RULE NUMBER ONE WHEN living with a panty annihilator like Sam Cleary? Google them before allowing them between your legs.

Several articles portrayed him as a rebel, even in prep school where he wore his blond hair only slightly shorter than it was now. In a YouTube video when he was asked what his future plans were after high school graduation, he stated, “Get out of this fucking suit and tie.”

That one made me smile, but a D.C. gossip blog slid it off my face completely. It showed slightly blurred pictures of Sam entering a bar called The Underground Hill with a gorgeous blonde and leaving an hour later with a brunette. The time stamps on the photos showed the same night, but this really shouldn’t have surprised me.

The man certainly knew his way around the female anatomy well enough to give me the best orgasm of my entire life. Never mind Slave. I didn’t want to think about how many women he’d practiced on or what it meant that I loved every second of it. I especially didn’t want to think of other things I would like to let him do to me, because I didn’t want to be that kind of girl.

Not anymore. I had overheard Dad call me wicked when he and Mom learned I was pregnant, and it had taken years of therapy with Dr. Morrison for me to believe I wasn’t. Still, my past relationship with Rick and the resulting consequences of that should have been a powerful reminder to tread cautiously. Besides, Sam wasn’t part of my lifelong plan.

But those lips. That devilish tongue. How he was so turned on by what he was doing to me, he needed to touch himself.

No.

He was too dangerous, made me feel too much, as if I were some life-sustaining thing to be worshipped. Wanted. Needed. Craved.

I didn’t deserve any of that. To remind myself of this last night, I should’ve opened Mom’s email with the subject line Her Number instead of waiting outside his bedroom door. Her Number should be made into a warning label I could slap on any available body part when I lost sight of the safe path I needed to take. That or Warning: Pregnancy Can and Does Occur After Unprotected Sex. Warning: Hot Man Ahead—Proceed With Caution. Warning: You Are What You Eat So Cannibalism Totally Makes Sense. If only that last warning label really would summarize that email, then life would be so much simpler.

After I readied myself for day two of my internship, I traipsed downstairs with an easy smile I hoped looked perfectly relaxed. Inside, however, my blood sizzled at the idea of seeing Sam again. Rounding the corner into the kitchen, I willed that feeling to disappear, and when it didn’t at the sight of him, I tried to breathe through it. And failed miserably.

He stood at the island, half naked like always, hunched over a cup of coffee. His blond hair curtained his vivid blue eyes, and some of it stuck to the rough stubble along his jaw. The same stubble that had scraped my inner thighs in such a delicious way. As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, his tongue skimmed his bottom lip and his mouth tipped up in a devious grin.

Bastard.

“Morning,” he said.

I forced my gaze away from him to Riley who was pouring himself a cup of coffee. He was the picture of professionalism dressed in slacks, a crisp button-up shirt, and a striped blue tie. He was supposed to be the safe brother, the one my parents had planned a lifetime of neat and tidy with before they whisked me away to Wichita for Dad’s new job. When I had the baby nine months later, I was too tainted for anyone’s son after that.

“Good morning,” I said, more to Riley than Sam.

“Sleep well?” Riley blew into his cup and strode to the island.

Bags shadowed the skin underneath Riley’s bloodshot eyes, but his fingers marched a sporadic rhythm on the island and his gaze flicked all over the newspaper spread in front of him as if he wasn’t really reading it. It made me wonder how many buckets of coffee he’d already guzzled to fight off his hangover. Between the two glasses of wine he’d had at dinner and the countless beers when we got home, I imagined he wasn’t feeling 100 percent today. I wished I could blame his level of alcohol consumption on his poor behavior in the restaurant, but my gut told me that had little to do with wine and a lot to do with growing up. He just wasn’t the same person I knew as a kid.

If he heard us last night, he didn’t give any indication.

I nodded. “Pretty well.”

“You didn’t stay up too late reading your book porn, did you?”

Sam sat up and looked at me with a trace of a smirk tilting those lips. “So just regular porn, then?”

I strode to the cabinet for a cup to hide the blaze that flamed the tips of my ears.

“Watch it, SamRam,” Riley warned.

“Nope. Just a regular, quiet night with a regular, quiet book.” Quiet because we’d had to be, and the thrill at what we did with Riley in the very next room made it all the more exciting. So not regular at all.

My hands shook as I poured the coffee. It didn’t matter how thrilling it was or how he made me feel or the things he could do with his hands and tongue. There was no room in my life for Sam Cleary. Period.

As if to prove it to myself, I whirled around and slammed into a wall made of muscle and tanned skin. Coffee sloshed out of my mug and splashed dangerously close to a pair of bare feet attached to a half-naked man. Sam stood in front of me, a breath away, gazing down with his signature grin, seemingly unaware how close I’d come to scorching a few of his toes.

“Sorry,” I breathed.

His nearness spun the room, which was now empty except for the two of us. Where had Riley gone?

“He went upstairs. He doesn’t know,” Sam said as if reading my thoughts.

His gaze slowly tracked down my body, shooting electrical surges to my lower belly. My breathing staggered, my nipples hardened, and my whole body turned traitor in the length of time it took for his eyes to return to my face.

“Can I get some of that?”

“What?” Was he asking for sex? Because despite the occasional rational thought I had about him, I wasn’t so sure I could keep my treacherous body from leaping on him. Not after last night. But goddamn it, I had to.

“Coffee?” He tipped his head, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “What did you think I was talking about?”

“Coffee. Of course.” I cleared my throat and looked at the spilled mess on the linoleum.

I’d never been a believable liar, but I was pretty certain Sam would know what I’d been thinking even if I was. He was toying with me, making me squirm, often in all the right places. I slid past him to the island, trying not to enjoy the thrill that sparked through my arm when I grazed his side.

The weight of his gaze followed me, and I concentrated on putting one sensible shoe in front of the other without an extra swing to my hips, on bending over the island for the creamer without arching my back and pushing my ass out, on being an ordinary, un-wicked librarian.

“We’re almost out of creamer,” I said, because that was the kind of thing a boring, ordinary librarian would say. I turned around and shook the contents of the nearly empty creamer container as if to prove my point, but stopped when I met Sam’s eyes.

They were lit with a heated desire that evaporated any resolve I thought I had. He prowled toward me, stalking me like some kind of starving animal, and, completely mesmerized, I let him. He cornered me against the island’s edge and posted his hands on either side to lock me inside his warm, velvety cage.

He leaned down, his wild, longish hair feathering my skin, his breath sliding against my cheek to my ear. “You have no fucking idea how good you taste, Paige. I can’t get last night out of my head.”

I let out a long exhale as his words turned into an intense tingle between my thighs. I couldn’t get it out of my head, either, no matter how much I wanted to. Despite his skin’s warmth, I shivered.

“Sam...”

Whatever was happening, it couldn’t. Whatever I’d done to rekindle the memory of last night, I hadn’t meant to. But a part of me, a tiny, microscopic part, wanted to know what he would do if I kissed him. Right now. Tear my clothes off and ravage me right here in the kitchen?

Yes, please.

No.

I took birth control religiously, so the risk of another pregnancy wasn’t my concern. It was him. He was my main concern, the one I had the least control over, the one who could destroy my trust and fortify the shame-filled walls I’d built around my heart. Like Rick, maybe Sam wasn’t the person he appeared to be. At least Sam didn’t have a telltale white band around his finger where his wedding ring should’ve been, but still. Rick seemed to believe the Cleary brothers were hiding something, something powerful enough to destroy their dad’s political career, and that should have been enough to give me pause if the rest of it wasn’t.

I couldn’t afford to be carefree, like the stranger who looked exactly like me and who blatantly flirted with Sam at the public library, who’d waited outside his bedroom door last night. She wasn’t me. She hadn’t thrown herself into a forbidden “romance” with a grown man when she was just fifteen. She hadn’t lied to her parents about who the father of her unborn child was. She didn’t try to explain how sorry she was to her baby that she would have to give it up for adoption. She didn’t miss her daughter every single day but was too ashamed, too cowardly, to do anything about it.

I did.

Sam dropped kisses down my neck, each slow drag of his lips building a steady throb between my legs. Every breath against my skin gave me a delightful shiver. One of his hands had worked its way to my ass to pull me closer.

I made a frustrated growl at the back of my throat at the raging war between my body and mind.

As he dipped lower to my collar bone, I tipped my head to grant him full exposure, reveling in the power of his touch, his soft lips, the hard planes of his muscular arms wrapped around me. My breaths came in short bursts, and soon I no longer needed his help to grind into him.

It would be so easy to get lost in him and fuck him until I became that stranger, until I forgot all about that unopened email from Mom and forgot about Rick. To let my body make my decisions for me like it was so obviously willing to. To detour from my over-planned path of being a perfectly square librarian. With Sam and his panty-destroying good looks and his devilish tongue, it would be so easy to do.

But who the hell was I kidding? I’d spent the last seven years swearing to myself I would never veer from the straight road again. Last night had been a mistake, plain and simple, and it couldn't happen again.

“I have to go.” I shoved him away and stumbled toward my purse and the front door through a haze of desire strong enough to spin me back around if I let it.

So, I couldn’t let it.

* * *

WHEN I STRODE UP THE stairs to the employee entrance of the Library of Congress, my stomach rattled with the sounds of starvation. I’d fled the house before I’d had a chance to eat breakfast, the most important meal of the day. For someone who was supposed to be smart, my lack of intelligence was startling.

Nicole already graced the top step, her enormous tie-dyed bag clutched tight at her side. Her red hair had been piled on top of her head in a high bun, revealing her long, graceful neck. A yellow cord wrapped around it and dipped into the front of her thin, butter-colored shirt.

She smiled and waved. “A bunch of eager beavers, you and me.”

“So we are,” I said, plopping down next to her. “And I’m not even a morning person. But I skipped breakfast, and I don’t know if I’ll make it until our break at ten. I don’t suppose Mr. Hoffa has anything edible in there.”

“Mr. Hoffa?” She glanced at her bag. “Right. Jimmy. I’ll ask him if he’s willing to share.”

I grinned while half of her crawled inside. “I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

“Okay. Here’s one he didn’t pee on.” She handed me an oatmeal raisin granola bar that was squashed on one side.

Not my favorite, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, especially if it didn’t have turtle pee on it. I scarfed it down while Nicole gave me sidelong glances that made me feel like I was eating a puppy. The girl was strangely possessive over everything she owned, which for some reason sparked a sense of protectiveness toward her.

Charlotte and three other interns came trailing up the sidewalk toward us. She wore a different pair of black boots today with several buckles up to the knees, a simple black skirt, and a plaid cap-sleeved shirt. The ends of her glossy black hair had turned a bright shade of purple that matched the eyeliner curling toward her temples. Yesterday, Janice had pulled her to the side to privately discuss toning her wardrobe down to blend in, to not make a spectacle, to fit inside a box. This must be Charlotte doing the exact opposite. I envied her courage.

“Lunch is on me today,” I said to reassure Nicole, then waved at Charlotte. “And ten o’clock snacks.”

Nicole finally looked away, the look of horror on her face fading, along with the oranges striping the sky. “We get paid our first check at the end of this week.”

A paid internship, here of all places, was a really sweet deal, even if it was just a couple hundred a week. “We should celebrate on Friday. Go out or something.”

“We most definitely should go out,” Charlotte said, her boots clunking up the steps toward us.

Nicole traced a few of the numbers scrawled across her hand in the center of her palm with a gentle caress. “Maybe.”

“What she means is definitely,” Charlotte said, sliding in next to Nicole. “There’s a great country bar I’ve been dying to check out.”

I screwed up my face into what must’ve been a giant question mark. She didn’t seem the type. “As in country music?”

“As in cowboys,” Charlotte said with a wink.

Nicole smoothed the handles of her bag with a sigh. “Does it bother you guys that we’re being pitted against each other for a job?”

“Honestly? It takes some of the enjoyment out of it,” I said. “But this internship isn’t exactly what I expected. It’s only the second day and I shouldn’t complain, but I thought we would be knee-deep in historical documents and books, not practicing the proper way to put on rubber gloves and hold a pair of tweezers for three hours. I already know that from graduate school.”

Charlotte held up her hands as if to ward off any judgement. “And I’m sorry, but Janice’s mustache is ridiculously distracting.”

Nicole laughed. “I’ve read that mustaches are one of the many things to look forward to the older we get.”

“Awesome,” I said, wadding up the granola bar wrapper in my fist. “I’m going to start carrying around razor blades, one in each hand, to shave everything in sight. I’ll just explain to security that I have a deep-seated fear of anything hairy sprouting from my upper lip, and William will totally pass them through security, no problem.”

True, I did like the feel of the silky ends of my hair curled over my lip while I read, but a real one on my face? Nope, nope, and nope.

At the mention of William, a flush scattered between Nicole’s freckles.

“That’s why William was totally checking you out the other day,” I said and grinned. “You stood out because you don’t have a mustache.”

“Yet.” Nicole shook her head at the sky. “I don’t have one yet. But it could be that the longer we intern here, the bushier our mustaches will eventually be.”

“Yep.” Charlotte hauled herself to her feet as other interns assembled on the stairs. “You’re both as nuts as I am. Let’s be friends.”

I looped my arm through Nicole’s, and with a shared smile, we pushed ourselves up for day two of Battle Royale, library edition.

When Janice opened the staff entrance door for us, Rick slid past her to hold it open. Rick. Here. Again. His mouth stretched in a wide grin that highlighted the scars on his chin, and he’d color coordinated his gray eyes with his tie and pants. His dress shirt sleeves were rolled up to his forearms as if in preparation to don a pair of tweezers like the rest of us, but his presence tainted the magical building he stood in and instantly darkened the rest of my day. Why was he here?

When his gaze met mine, I blanked my face even though my pulse roared in my ears.

“A word, Paige?” he said as I filed past him inside.

I couldn’t contain my sigh, which caught Charlotte’s eagle eyes in front of me.

“Are you two old friends?” she asked.

“We go way back,” Rick said, as soon as the last intern shuffled inside.

Charlotte tipped up her chin, as if deciding whether or not to believe him. “See you in the cloakroom, Paige.”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice tight.

We were alone in the entryway, far enough away for anyone to hear the warning alarms blaring inside my skull. Why did he insist on ruining my internship when it had barely begun?

“Have you found anything?” he murmured.

“I don’t know what you want me to find,” I hissed.

“I already told you. Anything incriminating against any of the Clearys.” He sauntered closer, and I backed against the wall. “And just to make sure you actually look, I have pictures,” he said, voice low and full of malice. “Of you.”

I recoiled away from him as if he’d just slapped me. “You...you were supposed to get rid of them,” I croaked, and I hated how weak I sounded.

Just one more picture, baby, he’d said.

You’ll burn them after?

Only if you keep your word.

Okay, I’d said, unbuttoning my shorts. I won’t tell a soul.

He smiled, and the arrogance inside it fisted my hands at my sides. He’d never mentioned he was married all those years ago. What could’ve possibly made me think he’d been telling the truth about disposing the pictures, too?

“I wonder what Janice would think of them.” He pulled a flash drive from his pants pocket. “Do you want to see them?”

Rage funneled through my veins, hot and fast, burning the backs of my eyes, but I refused to cry in front of him. Why was he doing this to me?

He leaned his head back as if to soak in the library’s history, his eyes closed in peaceful enjoyment because he thought he’d won. Maybe he had, but I couldn’t stand to hear another word pour out of his despicable face.

“This is blackmail,” I spat.

He nodded. “Welcome back to D.C.”