There was a smoky pink glow in the room, like the colors of sunset. The lines around me were muted, indistinct, but the ache in my body was pure desire. I was so aware of my erection, the strange surroundings had no effect on me. Nothing was clear except my need for release. Then her face appeared through the haze, the face of the only woman who could give me what I wanted. I reached for her arm, but it vanished in my grasp like a fine, silky mist.

"Nash.” The deep, sultry tone of her voice and my name on her lush lips was all I needed to take me to the edge. I watched through heavy lids as she leaned over me, her lips parted ready to take me into her mouth. It was too much. She was too much. I stiffened and groaned as hot seed ran down my cock.

"Fuck." My eyes shot open, erasing the misty colors of sunset and the hot beauty leaning over me. But the hot trickle of my seed was not gone. I couldn't fucking remember the last time I'd had a wet dream, but I was pretty sure it was when my voice was still cracking and hair was starting to sprout on my body.

I yanked a tissue from the nightstand, wiped myself off and stomped to the bathroom for a shower. I wasn't going to let my adolescent style masturbation throw me. Shay and I were a week into the contract. We'd worked into a routine where she gave me what I called 'a good fix' for a few hours as she strutted around looking irresistible. After I'd reached full physical exhaustion just from watching her, I went in to work on my proposal for the Harvard scientists. We'd set a meeting for the following week, and I had a shitload of things to do to prove to them I could take their product straight to the top of the outdoor adventure industry.

I showered and got dressed. The smell of bacon sifted down the hallway. Shay was sitting at the table in her shorts and an oversized sweatshirt. She had on her usual warm fuzzy socks, she complained that the hardwood floors in the house were too cold for her feet in the morning. She nibbled a piece of charred bacon while she stared intently at the laptop she had borrowed.

"I made bacon," she announced unnecessarily.

"Sounds like a good, well-rounded breakfast to me." I had never expected it to be so easy and so natural to have a woman living in my house. I'd never invited anyone for longer than two days, other than Kimberly, on those rare occasions when we decided to stretch out one session of endless sex to three days. But Shay had been in my house for a week. I looked forward to seeing her sitting in her fuzzy socks doing whatever it was she liked to do in the morning.

I walked to the coffee pot. "What are you looking at with such concentration?"

"Just looking for a place to live. I don't want a roommate because they usually suck." She smiled at me over the computer. "Unless they are very easy on the eyes and they buy me not just one quart of ice cream but three."

Her eyes dropped back to the computer. I stared at her in silence. She was always going to be leaving. I'd made the contract specific, two weeks and the agreement was over. At the time I'd had it drawn up, I'd more than once considered shortening the time to a week, figuring I'd be good and sick of my houseguest by then. But I knew one week wasn't going to be enough time for me to break old habits and regain my focus.

My dad's stupid chant shot through my brain. Laser focus. Ignore the pain. Win at all costs. There had been plenty of pain, excruciating pain that was for damn sure. And I'd definitely gained some of my focus back. I'd gotten more done in a few days than I had all month. But win at all costs? That was the part that threw me. How could I feel like a winner when all I could think about was what I was about to lose? In one week's time, Shay was going to walk out of my life forever. Nothing about that felt even the slightest bit like a win. Suddenly, losing Shay seemed like a really high cost to pay.

"Did I make the coffee wrong?" Shay's voice pushed me from my depressing thoughts.

I took a sip. "No, it's fine. I'm just thinking about business stuff. I've got to go see my dad today. I'll be back after twelve."

She closed the laptop. The notepad sitting next to it had a list of addresses and phone numbers scribbled on it. "That works. I've got to call some of these landlords. Then I need to go out for a few hours." She left the house every other day for a few hours but never said where she was going.

"Where you headed?" I never usually asked, figuring it was none of my business. Only lately, I'd been curious.

"Oh—" she shrugged. My question had caught her off guard. "Nowhere exciting. Just some errands. But I'll see you back here in a few hours. I hope the visit with your dad goes well."

She took her plate to the sink. I leaned against the counter drinking my coffee. She had to lean past me, nearly brushing against me as she lowered the dish into the sink. Somehow, my crazy ass thoughts had gone straight to the possibility that she left every other day to see a man, maybe her ex, the jerk who had left a bruise on her side. Maybe he'd sweet talked her back into his life, or maybe she had someone else. It wouldn't be a wild thought. Shay was the kind of woman men went nuts for.

Shay slipped past me, and I imagined myself taking hold of her wrist and pulling her back and into my arms. I'd strip her naked right there in the fucking kitchen and devour her with my mouth to taste every inch of her before driving my cock into her until she cried out in ecstasy.

"You all right, Archer?" Her light tone shook me from my thoughts again. "You're kind of fading in and out this morning."

I straightened and tossed the coffee into the sink. "I'm fine." I could hear the cold bark of jealousy in my tone, but I couldn't seem to stop myself. "We need to take this to the next level. I'm not pushing myself hard enough, and we're running out of time. I've been treating this like a damn vacation, a party, and that's over. When I get back, I want you naked and on my bed."

"If you say so," she said with the same amount of chill I'd just thrown at her. Which was fucking perfect. Now I was sending her into this secret lover's arms thinking about just how much she hated me.