REAL LIFE PUT MY SEXUAL fantasies to shame. Kissing Paige, fucking her, hearing her moan my name—it was enough to drive me mad. And I couldn’t get enough. Lucky for me, neither could she.

Once against the wall while the lightning outside flashed shadows across her golden honey skin. Once on the couch. But hey, who’s counting?

It was so damn incredible with her. I didn’t think I could pinpoint exactly why, but the sex on the couch was especially mind-blowing. Maybe because she rode my cock like a bad librarian. Maybe because she was the most special thing I’d ever held. Maybe because I could see her, all of her, like she’d bared her fucking soul to me. I wanted that again. Over and over again.

The next morning in her bedroom, when she looked up at me with a sleepy glaze over her eyes and wrapped her arms around my back, my whole body, not just my dick, instantly responded, and I was ready to go. Not just inside her but anywhere she asked me to. A total goner, like I’d been since I first met her.

“Sam?”

“Mmm,” I said into her neck.

She ran her fingers through my hair in a steady rhythm that might have put me to sleep if it had been anyone other than a naked goddess doing it. “What are the chances of us getting anything done today?”

I licked my finger and held it in the air like a fake weather forecaster. “One hundred percent.”

She laughed, a freeing sound that made me hold her even tighter.

“What’s so important that you would want to do anything else but me?” I asked and grinded my hips into her to help prove my very literal point.

“Well, for starters, we don’t have any food. I checked.”

I shoved myself up enough to kiss her lower lip. “Grab your clothes. We can be at the store in five minutes.” I faked like I was going to climb off her and race down the stairs, but she pulled me back to her with an evil gleam in her eyes.

“I wasn’t finished,” she said.

“Thank God, because I wasn’t, either.” I cupped her throat to tilt her head and grant me access to every part of her mouth. My other hand wandered down to see how her tits were doing, and sweet Jesus, they were doing really well. Full, perky, and molded to perfection to fit into my palms.

A moan vibrated Paige’s neck, and her hips rolled into mine. Her hands slid down to squeeze my ass, a likely sign she’d forgotten whatever else she needed to do today, and locked her ankles around my thighs.

I was rock hard and ready to lose myself inside her again and again, but I wanted to take my time with her. Explore her. See what she liked and didn’t. Watch her throw back her head and see those full lips part with a gasp when I made her come. That was the most beautiful sight I’d ever fucking seen, and I intended to make that happen a lot today and every day after.

Leaning away from her kiss, I ran my tongue over my upper lip and grinned at the resulting blush in her cheeks. “On your stomach.”

“What?”

I gave her a cocky grin while I sat up to straddle her, all the while stroking myself until my balls tightened painfully. “Now.”

Her gaze followed the movement of my fist. Her breaths grew louder, more ragged. When she met my eyes again, her wicked smile nearly undid me. She squirmed and rolled to her stomach so the tip of my dick rested between her gorgeous ass cheeks. Kneeling behind her, I lifted her hips from the bed, gentle and slow, and glided my fingers up her spine, followed closely by a trail of goose bumps.

With her back toward me, she couldn’t see what I’d found inside one of her suitcases earlier that morning, a pink vibrator I’d hidden under the covers, probably the one she’d used to get herself off. What a lucky piece of plastic.

I wrapped an arm around to her front and flicked the switch. It buzzed on, and before she could react, I pressed it to her lower belly and worked my way down.

Her back arched with a gasp. Her silky, dark hair waved across her shoulders as she bucked against the vibrator.

Leaning up over her, vibrator still in place, I whispered into her ear, “I want to watch you with it.”

Nodding into the pillow that muffled her soft cries, her hand found mine between her legs. She held the vibrator and rode it while I sat back and watched, mesmerized and completely fucking turned on. I squeezed the tip of my dick and reached for a condom from the foiled packages on the floor I’d retrieved from my room before we’d gone to bed. While I tore the foil open with my teeth, I continued squeezing and pumping myself in time to her movements.

Her spicy candy smell wafted around me, magnified by her arousal. She looked at me over her shoulder and smiled through her self-made pleasure. Not just a smile that promised more, but one that promised a level of trust I didn’t deserve.

But it was much too late to turn back now.

I rolled the condom on under her watchful stare then took my position behind her ass. My dick throbbed to be inside her, so I took hold of her hips and pulled them against mine. Her soft skin rubbed against me. I bit back a groan. Not yet. I wound an arm around her hip to switch off the vibrator.

“How many times have you come with this?” I asked into the sudden silence.

“Uhm.” Her voice was a breathless whisper. “A lot.”

“I’ve made you come much faster than this thing, Paige.” I pressed kisses up her back while I dragged the vibrator up her stomach to roll it across one of her nipples. She shivered. “With just my tongue. I don’t think you’ll be needing this anymore.” I tossed it to the floor to prove my point and replaced it with my thumb over her rock-hard nipple. It was wet from the vibrator. I clenched my teeth at how soaked I bet she’d be. “I’m going to see how many times I can make you come, and it will be much more than a lot. Ready?”

She grinded her ass against my cock. That was all the answer I needed.

I leaned back on my knees, spread her open wider, and sank into her with one thrust.

And oh my fucking God. Seeing her like this, spread out like a king’s feast on the bed with her golden skin and that magic ass slapping my hips as I drove into her... She was a goddess, a brilliant-minded woman, all wrapped up in a curvy, delicious body. And I loved her. Didn’t deserve her, but I loved her.

She looked over her shoulder as if sensing my thoughts, and a thrill rushed through my veins while she eye-fucked me from head to toe. My balls tightened, heat spread over my ass, and that single look almost made me come.

I growled and grabbed her hips to guide her along my dick in slow, lingering thrusts, then propped my arm on the bed to lean over her. With my free hand, I reached around and found her clit. My fingers stroked both her and myself when I sank into her, and we rode my palm together.

Her gasps turned to pants. She pressed her back into my chest until we both knelt on our knees without breaking rhythm. Her hand found mine between her legs, and her other wound around my neck to guide my face toward hers.

“Don’t...stop,” she breathed, her brown eyes fevered, then kissed me like she needed the air from my lungs.

And I gave it to her. I gave her all of me and more until the trembling inside her gripped my dick, milking it while my fingers milked her. Then surrounded with her naked skin, her spicy candy smell, her silky hair tickling my chest, I came home. Hard and fast and so, so good.

She smiled against my mouth, kissing away my growl, and we collapsed onto the sheets. Every part of our bodies touched while we dozed. I held her tighter, determined to never let her go.

Until something rumbled. Not thunder, but something closer.

I pulled back and looked at Paige to see if she’d heard it, too.

Red colored her cheeks as she lowered her gaze to my chest. “I’m starving.”

“That was your stomach?”

“Yes, Sam.” Her eyebrows bunched together in that adorable way they did when she was irritated with me. “Not all of us are stallions and can match your stamina. I need sustenance.”

“So, I’m a stallion, huh? I’m trying really hard not to neigh right now.”

She laughed and squirmed out of my arms toward the edge of the bed. “Let’s go.” She grabbed her clothes from the floor and strolled toward the bathroom, her naked beauty and just-fucked hairstyle on full-on, glorious, chub-inducing display. Sunlight filtered through the half-closed blinds in long, glowing stripes that carried sun dust across her skin.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re beautiful?” I asked.

She glanced over her shoulder while picking up a dropped shirt. “Yes.”

I propped my head up on my hands to enjoy the view. “They’re liars, all of them.”

“Uh...” Her eyes narrowed. “Fuck you?”

“You’re better than beautiful. You’re a piece of art out of the minds of the best goddamn artists. You’re an inspiration for a fucking religion.” I held her gaze so she knew I meant every word. “Perfect.”

She swallowed, her gaze veering away somewhere far off, and hugged her clothes tighter to her body. “I’m not perfect. Not even close.”

Interesting that she chose to home in on that. I wasn’t trying to embarrass her or anything, but apparently I get compliment happy after sex with someone I’ve been in love with more than half my life. So sue me.

“We all have pasts. Some of ours are more...lively.” I shrugged. “Maybe someday you’ll tell me about yours, but in the meantime, I’m placing you on a pedestal where you belong.”

That faraway look in her eyes vanished with a quick, almost angry squint, like she had to concentrate to get rid of it. “So I’m now on a pedestal... which means I’m the equivalent of a house on stilts during the zombie apocalypse.”

I gave her a slow smile she met with one of her own. I fucking loved the sharp turns her mind took.

“Surrounded with bubble wrap,” she continued.

“Naked, of course,” I said, eyeing some side-boob. “If you’re the equivalent of a house, you have to be naked. It’s only fair.”

“Fine, I’m a naked house.” She laughed. “But what about you?”

“What about me?”

“I think it’s safe to say you pedastaled your way onto a house on stilts when I saw you in the library.”

“Oh?” I liked this blushing kind of honesty we were doing under the disguise of zombie apocalypse preparedness. “And did I pedestal a very naked, very hard house on stilts up next to yours?”

“I’m pretty sure your house wound up inside my house.”

I grinned. “Lucky house.”

A quick smile rolled across her lips, then she fussed with a corner of a sleeve on her shirt. She opened her mouth, shook her head, then tried again. “Apocalypse aside, I’ve really liked sharing a house with you these last few weeks. And I don’t mean that sexually, either... I mean I really, really do, but it’s not just that...” She let out a long breath. “I like you and me.”

Sweet Jesus, me too. If there was the slightest chance she felt a fraction of the way I felt about her, then I never wanted to do anything to fuck that up. But what if I already had? What if my dissing Hill and the firestorm of messages on my cell had resulted in an explosion outside these perfect hours with Paige? The lies my family hid behind would crumble all around us, and where would that leave Paige? Alone and disgusted with the whole Cleary name, that’s where.

I got out of bed and strode toward her, tilting her face toward mine so she’d know every word I was about to say was the absolute truth, both heart and soul and everything in between. “Stay with me.”

When she opened her mouth, I plowed on before she could protest. “Live with me when you land the job at the Library of Congress. Riley can go fuck himself. Your house and my house. Naked. Because I like you and me, too.”

She was shaking her head before I finished, but the sudden tears didn’t overflow until the end. I didn’t know what they meant, but I hated whatever, or whoever, put them there. Was it Rick? Even if it wasn’t, I vowed never to make her cry because it fucking hurt to watch.

“I’m not getting the job,” she said and inhaled sharply as if realizing this for the first time.

“What did he do?” I didn’t even have to say Rick’s name for the tears to fall harder. I knew the dick had something to do with it. My hands rolled into fists at my sides while I searched her tears for answers. “What did he do, Paige?”

“It’s what I did,” she whispered, backing toward the bathroom. “Please just...” The door closed behind her, but not before I thought she said “understand.”

I was trying to do just that. Even if she didn’t get the job at the library, there were other libraries. She could still be here, with me, unless she was afraid I would change my mind. But whatever she did with Rick, or because of Rick, it wouldn’t change how I felt about her. Possible scenarios wandered through my mind, but all of them just pissed me off with what I already suspected. Paige and Rick had at one time been together. Since she hadn’t been back in D.C., it would have been before she left, when she was sixteen and he was...not. Oh my fucking God, did he rape her?

Rage, thick and hot, shook through my limbs. I leaned my head against the closed bathroom door to get control. Eventually, the cool wood and the rush of water from the other side helped calm me down a little. That and the knowledge I would do anything to protect her from him. Maybe he didn’t rape her. Maybe he did. But if Paige didn’t want to tell me about it right then, I wasn’t about to force her.

Once I was dressed in my jeans, I headed downstairs while scrolling through the fifty or so messages on my phone. Most were from Riley in all capital letters, words I knew he didn’t learn from prep school, and smeared red with anger. The rest were from Hill. But the only one I focused on for more than a second was Rose’s:

There is no debt.

It still smelled faintly of dinner and smoke in the kitchen, which made my stomach turn. I knew what I had to do today, but it terrified me. So much so that I didn’t immediately register a car door slamming out front. Soon after, the front door burst open.

Because I could smell the raging shit storm before I saw it, I rounded the corner into the entryway with unhurried steps. “Please tell me you brought pizza.”

A fist slammed into my eye. Pain exploded up my skull. I reeled backward into the leather couch in the living room.

“How could you, you fucking piece of shit!” Riley shouted.

Through the rush of stars streaking past my vision, my gaze caught on the fallen lamp that Paige and I had knocked over during our wild night. I grinned, which probably wasn’t the best thing to do in the very red face of my attacking brother.

Another hook smashed into my eye, the same one that was almost healed from the last time someone punched me in the face. God damn it.

“Okay. I get it,” I yelled. Blood dribbled from my mouth down my chin to my chest.

“No you fucking don’t, you asshole,” Riley bellowed. “I was fired today because you took a giant shit on our family. How could you do that to Mom? To Rose?” He raked his fingers through his hair, his eyes glassy and wide as if he still couldn’t believe whatever he raved on about.

Though I had a pretty good guess as to what. Hill had leaked some information about Riley, probably to the press, because I’d quit being his dealer whore.

Footsteps sounded from the hallway stairs, and soon Paige rounded into the living room. Her mouth fell open as she took in the scene in front of her—Riley vibrating with anger so much that his eyeballs wobbled, me bleeding all over myself, the wide-open door Riley had hurtled himself through.

“Riley,” she started, her voice accusing. “What did you do to Sam?”

Shit. Now wasn’t the greatest time for her to show any interest in me. A glance at Riley proved it. Somehow he’d gone redder and looked like he was about to blow.

“What did I do?” he shouted. “Me?”

Oh, that fucking fuck. I charged at him, pushing him up against the living room wall, my forearm pressed against his windpipe, my face inches away from his so he would be sure to understand me. “Don’t you yell at Paige, you hear me? This is between you and me, got it?”

He struggled against me, so I pressed harder until some of the color leaked out of his face. It would serve him right if he passed out, but I might’ve stopped before that happened. Probably not, though.

“Sam, stop,” Paige begged and tried to pull me off him. “What has gotten into you two?”

Eventually, Riley’s body stilled. He gave a faint nod as if he was done having his little tantrum.

I immediately released him and pushed him toward the front door. “Outside.”

He dragged in a breath and stumbled onto the porch. I followed and started to close the door behind us when Paige caught my eye.

She held her hands out as if for answers and mouthed, “What the hell?”

I flicked up a single finger, the international sign for One second. Let me deal with the rager on the front lawn.

With the door firmly closed, I faced my brother head-on. Dirt smudged his polo shirt and khakis as if he’d dragged himself through a thousand sandboxes to get here.

“I quit working for Hill,” I said. “I’m done being blackmailed.”

“Why?” he asked, voice raspy, yet much calmer, like he’d just swallowed a chainsaw dipped in a humiliating little brother beat-down. “How was that your decision to make? My career is over.”

“I don’t know, Riley. Maybe you should’ve been the drug dealer with guns aimed at your head if you cared about your career so much. Or, here’s an idea—you and Dad keep your dicks in your pants for once and don’t get blackmailed in the first place.”

“The press has names, surveillance tapes. All of me. Just me. It’s all over the goddamn news.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, searched for something on it, and shoved the screen in my face. All I saw was the glare of the bright morning sun.

I snatched it away from him and squinted at a message.

S comes back or daddy gets it next.

“I don’t know what you did to Hill to piss him off, but you have to go back,” Riley warned.

I had done little more than fuck up nearly everything I did for Hill, and he wanted me back? Was Rose’s debt that important to him that it get paid off even when the “employee” was the opposite of a natural-born drug dealer? Like it had from the very beginning, something seemed off about all this. Especially since there was no debt.

“Think about Mom, Sam, and all those years she stood by Dad’s side, about all the hard work they’ve done so he could be president of the fucking United States of America.” Riley took steps toward me, his face pained. “Think about Rose.”

I shrugged away from his reaching arm. “She’s why I’m doing this. Not you. Not Dad. Rose.”

“Then why did you quit?”

“Because there is no debt.”

Riley blinked then looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. “Yes, there is.”

“Rose texted last night and said there isn’t.”

“I went to see her yesterday, told her everything, and she didn’t say a goddamn thing about there not being any debt,” Riley said, his voice rising.

“Keep your voice down.” I ticked my gaze to the front door and then tracked it back across the green grass toward my bare feet. “You went to see her?”

“It just happened... I didn’t plan it.” He raked his fingers through his hair and held to the back of his head as if to keep it together.

He went to see her, but she texted me. Why not tell Riley?

His shoulders slumped as he sighed. “I still don’t get why you quit.”

I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked around our quiet neighborhood. Birds chirped. A neighbor’s garage door opened across the street. Regular, everyday events. That was what I wanted. With Paige.

“I’m tired of lying,” I said.

Riley shook his head. “You live in the wrong fucking city to hide behind that excuse.”

“Then I’ll move. Maybe you never noticed, but I’m not like you or Dad or Mom. I don’t want the same things. Never did.”

“That’s right. You want to be some low-life loser mechanic guy who no one remembers when you die.”

“I’m done, Riley,” I said, gesturing to his car as a signal I hoped his power-warped mind could understand. “Why don’t you go cry to Dad like you always do, maybe read some articles on the internet about how not to be a shitty person? I’ll bet some of them have small words even you can understand.”

Riley’s mouth flattened into a thin line, and red flooded everything between his temples once again. He stalked toward his car like I’d just stolen his favorite Transformer toy. “You’re a selfish prick, Sam. How can you do this to me, your own family, and be completely okay with it?”

I followed him, neither agreeing or disagreeing, and shut the door once he climbed inside.

“I’m not going to say sorry. But I do have something else to say...” I started like it was an afterthought, even though it really, really wasn’t. “I’m fucking Paige.”