“Here.” Gracie offered me a key. We sat in the car, the engine idling, parked in front of the big house. “I’ve got a date. Besides, I think this is something that belongs between the two of you anyway.”

I blushed but accepted the key.

Folding my hand around it, I squeezed it hard enough that the edges bit into my hand.

Eying the front door with trepidation, I said, “What am I supposed to do if he doesn’t want to talk to me? It’s a far way for Uber to come for a pick up.”

“He wants to talk to you.” She gave me an encouraging smile. “I know him better than he knows himself.”

I was taking an awful lot on faith here, but just gave her a nod and climbed out. The house towered over me, making me feel incredibly small as I made my way closer. My hand shook as I fit the key to the lock and slid it. The sound of the tumblers clicking into place seemed louder than necessary, and I didn’t know if it was me or just the heightened awareness that made it seem so.

Slipping inside, I closed the door and braced my back against it, letting my eyes adjust as I took in my surroundings. Gracie had told me she lived in the east wing of the house, while Lukas lived in the north. Just take the stairs and keep going straight. His bedroom is at the very far end of the hall.

Seemed simple enough.

My knees shook with each step.

Halfway up, I realized I’d left the key in the lock, and I hurried back down to retrieve it, tucking it into the pocket of my blue jeans. I’d changed before leaving the condo with Gracie, and I was glad I had. It had gotten colder, the temperature hovering in the forties. It didn’t seem much warmer in the hall as I made my way closer toward Lukas’s room, despite the jeans and turtleneck sweater I wore.

Was it the chill that made my hands continue to shake? Nerves?

I didn’t know.

Coming to a stop outside the door, I took a deep breath and knocked.

“Go away, Gracie!” Lukas said, his voice low and intent.

Instead of correcting him, I slipped inside.

The chill here was worse, and it wasn’t hard to see why.

He stood in the open doors of what looked like a balcony and wind blasted in.

He spoke without looking at me. “Damn it, Gracie–”

“It’s cold,” I said, interrupting him. “Can you shut those doors, please?”

He spun around so fast, it was almost comical.

Our gazes locked across the room and I inclined my chin, refusing to look away.

“You…” He stopped for a second before continuing on. “What are you doing here?”

“Gracie brought me here.”

His lids flickered. Bit by bit, his expression closed until it was like staring at a closed book – his features gave nothing. Save for that slight flicker of his lids, I might as well have been staring at a statue.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

“Well, I haven’t decided,” I said softly. “I could be here to kick your ass for not telling me about her. I could be here to apologize for intruding on your personal business…I just haven’t decided.”

His mouth tightened, some of the icy façade fracturing. A split second later, it smoothed over, gone as if the fracture never existed.

Fine. He wasn’t going to take the first step. I’d do it.

“I shouldn’t have intruded on your personal business. I’m sorry,” I said.

His head bowed, big shoulders shuddering on a heavy sigh. When he looked back at me, I thought maybe he was going to say something…explain, even. When he looked away without saying anything, I wanted to scream. But I did nothing. I wasn’t going to push again. I knew better now.

“I should have told you about Gracie,” he said, each word slow and halting, like they had to be dragged from him with rusty, iron hooks. “What we have…we’re friends. The marriage is a convenience. There’s nothing else between us.”

“She told me.” I wasn’t sure if I entirely believed her, because I didn’t see Lukas giving so much of himself to just a friend. But that could be just because I was jealous she had so much. And I wasn’t going to push. Not for anything.

Another gust of wind blasted through the open doors, and I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. Lukas jerked as if coming out of a fugue. He turned back to the doors and pulled them closed, then gestured to me. “Come over here,” he said gruffly, beckoning toward a fireplace that took up most of one wall. He hit a switch and gas logs flared to glowing life.

I let him pull me closer to the fire, and a sigh escaped me as warmth penetrated the chill that had gripped me for what felt like the past several hours. Lukas stood behind me, rubbing his hands up and down my arms, adding to the warmth.

Something brushed the back of my head.

I thought it might be his lips.

Another shiver raced through me, and he said, “Still cold?”

“It’s getting better,” I told him, the words husky. Slowly, I turned in his arms and tipped my head back to meet his eyes. “You told me it was over. Is it?”

He caught a fat curl in his fingers and stroked it. “You sent a resignation. Should I accept it?”

Instead of either of us answering the other, the two of us swayed closer.

His mouth met mine. It was hard to say who kissed the other first.

His tongue swept into my mouth, a hungry, deep kiss that I felt from the tips of my toes all the way up. My breasts heated, the nipples tightening. He slid one hand under the hem of my sweater, and I gasped at the shocking heat of his hand on my naked skin.

Clothes fell away.

I’d glimpsed a massive bed tucked up on a platform on the far side of the room, under a triangular frame of windows, but it seemed so far away now. When he swept me up into his arms, I moaned, because I didn’t want him to stop kissing me or touching me long enough to carry me to the bed. I didn’t even want him to stop touching me long enough to get me naked.

To my delight, all he did was carry me over to the couch that faced the fireplace and laid me down, stripping my jeans away without once pausing in the kisses he pressed to my mouth, my neck. Once he had me naked, he came down over me.

I fought with the buckle of his jeans, hurriedly freed him and wrapped one hand around his cock. Skin stretched smooth and tight over his erection and his heavy length pulsed in my hand as I stroked down, then up. He caught my hand and dragged my wrist up over my head, pinning them in place as he wedged his hips between my thighs.

He watched me as he pressed up against me, the moment almost painfully intimate.

The moment he slipped inside me, we both groaned and I arched up, deepening the connection.

Lukas grunted as I clenched down around him, withdrawing and driving back inside, hard, fast. I felt his balls slap against me, felt him swelling. “Lukas,” I breathed out.

His mouth took mine, swallowing down the sound.

Our breath mingled, the ragged moans becoming one.

His heart slammed against mine, and the hand gripping my wrist slid up to twine with my fingers, palm to palm.

Panting, moaning, desperate, I scrabbled underneath him, needing to be even closer. One big hand cupped my ass and tilted me up, deepening the contact. I cried out as each thrust now had him scraping over my clitoris, the head of his cock bumping against me just right.

“Lukas!”

He bit my lower lip.

I climaxed with a whimper.

He didn’t stop.

Neither did my orgasm. Not until it slid into another, then another.

When he finally reached his, I was a melted puddle of flesh, so weak and boneless I could barely move. He shuddered against me, arching into the cradle of my hips one last time.

Then, a harsh groan slipped from him, and he climaxed so hard I felt the jerking rhythm of his cock. His mouth was buried in my hair, and his voice was muffled. But he whispered my name just before sinking down to lie on me for just a moment.

I heard him.

He murmured, “Stella…”