Bruce took me to an abandoned theater near the edge of downtown. From outside, it looked like a huge concrete shell. We walked past the front doors, which were covered by chains, and headed around the side of the building.

“You’re sure we’re allowed to do this?” I asked for the fifth time.

“Stop being a worrier,” he said.

“That means we’re breaking in, doesn’t it? When I asked for a date night I was thinking more like ice skating or ice cream cones.”

“We just had a banana split, and you’re already thinking of ice cream?” he laughed.

“You had a banana split. I think that last bite you gave me might’ve been the only bite I got.”

He stopped and turned to grin at me, and God was he handsome. His hair was neat and pushed away from his face, but the hard, masculine lines of his jaw and fullness of his lips made a perfect fit to the buttoned-up look he wore so well. He just looked like success in his crisp white button-down and navy blue tie. He wore matching blue slacks that fit him deliciously snug around the ass and thighs. I still couldn’t quite believe he was interested in me, even if I had done my best to screw it up.

“Maybe I wanted to make sure you were still hungry for my banana later.”

I gave a wry smile. “If your goal was to get me to bite you down there because I’m ravenously hungry, then you’re on the right track.”

He winced a little. “Point taken. We can include a little ice cream on our date night, as soon as we’re done with the creepy abandoned theater.”

“Right. About that,” I said. “Mind taking me behind the brain of the genius here? Is this just another way to punish me, or is there something I’m missing here?”

“Yeah. This was one of my favorite places when I was a kid. Before they closed it down, at least.”

He yanked on a side door. To my surprise, it opened up. Sections of the ceiling were missing, which let dusty rays of sunlight stream inside to light the rows of cushioned seats and the damaged stage. A patch of the seats in the back corner were overgrown with moss and weeds, but some of the building was surprisingly well preserved.

I looked around at the faded murals on the walls and the shocking amount of decor that was left behind to rot until someone would eventually come to demolish the building.

He wiped off a seat near where we came in and motioned for me to sit. He sat down beside me and kicked up his feet.

“I’m surprised you can stand it in here,” I said. “I’d think it would trigger all your compulsive need to organize and clean.”

“Dirty things never really bothered me too much. I just like everything to be in order.”

“You said this was your favorite place when you were a kid? I’m not sure I can picture you enjoying plays. No offense.”

“None taken. I enjoyed it because we could never afford to see a show. My parents would use that door over there during intermission and we’d sneak in to watch the second half of the performance. Never the first half. I always enjoyed trying to piece together what had happened before. It was like a mystery.

“In some convoluted way,” he continued. “I think the experience was part of the basis for my marketing philosophy. So many marketers want to tell you what a product can do. And me? I’ve always thought it was more effective to trick people into imagining what the product can do. The things we make up are so much better than the truth. I learned that here.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I feel like you’re trying to send me some deeply coded message and…” I waved a hand over the top of my head. “Woosh.”

He smiled down at his lap in a rare moment of vulnerability. “No deep messages. I just thought of this place when I tried to figure out where to take you. It was always important to me, and it feels like a piece of who I am, I guess. I wanted you to see that.”

I sucked my lower lip into my mouth and smiled. “I like that you wanted to bring me here.” I leaned over to him and planted a kiss on his lips. He seemed surprised, but that didn’t stop him from threading his fingers through my hair and kissing me back in a way that made me curl my toes.

I pulled back. “What if we go somewhere important to me next?”

“I’d like that.”

We sat on a bench in the subway while people waited for the next train. Bruce gave me a curious look when he saw I was wanting to sit instead of taking a train to go somewhere.

“Here?” he asked.

“What? You’re the only one who gets to have some kind of edgy special place?”

He laughed. “No. Though I wasn’t trying to be edgy.”

I gave a crooked smile. “Yeah. Me neither. This was just where I fell in love with New York City. My parents always lived in New York, but not in the city. We’d come every couple years for a daycation, but never more than that, because the crowds always stressed my parents.

“One year, I got separated from them while we were taking the subway. They didn’t realize I wasn’t watching them and they got off the train without me. I ended up getting off once I realized they were gone and this was where I waited. It was before cell phones were so common, and they had no way to get in touch with me. I think they spent like eight hours trying to find me, and I just sat here the whole time.

"I remember watching everyone coming and going. I spent forever playing the game of guessing what they did for a living and what their lives were like. That was when I decided I wanted to be a reporter and that I wanted to do it while living here. It felt exotic and exciting. Like something out of a movie. Of course, ten-year-old me didn't know that a closet in New York City cost as much to rent as a four-bedroom house just about anywhere else. Still, I'm going to miss it here if I have to leave."

“Why would you need to leave?” he asked.

“Well, the money you gave me helped, but right now I’m waiting tables at night and trying to find another job during the day. After I make my morning visit outside your apartment, that is,” I added with a growing heat in my cheeks. I still couldn’t believe I’d taken my brother’s advice on that, of all people, but he had been right to some extent. Whether Bruce was going to forgive me or not, it had felt good to make some kind of grand gesture of apology, like a kind of penance.

“Let me take a wild guess. I’m not allowed to give you enough money to help you stay?”

“Correct. Being a charity case never factored into my dream of making it in New York City. It’s a prize I want to earn for myself, even if I do appreciate the offer.”

He nodded, like he already knew as much.

“I know you paid some of my rent, by the way,” I said.

He gave me a grudging nod.

“It was really sweet of you. It doesn’t matter if my rent is probably pocket change to you. You were considerate when you thought I wasn’t paying attention, even when you supposedly hated me and wanted me to quit.”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell my brother. He’ll never let me hear the end of it if he figures out he was right all along.”

Our night ended at a rooftop restaurant. String lights were strapped to the balconies and dangling overhead while heating lamps kept most of the chill out of the air. Bruce wouldn’t admit it, but I was fairly sure he somehow managed to buy out the entire roof’s seating, because we were completely alone while the interior section of the restaurant was packed.

The waiter came to take our drink orders, and I tried to order water because I knew there was no way I could afford anything here.

“She’ll take your best wine,” said Bruce. He held up a hand to stop my protest before I could mouth a word of it. “The most expensive, delicious thing you can find,” he added with a grin.

“Is there a word for someone who’s nice but is an asshole about it?” I asked once the waiter had left.

“A nicehole?” suggested Bruce.

“Yes. You’re a nicehole.”

“Well, you can be stubborn about not accepting handouts, but I’m old-fashioned. You come on a date with me, and I get to pay. It makes me happy to do it, so I won’t accept any complaints.”

I could’ve definitely felt guilty for accepting the offer if he had proposed it any differently, but Bruce had a way of making me feel like he really did enjoy treating me to the meal. It didn’t feel like a handout. It just felt kind.

“Well, thank you, even if you’re an ass about it, you’re a nice ass.”

“Did you just say I have a nice ass?” he asked.

“I actually never got a clear look at it when I had you naked, so I’m not positive yet. Why do you think I tried so hard to get you to forgive me?”

He barked a laugh. His smiles came so much easier now than when we first met, and I found myself wanting more of them every time I saw how good they looked on him. “It makes more sense now. First I thought you were after my money. Then my career. Now I realize you just wanted my ass the whole time.”

“Precisely,” I said.

The waiter came with a large, fluted glass the size of a vase and started uncorking and pouring the wine into it. The fluted tip of the glass made the wine spread evenly across the mouth of the bottle and cover almost the entirety of the glass as it filtered down to the bottom.

“Why is he pouring it into that thing?” I asked, quietly leaning forward so the waiter wouldn’t hear my question.

“It’s a decanter,” explained Bruce. “It’s how you know you ordered a fancy wine. Supposedly it helps with the taste. Something about aerating the wine. Bubbles and all that. To tell the truth, it all tastes the same to me. I’d usually prefer lemon water, but sometimes, when you’re trying to get a girl into bed, you have to bring out the decanter.”

“Is that right?” I asked.

“Definitely.”

“And is that something you regularly do? Try to get girls into bed?”

The smile on his face melted away. “No. Not for a long time now, to tell the truth. I wasn’t lying when I said I pride myself on only making mistakes one time. Valerie taught me how big a mistake it could be to give any part of myself to a woman. After her, I just kind of stopped. William would occasionally try to play wingman and set me up with somebody, but it never went anywhere. I felt too cold and distant, like the real me was watching and controlling my body from far away.”

“Sex robot,” I said. “Minus the sex, I guess.”

“Yeah, like a robot. And definitely minus the sex part. Until you, at least.”

“What about after me?” I asked. It was a nosy, needy question, and I hated that I felt compelled to ask, but it came out before I could stop it.

“After you? There was you.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So you used me as a rebound girl for… me?”

“As of today, yes. You could say that.”

“Hmm. I approve of that. If you’re going to bang anyone to forget about me, I guess you couldn’t do much better than me.”

“So the whole ‘banging’ thing is confirmed then, is it?”

“You did bring out the decanter.”

He eyed the decanter. “Yes I did. Hopefully this is the kind of expensive wine that costs a lot of money because it tastes good and not because some collector somewhere would blow his load to know how old it is and what vineyard it came from.”

“I can see how that would be a common problem with ultra-expensive wines.”

“It really is.”

“So,” I asked. “Is this a fish eggs and snail eyes kind of place, or do they have food I’d recognize?”

“It’s the kind of place that probably puts an entire stick of butter in every step of the cooking process, but can make a bite of broccoli taste like heaven. Order this,” he said, tapping a menu item I could barely read, let alone pronounce. “It’s just a fancy word for super expensive steak that tastes really good.”

“I'll trust you on that.”

Whether I could pronounce it or not, the steak was so good I actually wondered for a moment if whatever the rest of the night had in store could possibly top it. It was that good. I’d spent weeks waking up in a hot sweat after dreaming about the things I wished I’d done with Bruce when I had the chance and now? I was pretty sure I’d be dreaming about vegan cows who lived a pampered lifestyle and probably got facials in the morning to make sure their meat was so tender it melted like butter in your mouth.

“I’m sure this cow had a great personality,” I said once I swallowed a bite of the steak. “But wow. If you taste this good, there’s no way you’re not going to end up getting eaten.”

“Maybe they died of natural causes,” said Bruce.

“Or at the very least, I hope they got to watch Pride and Prejudice and Terminator 2.”

Bruce screwed up his face and then laughed. “Uh, that’s a pretty strange combination.”

“Sometimes you’re in the mood to gush and sometimes you’re in the mood to watch someone get their ass handed to them. I think these cows deserved to have the best of both of those worlds before they died.”

“I’m sorry to say it, but something tells me they died without ever seeing either movie.”

I sighed, then took another bite and couldn't help making a soft moaning noise of enjoyment. "Well then I'm going to just have to settle for enjoying this and not thinking about it." I took a sip of the wine, which, by my amateur opinion, must've been the expensive kind that was expensive because it tasted good. "At least I don't have to feel bad about the grapes that died to make this taste so amazing."

“Cheers to that,” he said, eyes twinkling as he raised his glass and gently tapped mine. I liked the way he looked at me. I could get addicted to it, in fact. It was the way men were supposed to look at women they cared about, but it was more than that. Yes, there was the almost adoring glint in his eyes, but there was something fun and dirty there, too. I could feel his want practically radiating across the table.

I didn’t know if it was the wine or the food or the atmosphere. Maybe it was just Bruce. Whatever it was, a pleasant heat was swirling around in my lower stomach, and I was pretty sure my body was sending me about as clear a signal as a body can send with one message: Sleep with him.

There was only one hangup. One little checkbox that still didn’t have a green mark through it.

“Bruce,” I said quietly. “I need you to know that once I got to know you, I was never going to go through with writing the story.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“No,” I said firmly. “It does. I may not have been planning to write the story, but I let the lie go on way longer than I should have. I should’ve told you the moment I knew I liked you, but I was scared the ride would come to a stop. The security guards would come out and drag me out of the theme park, kicking and screaming, and I’d spend the rest of my life wishing I could’ve stayed even another minute.”

One of his eyebrows flicked up. “Unfortunately, we never technically got to the whole ‘riding’ part,” he said.

“Can you take this seriously?” I asked, even though I couldn’t help laughing a little. “I’m trying to put my soul at ease here and all you can do is make sex jokes?”

“You have my full attention.”

“I’m just trying to say I’m sorry, but not because I was planning to sneakily gather dirt on you and write the story. I want you to know that was never my intention even after the first couple days. I’m just sorry I didn’t tell you why I was there in the first place sooner.”

“I can’t be upset with you for not trusting me. I didn’t trust you at first, either, so I’d say we’re even.”

After dinner, we went back to Bruce’s place, and it felt completely different going inside his apartment without knowing Braeden was there. I couldn’t pretend I was there for my brother this time, and there was no doubting where the night was going.

Thankfully, Braeden was doing fine. I’d called several times since leaving the hospital to see if he was ready for us to come visit him and he kept telling me he’d kick my ass if I left my “dream day” with Batman.

All the excuses were out of the way. All the doubts had been laid to rest. Tonight was ours, and we both knew where we wanted it to go.

I felt it fluttering in my chest and pounding in my head as Bruce took me by the hand and led me through his apartment, straight to his bedroom. We both knew the flirtation and the waiting was over now. He’d played my game and taken me out for the night of my life, but it was time for the final act.

I was so nervous I could feel my hands shaking. Nervous for what, I wasn’t sure. A new beginning. A possible ending. Or maybe just simply being disappointing to him somehow.

In his bedroom, I burst out laughing when I saw a banana sitting on his nightstand. “You have to be kidding me,” I laughed, tears stinging my eyes.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he said.

I laughed even harder. “Oh God. I didn’t even think about that.”

Bruce was laughing now too, but he seemed to be having more fun watching my amusement than anything else. “Sometimes I wake up hungry, okay?”

"Okay," I said. I threaded my fingertips together behind his head, resting my forearms on his shoulders. Our eyes met, and the laughter dissolved into something heavier. Something full of pent-up desire. "My stomach is so full it hurts, but I'm already hungry."

He lifted me, pressing me to his chest as he walked me to the bed and actually threw me on it like I was as light as a feather. I landed on my back, eyes never leaving his. He looked down at me with unmasked anticipation.

“I’ve been waiting to spread you out and fuck you since the day I saw you. Since before I was ready to admit it.”

I licked my lips as I scooted back to try to find the pillows, but I misjudged where I was on the bed and planted my hand over the side of the bed, nearly toppling over the edge.

Bruce was there before I could fall, and he slid me back into the center of the bed. “Can I trust you not to fall off while I take off my clothes?” he asked.

I blushed. “I’ll do my best. But, maybe you should be the one to undress me, you know, since I might end up hurting myself somehow.”

“Is that right?” he asked. He was leaning over me with his hands planted on either side of my head. He raised one hand to strip away his tie and toss it to the floor. He flicked open a few of the buttons on his shirt before he seemed to lose patience with it and focused on me.

I hadn’t exactly dressed for a date night and sex with a gorgeous billionaire when I got ready in the morning. I’d dressed for day number five million of my groveling act—which happened to be a white romper with a floral pattern.

Bruce frowned down at it. “How do you get this thing off?” He started yanking at the waistband, which was nothing but a cinched up cord to keep it form-fitting. His touch on my waist tickled and surprised me, summoning up a bout of laughter.

“S-s-stop,” I laughed. “Not there,” was all I could manage.

I slid one arm out of the strap so he’d understand what to do next. He eased the next strap off my shoulder and then yanked the whole thing down, lifting my ass and feet to strip it completely off.

I took a quick glance down to remember what underwear I was wearing and crossed my fingers that I hadn’t worn something too old. Thankfully, I was wearing pink, lacy panties and a matching bra. Given my usual luck, it was a miracle.

He licked his lips as he took in the sight of me, and he seemed torn between diving straight into kissing my body or stripping away the last of my clothes. A moment later, he bent his neck to kiss my chest and down along my cleavage and then the line down my navel to my thighs. Every kiss was an explosion of warmth and tingling nerves, like little ripples of pleasure that spread through my entire body.

I pawed at him with no shame, squeezing his muscles through his shirt and sliding my hands in the open seam of his shirt to feel his firm chest, gripping his biceps as he seemed to kiss his way across every last inch of me.

He finally made his way back up to my mouth, where he kissed me deeply, and then I felt his hand moving up my thigh. He let the side of his hand brush against me, drawing out a shiver that ran through me like a shockwave. I bit his lip a little harder than I intended, but if he minded, he showed no sign of it.

He dipped his hand into my panties, curling his fingers to reach me. My forehead scrunched together and my mouth hung open like I was in shock as he set his talented fingers to work. He slid them inside me to gather my wetness and then rubbed it up and down my pussy until I thought I was going to scream from the pure ecstasy.

I distantly thought I should probably be reaching for his cock to return the favor as he fingered me, but I didn’t think I would be able to reach. Besides, he didn’t seem to mind the way things were going at all if the way he was breathing hot over my neck was any indication. His body moved in pace with his fingers, softly grinding against me like he couldn’t hold himself back until he was done, and his eagerness was a turn on in itself.

I’d never had much confidence, especially in the sex department, so every shred of excitement and horniness he showed me was like liquid encouragement that I drank up thirstily.

I held the back of his neck, not able to keep my fingers from digging into his skin and pressing his face into my neck. He felt so good, and he never stopped stealing kisses wherever he could reach.

His pace increased and increased until I thought I was going to cum. “I want all of you,” I gasped. “Please. I want every inch inside me. I want to feel it.”

He made a groaning sound, like my words were invisible hands that had started stroking him. He straightened and actually ripped his shirt open, popping off a button or two in the process. It was so out of character with his deliberate, organized nature that it sent a shiver of lust cascading through me.

He rolled to his back and worked his pants and underwear off, showing no effort to worry about some kind of sexy striptease. Bruce just wanted to get naked and get inside me as fast as he could, and I thanked God for that, because I knew I couldn’t wait much longer before I would embarrass myself by literally ripping his clothes off myself and mounting him if he had delayed.

He dug out a condom from his pants and tore the wrapper open, sliding it on himself. I was relieved that he was thinking straight, because I wasn’t sure I would’ve even remembered a condom right away. I might have actually let him inside me before the thought occurred to me, which was a little scary. I’d always been sensible. I’d always known I’d never let a guy near me without protection, and yet Bruce seemed somehow above those rules.

I sat up and reached for him, halfway pulling him on top of me even as he moved into place. His erection was poised between us, and I craned my neck to watch. I expected him to grip himself and guide it in me, but he just expertly rocked his hips, driving the head of his cock between my folds and spreading my slick arousal over himself for a few tantalizing seconds. Then, once he seemed sure he was ready, he guided himself in.

It wasn’t rough, but it wasn’t tentative. He started pressing himself inside me a bit at a time. My walls had to stretch to accommodate him, which definitely had not been the case the one time I’d slept with a guy before. I found myself liking the sensation, like I was being filled in a way I never realized I craved so deeply.

“Deeper,” I gasped. “God. I want more. Please.”

He made another groaning sound, leaving no doubt that he loved when I talked like that. I wasn’t “talking dirty” for show or because I thought it was something he wanted. The words were just coming out of me. I had as little control over it as I might have over a sneeze. I’d never felt anything like it. It was as if my desperation for this was so intense that my body was overriding my brain and my self-consciousness.

“You’ll get it all, intern. Don’t worry.” His words were a sensual rasp in my ear, accented by a puff of warm air and a quick nip from his teeth on my earlobe followed by a kiss to soothe away the sting.

He was almost completely inside me now, and the sensation was nearly more than I could take. My fingers were digging into the sheets, his back, the pillow, gripping the headboard—whatever they could find to keep me rooted in reality and from drifting away with the overwhelming bliss he was filling me with.

I shamelessly rocked my hips into him, lifting my ass off the bed and hooking my legs around the back of his thighs for leverage to drive myself up and him deeper into me. I pushed through the sensation of my walls widening for him, not caring about anything except getting all of him in me. I hadn’t just been talking. I needed every bit of him. Every inch.