closes his eyes and leans back in his seat looking drained, and I hate seeing him like this. I desperately want to help, to do something, but even this is out of my expertise.

"I hate this," I say. "I hate that I can't fix this for you." Because that's what I do. I fix things, I solve problems, I come up with solutions.

Winston glances are me, his face expression softening. "Kennedy no. It's not your fault. This is not your problem to fix."

But it is, I want to argue. Your problems are my problems now. Instead of saying all that, I keep my mouth shut as he presses a kiss to my forehead and stands.

"I should get going now. It's back to the real world tomorrow," Winston rolls his eyes. "But thank you for today. I really needed it."

I force a smile as we walk to the front door and he kisses me goodbye. As soon as he's gone I rush back upstairs. Nope. I cannot and will not accept this. There has to be a way to catch whoever is stealing money from them. They may have managed to cover their tracks, but there's always one hidden trail left behind. One that everyone always seems to miss. I'm going to find it, and I'm going to expose it. But I'll need some help. I pick up my phone. It rings and rings before the line clicks.

"Hello darling. Are you calling so we can finally squeeze in that spa day you promised?"

I take a deep breath. "No, but I need your help. What do you know about embezzlement?"

...