I couldn’t stop thinking about Kiara all night after our first date, and all the next day.

Thankfully, I’m seeing her again tonight, but the past forty-eight hours without seeing her—or even hearing her voice, since she refused to answer my calls and only texted replies—has been absolute torture.

Mentally, I think she has forgiven me for what I did to her all those years ago, but she still holds an emotional grudge.

She’s not just exercising extreme caution due to fear of my seductive powers—she has so many reasons to stay in her fortress.

I can’t blame her, but it still bugs.

The only thing soothing me is knowing that it’s only a matter of time before her remaining walls come crashing down.

“I had planned for you to be my first that night…” she’d said.

Haha!

Oh, Kiki—my sweet, naive Kiki—I still will be.

Of course, she’s more on guard now than ever, thanks to my sneaky kiss.

I really couldn’t help myself—some parts of me felt mushy, and some were rock-hard, and with her standing right there, looking and smelling so delicious—I had to snatch a taste.

Nice to see she didn’t mind and, in fact, practically begged for more.

She only got mad because she felt outfoxed for a moment, tricked into revealing how she really feels.

And it’s not like I’m hiding anything—she knows how I feel about her, suspects my intentions aren’t pure, and yet, she’s going along with this arrangement.

Although now with a whole lot more conditions!

The nerve of this woman—she actually made a list.

She wants all remaining dates to be in public, i.e., she wants to make sure lots of people are always around.

I can’t meet her at her door whenever I pick her up, and I certainly can’t walk her back to her place like last time.

“Don’t try to hold my hand or kiss me,” she’d said explicitly. “No groping, no petting; no sexual acts whatsoever.”

I wish I could tell my brother all of this—he’d get such a kick out of these details, but I feel sort of possessive of our moments; I don’t want to share.

All Logan needs to know is when the deed is finally done, and I’m even starting to wonder about that.

I don’t want to embarrass Kiara; I don’t want my brother to make light of something that doesn’t feel so light.

What I have with Kiki should be treated with the proper weight.

And now here we are again for date number two.

After punishing me with no sight or sound from her in two days, I’m minutes from seeing her again, parked outside of her place and dressed even sharper than before.

I try to prepare myself for what she’ll look like tonight since her own look will be taken up a notch considering where we’re headed, but nothing I did could prepare me for the sight of Kiara Montgomery coming toward me.

I had offered to buy her an outfit and she’d turned me down sharply, saying she had her own goddamned money, etc., and while I wasn’t saying she couldn’t afford to look the way she was ‘supposed to,’ she clearly took offense while I explained how much I just wanted to do something for her.

Particularly since she’d commanded, “no flowers, no chocolate or other such gifts…”

Man, she tried her best to nip all possible roads to seduction in the bud.

When she was done listing the rules, I told her I’ll behave and follow them as long as she doesn’t tease me.

“This is a two-way street,” I’d said. “Don’t try to take advantage of my restraint and I’ll have no problem honoring your requests.”

Yet here she is, once again looking good enough to eat but in a regal sort of way.

She is wearing diamonds, a flattering long black dress, and her hair is in an elegant up-do.

I may be a bit biased, but damn we’re a perfect physical match.

She belongs on my arm.

“Kiki…” I breathe when she nears me.

“No compliments!”

“Come on, girl—you can’t expect me not to tell you how stunning you look. You can’t control what I say to you. If you don’t want to talk about certain things, fine—I accept your list of topics to avoid, but if I’ve got something to goddamned express, I will.”

She backs down.

“Okay,” she says softly, as if finally realizing how unreasonable her request was.

Seriously though—fine, I won’t fly her anywhere on a whim or touch her without some sort of explicit permission, but if she thinks she’s gonna muzzle me…

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she says, eyeing my threads.

“Thanks. Now get in there and let’s go.”

She gives me a small smile and obeys, ducking into the back of the limo, her perfume wafting out behind her and then filling the car.

I close the door after us and pin her with my eyes.

“I’m glad tonight’s choice was of your liking,” I say neutrally.

“Oh, you knew I’d be down for this.”

“Things could have changed.”

“But they didn’t, and I have to admit, I was a little surprised you even remembered such a thing.”

“Back then, I’d made a mental note to take you someday. As soon as you mentioned wanting to attend an opera, it became a thing I wanted to do for you. How many have you seen over the years?”

“Believe it or not, this is my first one!”

“You’re kidding me. After all this time…”

“Well, I didn’t want to go by myself, and most people I knew weren’t into it. I didn’t want to go with someone—friend or family—who wasn’t excited about it. And, as you know, I didn’t exactly rack up boyfriends who would graciously take me…”

“What about your mom?”

“The idea didn’t exactly appeal to her either. I floated it once and she would have done it and might have even been pleasantly surprised, but I wanted to go with someone who felt similarly to me. Or at least could be arm candy—which you are.”

She smiles and I mirror it.

As we’re heading into the venue, I see a familiar male figure with a cute blonde at his side.

“Logan?” I ask incredulously.

What the fuck are you doing here? I stop myself from saying; after all, this is a classy event.

I tense, suspicious of my brother’s intentions.

“Hey, bro! What a surprise!” he greets me with a smile.

He’s a fucking liar—the way he said it made it clear he planned this little run-in.

It’s my fault, clearly, for giving him any details at all—though I’ve refrained from telling him about my feelings about Kiara and this whole arrangement, and I definitely skipped the things she’s told me, I let him know I was taking her to the opera tonight.

From there, it was easy for him to get a date and a seat and poke a thorn in my side.

“And who is this?” he asks innocently, staring at Kiara and knowing damn well who she is to some degree.

“This,” I begin, drawing her closer to me and noticing she doesn’t pull away, “is Kiara—my date and...”

“Wait a minute...” He stares at her, his face locked in ardent concentration. “You’re... you’re that singer?”

His date perks up with sudden interest and Kiara smiles wide, the flattery of recognition taking her guard down a bit while I marvel at my brother’s acting skills for once.

Kiara obviously expected he wouldn’t recognize her from long ago—who would? 

I hung out with her for weeks and it even took me a second to realize who she was on TV the other night.

“It’s really nice to meet you!” he says, sticking out a hand.

She takes it. “Nice to ‘meet’ you too, Logan,” she replies dryly.

Logan frowns.

Uh oh. Looks like he’ll discover my little secret.

He glances at me then looks back at Kiara.

For a moment, I hope she decides not to bother reminding him and we can all go on our way, but instead, she says, “I know I look a lot different now but come on.”

Logan stares blankly.

“I used to tutor this guy,” she says, thumbing in my direction. “I’ve been to your house several times, Logan. We went to the same school.”

Logan’s brows come together even more, his frown deepening as he looks even more confused.

“No way,” he almost whispers. Then louder, his forehead straightening out, “That Kiara?”

“How many do you know?” she says with a laugh.

Logan turns back to me with an odd expression.

For a moment, I fear he’s going to reveal something he shouldn’t, but he turns back to Kiara and says, “Holy shit, you’ve changed.” His date gives him a disapproving look that he completely misses. “I can’t believe it’s you.” He half-chuckles then turns back to me. “Did you... recognize her right away?”

I shrug casually.

“What are you talking about?” Kiara asks Logan sharply, clearly sensing something amiss.

Logan turns back to her and mirrors my casual shrug.

“Well, we saw you on TV the other night. I was actually wondering why my brother almost looked like he had heart eyes for a moment there—he’s not usually moved so easily. But now it all makes sense.”

Relief washes through me.

He actually did me a solid!

Kiara looks flattered again, her cheeks clearly flushed.

Okay, Logan, move along now…

“Anyway, it was really nice to ‘meet’ you again,” Logan says to Kiara.

He shoots me a strange look before taking off with his quiet date.

I realize he never he even bothered to introduce the girl.

Poor pawn.

I can tell the opera has weakened Kiara tremendously.

With the two of us sitting close to each other in the dark, dressed to the nines, and melodious voices seeming to float to us from the great beyond through the doomed players on stage, I found myself unexpectedly weakened as well.

Kiara’s soul was clearly stirred by the sad storyline, and apparently, so was mine.

Who knew music could reach me like this?

Since becoming rich, I haven’t joined in on the activities people usually connect with nine and ten-figure club members and high society. I don’t eat caviar for breakfast and golf on secluded islands. I don’t watch horse ballets in the day and make famous artists paint things for me at night.

Sure, I fly first class or on a private jet to go wherever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want, and I think nothing of owning cars that cost six figures, but I don’t drink from cups with my pinky cocked in the air, and I certainly don’t go to operas—so this is my first time at one as well.

And while I’ve been stirred by musicals and plays and even movies, what I just experienced was on another level.

I almost shed a thug tear.

At first, I was just watching Kiara, taking her scents into my nose and imprinting every bit of her presence on my memory—what she looked like from head to toe, the way she held her hands, her beautiful profile. Even memorizing the shade of lipstick.

Of course, I had to quickly divert my attention away from her lips—they were too tempting—so I focused on gratefulness, my luck that she was there with me. That I had a chance to prove to her she was special to me.

Then at some point, I’m not sure when, there I was, fully invested in the tragic story playing out on stage.

I found my chest swelling with emotion, my eyes trapped on the actors and way too invested in what was going on between the characters.

Then it was almost as if some invisible, diabolical surgeon sliced opened my chest and exposed my beating heart to the elements, and though I couldn’t see or feel the incision and the sudden vulnerability of vital internal organs, I felt that vulnerability all the same.

And now I’m in trouble.

I feel stripped of something—a layer of control, I think—so I’m in danger of violating any number of Kiara’s rules of engagement if we don’t get the fuck out of here soon.

With these intense emotions swirling through me, all I want to do is hold her, press my lips against hers. Keep our warm bodies close and savor the way she feels against my body.

Of course, all of that would be dangerous, because my cock would fully awaken and nudge me to find a way inside her.

I have no doubt if I were to start seducing her, seriously intent on slipping my dick between her legs, I would succeed; she’d have no chance against me.

But she’d probably end up pretty mad at me.

Or would she?

I don’t want to risk losing her again to find out.

No holding hands, she’d said to me, but at some point, her small hand slipped into mine, grabbing my attention momentarily.

I tried not to react beyond closing my hand over hers a bit, but she pulled away not long after, in a way that indicated to me that she, too, was fighting a mighty battle within herself while the opera moved us.

And now here she is with soft eyes, a gentle affected expression and a tell-tale streak in her makeup as we exit the venue.

Thank goodness I see no sign of my brother.

“That was beautiful, wasn’t it?” she says quietly.

“It was... something.”

I’m holding my hands behind my back as we wait for the car, and once it arrives, I continue doing everything in my power to keep my hands to myself, harder now that my time with Kiara is coming to an end and it’s causing my chest to pain a little.

I want to maximize my time with her but instead, I have to restrain myself, behave.

Any other girl and we’d be on the way to my place for some dirty, hardcore fucking, but I’m headed back to Kiara’s place with zero fucking on the horizon.

I don’t even get to kiss her goodnight or walk her to her door.

I continue working on distracting myself from how much I want her and how secluded we are in the vehicle when a heavenly sound suddenly reaches my ears.

I realize Kiara is singing softly, and when I stare at her in amazement, she slyly turns her beautiful dark eyes to me, her red mouth tugged into a small smile.

“There you go,” she says, cutting off the angelic notes abruptly, “a sample.” She shrugs. “You asked, I delivered.”

I don’t know what takes over me but I can’t stop it and I immediately lunge for Kiara, bringing our bodies close together as I trap her in my arms and kiss her hungrily.

I don’t heed her sounds of protest—not until my cock swells dangerously and I realize I’m close to the edge of losing all control and seducing her completely.

I reluctantly pull away from her, an apology on my lips.

“You said you wouldn’t!” she says indignantly.

I back away more. “I… I really tried but my emotions got the better of me.”

I apologize again and avoid her eyes, hoping we’re close to her place because I know I haven’t calmed down completely—I sense another swell of emotion on the way, and it’ll crash on Kiara’s shore soon.

Who knows how far I’ll end up going?

My cock is at full mast, and my heart is pounding my chest furiously.

Luckily, the car slows down in a familiar way, and it registers that we’ve reached her place.

But I realize Kiara has fixed me with a sort of glare, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

There’s more than offense on her face though, and before I can figure it out, her expression changes completely, all signs of anger wiping away.

“Well, I’m pretty worked up now,” she says. “You’re not gonna leave me hanging like that, are you?”

I stare at her in utter disbelief as she starts to tug her panties down.