“So…”

“So, what?”

“Come on,” whines Paris. “We don’t keep secrets, remember? Spill.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She laughs at my horrible attempt at lying. “Bullshit. Something happened. Something’s changed. You sound”—her voice softens—“more like yourself. Like the baby sister I’ve missed so much.”

The words are double-edged. Sweet and painful. My chopping of lettuce pauses, then resumes with more force. “Maybe it’s just time, you know? I’m finally getting used to… it.”

“So you don’t have a boyfriend?” She doesn’t bother masking her disappointment. “I thought maybe—”

“Nope,” I interject. “No boyfriend.”

Just a Dom.

A Dom who still won’t fuck me. He’ll whip me, flog me, tie me up, hang me from the ceiling of his bedroom, play my body and senses and make me orgasm like it’s his freaking job, but he has yet to make good on his promise. You’re going to have to see it eventually. He won’t even let me touch it or taste it, no matter how much I’ve begged. It’s frustrating. Painful.

I love it.

Smiling to myself, I separate the lettuce onto three plates and top the salads with pine nuts, crumbled gorgonzola, and thin slices of bell pepper. Across the country, Paris is calmly asking my niece why she decided to cut the hair off her Barbies. My smile widens as Suzie states her case and runs, squealing, from the room.

“Lord, did you hear that?”

I chuckle. “Seems logical. No hair, no lice.”

She groans. “A kid she goes to school with had lice last month, and the school did a big assembly on it. Put ideas in her head.”

“At least she didn’t cut her own hair, right?”

“Oh, shit, I didn’t even think of that.” She pulls the phone away from her face. “Josh! Will you hide all the scissors, please?” There’s an indistinct male response in the background. “Gah! I gotta run. He’s in one of those moods where he pretends he doesn’t know where anything is. I swear, there are days I want to strangle—” Choked gasp. “London, God, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

I laugh past the ache in my chest. “Hey, stop that. I don’t want you to walk on eggshells with me. It’s been almost two years.”

She hesitates. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” I say, though I’m anything but.

“Okay. Love you. Talk soon?”

“Yep.”

I end the call just as there’s a knock on my front door. Without waiting for permission, Nate and Steph enter in a frenetic cloud of fragrance, glitter, and nightclub attire. Within minutes, the conversation with my sister is forgotten as we dive into salads and fresh bread rolls and chat about what bar we’re hitting before dancing the night away.

Shocking everyone—myself included—I was the one to suggest going clubbing. Nate initially wanted a low-key celebration for his twenty-fifth birthday, but I couldn’t allow that. Twenty-five is the last great measuring stick of youth—you’re finally allowed to rent a car in most foreign countries. For my own milestone, Paul surprised me with a trip to… yes, London. And of course, I did the honors of renting us a car.

I can’t take Nate somewhere exotic, but I can make sure he has a memorable birthday.

“Oh here, before I forget.” Grabbing the small, wrapped package from my purse, I hand it to him.

“I told you not to get me anything!”

“Just open it.”

After another look of censure, Nate tears the paper off and opens the little cardboard box. He reads the note inside, then gapes at me. “Are you serious?”

“What is it?” demands Steph.

I wink at her. “I got him a spot in that photography workshop he’s been talking about.”

Nate grabs me in a spine-cracking hug. “Oh my God, London! That workshop has been booked for months! How on earth did you manage this?”

I giggle. “Trade secret.”

“Whatever, I don’t even care if you sold your soul for it. I’m so freaking stoked. You’ve made my day, month, year, et cetera.”

I kiss his cheek. “You’re welcome.”

“At least my card was really funny,” grumbles Steph.

Laughing together, we head into the night.

By 3:00 a.m., I’m ready to call it quits. Even though working nights has recalibrated my biological clock, there’s a huge difference between bartending for six hours and dancing in heels for the same amount of time. If someone threw a pillow into this dark booth with me, I could pass the fuck out.

Seeing Cross last night also took a lot out of me. It was a new experience—he spent close to an hour crafting a complex masterpiece of rope and my naked body. By the time he attached me to the ceiling and slowly elevated me, I was half-asleep in my rope hammock and painfully aroused.

Then he kissed me on the cheek and left.

I’m still processing the mindfuck he put me through, and the emotional hangover from learning he was only gone for fifteen minutes. Those fifteen minutes felt like fifty. The combination of pressure and weightlessness mixed a cocktail of anxiety, claustrophobia, extreme sadness, and equally potent euphoria. And finally, peace.

When he returned, lowering me and cutting me free, I ugly-cried in his arms for another ten minutes. After… well, that’s a big slice of the mindfuck. Cross carried me to the bathroom and lowered us both into a cool, lavender-scented bubble bath. He fed me chocolate and strawberries and washed me from head to toe, even conditioning my hair. And though he was naked and hard against the crevice of my ass, I didn’t even try to look. Sex was the absolute furthest thing from my mind.

And that’s not even the weirdest part. We didn’t speak one word to each other the entire night, and we still haven’t kissed since our first and only, but the intensity of the suspension and his tenderness after opened a portal inside me. One I thought forever closed—the conviction that I could easily spend eternity in someone’s arms. His arms.

Dominic Cross is fast becoming the glowing center of my world. As much as I can’t allow that to happen, I’m powerless over it. Powerless over what he makes me feel. How much I’m coming to depend on him as the one who will catch me when I fall.