Something causes me to wake me up in the middle of the night.

The digital clock integrated into the smooth surface of the bedside table reads 3:17.

Angelica is not in bed.

It’s the first time in weeks I’ve woken up without her next to me. Not that I’ve been waking up at night. She’s insatiable. We fell asleep around midnight after our final round of sex, one in which she reveled like a woman possessed.

She was riding me, lifting her hips up and down so powerfully I thought I might come right then. Angelica ground down onto me, her muscles clenching around my cock, and then, with a gasp, she rolled over onto her back.

“Pin me,” she said breathlessly. “My arms. Please....”

What was I going to do, deny the lady’s request?

There was a kind of desperation in her eyes, a kind of hope, but there was no way in hell I was going to stop to chat.

Her final orgasm of the night was a shuddering, ecstatic thing, and afterward she’d curled away from me, sighing, stretching, burrowing herself underneath the covers.

It was the most natural thing in the world to fit my body to hers and fall asleep.

Which is why it’s so jarring that she’s not here.

I squint into the dark. There’s no light coming from around the bathroom door.

Maybe she left it off. It’s the middle of the night, after all.

But there’s no sound from the bathroom, no door opening, no padding feet.

Where the hell is she?

I throw my legs over the side of the bed, wiping the sleep from my eyes. If something’s wrong, why didn’t she wake me up? I don’t need that much beauty sleep, for God’s sake.

The boxers I discarded before our little marathon are bunched on the carpet next to the bed. I could hunt for her without them for the pleasure of watching her eyes sparkle when she looks up and down my naked body, but if something is wrong—maybe she’s sick and embarrassed about it—that approach might fall flat. So I pull them on and grab a fresh t-shirt from one of the drawers in my walk-in closet.

She’s not in any of the rooms in the master suite. The bathroom is empty and still, and so is the den.

That leaves the rest of the penthouse.

The running lights at the baseboards illuminate the floor enough for me to make my way through the penthouse. She’s not in my office, or the second bathroom, or the guest bedroom. In the living room, ambient light from the skyscrapers of Manhattan casts a glow to the room.

No Angelica.

She’s also not in the guest suite on the opposite end of the floor, or the kitchen, or the massive pantry.

I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen listening to the silence when I hear the front door swing open.

My heart beats faster.

The door clicks as she closes it behind her, and then there’s a beep as the lock engages. I told her what the code was the day she worked from home in case she needed to go out without me.

For some reason I’d been holding out hope that Angelica had fallen asleep in one of the many overstuffed armchairs I’ve got scattered throughout the penthouse, but when I cross the living room toward the foyer, she’s fully dressed and slowly, carefully hanging her purse back on the hook, taking her shoes off without a sound.

When she turns to creep back to the bedroom, she catches sight of me in the dim light and gasps so sharply it could be a quiet scream. Her hands fly to her mouth.

It takes her a moment to recover.

“Jett, you scared the shit out of me.”

“What’s going on?”

She drops her hands to her sides, then lifts one up and rubs at her forehead. “I had to run out.”

“At three in the morning?”

“Two-thirty in the morning, actually.”

I cross my arms in front of my chest. What is happening right now? “Why didn’t you wake me up? Whatever it was, I could have sent someone.”

Angelica shakes her head, then blows out a breath through pursed lips. “Not...really.” She shifts her weight to the side, then steps over to me, putting both hands one of my forearms. Her eyes are wide in the darkness. “My brother is having some trouble.”

We’ve talked about her brother before, but she didn’t mention the fact that he lives in the city.

“He’s in the city?”

She hesitates for a split second. “Yeah. He lives here. Life has always been more difficult for him than it is for me. It’s been a rough time for him lately.” Angelica leans down and kisses my arm between her hands. “I didn’t want to bother you,” she says softly, and my heart turns over in my chest.

“It’s all right.” I kiss the top of her head, then put my arm around her shoulders. “Is your brother going to be okay?”

“For tonight, yeah. I told him things would be better in the morning.”

“Good advice.” I start walking us back toward the bedroom. “I think we should sleep on it.”

Angelica laughs, sounding tired, relieved...and something else that I can’t put my finger on. “I agree. So much.”

We move through the darkness of the penthouse together, Angelica leaning her head against my shoulder. It feels so right my heart nearly explodes.

And yet...

Something pricks in the back of my mind. It’s odd that she decided to sneak out without leaving a note, or even sending me a text that I’d see when I woke up. She was trying so hard not to make any noise when she came back....

I try to shake off the doubt. When she strips off her clothes and climbs back into bed next to me, I almost succeed.

Almost.