I was the bigger man, I told myself as I stalked the dark and confined corridor of Gabby’s apartment. I knew when to gracefully accept a loss. I knew when to walk away with my head high and my strides confident. I knew when it was time to let go. But I didn’t. I’d never been any good at losing. I sure as fuck wasn’t ready to lose her. But how did I fight against something I had no control over? How did I fight time? It was impossible and yet it was the thing keeping her from me.

My age.

It was laughable.

I never dreamed I’d feel so old at thirty-five. Everyone kept telling me I was at the peak of my life, that I had the whole world in the palm of my hands at such a young age.

Not young enough, it seemed.

I’d always known I had to be careful with her, she’d always seemed so fragile, but I hadn’t fallen for her until she’d already been nineteen, legal. That hadn’t even been an issue.

For me, at least.

But maybe thirteen years was too large a gap.

I didn’t know.

What I did know was that I’d never felt so inadequate.

My phone chimed the moment I threw myself behind the wheel of my car. The device was yanked free of my coat pocket and nearly silenced when I saw her name brightly lit across my screen.

Gabby: “Meet me. Please. Right now.”

Every muscle in my body stiffened as the implication of her request lit my fucking nerves on fire.

She was texting him.

She was asking for him.

How fucked up was that?

What would she do if I told her that her precious Cain was fucking thirty-five?

What would she say then? Would she turn him away?

Would she still let him into her fucking bed, between her fucking legs?

Gabby: “Please, Cain. I really need you.”

I wanted to hurl the fucking thing against a wall.

I wanted to shatter it into a million fucking pieces to match the pulverized state of my fucking heart.

I wanted to write her back that I wasn’t fucking interested.

That she was too young for me.

I wanted to hurt her.

I wanted...

Me: “Where?”

I hit send and waited, my heart snapping in my chest, my lungs screaming. I was so livid I was shaking.

She answered too quickly, as if she’d already written the location for him without him asking.

It was her apartment.

The place I only just left.

The place she was in at that very moment in only a towel.

I’d never wanted to commit murder so badly in my life. Fucking crazy because the person I wanted to kill, wanted to break my first into their face until there was nothing left ...  was me.

My alter ego.

A man who didn’t even fucking exist.

But she wanted him over me.

She asked for him over me.

Fuck me!

The horn shrieked across the silent parking lot beneath the violent attack of my fist. The cushioned leather did nothing to soften the serrated edges of my blood boiling rage.

Nothing would.

The woman I loved wanted another man.

A man I made up.

What the fuck was I supposed to do about that?

I went to her, was what I did.

I waited twenty minutes to calm the beast in my head before crossing back the way I’d come to her front door. I had to buzz this time. I didn’t have a junkie staggering out to let me in.

Her soft voice filled the night.

“Hello?”

I started to reach for my phone, for the app to disguise my voice, but fuck it. This was why I was going, to show her who I ... who Cain was. She needed to know because I couldn’t have her texting him every time she wanted to fuck. I’d lose my fucking mind.

“It’s me.”

There was a sliver of pause where I wondered if she recognized my voice, if she was putting it together like she nearly had back at the school.

The locks disengaged. The door buzzed, alerting me to the admittance.

I walked back into the heavy stench of sweat, sex, and drugs. It was always a drastic change when coming in from the crisp, clean air. The force was tangible, like walking through heat.

But I made it to her door.

I knocked.

There was a moment of silence then her voice, muffled by the wood was telling me it was open.

I let myself in.

My anger dissipated the instant I passed over the threshold. It evaporated into resignation and self loathing. I was half tempted to turn back, to leave.

“Cain?”

I followed her soft voice into the living room.

She sat exactly where I’d left her on the sofa. Only her towel had been replaced by a baggy shirt and flannel bottoms. Both looked worn and comfy. A navy scarf served as a blindfold over her eyes.

“Cain?” she whispered again.

Her clothes rustled as she rose and turned in my direction.

One tiny hand lifted, slim fingers reaching through the expanse of space to me.

I caught it.

Fuck if I knew why.

Maybe because the sight of it suspended in the chasm between us reminded me of an injured little bird. I couldn’t ignore it.

“I’m sorry.” Her fingers coiled around mine, small and desperate. They were so cold. “I know you’re probably hoping for a different outcome than this one, but I ... I may have pushed away the only person who has ever been kind to me and I don’t want to be alone right now.”

What was I supposed to say to that?

What was I supposed to do?

There were no protocols for comforting the woman who stomped on your heart.

But I couldn’t not do something.

I couldn’t walk away when she stood before me looking like a small, scared child.

She pulled in a breath that wobbled with tears. Her chin lowered to her chest, but not before I saw the tremor or the faint patches of darkness littering the skin. Their existence pulled me closer a step, had my head tilting to get a better view of the bruises.

Had they been there that morning? I had a vague recollection of thinking I saw something when I had her in my arms by the bulletin boards, but it hadn’t been clear.

How long had she had them for? More importantly, which bastard was I going to have to kill, because someone would pay for putting their hands on her?

“You can leave if you want,” she was saying when I forced myself to focus again. “It’s not fair what I’m asking. This isn’t your problem, and you’ve already done so much for me.”

I quietly squeezed her fingers once, just to let her know I was there and I wasn’t going anywhere.

She sighed a little, the sound distinctly relieved. “I promise to make it up to you. I just really need someone to hold me for a little bit.”

Cruel.

That was the thought that passed through my head as I studied the delicate lines of her face. What made the whole matter even worse was the fact that she didn’t know she was killing me. It was a sick sort of cosmic joke that I’d brought on myself that night I didn’t remove the blindfold like I should have.

Hell, I never should have fallen for her.

I never should have allowed myself anywhere near her.

That was all on me.

Yet my feet had grown roots into her carpet, keeping me restrained to her torment like an idiot moth to an open flame. Her presence was burning my soul and still I stayed. That made me a unique kind of stupid.

“Cain?”

I traced the delicate line of her jaw with the pad of my thumb, wishing I could wipe the marks away as easily. I followed the bend to the point of her chin and was rewarded by the turn of her face into my palm.

Christ.

“Will you stay?”

For the rest of my life if you’d let me, I wanted to tell her, but I was once again forced into the bleak corners of her fantasy. I’d become her mystery lover, the faceless stranger that she preferred over a real man. And I allowed it. I let her to play the strings, making me dance to her desires while all I wanted to do was tear off that fucking bit of fabric, pull her into my arms and demand she see me.

Me.

Not the thing she was turning me into.

I hated us both in that moment.

Nevertheless, it didn’t stop me from reaching into my pocket and drawing out my phone. The text to speech app was activated and I put in my first set of words.

“I’ll stay.”

A smile twisted almost half-heartedly over her face.

“You think I’m a mess.”

I typed in a single word, “Yes.”

Her chin lowered. I caught it before it could get too close to her chest.

I held it while punching keys with my other hand.

“We’re both messes.”

She made a sound between a sniffle and a chuckle. “Did you tell the man you love you couldn’t be with him, too?”

Her words snapped at my fingers like the angry tongues on a roaring inferno. I snatched my hands away from her as if she’d burst into flames. My phone dropped from my grasp and struck the carpet between us with a muffled thud.

I stared at her, a sandstorm of emotions blasting me with a whirlwind of heat. It thundered between my ears, a noise so deafening I couldn’t hear myself think.

“No!” Her hands reached for me. “Please, I didn’t ... it’s complicated. Please don’t—”

I hated those fucking words.

I hated hearing them coming from her lips, and always in that broken little whisper as if whatever I was doing was killing her.

I caught her face in both palms, silencing her, silencing the din in my skull. Her soft lips parted, but nothing came out, nothing could with the thumb pad I pressed against them.

I was so done playing this game, this stupid, fucking game.

I was done.

No more silence.

No more fucking blindfolds.

I was claiming her.

Claiming what belonged to me.

“No!” she gasped when my thumbs hooked into the scarf. Her stiff fingers closed over my hands, struggling to pit her strength against mine. “No, no, please, please! I’m not ready.”

I didn’t care!

I didn’t fucking give a shit if she was ready or not.

I refused to be the other man, the one she called when she should have called me.

The one she thought she needed when in reality, she needed me.

That was going to end.

It was going to end now.

“Please.”

My resolve wavered under the whimpered plea.

My momentary surge of madness dulled with the hard flex of her throat muscles working to swallow down her panic.

Fuck!

How did she not see how ridiculous this was? I could be anybody. I could be a burglar. I could be a rapist. I could fucking hurt the shit out of her and she’d let me into her home, and literally turned a blind eye. What the hell was she thinking?

But like the true masochist that I was turning out to be, I relented. I dropped my hands and balled them at my sides to keep from just snatching the fucking thing off her face anyway. My limbs trembled with the effort it was costing me to maintain that restraint.

She touched me.

Her slim fingers lifted and brushed over my chest. They moved lightly upward, following the vertical stitching on my sweater to my collarbone. Her knuckles nudged my chin, which must have been her destination, because she cupped my cheeks. Her thumbs glided over my lips.

“Can we just forget everything and pretend we’re back in that room at the auction house? Can you do that? Can you just ... hold me?”

Every bone in my body wanted to shake her until sense returned, but the moment I touched her, the moment my fingers curled into her arms, they inexplicably turned gentle. The heat of my frustrations receded to curl up in a hot ball in my chest and I was left with only one option — I pulled her to me and kissed her.

Gabby came willingly. Her tiny frame settled along the length of mine, a perfect fit in all the places that mattered. Her hands slipped back into my hair, gripping me, using me as leverage as she rose onto her toes.

I shrugged out of my coat. It joined my phone on the floor and the shoes I toed off. Comfortable, I lifted her up into my arms, pausing to allow her to twine her legs around my hips before moving us to the sofa. She didn’t protest when I reclined us across the cushions. She made herself at home snuggled against my chest, her arms hooked around my shoulders. Her thighs cradled my hips between them.

We kissed, long slow kisses that took me back to my teenage years of making out on the sofa when my mom wasn’t home. They hadn’t amounted to more than some over the clothes petting, but this wasn’t anything like that.

There was poetry in the melding of our mouths, quiet promises that whispered with every sigh.

It was therapy for the soul.

Unimaginable peace

I could have lived in that moment for the rest of my life.

But Gabby had other thoughts, other plans that did not involve simply making out.

Her fingers slipped beneath the hem of my sweater and followed the stretch of skin running just above the waistband of my trousers.

The sensation tickled, but I was too intrigued by her purpose to stop her.

The fingers circled over the smooth button once before it was forced from its loop.

The release of pressure as my pants were undone had me sucking in a breath filled with expelled air from her lips still feathering over mine.

My zipper was drawn down, the only thing keeping my cock restrained.

It sprang free, thick and hard, ready for the hand that caught it.

“This was inside me?”

The question almost made me laugh. I would have, except she took that moment to wrap her fingers around me and all thoughts scattered.

“It doesn’t seem like it would fit,” she went on soft with every stroke of her palm working my shaft. “I can’t even close my fingers.”

I knew she wasn’t deliberately talking dirty to be sexy, but Christ. Her basic curiosity had me throbbing and leaking over her fingers.

She smeared my precum down my length.

I watched, riveted.

“Can I touch you?”

An eyebrow she couldn’t see lifted. But she must have sensed it because she wrinkled her nose in a grimace.

“I mean all of you.”

I dragged my sweater up over my head. My pants were kicked to my ankles. I reached for her clothes next, stripping her. I dropped back on the cushions, naked and ready for her experimentation.

She rose over me, beautiful with her pink cheeks and parted lips. Her knees hugged my ribs.

She gasped when her mound settled on my crotch. I guided her over with my hands on her hips, rubbing her clit from base to head and leaving me coated in her juices.

“That feels really good,” she breathed, rolling herself forwarded without my help.

She was still panting slightly as she leaned down.

She started at my face. Her fingers glided blindly along my jaw and over my chest. They splayed across my pecs, feeling their hardness before working downward.

“You feel like an underwear model.”

I laughed.

She smiled a little. “You’re hard everywhere and ... yup, there they are. Rock hard abs. One. Two...”

She traced each square in her way down, counting as she went until reaching the plane of my pelvis.

“Eight,” she breathed. “Definitely a Calvin Klein model, or some Greek god. You must be a sight to behold at the beach.”

I took pride in my appearance. I always have. Looking the part of a CEO wasn’t enough if you didn’t exude power and strength when you walked into a room. But I’d never been smug about it until that moment watching Gabby admire my body with her hands.

When she reached the head of my cock, she paused. Her fingers closed around me again. Her hips lifted.

I instinctively took it from her, leaving her hands free to brace her weight.

I rubbed her with the head, smearing our juices together. I teased her clit a couple of times before sliding back to nudge against her opening.

She impaled herself.

Her ring gave and she started a slow decent down my dick. Halfway, she paused and withdrew before continuing, path slickened. She did that a few times, seemingly attempting to make him fit. The effort was making her thighs quiver on either sides of my ribs. She gave a little grunt of discomfort.

“Okay?” I punched into the phone.

She bit her lip and gave a nod. “You’re too big.”

I bit back my laugh and took her hips. Without pausing, I pushed her onto her back, grateful her cushions were stiff; sinking into foam would have made the process much harder. As it were, I spread her knee open wide, tossed her legs over each shoulder and hauled her ass against my chest.

Her squeak melted into a moan with the first sweep of my tongue. It rose into a groan with a sharp prodding against her opening. The sweet, musky taste of her thickened with every plunge, with every teasing flick over her clit.

“I love when you do that,” she rasped in a breathy whimper when I sucked on the hard knot.

She made a sound between a sharp breath and a cry of panic. Her thighs tensed on either sides of my head. Her clit pulsed.

I stopped.

“No...” she breathed.

But I dragged her up and into my lap. I got my cock under her and pulled her down on it.

Her guttural wail sang through me. It tore down her body and clenched in the place we were joined. The fierce assault blinded me to everything except her fumbled attempts to ride him.

“Harder!” I growled into her ear, one hand fisted into her hair, the other banded around her waist.

I forced my hips up, slamming myself inside her to the hilt. I pulled her down at the same time, and she sobbed when I hit her base. Her channel seized with the tension that bowed her spine.

I did it again, but this time she met me. She drove herself down, using the armrest beneath my head as leverage. Her sharp pants washed over my face. She groaned something I could have sworn was my name, my actual name, but I was already lost in the spike that took us both over and the sound was nothing but her cry of release. Then the quiet whispers of our breaths filling the room.

I clasped her to me. My fingers traced the silky curve of her spine. I inhaled the clean scent of her hair and the subtle hint of orange blossoms on her skin. It was the most intoxicating fragrance to have ever wrapped around my senses.

“Is it always like that?” Her lips brushed the hollow of my throat.

I shook my head.

She sighed. “I’m going to miss it.”

The wistful, almost groggy murmur had my head lifting. I made a questioning hum in my throat.

She was silent for a long moment, seconds I waited only to realize she’d fallen asleep.

I stayed awake, just listening to her soft breathing and the buzz of the refrigerator. I studied the bit of place she called home and the image didn’t match up.

Gabrielle Thornton was the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the country. Her family name went back centuries, almost as old as mine. She should have been in a penthouse, draped in silk, and driving a new car every day. Like her siblings.

But unlike her siblings, she was so broken. The damage in her killed me every time I saw her. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand her, but all I wanted was to protect her and shield her from whatever was scaring her, whatever was causing her pain. I wanted her to trust me. Me, not Cain. I wanted her to tell me what was happening and let me fix it. I would upend the entire world if I had to. Whatever it took. I wanted to take her away from that dump, away from the stench of misery and decay. I wanted to hunt David down and demand to know why the fuck his daughter was living in a shithole, why she was driving a deathtrap, why the fuck she was in that auction. Why wasn’t he taking care of her? Why was no one making sure she was okay?

“No...”

Her whimper had me tightening my arms around her. I planted my lips to the top of her head.

“It’s all right, love,” I murmured. “I’ve got you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She went still once more, but my mind continued to race, determined to solve the mystery that was Gabrielle Thornton.