I want to confront her about what I heard through the door, but the moment I see her face, the fight goes out of me.

I want my hands, my lips, on her.

In the back of my mind, all my common sense is screaming at me to stay away, stay far away, until I can sort this out, until I can figure out who she was telling about me, but my heart dismisses it. Maybe she was talking to a friend. Maybe it’s none of my business. Maybe I want to bend her over her bed, and when the truth comes out, then I’ll know, and there’s no point in rushing it….

I have her pressed up against the wall, kissing her hard and deep like I’ve wanted to all weekend. What the hell was I thinking, staying away? If I’d been with her all weekend, she wouldn’t even think about her phone.

That’s a crazy idea, an absurd idea, that spending the weekend with me would make Carolyn want to cut off contact with everyone in her life, and I don’t want that. No. I’m on fire for her in a way that makes me try to find a justification for everything that I want. Before her, I didn’t need justification. Now I do, but the taste of her skin is driving me wild.

“I couldn’t wait to see you.” The words come out as a low growl, into her mouth, in the space between kisses. “I couldn’t wait another second.”

It’s hardly the accusation I want to level at her. It’s only the plain, unvarnished truth. Her eyes make me want to tell her everything. Everything.

And rumors are starting to break. I’ve been ignoring it, but the woman at the Swan was still in the calm before the storm. Once those people find out….

If they find out from Carolyn….

I don’t care. In this moment, with my hands beneath her tank top, running over her smooth skin, forming a complete thought is impossible. My heart beats with nothing but need for her, overriding my instinct for self-preservation.

I hook my fingers into the waistband of her yoga pants and pull them down, dropping to my knees to bury my face in the front of her panties before yanking them down over her hips to join the pants on the floor. She gasps when I follow suit with the tank top and then her bra, pressing her now naked back up against the cool surface of the wall one more time before I scoop her into my arms and stride across the apartment to her bedroom.

She’s already panting when I lay her down on the bed, and she immediately goes to her hands and knees. My clothes are off in seconds and I climb on the bed behind her, the mattress caving from my weight, running my hands down the backs of her thighs, my cock ready to burst.

I’m dying to be buried deeply inside her, dying to be close to her, and Carolyn encourages me, sticking her ass out toward me and swaying her hips from side to side, inviting me in.

I don’t refuse.

I plunge into her in one swell movement, burying myself in her to the hilt. She’s soaking, ready, and holds herself steady until I bottom out and she bites back a cry. It’s so filled with pleasure, and something else I can’t name, that it sends me into a frenzy, pounding her so hard she has to brace herself against the comforter.

She only gets wetter, and at some point what she’s saying, over and over, becomes clear. “Yes…yes…yes….”

So I wasn’t the only one.

I fuck her until I’m right on the edge, and before I go over, I reach around and find her clit with my fingers, bringing her over with me, both of us tumbling into a dark explosion of pleasure, and then sweet oblivion.

* * *

When I wake up, light is cascading into the room, but Carolyn is deep asleep, her mouth slightly open, and my heart is pounding.

This is my chance to find out what she’s hiding from me, if anything.

It makes my gut clench, to sneak around in her home like this, but if I’m going to maintain any semblance of control over this situation, I have to know.

I get out of the bed as carefully as I can and stand perfectly still, waiting to see if she’ll stir.

She doesn’t, and I take the opportunity to put my boxers back on. Doing this naked seems ridiculous.

For cover, I grab my own phone. I can always pretend to be making a call.

Then I go out to the living room, where she keeps her laptop.

I hesitate before I open the cover. This is wrong. Maybe the Ace Kingsley of the past who didn’t care about what women thought might not have any qualms about this, but I do.

I open the cover of the laptop.

It’s password-protected, the empty box hovering next to a stylized image of a blue flower.

My muscles go weak.

I have no idea what the password is, but now I’m halfway off the hook.

The second thing I want to see: her phone.

She had it in her hand when I came in. What did she do with it?

Yes—she shoved it into her purse. I can’t remember when.

I slide it out of the bag with trembling hands. Unlike the computer, it has no password.

I scroll through recent messages, not clicking on any of them—somehow that crosses the line to me—and none of them seem to mention my name. I’m going to look at recent calls.

There are several going to a contact marked as her boutique, but several that aren’t…and I recognize the numbers as international ones. From Italy.

My heart starts to pound.

What the hell is she up to?

There’s a stirring from the bedroom, and I swipe open the camera on my phone, take a picture of the call list, and dump the phone back into her purse.

Jesus Christ.

Then I go quickly to the couch and drop into it, pretending to thumb through my phone.

It’s not thirty seconds later that Carolyn appears in the bedroom doorway, hair a mess, face still pink from sleep. My heart tears in two.