So here’s the scoop on John Cooper, the love of my life who didn’t know it yet.

I met him for the first time on the day I started my job. I was getting coffee in the break area for my corner of offices and pretending to be poised and self-assured, as if I were completely comfortable in my new position and in my semi-expensive suit.

I wasn’t. Of course I wasn’t. I could barely believe I’d been given the job offer, and I was living with this lurking fear that someone would realize they’d made a mistake, that they’d actually wanted to hire another Ashley with red hair who’d graduated at the top of her class in a midtier law school and they’d mistakenly ended up with me instead.

Naturally, I didn’t want anyone in the world to know I was feeling that way.

That first morning, I was using all my willpower to put on a confident demeanor as I poured a cup of coffee from the pot. When I turned around, mug in hand, the most handsome man I’d ever seen was standing less than a foot away.

He had very dark hair and very blue eyes and the broad, solid build of a football player. He wore a nice black suit, and there was the slightest of clefts in his chin.

I slopped hot coffee all over my hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a deep, pleasant voice. “Did I surprise you?”

Now I was trying to pretend that the spilled coffee on my skin didn’t hurt. “Sorry! Oh. Oh. Oh, no. No, of course not. Sorry. Sorry about that!”

That was word for word what I said.

The man broke into a slow smile.

My heart burst into flutters.

“Are you new here?” he asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I am.” I forced myself to take a deep breath and try to speak lucidly. “I’m Ashley.”

“John. John Cooper. Glad you’re on board.”

That was it. That was our entire conversation, and the only conversation we had for the first month I worked at the firm.

It was enough though.

I returned to my office, ignoring the burning sensation from hot coffee all over my hand. I pulled out my little planner—a paper one since I can never make an electronic planner work for me—and I wrote this sentence on the very last empty page.

I’m going to marry John Cooper.

Silly, I know. The kind of foolish romantic gesture a teenage girl might make.

But I was convinced it was true. It felt like a deep abiding knowledge that descended on me from on high.

And I believed it still, three years later, as I was riding up the hotel elevator on my way to my second evening with Sean Doyle.

My heart belonged to John Cooper. But my body, at least for tonight, belonged to Sean.

Two entirely different things.

There was safety in that. Safety in the fact that ultimately it didn’t matter that Sean had built up impenetrable walls around his heart—around the deepest parts of himself—and that I’d never be able to scale those walls or bring them down. I didn’t want to.

I just wanted to have a good time for the next few hours.

That meant I had as much power in the hotel room as Sean did, even though he was the one who had drawn up the contract and fortified himself with artificial barricades.

I knocked on the door.

As I waited, I had to admit to myself that I was really excited about tonight, about seeing Sean, about having sex with him again. He didn’t have to be the love of my life.

He was really good in bed.

I frowned when he didn’t open the door.

I knocked again, my heart starting to sink at the possibility that he wasn’t even here.

He hadn’t left a message downstairs at the front desk, which was what he was supposed to do if he’d decided not to show up or if he had a scheduling conflict.

But he wasn’t responding to my knock.

I was breathing in ragged little pants and washed with a deep chill of disappointment as I knocked the third time.

He wasn’t here.

He hadn’t been as excited as I’d been.

He’d found me boring last time, not worth another evening.

And here I was knocking on the door like a pitiful fool.

The door swung open suddenly, making me gasp.

“Sorry,” Sean said with a little quirk of his mobile mouth. In the past two weeks, I’d forgotten how sexy his mouth was. “I thought I could get the shower done before you got here.”

I was almost shaking with surprise and relief.

He was standing across the threshold, wearing nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist. His skin was slightly damp, the moisture glinting on his firm flesh, lean muscles, and scattering of hair. This man wasn’t nearly as classically handsome as John Cooper, but damn, he was incredibly sexy.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, his green eyes sharp and observant as they studied my face.

“Nothing,” I said, making myself smile in a confident, relaxed way. “Why would something be wrong?”

“You look strange.” He stepped aside to let me into the room.

“Thanks very much,” I said tartly.

There was a bottle of red wine on the table near the window, just like there had been last time. I headed for it immediately, thinking a glass of wine was exactly what I needed.

Sean grabbed my hand and pulled me back around to face him. “What’s up, Ash?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” I said, starting to get annoyed by his persistence. Hadn’t he ever heard of just letting something go?

He pulled me closer to him and said softly, “Tell me.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled my hand out of his grip. “That kind of bossiness might work with your employees, but it won’t work on me.”

One of his eyebrows arched up in a quizzical expression. “It won’t?”

Damn it. Damn it.

I couldn’t quite hold back a laugh.

He smiled, clever amusement warming his face. “There’s that sense of humor. I noticed it at the meeting on the first day we met. You thought I was funny and had to fight not to show it.”

He was exactly right. I’d thought it would be a betrayal of our client to laugh at Sean’s ironic little comments, so I’d struggled to keep a straight face.

Evidently, my struggle had been unsuccessful.

“If you’re going to be smug and annoying,” I said coolly, “then maybe I made a mistake in coming here again.”

“I don’t think you made a mistake.” He adjusted his towel, which was sliding very low on his hips.

I tried not to leer. “Why did you take a shower?”

“I had a four-hour meeting this afternoon in a stuffy conference room. I wasn’t in fit state for company.”

I’m not sure why, but I kind of liked that he got hot and sweaty—just like any other man—and that he was willing to admit it. “Oh yeah? I thought you weren’t supposed to let the other guy see you sweat.”

“You’re not. That’s why I kept my jacket on, which made it even hotter.” He chuckled. “But the other guy was in worse shape than me. He was drenched.”

“I guess that’s what you call a successful meeting then.” I was still standing in the middle of the floor, near the foot of the bed since Sean was blocking my way to the wine.

“Successful, yes. But I definitely needed a shower afterward.”

His lips parted slightly as enlightenment washed over his face. “Ah. I see.”

I arched my eyebrows in an attempt at lofty disinterest. “You see what?”

“That’s why you were all stiff and breathless when I opened the door. You thought I’d stood you up.”

I gasped. “I wasn’t stiff and breathless!”

I was breathless now because Sean had taken a step closer to me and his eyes had taken on a heat I remembered from two weeks ago.

“Yes, you were,” he murmured. “You were preparing yourself for disappointment.”

“I wouldn’t have been that disappointed.”

This was an outright lie. I’d been looking forward to tonight for two weeks. I’d been anticipating, imagining, fantasizing about it. Far more often than I was comfortable with.

He moved even closer, so we were less than two inches apart. “Really? I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t shown up.”

My cheeks flushed, and for some reason I was nervous again—nervous that I was so excited, that I was already so aroused. “Maybe I should take a shower too.”

“Did you have a four-hour meeting?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t need a shower.” He gave me that sultry smile and pulled his towel away from his body, dropping it on the floor.

I blinked as my whole body surged in exhilaration. He was already hard. Still feeling compelled not to show how excited I was, I asked lightly, “Just what exactly were you doing in the shower?”

“I was anticipating,” he whispered into my ear.

My whole body clenched. Arousal hit me so hard and fast that it actually ached.

Before I knew what was happening, he’d grabbed me, walking me backward until the back of my legs hit the foot of the bed. Then I was tumbling down onto the mattress, and Sean was on top of me, his green eyes hot and his body warm and naked.

“I heartily approve of the skirt,” he murmured, sliding my skirt up to my hips to free my legs.

I’d worn a skirt today, which I almost never did since no one else in my office wore them. I hadn’t even done so consciously, although I realized now I’d worn it in the hopes that I might be sexier for tonight.

Before I could respond, Sean was kissing me.

His kiss was deep and urgent, and I realized he’d been honest about his anticipating our time together. He must have been looking forward to it as much as I’d been. There was no other explanation for his eagerness now or his lack of preliminaries.

It worked for me. I was already flushed and wet, arousal pulsing between my legs. I was still wearing my heels as I wrapped my legs around Sean’s body.

He yanked my blouse out from my skirt as he kissed me and then fumbled around until he’d unbuttoned it. My jacket had already been hanging open, and he didn’t even bother trying to get it off. He kissed his way down my neck to my breasts and then nuzzled and nipped over my bra until I was gasping and arching up into his mouth.

It was all happening so fast that it should have been a problem for me. I just don’t go from my normal self to hot arousal in so little time.

Not normally anyway.

It was probably because I’d spent so long looking forward to tonight. The imagination is a powerful aphrodisiac.

For whatever reason, I was already ready for him, my fingers digging into his back as I rocked shamelessly beneath him. Before I knew it, he’d slid down my panties and pulled them off over my shoes.

When he lifted his head, he gazed down at me with a look of pleased possessiveness, as if he enjoyed seeing me so turned on from so little. He said, “Don’t move.”

“What?” I stared up at him as he stood up. I was sprawled there on the foot of the bed, my clothes half on and my legs splayed apart, no underwear or anything, and he was telling me not to move.

“Don’t move,” he said again, walking over to one of the nightstands.

I’m not sure why, but I obeyed him. I didn’t move. I was confused and uncomfortable, but there was something incredibly hot about staying in this position because he’d said so.

He returned in just a moment, and I finally saw what he’d been doing.

A condom.

He’d been getting a condom.

Good thinking, really.

He tore the packet open and rolled on the condom before he lowered himself on top of me again, bracing himself on one arm and using the other to position himself at my entrance.

I moaned as he eased himself inside me, pleased that he was breathing as loudly and unevenly as I was.

I wrapped my legs around him as he started to thrust.

There was nothing graceful or controlled about us. It was all raw, urgent, almost clumsy. He pushed into me with fast, hard thrusts, and I squeezed my legs around him as I rocked up with shameless enthusiasm. I had to be poking into his ass with my heels, but he obviously didn’t care. Both of us were grunting like animals, shaking the bed, working ourselves up to release.

Under normal circumstances, I’d never have been able to come with so little foreplay, but all my fantasies and anticipating over the past two weeks had evidently taken care of that for me. I was already close. As the pleasure tightened, I suddenly felt out of control, so I reached above my head with one hand and fumbled for purchase on the bedding.

“That’s right,” Sean murmured thickly, his mouth very close to my ear. “You’re about to come already, aren’t you? Fuck, you’re so hot, so good. You’re gonna come so hard.”

There was no rational reason for his words to get to me the way they did, but my whole body clamped down in pleasure as he spoke. Then I was coming, tossing my head against the mattress and trying to bite back the loud cry that was bursting out of my throat.

His motion grew tighter, harder, as I shook through my orgasm. He was grunting loudly now, right in my ear, and I loved that he sounded so out of control.

I was still working through the spasms of my release—which went on much longer than I would have expected—when Sean started to jerk and shudder too. He didn’t try to rein in his exclamation of release the way I had. He didn’t have the same inhibitions.

We were both sweating and panting as we finally reached completion. For a minute he pressed his weight into me. His naked body was so hot, so heavy, and it was relaxing so deliciously. It matched exactly what I was feeling myself.

But, after a minute, I realized how heavy he was. And my back was aching from the position, hanging halfway off the bed. Plus I was still trapped in my clothes, and they were damp and uncomfortable. And my hair was sticking to the sweaty skin of my face and neck.

I groaned and shifted beneath him.

He grunted in response but didn’t move.

“Sean.” I gave him a little poke in the side.

“All right. All right. I’m moving.” He didn’t move immediately, but he did eventually. He heaved himself up, rubbing his face and smiling down at me.

I didn’t like how smug his expression appeared. I frowned. “What are you grinning at?”

He was taking care of the condom, but his eyes were still on me. “You’re looking deliciously…”

My frowned deepened. “Deliciously what?” I supposed I looked like an embarrassing mess, all hot and disheveled and debauched.

“Sated,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re looking pretty sated too, you know.”

“No question about that.” He reached down with his free hand and helped me stand up. When I gasped and grabbed at my back, he asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah. Not the most comfortable of positions, if you want to know the truth, but I’m sure I’ll live.”

He grinned at me and then went to the bathroom to get rid of the condom and wash up. When he came out, I was smoothing out the wrinkles in my skirt.

His eyebrows drew together. “You’re not leaving already, are you?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“You left right afterward last time.”

He was right, but it had just been twenty minutes since I’d arrived. I didn’t want to leave yet, and I was quite happy that he clearly didn’t want me to. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do now though, so I said the first thing I thought of. “Well, I don’t think I will this time. I think I might take a shower.”

He nodded, his face relaxing. “Good plan. The hotel has excellent water pressure.”

I was chuckling as I went into the bathroom, closed the door, turned on the shower, and took off my clothes.

I was about to step into the shower when I heard Sean’s voice from outside. “Ash?”

I was standing in the bathroom completely naked, and his voice surprised me. I acted on instinct, reacting quickly. I gave a little squeal, slamming my hand down on the bathroom door to hold it closed.

It was only after I did so that I realized how foolish it was.

There was a pause from outside the door. Then he asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I called breathlessly. “Fine.”

“What’s going on in there?”

“Nothing.” My cheeks were hot. I might wish to be some sort of cool, modern woman—the kind who had casual affairs and walked around hotel rooms completely naked—but I would always end up embarrassing myself. “I just didn’t want you to come in.”

I heard him chuckling from outside the door. “I wasn’t going to come in.”

“Good.”

He was still laughing. “I was just wondering if you were hungry. I’m going to order room service. Do you want something?”

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that would be great.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know. What’s good here?” I was still naked in the bathroom, still holding the door closed, just in case.

“All their steaks are great. And the salmon is really good.” He still sounded like he might be laughing at me.

I loved steak. Loved it. All my health-conscious friends shook their heads at me for eating red meat, but it had always been my favorite thing. I was used to people disapproving of it, however, and it would involve trying to decide which kind of steak to choose. So I went with the easier option. “Salmon would be great.”

“With what side?”

I almost groaned. This was just too many decisions for me to deal with when I was about to step into the shower. “I don’t know. What’s good?”

“The risotto?”

“Perfect. Thanks!”

Relieved, I was finally able to get into the shower and wash away the sex and the self-consciousness and remind myself that I didn’t have to put on a show for Sean.

He liked to have sex with me, and it didn’t really matter what he thought of me otherwise.

***

As Sean had said, the shower was excellent, and I stood under the hot spray for a long time before I soaped up with the expensive body wash provided by the hotel. I did my best to keep my hair out of the water since I didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening with sopping wet hair.

When I got out, I dried off, put on one of the thick white hotel robes, and stared at myself in the mirror.

My cheeks were flushed, and my lips looked redder than usual. My skin was as pale as usual otherwise, with a faint dusting of freckles on my nose. My hair—despite the sex and the steam from the shower—didn’t have even a hint of a sexy wave. It was straight as a stick, like normal.

I tried to fluff it out, ever hopeful, but I gave up when it did no good. It was smooth and shiny, but it would never have any sort of body.

When I left the bathroom, Sean was sitting at the table, reading something on his phone. He’d pulled on a pair of soft black pajama pants, but that was all he wore. He must have brought them with him, and I made note of that for next time. If he could bring something comfortable to wear in the room between rounds of sex, then so could I.

He glanced up and gave me a quirk of a smile. “You want some wine?”

“Yeah. That would be great.” I went over and sat in the other chair at the table while he poured me a glass of merlot.

I sipped it, not sure what I was supposed to say now that the sex was over and the food hadn’t yet come.

“How’s your week been?” he asked casually, putting down his phone.

It was a normal, innocuous question—something anyone might ask. But his eyes were holding mine and he looked like he might be genuinely interested, so instead of just saying “fine” I answered him for real. “Not bad. Kind of boring. Now that my big job is done, it’s a bit of a letdown to get back to normal.”

“Your big job?”

“Yes. My big job. Helping to make that deal with you was the biggest job I’ve ever done.”

He nodded as if he understood this. He clearly didn’t question that any project involving him and his company was an important, noteworthy one. “What does your normal work look like?”

“One home closing after another.”

“I guess that’s to be expected when you’re in property law.”

“Yeah. Of course. And I’m the low man on the totem pole at work, so I get all the little stuff. It’s really not that bad.” Even when it got boring, I enjoyed my job and considered myself lucky to have it.

“Why did you go into property law instead of something else more exciting?”

“I don’t know. Most lawyering isn’t that exciting.”

“But why property?” He’d almost finished his glass of wine, and his eyes were focused intently on my face.

I opened my mouth and closed it again. Then decided there was no reason not to tell him. “When I was in college, my grandparents lost their home. They’d lived in it for fifty years, and a big land developer swooped in and bullied and cheated them out of it.” I sighed, closing my eyes as I thought about the memory. “They were… devastated. They didn’t have an advocate—at least not one who knew what he was doing—and so they didn’t get anything closer to a fair deal for the house. They just… lost it. I know everyone says that possessions and property shouldn’t be that important, but a home is different. A home is special. They were both almost eighty, and they lost their home. They never really got over it.”

Sean was quiet for a moment, clearly thinking about what I’d told him. “So you went into property law so you could help people like them.”

“Not immediately. I knew in college I wanted to be a lawyer, but I’m not sure I even knew what it entailed. I just had these vague daydreams of defending people in court. When I got to law school, though, and I had to start making decisions, what happened to my grandparents was what decided me.”

“Are they still alive?”

“My grandmother is. She’s in an assisted living place now. She’s doing okay, but…” I didn’t finish. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to finish. It felt strange and almost dangerous to have shared something so personal with Sean.

He didn’t say anything. He just took his last sip of wine and put his glass down quietly on the table.

Wanting to do something to get the emotional pressure off me, I asked, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why did you become a property developer? Your family is all cops, right?”

“Yeah. My father and grandfather and three cousins and my sister and both brothers.”

“Wow. So why didn’t you do that too?”

“I don’t really know.” He didn’t sound like he was avoiding the question. He seemed to mean what he said. “I think I just wanted to do something different. And I wanted to make money.”

I laughed. “Nice.”

“I know it sounds mercenary, but it’s true. I think money is a prime motivator for a lot of people’s career decisions, particularly when you grow up without a lot of it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

“I was always the smartest of the bunch, and my parents wanted me to go to college, which no one else in my family ever did. I majored in business without really knowing what I wanted to do, and then I started an MBA program. It was only then that I figured it out.”

I tried to imagine Sean as a college student, as a graduate student, and I simply couldn’t do it. He wore competence and authority like his suits—like it was part of him. “And what does your family think about it? Are they disappointed you didn’t follow the family tradition?”

His thin, expressive mouth did a little twist. “They were all right. My dad was disappointed, and I got a lot of snide comments from my brothers, but no one really held it against me. My grandmother was always really supportive. Follow your heart, boy. Always do your own thing.”

The last two sentences were clearly in the voice of his grandmother—spoken in a thick Irish brogue.

My eyes widened as I chuckled. “Does she really talk like that?”

“Oh yes.”

He didn’t speak with even a trace of an accent. His speech was clean, uninflected, and it occurred to me then that he might have worked to make it so.

I asked, “So your family is really Irish?”

He arched his eyebrows very high. “You know my name is Sean Doyle, right?”

I laughed even more. “Of course. I’ve got Irish in my family background, but it doesn’t really impact who we are. So I didn’t know how… how close the Irish heritage was for you.”

“Very close. Very close.” He looked like he’d say more, but there was a knock on the door then, and he got up to let in room service.

The server put the dishes on the table with the glasses, utensils, napkins, condiments, and a bottle of sparkling water.

Sean signed the bill and waited until we were alone in the room.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said, lifting the silver cover off my plate. The salmon, risotto, and vegetables looked delicious.

Sean’s ribeye looked even better.

We were quiet as we started to eat, and I found myself wondering how I would feel if I’d been eating dinner in a hotel room with John rather than Sean.

It would be better. Surely it would be better. I couldn’t imagine anyone else being as smart and funny and interesting as Sean, but it would have to be better if I was with a man I loved.

Right?

I tried to imagine John wearing nothing but pajama pants and chewing a bite of steak across the table from me. It was an attractive image but strangely blurry around the edges.

“What are you thinking about?” Sean asked, breaking me out of my reverie.

I felt almost guilty, like I’d been caught doing something naughty. “Nothing.”

“You’re thinking about the jackass, aren’t you?”

I gasped, as much in surprise as indignation. “No! Of course not. Why would you say that?”

“Because you had a dopey expression on your face,” Sean said with a hint of that smug little smile.

I gasped again and stiffened my spine. “I was not dopey! And he’s not a jackass!”

“Oh yes, he is.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I told you last time. I know everything I need to know about him. You’re the one who doesn’t really know him.”

“I work with him every day.”

“And let me guess. This week, he brushed against you in the hallway, making your heart go all pitter-patter.” His voice was low and amused and not at all bitter. He was teasing me but in a way that proved he liked me and that didn’t offend me at all.

I rolled my eyes, trying very hard not to smile. “No. He’s been out of the office for a few days.”

“Sick? Didn’t you rush to his side with chicken soup and sympathy?”

“He’s been out of town.”

He’d taken some vacation days and had gone to the Caribbean. He didn’t have a serious girlfriend, but I was pretty sure he’d taken a woman with him.

If I hadn’t had my evening with Sean to look forward to, I would have been seriously depressed about it.

I kept telling myself it didn’t matter though. John wasn’t in love with me. He had women in his life that weren’t me. He didn’t have someone special though, so he wasn’t a lost cause.

Sean was a lost cause.

He’d given his heart once, and that was clearly all he had in him to give.

At least I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for Sean the way I had for John.

“He’s not who you think he is,” Sean murmured, without as much teasing in his tone.

I met his eyes across the table. “You have no idea who I think he is.”

He nodded as if acknowledging the words, and I was relieved when he let the subject drop.

I didn’t mind him teasing me a little for having a crush. I was the one who’d told him about the love of my life when I was drunk last month. But I didn’t want anyone to doubt my feelings were real.

I knew it was crazy, but my feelings were real. I had absolutely no doubts about them.

“Sometimes,” I said softly, slowly, “you just know.”

Sean was silent for a moment, and his expression grew very deep, very serious. “Yeah. I know.”

He did know.

He’d been in love too—and far more deeply than I’d ever been.

He’d been so in love he was going to marry the woman—and she’d been cruelly taken away from him.

He was such a charming, clever man that it was easy to forget the tragedy that shaped the core of who he was now.

“Anyway,” I said, trying to break the mood, the tension, since it made my chest feel tight, “There has been no brushing up against him in the hallway this week.”

“Oh well,” Sean said with a little smile, the teasing awakening in his eyes again. “Maybe next week.”

My eyes dropped to Sean’s steak, which was halfway gone now. It was a thick cut and very dark pink in the middle.

My salmon was excellent, but I craved that steak the way I would chocolate.

“You’re wishing you’d gone with the steak, aren’t you?” Sean asked, once again managing to read my mind.

“No, of course not. The salmon is delicious.”

“But it’s not steak.” He was smiling just a little as he carved another bite off his ribeye and speared it with his fork.

He raised his hand, waving the bite in front of me. “You want a bite?”

God, did I want a bite.

“Maybe,” I admitted.

He extended his arm, clearly expecting me to eat the bite off his fork. I leaned forward, and I couldn’t fail to see the look in Sean’s eyes as I pulled the steak off his fork with my mouth.

He was thinking about sex again. The heat was unmistakable in his eyes.

And now I was thinking about sex again too.

I moaned as I chewed the steak, which was tender and succulent and delicious.

“Good, isn’t it?” Sean’s voice was huskier than before.

“Mm hmm.”

“Next time you’ll have to get the ribeye too.” He cut off another piece and offered it to me like he had before.

What could I do but take it?

That fire in his eyes was really turning me on.

By the time we finished eating, we were both aroused. He pulled me out of my chair and over to the bed, taking off my robe as he did so.

I had nothing on beneath it, so I was completely naked the way he had been earlier. He went a lot slower this time, spending a lot of time on foreplay, kissing me all over, teasing me until I was flushed with arousal from my face to my thighs. I was moaning and gasping in an embarrassingly eager way, but there was no way I could stay quiet.

The man just knew what he was doing.

We were more securely on the bed this time as he put on a condom and bent up both my knees. He pushed both my legs toward my chest as he entered me, and I was clutching at the headboard frantically, feeling out of control and trying to hold on in any way I could.

He wasn’t in any sort of a rush. He took his time, even though his face was tense with something like hunger. He fucked me until I came and then came again, nearly sobbing with it as my body shook and shuddered. Only then did he come too, letting himself go in a hot rush of release.

I was half gasping and half giggling from how good it had been as he rolled off me. I straightened my sore legs, but the discomfort only made me feel even sexier.

“Pretty good, huh?” Sean was flushed and smiling as he eyed my obvious satisfaction.

Honestly, he looked pretty satisfied too.

“Oh yeah.” I smiled back at him, still trying not to giggle. “That was better than good.”

I couldn’t ever remember coming like that in my life, but I wasn’t about to admit such a thing to him.

He was already smug enough.

As he went to the bathroom to take care of the condom, I barely had enough energy to roll over and reach down onto the floor to grab my robe and put it on again. Then I collapsed back on my pillow, smiling up at the ceiling like an idiot.

Sean came back, leaning over to snag his pajama pants. He sat on the edge of the bed to put them on and then stretched out beside me.

He didn’t try to pull me into his arms or touch me in any way. That would have been unnatural—an unspoken lie that both of us would have recognized. But he was still smiling as he turned on his side to look at me.

I still hadn’t caught my breath, and my body felt deliciously limp and heavy, like I could just sink into the bed.

“You look like you’re feeling pretty good,” he murmured.

“I am. I definitely am. The only thing that would make it better is chocolate.”

He chuckled and reached for the phone. “We can take care of that.”

I had to suppress more giggles as he ordered us dessert from room service.

So it was the best evening I’d had in a really long time, and I didn’t even feel strange about it like I had two weeks ago.

This was good. It was enjoyable for both of us, and neither one of us was going to get hurt—since we’d set the boundaries so clearly from the very beginning.

Yes, it would be better with a man I loved, but I wasn’t going to pass up something that felt so good.

We weren’t each other’s first choice. Both of us knew it.

But second best wasn’t bad at all.