Reggie’s face is lit up with the golden glow of the late summer morning, and I don’t bother to draw the shades. I want to see her just like this, cheeks pink, dark hair tossed back against my pillow, mouth open in a round O.

“Oh, fuck, Adam,” she breathes and I thrust in again, her thighs tensing around my waist. It’s a delicate balance, you’d better bet it is, because I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to put any pressure on her ankle, which is still swollen and has to be painful. But she’s wrapped her legs around my waist anyway. I’m not going to fight her on it. Not after I woke up with her back pressed against my chest, her ass against my cock, through a thin layer of fabric. She insisted on sleeping in my boxer shorts and an extra t-shirt. One perk of being a billionaire: being able to rush some clean laundry to the hotel room last evening, and such a gigantic order of Chinese food that I think they thought I was having a wild party.

No. Just the two of us.

This morning, when I slipped my hand up under that shirt and swirled one finger around her nipple, it was like pleasure dawning. She’d rocked her hips back against me, turning gingerly to face me, and then—

She’s soaking wet, hands up above her head, pressing against the headboard. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

Reggie opens her eyes just long enough to give me a wicked grin. I think she’s planning a wicked retort, but instead she gasps in another breath and all that comes out is oh.

I bow my head down to her neck, her skin smooth under my lips, and put my tongue to work. It’s just enough to push her over the edge and she comes, quietly, her face pressed into my shoulder, hips jerking with it. I want her to be able to scream, if that’s what she wants, but something about this hidden orgasm, a secret just for the two of us, sets me off, too.

When it’s over—God, I hope it’s not over for long—I roll carefully to the side and gather her in. We breathe together under the covers. I want to say a million things, but none of them seem worth breaking the silence for. I can hear her smiling.

My phone rings just as Reggie has started to slip her hand down toward my hips, my cock already responding, and it’s like a sudden thunderstorm.

“Shit. Hang on—”

Hang on. The worst. I scramble for the phone on the bedside table, not letting her go, and squint at the screen.

Cole Granger.

“Not now, Cole.” I toss the phone back onto the table and roll over, facing her, and trail my hand down the curve of her waist. “Tell me, Reg. Where were we?”

Her dark eyes are clouded, though, the desire already fucking fled. “Cole, huh? Cole Granger? You’re selling the house, then?”

She cuts right to the chase. I swallow a painful lump that’s appeared in my throat. “Yeah.”

Reggie bites her lip, and that’s almost enough to make me take it all back right then. But I can’t do this. I can’t get pinned down again in Reckless Falls. For one thing, my businesses are in the city. For another thing, even if the town has changed, how am I supposed to just...shrug off everything that happened? Every time I walk through downtown, I think of my mom’s things loaded into the back of the cheapass car she bought after everything went sour.

And my father, walking through the same sidewalks with that whore on his arm, grinning like he hadn’t torn apart all our lives.

“So,” Reggie says, and her voice is skimming the surface of a kind of sadness that will drown us both if she lets it. “You’re never coming back here again?”

I can’t answer her.

* * *

“This is it,” says Reggie, making a sweeping gesture into the little house on Mill Street where she lives now. It’s tense between us, like an electric shock waiting to happen.

“Nice, Reg,” I say with a smile. It really is. The house might be small, but it’s neat, with a cozy feel that I think she would deny trying for. In typical Reggie fashion, there is no clutter, but the few things that are here are well-worn and comfortable. Like the couch she sinks down onto, face pale.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you a tour,” she says, and then the moment hangs, like she’s waiting to see what I’m going to do.

“I can give myself a tour.” I slide out of the living room doorway, a move designed to make her laugh, but she only gives me a courtesy giggle.

The kitchen is the same way, everything ferociously clean, tucked away in its place. I make the small circuit of the house, skipping the bedroom, and am back in the living room in a few minutes. One of the only truly personal things in the entire room is a framed photo of Reggie with her sisters. Reg stands in the middle, and Maria and Christina have their arms thrown around her neck, squeezing, grinning at the camera. She smiles with lips closed, like she doesn’t believe their enthusiasm for her.

“How are they doing?”

“Who?” Reggie stirs on the couch. “Oh, my sisters? Good.” Her voice is carefully neutral. “Maria’s getting a PhD.”

I laugh. “That sounds like Maria. Any excuse to overachieve.”

“Says you.”

I turn around and mouth the word me? Reggie laughs a little and shifts just enough to make room for a second person. Maybe it’s not an explicit invitation, but I’ll be damned if I don’t take it.

The night of lovemaking has taken it out of me, and it feels good to sink into the cushions. “I’m not an overachiever. I have just enough business savvy and leverage to make it work.”

Reggie rolls her eyes. “Sure.”

There’s nowhere to go with that conversation. I don’t want to talk about money with Reggie. I want to fucking shower her with it, until she never has to think about any of it again. Until she doesn’t have a care in the world. But Reggie probably wouldn’t like having no cares. Even if she claims not to care, she’ll always care, fiercely, about something.

That something could be me.

No—no, it can’t, because how am I supposed to stay here? How am I supposed to forget? Clean slates are bullshit.

“What’s Christina up to these days? Is she a nun?”

She really does laugh at that one. “No. She’s a party girl. Get her in a room, and she’ll turn it into a rave.”

“I knew it. Nobody is ever really that sweet.”

Reggie smiles wryly. “My parents were totally taken aback. They believed the legend.”

I want to ask here where they were yesterday, but Reggie moves on the couch, trying to pull her legs up, and winces. That ankle needs actual attention, not just a tape job from a guy who stopped running track years ago. “Come on, Reg. You should go to the doctor. I’ll take you.”

“It’ll be fine.” So dismissive. How does she know?

I’m almost a little irritated—I want her to feel better, damn it—but I try not to let it show. “Well, if you won’t let me take you now, at least elevate it.”

“Fine.” Her mouth curves up in a devilish smile, and she rearranges herself on the couch, dropping her leg into my lap. “That better?”

I rest my hand on her knee, a safe zone, and give myself a second to enjoy the weight of her, the fact that she’s here. I rub at her leg absently and feel her relax. “A little.”  Reggie leans back against the pillow and closes her eyes again. “You tired?”

“I’m always tired,” she says without opening her eyes. “And I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” she adds pointedly.

The tension between us starts to lessen, fade away, and that’s when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I should just ignore it, but before I realize what I’m doing I’ve pulled it out.

A text from Cole.

Just had an appointment cancel on me. Want to do a walkthrough? I can meet you in ten.