“Do you hear that?” Luke whispers in my ear, wrapping his arms around me from behind as I smooth the covers over Jessie’s sleeping form in the luxurious second bedroom of the suite. There’s a hint of laughter in his voice that has me smiling, and I go still, tilting my head to the side to try and pick up whatever sound it is he’s talking about.

“I don’t hear anything,” I admit after a moment, keeping my voice down, too. Jessie has been out of school for three days, and I swear, her mouth hasn’t stopped moving once the entire time. I love seeing her so happy and carefree—she’s been practically bouncing off the walls lately, giddy with excitement about Christmas and always giggling in the corner with Luke whenever they’re both in the suite at the same time, as if they share a secret or something—but there’s no way I want to ruin the moment of blessed peace by waking her up, either.

I suddenly laugh as it clicks, covering my mouth quickly to muffle the sound.

“Oh,” I whisper, turning in Luke’s arms to face him. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it? It’s actually quiet in here for the first time all day.”

He smiles down at me, slow and sweet, and I lose my heart all over again.

More than anything, I wish this was real. That it could last.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, leaning in so that his lips brush the sensitive skin under my ear in the spot that always makes me shiver. “It’s wonderful to hear her so excited, but…”

Luke laughs softly, leading me out of the room, and I giggle again. I know exactly what he means.

“She’ll probably calm down after Christmas,” I say without thinking… which immediately makes my stomach sink.

I wish I’d kept my mouth closed. I don’t want to think about leaving Luke. The Luminare is throwing a fancy Christmas party in two days—on Christmas Eve—and the Kohs fly back to their home in Singapore the day after Christmas. Luke hasn’t said a word about what will come next, but the closer we get to the end, the less I can avoid thinking about it. After all, the whole point of this charade as his fiancée was for the Kohs.

Luke’s so sweet; he’s obviously enjoying having us around well enough, but I imagine he’s also eager to get back to his real life and a penthouse suite that’s not filled with the chatter of a little girl 24/7.

“Speaking of Christmas,” he says the minute we close Jessie’s door behind us, not bothering to whisper anymore. “I want to show you something.”

His eyes are sparkling just like Jessie’s do when she’s excited, and I push aside gloomy thoughts of how I won’t get to see that anymore after Christmas and remind myself that I knew what I was getting into from the start—something that isn’t real; something that’s temporary—and more importantly, that I do not want to waste a minute of this time with him in moping. Charade or not, being with him is everything I’ve ever wanted.

No… it’s more.

Luke leads me across the suite and pulls me into his bedroom, a place that for all the naughty moments we’ve snuck together lately, I haven’t spent much time in. Jessie and I share the second bedroom; I don’t sleep here with Luke at night the way I would if we were a real couple.

Luke pulls me into his arms again, his large hands sliding down my back to rest on my bottom.

“I’ve got a surprise,” he says with a playful excitement I wouldn’t have believed him capable of when we first met.

He pulls me flush against his body, grinning down at me, and I’m pretty sure I can feel his surprise. It grows hot and hard between us, digging deliciously into my stomach, and a rush of heat shoots through me, making my panties wet and my inhibitions fly right out the window.

“A surprise for me?” I ask breathlessly, blushing at my brazenness.

If I’m honest, though, I’m desperately hoping that I’m right. That Luke has brought me to his room to finally have his way with me. That the hard length pulsing against my stomach means he’s become just as addicted to our intimacies as I have.

I never had time for men before, or found one that made me feel the way Luke does, and these weeks I’ve spent with Luke have turned me into someone I barely recognize. Someone positively wicked, even though he hasn’t fully taken me yet. Not for lack of willingness on my part… but then again, I’m not really his fiancée.

I’m just his employee.

For all the liberties I’ve allowed him—all the things I’ve shamelessly begged him for, now that he’s shown me how good it can be between us—his refusal to cross that line couldn’t make it any clearer. I’m still a virgin, and if I could be granted a single Christmas wish, it would be to give Luke my virginity before he’s done with me. To know he wants all of me, even if just for a little while.

Is that wrong of me? I don’t know, but there’s no one left in my life to judge me for it, and regardless of what anyone else would say—me being too young for him, working for him, not knowing him long enough—nothing has ever felt as right as when I’m in his arms. Nothing.

“No,” Luke says though, giving me a chaste peck on the lips that’s at odds with the hard evidence of his desire still throbbing between us. “This surprise isn’t for you, sweetheart.”

“It’s… not?” I ask, still having trouble thinking of anything but what he might do to me.

What I hope he’ll do to me.

“Nope,” he says, grinning down at me and then stepping away. He moves over to his walk-in closet, the one that’s bigger than the entire apartment Jessie and I were evicted from. “Close the door, just in case,” he stage-whispers to me with a wink before disappearing inside it for a moment.

I do as I’m told, and before I know it, he’s hauling a ridiculous number of shopping bags out from the closet; bags overflowing with so much glitter and plush and pastel wonderfulness that I gasp.

“Toys?” I ask, forgetting the naughty thoughts I was just having as I rush over to peek inside the bags.

“So many toys,” he tells me, laughing as he plops them down in front of me, then goes back into the closet for more. “Do you think she’ll like them?”

“Jessie?” I ask, cautiously starting to look through what he’s bought. It’s an outrageous number of gifts, and as soon as my sister’s name leaves my mouth, I blush at my audacity. Obviously these can’t all be for Jessie. Luke has enough here for a dozen children. Two dozen. They must be for some kind of hotel charity event, or—

“Of course they’re for Jessie,” he says proudly, cutting into my thoughts. “I made a note of the things she got excited about when I was out with her the other day—” the day he’d picked her up from school while I’d been “working;” also known as getting pampered at the hotel the spa with Jia Koh, “—and then I sent my assistant back to purchase them.”

I pull out a sparkling purple keepsake box, something Jessie would swoon over for sure, and sink down onto the bed in shock. “You bought all of this… for my sister?”

“Too much?” Luke asks, an uncharacteristically sheepish look on his face.

“It’s… a lot,” I say, trying not to smile as I blink back tears. Happy tears.

It is too much, but it’s been a long, long time since anyone’s been able to spoil Jessie. I don’t want to think about how we probably won’t have room for all this stuff in our next home or how many Christmases and birthdays and special events have come and gone over the last couple of years without me being able to do anything for her beyond reminding her how special she is to me. Selfishly, I just want to take a moment and enjoy how good it feels to have someone else care about her, too.

To feel like we’re a family.

“Jessie will be over the moon,” I tell Luke instead of saying what I should, because of course I should tell him that we can’t accept all this. “I just wish I could—”

I snap my mouth closed without finishing, suddenly embarrassed.

“Wish you could what, sweetheart?” Luke asks, taking the keepsake box from me and pulling me to my feet. “Tell me and I’ll make it happen.”

I shake my head, and he gives me a stern look.

“Hannah, you do work for me. Now be a good girl and tell me.”

I freeze, mixed reactions coursing through me. I do want to be good for him, and my traitorous body starts tingling with the memory of all the ways he’s already shown me I can do that. But even though I know him well enough now that I can tell he meant the words to be teasing, they’re also exactly the reminder I needed to get my head on straight.

We’re not a family.

I work for Luke.

It hurts a little to hear him say it, but that’s silly, because it’s true. He may spoil us both and drive me crazy with wicked pleasures, but I can’t—cannot—let myself forget what I really am to him.

I can’t let myself want more than it’s my place to.

“Tell me what you wish you could do,” Luke repeats, his voice low and rasping as he tips my chin up.

It’s a tone that makes me want to moan, especially when he stares at my lips like he wants to devour them while he gives me the order. I try to look away, embarrassed, but he smiles like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me and wraps his hand loosely around my throat to keep my head up and my eyes on him. His fingers move in a slow, sensual caress on the sensitive skin there and I do moan, forced to squeeze my thighs together tightly at the sudden flood of delicious heat that his touch sends through me.

“Tell me, Hannah.”

“I wish… wish I could get Jessie some presents, too,” I admit, selfishly having a hard time focusing on my sister now even though I really had been thinking of her just a moment before. I try to refocus though, despite the erotically distracting way he’s still holding me.

I can’t afford presents. Yes, I work for Luke, but I haven’t talked to HR yet or been put on the payroll… and the last thing I want to do is remind him of that fact and break the illusion of what we have any sooner than necessary. I’m not going to disobey him when he orders me to tell him what’s on my mind, though. I enjoy doing what he says too much to consider it, and it doesn’t even occur to me to lie.

“I haven’t been able to do Christmas presents since our parents died,” I go on. “And I wish…” I nibble on my lip, hoping I’m not crossing a line, but say it anyway. “I wish I could get you a Christmas present, too.”

Luke’s eyes flare with heat.

“You are my present,” he says, backing me up until the mattress stops me. His voice drop slow and sensual as he adds, “Are you going to let me unwrap you now, sweetheart?”

“Yes, please,” I whisper, all the naughty thoughts I’d had earlier rushing back with a vengeance. “You know I’m yours, Luke.”

I can see how much he likes hearing it, and with a low growl, he spins me around so that I’m facing the bed, lifting my hair off my back with one hand and finding the zipper of my short satin cocktail dress with the other. I wore it for the dinner he took me to earlier with Paul and the Kohs, but what I’ve got on underneath is solely for Luke.

He lowers the zipper, cool air hitting my back with a shock that has me gasping.

“Jesus, Hannah,” he whispers almost reverently as the dress slips down my body, pooling around my ankles and leaving me exposed to him.

The skimpy black corset, lacy thong, and thigh-high stockings I’d felt so wicked putting on earlier make me feel even naughtier than if I’d been standing in front of him naked, and when I look back at him over my shoulder and see the look in his eyes as he takes in the sight of me, I suddenly feel bold.

Even if it’s just for now, he wants me. Badly.

“I’m yours, Luke,” I repeat, wishing I were even more brazen. Wishing I knew what to do to get him to lose the tight control he always has when we’re intimate together.

Not that I don’t love his control—I do; it makes me feel safe no matter how wanton I get—but selfishly, I want Luke to need me.

To want me so much that he takes everything I’m trying to offer him.

To lose control.

To take his pleasure with me, not just give it… to take me.

The way Luke’s eyes drink me in, I’m hopeful that he just might. His big hands stroke my sides, moving up and down the silk material that barely covers me… reaching around to tease my breasts where they try to spill out of the tight lingerie… sliding down over my trembling stomach… around the curve of my waist… behind me, where he cups my almost-bare bottom and kneads the sensitive flesh there, subtly pulling me open like he owns me.

He does.

“Luke,” I gasp, my knees turning to water as I spread my legs wider to brace myself.

Oh, Lord. He’s already got me wet, throbbing with heat between my legs, and I want to beg him to… to… to do more.

“I’ve got you, babydoll,” he rasps, one arm wrapping around my waist to hold me steady as his other hand slips between my legs from behind.

“I need… need…”

I don’t even know what I need; just him. More of him. All of him.

Luke smiles. “I know,” he says, even though I didn’t manage a word. “And I’m going to take care of you, baby.”

He rubs my wet pussy through the tiny swath of lace that covers it, and my head falls back against his shoulder as I gasp. He will. I know he’ll take care of me. I trust him completely.

“You’re already wet for me,” he whispers as he slides his thick fingers underneath my panties. I rock against them and sexy laughter fills his voice as he adds, “Needy little girl.”

It’s true. I try to squeeze my legs closed around his hand, greedy for a firmer touch, but he pulls it away and swats my bottom, laughing. “Patience, sweetheart.”

The sting of that swat sizzles through me, leaving me gasping again. The sensation is more heat than pain, and it bites into me and won’t let go. It makes me feel hot and bothered and desperate for him to do something about the tingling urgency between my legs, turning me just as needy as he called me a moment ago.

“Please, Luke,” I beg, my whole body trembling with the effort of holding still the way he obviously wants me to. I reach back and clutch his hard thighs, shaking with desire. “P-p-please… tell me what you want me to do.”

“Stay just like this, sweetheart,” he says with a throaty laugh, nipping at the side of my neck. “I want to finish unwrapping my present.”

I’m desperate to press my bottom back against the throbbing length of the erection I can feel burning into me like a brand, pressing against me through the layers of my naughty lingerie and Luke’s ever-present suit. I want to grab the arm he’s got wrapped around my ribs and pull it higher, rub my breasts against his hand, beg him to pinch and squeeze and roll my nipples between his talented fingers until I scream. I need him to touch me between my legs again, push those fingers deep inside me, thrust them hard—in and out—until I’m crazy with it.

Instead, I nod, giving in to the even bigger need that fills me whenever he holds me like this; the need to be good for him.

To let him take the lead.

To trust that he knows what I need better than I do myself.

To give myself to him in each and every way he demands, for as long as he wants me.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, sliding his hands down my sides… over my hips… across my shaking thighs to unclip the corset’s garters from the tops of my stockings. “You’ll leave these on,” he says of the stockings, stroking them. “But I need your breasts free.”

He removes my corset and then turns me to face him.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, his eyes dropping from my eyes to my breasts as he palms them in his hands.

His thumbs flick my nipples, and I gasp.

“Naughty girl,” he teases, doing it again. “I complimented you. Shouldn’t you say thank you?”

“Th-th-thank you, Luke,” I stutter, reaching out to grip his shoulders even though the truly naughty part of me wants to reach down and touch myself.

Or infinitely better, touch him.

Luke still has his suit on, and despite the way his cock tents the expensive material, he’s as calm and controlled as always, as if he has all the time in the world. I, on the other hand, feel like I’m going to explode.

“Do you want me to keep touching you like this?” he asks, crowding into me until the mattress hits the back of my thighs. He doesn’t stop moving forward, and when I start to fall backward, he catches me and lowers me onto the bed.

“Answer me, Hannah,” he demands, his hands going right back to kneading my breasts.

“Yes, Luke,” I gasp as hot waves of desire shoot down to my core from his touch, my back arching off the bed. “Like… like that. And… and more.”

He gives me a hot smile. “How about with my mouth, sweetheart? Would you like that?”

My “yes” turns into a wanton moan when he lowers his mouth to my throat… licks and bites his way down to my pebbled nipples and then suckles them until I’m begging again… he laughs against my stomach as I tunnel my fingers through his thick hair and try to push him lower, forgetting myself.

Luke doesn’t budge.

“Who’s in charge here, sweetheart?” he asks, looking up at me with a twinkle in his eyes that thrills me just as much as his touch. He winks. “Good things come to those who wait.”

I want to be good, but I don’t have time to wait. Christmas is just days away, and with it, so is the end of Luke’s need for me.

“Please,” I pant, knowing I’m disobeying him but unable to stop the surge of desperation the thought awakens in me. “I… I don’t have any patience.”

Luke laughs, low and deep, and the sound vibrates through his body and all the way into mine. Then he pushes my stocking-clad thighs apart and lowers his head between them, giving me exactly what I’m so impatient for.

“Ohhhhhhhhh,” I cry, bucking up against his hot mouth. He’s licking me right through the little scrap of black lace that I’m still wearing, and it’s both erotic and maddening. Spiraling me higher but not pushing me high enough.

Luke holds my hips down, not letting me move, and uses his teeth gently, tugging the throbbing button of my clit through the thong.

My mouth falls open in a soundless “O” of sheer pleasure for a moment before I find my voice.

“Please please please,” I beg, writhing under his firm control. “Luke.” I’m gasping. “More.”

He groans as if he can feel the pleasure, too, sucking my little button right through the lace, licking long stripes of wet heat into me and then pounding my clit with his tongue when I cry out again. I’m wound so tight I can’t think straight, but I still need more. I’m cresting… cresting… higher and higher, but he keeps me poised just on the edge and I can’t tumble over without his permission.

“Luke,” I pant, almost crying as the unrelenting pleasure verges on erotic torture. “Let me… make me, oh please… make me… m-m-make me…”

I can’t even get the words out, much less think straight. His mouth is pure heaven, and I’m lost.

“Make you come, baby?” Luke growls, suddenly surging up so that his body covers me, pinning me to the bed. “Is that what you’re asking for?”

I nod desperately and he tangles one hand in the back of my hair and tugs my head back, shoving his other into my panties with another growl. He thrusts his fingers inside me, hard and deep, and my mouth falls open on a keening cry as I clamp my thighs around his hand and try to ride it home.

Yes, yes, yes. I’m so close.

Luke tugs my hair, just hard enough to sting, and I gasp at the sharp jolt of pleasure it sends through me. “Hannah,” he says sharply. “Look at me.”

I didn’t even realize I’d closed my eyes, but I force them open as he thumbs my clit and starts thrusting those fingers in and out of me, faster and faster.

“I’m going to watch as you come for me.” His cock throbs against my hip as his hand fingers me closer and closer to orgasm. “You’re going to give me that, aren’t you, sweetheart? Let me see you fall apart for me? Show me that you’re truly mine?”

“Yes,” I gasp, fingers scrabbling at the soft material of his suit when I dig them into his shoulders. “Yes, Luke. I’ll… I’ll give you anything. Everything. Please please please—”

“Come, Hannah,” he orders with a fierce smile. “That’s all I want, baby. Come for me. Now.”

I do it, shattering completely. I belong to him; body, heart, and soul. I just… just wish he’d take all of me. That he would take me and keep me.

Forever.

But when the wave of pleasure fades to a warm glow, I know I’m lucky enough just to have this, even for a little while. The way Luke always and only focuses on my pleasure. The way he turns me inside out and then tenderly puts me to rights again. The burning need in his eyes, his hands, his mouth… the need he doesn’t give into, because this isn’t forever.

But it’s still enough.

It has to be, because it’s all Luke’s offering.