I really had no idea what to expect from Sean as a response to my text message.

He’d given me his phone number, but there was no reason to assume he’d just been waiting around for me to change my mind and would want to return to our Wednesday evening agreement without hesitation. I knew very well he could find another woman—for sex or for anything he wanted—without even trying. Women must have made moves on him every single day. All he would have to do is crook his finger, and they’d come running.

He could have gotten bored or annoyed or disinterested in me—even in the few days since I saw him at the ballet.

Or he might want to make me suffer a little for dropping him the way I did.

I told myself not to expect a response very quickly—if at all—but I was so on edge after sending the text that I nearly jumped out of my chair when my phone buzzed seven minutes after I sent him the message.

It was Sean.

Tonight? Usual place and time?

That was it.

Evidently, he was ready to fall right back into our old schedule as if the interruption had never happened. That was what I wanted too.

Wasn’t it?

I texted back, See you then, and tried to focus on work, but my mind kept straying to Sean and what would happen when I saw him tonight.

I didn’t get much done all day.

***

Seven hours later, I was riding up the hotel elevator, my heart pounding painfully in my chest.

I hadn’t been this nervous since the first time Sean and I had gotten together—four and a half months ago now.

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect from Sean when I entered that room, and that uncertainty was what scared me the most.

After putting on a brave face, I knocked on the door and waited until he swung the door open. Sean wore one of his regular business suits—this one a slate gray—and he wasn’t smiling.

This didn’t bode well for a comfortable encounter. I shifted from foot to foot and took a shaky breath.

Shit. What if he was annoyed by the whole thing? What if he didn’t want to waste his time with a stupid person who’d made up a man to be the love of her life?

His face relaxed into a little smile, and I immediately felt better.

“You can say I told you so if you want,” I said.

He stepped out of the way to let me in with a huff of amusement. “Do you really think I’m that kind of person?”

“Well, yeah. Isn’t everyone?”

The hotel room was perfectly neat and utterly familiar, with nothing marring the smooth surfaces except a white box on a side table and Sean’s phone lying on the table near the wine bottle and glasses. Even the smell of the room hit me with a deep sense of acquaintance. Homecoming.

It had been a full month since I’d been here, but the room hadn’t changed at all.

When I glanced over, I saw that Sean was studying my face. So I added, “If the tables were turned, I’m sure I would be rubbing in the fact that you were so stupid.”

“Do you want me to rub it in?” He wasn’t teasing. He was asking for real.

And I grew still as I thought through the question.

Maybe I did.

Maybe I did want him to mock me for how foolish I’d been.

Maybe I thought I deserved it.

“I’m pretty embarrassed about the whole thing,” I admitted.

He came closer and raised a hand to brush my hair back behind one ear. “You don’t have to be. Not with me anyway.”

Our gazes held for a long stretch of time until finally his face drifted toward mine. He brushed my lips lightly at first and then more firmly, his tongue darting out to trace the entrance to my mouth.

The kiss sent tingles of pleasure down my spine, but I was still too nervous to concentrate.

Sean drew back, his eyebrows lowering slightly. “Do you want to eat first tonight?”

My shoulders relaxed. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

We both ordered steaks, and I got mine with a sweet potato (with butter, brown sugar, and pecans). Then Sean poured out the wine, and we sat down at the table to wait for our food.

“So do you want to tell me what happened?” Sean asked after we’d sipped our wine in silence for a minute.

I cleared my throat as I thought through the question. “He wasn’t a total jackass.”

One corner of Sean’s mouth tilted up.

“He wasn’t,” I said. “He was decent enough.”

“So why are you here with me and not with him tonight?”

“You were right about one thing. He wasn’t… who I thought he was.”

As soon as I’d voiced the words, my nerves seemed to dissipate. This was fine. This was comfortable. I could be honest with Sean. He wasn’t judging me or laughing at me or just waiting for proof that I was an idiot.

He wasn’t like that.

He was actually listening.

“So who was he then?” Sean asked, leaning back in his chair, his eyes never leaving my face.

“He was… a normal guy, I guess. Except he didn’t seem to care all that much about what I wanted or even… even who I was. He asked about me but then didn’t actually listen to my answers. And he’d act like he wanted to please me, but then he was mostly interested in what pleased him. He really wasn’t terrible. He was never bad to me. He just wasn’t… really good.”

Sean didn’t reply even though I paused for a break. He didn’t have to. I didn’t need one of those verbal affirmations to know that he was hearing me.

“I guess I’d invested him with all this thoughtfulness and sensitivity in my mind when it wasn’t part of him at all.” I stared down at the top of the table. “It only took me three years to find this out.”

“That’s not true. You didn’t know him for three years. You’ve only really known him for a few weeks. It didn’t take you that long to figure it out.”

“I guess.”

“I was afraid it would take you a lot longer.”

My eyes lifted. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said with an ironic quirk of his mobile mouth. “I knew you’d see it eventually, but I was afraid it would take you a few months. I was imagining you dating him, living with him, engaged to him, and still not really seeing who he was.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “You thought I’d be engaged to him?”

“Why not? You were in love with your picture of him, and sometimes those pictures blind us to everything else. Why shouldn’t I assume you’d follow that picture wherever it took you?”

“I’m not that stupid.”

“I’m not saying you’re stupid. That’s my point. You don’t have to be stupid to do that. Do you have any idea how many smart, generous women I’ve seen end up with men who don’t deserve them? Because they’re seeing in the man what they want to see instead of what’s really there. It’s not about being stupid. It’s about being… hopeful.”

“Hopeful.” I repeated the word, thinking it through as I did.

“Yes. Hopeful.”

“So why did you see what John was like from the very first minute when it took me so long to figure it out?”

Sean put down his wineglass but kept his fingers wrapped around it. “Because there’s nothing hopeful about me. Not anymore.”

For a moment I couldn’t look away. He was telling me the unvarnished truth about himself, and it felt intimate.

Too intimate.

It made my heart clench in a dangerous way.

His phone rang then, breaking the tension between us. He glanced at it and then silenced it without hesitation.

“So what did you see in him that I didn’t?” I asked, really wanting to know.

I didn’t want to be foolish over a man again—not like I had been with John.

Sean gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Guys like him have had it too easy all their lives.”

“Guys like him?”

“Guys who look like him.”

I understood now what Sean was saying. John was incredibly handsome—and handsome in that traditional, classic way that was impossible not to notice. “So anyone who is good-looking is suspect? What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You’re really good-looking.” I said the words without thinking, just to make a point in the argument. After all, it was just a foundational truth about the universe—that Sean was as attractive as a man could get.

But Sean’s little smile in response made me blush.

Trying to ignore the hot flush on my cheeks, I pressed on. “Don’t give me that look. I’m making a point here. You’re good-looking, so should I immediately suspect you?”

“I’m not good-looking the way the jackass is.” I started to object, but he continued, “I’m not. I wasn’t good-looking at all when I was a growing up. I was skinny and gangly and geeky, and my mouth was weird. Girls weren’t into me at all until I made money.”

“I… I don’t believe that.”

“Well, believe it. I’ve never had the kind of looks that open doors for you. The jackass has, and he’s had them all his life. He’s used to getting what he wants without even trying, and so he’s never had to try to win a woman’s heart.”

My mind was racing as I tried to keep up with all this and piece it together into a conclusion. “So you judged him just by his looks? You’re saying every handsome man is a jackass?”

“Not every one. But I’ve found a disproportionate number of them are.”

I shook my head suddenly. “But you’re good-looking. You are, Sean. You’re sitting there, judging yourself.”

He chuckled. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but be honest. If you didn’t know who I was, if you’d never heard me talk or interacted with me personally, if I was wearing cheap jeans and a T-shirt and you passed by me at a restaurant, you wouldn’t look at me twice.”

He was serious. He genuinely believed it. And I could actually understand what he was saying since so much of his attractiveness and sex appeal came from his intelligence, his sense of humor, his verbal and physical skill.

But not all of it.

“I’d notice you,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

His mouth softened. “All right.”

For some reason my heart was doing that fluttery thing again. I swallowed hard and tried to reground myself in casual conversation. “So you were a geek in high school?”

“Not really. I was fairly popular, but it was mostly because I made people laugh and had a lot of friends. I was smart and funny, and people liked having me around. I could always get dates, but no one was daydreaming about me.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

I’d finished my wine, and I felt a faint, pleasant buzz in my head from the alcohol. I shook my head as I looked at Sean. “You really aren’t hopeful, are you?”

“No. I’m really not.”

The words had a very slight poignancy to them, one that caused my heart to twist. I was saved from the trouble of answering—or working through exactly how I was feeling—by a knock on the door.

It felt like no time had passed at all, but our room service was already here.

Sean went over to let the server in, and I got excited when I saw the silver-covered plates.

When the server had left and I’d taken my first bite of my ribeye, I closed my eyes and moaned in pleasure.

“John took me to a sushi place,” I said after opening my eyes to discover Sean was gazing at me with a strange intensity.

He blinked. “Did he?”

“Yes. He didn’t even ask me if I liked it. I think that was my first real clue that he was mostly focused on himself.” I darted a glance back at Sean’s face. “Do you like sushi?”

“Sure,” he said with a little shrug.

I curled up my lip, feeling ridiculously let down.

Sean laughed. “I like steak better though.”

“Good.”

He kept laughing to himself about this for a long time. I could see it in his face.

I was working on my sweet potato when Sean asked, “So how was the sex?”

I paused, my fork halfway to my mouth.

His question had been light and casual. Maybe too light. Too casual.

He arched his eyebrows. “Am I not supposed to ask?”

“It was…”

He leaned forward slightly, as if trying to catch the rest of my sentence.

I was blushing again and staring at my plate.

“Why don’t you want to tell me?” he asked, sounding much less unconcerned now.

I lifted my head with a challenging look. “You really think you have the right to know?”

“I don’t care if I have the right. I want to know.” His voice was edged with something almost rough.

This was a taste of that Sean I’d seen only in the past month—in that last night we spent together and then again at the ballet. Possessive. Demanding. Something more—deeper—than the charming, casual demeanor he usually wore.

There was no good reason for me to dig in my heels about this. I could so easily admit that I’d never had sex with John, and the whole thing would go away. Sean would relax. Things would return to normal.

Fun, clever, sexy, enjoyable.

But always a little bit distanced.

Instead of giving the answer that would let us return to normal, I just took a very slow sip of wine and didn’t say anything.

Sean wasn’t happy about this. I could see it so clearly in his face. He was frustrated, impatient. He wanted to push me for an answer. When he took a long, deep breath, I knew he was intentionally holding himself back.

“The sex couldn’t have been that good,” he said at last, in a flippant tone that didn’t quite match the look in his eyes. “Since you’re back here with me tonight.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to this, so I didn’t say anything. I just kept quietly eating my steak and potato.

After a minute, Sean made a rough, frustrated sound in his throat, as if he’d lost his battle for patience.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “And you were slamming John for assuming he could always get what he wanted. You can’t even accept that there are a couple of things I might not want to tell you.”

“That’s different,” he mumbled, scowling slightly.

His response was so different from his typical verbal sophistication that it excited me.

I have no idea why.

“Why is it different?”

“Because you usually tell me everything.”

I started to object to this statement, but I stopped myself. Because Sean was mostly right.

I’d been more honest with him than I’d ever been with anyone—even my family, even my best friends.

Because our relationship wasn’t allowed to be emotionally intimate, it had felt safe for me to open up and show him my real self.

The stakes hadn’t been high enough to hold me back.

I didn’t know why it felt different now, but it did.

“So the sex was pretty hot then?” He cocked one eyebrow at me, making the question almost teasing.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

But I also didn’t answer.

***

After we ate, Sean decided to take a shower, and I felt a wave of relief at another respite before sex.

I don’t know why I wanted a few more minutes to prepare myself—since every single time I’d had sex with Sean had been incredibly good—but I did.

Tonight, for some reason, I did.

When I heard the shower turn on, I went over to the side table to look in the white box I’d noticed when I’d first arrived but then had forgotten about.

It looked like a bakery box, so it excited and intrigued me.

I lifted the lid and almost giggled when I saw what the box contained. Four beautiful cupcakes, each in a different flavor.

I was hard-pressed not to grab one and start eating, but I gently closed the lid.

Sean had brought cupcakes.

He’d never done anything like that before.

Maybe he’d thought I’d need extra creature comforts tonight, after my debacle with John.

I tried to imagine him going to a bakery and picking out the cupcakes, but then I realized he’d probably just had his assistant get them sometime today.

It didn’t matter.

I was going to enjoy them.

To kill time, I walked over to look into the large framed mirror over the low dresser. I hadn’t thought to brush my hair before I left work earlier, and I suddenly wondered why I hadn’t freshened up a little. My hair wasn’t looking smooth and shiny like normal.

I dug into my bag to find my brush, and I ran it down the length of my hair. When your hair is as straight as mine is, brushing it is really all you can do. Any hair product I tried to use—no matter how light it claimed it be—would just flatten it out. I’d washed it that morning, so it wasn’t limp, but it also had almost no body.

I tried for the billionth time in my life to fluff it out, eternally hoping for a sexy, tousled look.

But no luck.

I was still staring at myself in the mirror when Sean came out of the shower, wearing nothing but a pair of black sleep pants.

The sight of him wearing those pants—which I would always associate with sex—made my whole body clench.

“What are you doing?” Sean asked, when he saw where I was standing.

I gestured to the brush, which I’d set down on the dresser top. “I was trying to do something with my hair.”

He frowned and walked over to stand behind me. “Do what with your hair?”

“Make it sexy or something.”

His eyes were focused on my hair, and he ran a hand gently down the length of it. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve always wanted to have the wild, wavy, sexy hair that I see on a lot of women, and my hair has never cooperated. It’s nothing but straight.”

His expression changed, as if he were understanding what I was saying now, and he pulled my hair back in one of his hands, holding it together and then letting his fingers slide down the way I did when I was pulling it into a ponytail.

I was watching him in the mirror, so I saw when his eyes lifted to our reflection.

Our eyes met in the mirror, and that was all it took. Excitement started to pulse between my legs.

“You don’t think it’s sexy?” Sean murmured, taking my hair in his hand again and pulling it off my neck.

“Well… no. It can be pretty. But sexy? No.” I was still watching Sean’s face in the mirror, and so I saw that his gaze had turned hot, admiring.

He turned my body so I was facing the mirror directly, his body brushing against my back. Then he tilted his head down to press a kiss on the side of my neck, so softly it triggered goose bumps. “Do you really not know how sexy you are?”

I felt sexy right then. Sexy and hot and aroused. And even more so as Sean started to slide my suit jacket off over my shoulders and then dropped it on the floor at our feet.

I wore a pretty camisole-style top beneath it—ivory silk with lace edging on the wide straps. The skin of my arms and shoulders was pale and smooth, and my chest was rising and falling with my accelerating breathing. I could already see my nipples poking out eagerly, even through my bra and top.

Sean was trailing kisses along my shoulder, one of his hands curving over my hip.

I wanted to kiss him for real, so I tried to turn around, but he held me in place, facing the mirror and the dresser. “I want you to see how sexy you are,” he murmured into my ear.

My breath hitched at the thick texture of his voice.

What was he going to do? Have me watch myself as we had sex right here in front of the mirror?

I realized that was exactly what he was going to do when he unzipped my skirt and let it fall down to my ankles. I stepped out of it and kicked it away.

Then Sean pulled my top over my head.

I stood there in my bra, panties, shoes, and gold necklace, my hair loose and swinging forward as my body bent slightly. I couldn’t help but bend and press my bottom back against him. Everything inside me wanted to feel Sean behind me.

He pushed into me, and I could feel he was already hard in his pants. My pulse quickened, and my cheeks flushed even more.

Then Sean unhooked my bra and pulled it off. He was watching me in the mirror as he slid both hands up to cup my breasts.

My knees almost buckled.

“You are so beautiful,” he said against my ear. “So sexy.”

My eyes focused on his face as he released my breasts and skimmed his palms down my body until he could tuck his fingers around the sides of my panties.

I loved how intense he looked, how hungry, how feral.

I couldn’t believe that expression was prompted by me.

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “Look at yourself.”

I did as he said, and it was hotter and more vulnerable both. I hardly recognized the woman in the mirror, despite her familiar features and long red-gold hair. She was standing there almost naked with Sean’s body pressed into her back, and her face was flushed, slightly damp from perspiration, and reflecting deep, sensual pleasure.

Sean pulled down my panties, and I stepped out of them. I wore nothing now except my necklace and earrings.

“There,” he murmured, his hands moving back up to my breasts. “See how sexy you are?”

I closed my eyes as he teased my nipples. It felt so good I had to brace my hands on the dresser for support.

“Open your eyes. Watch yourself.”

I had to do what he said. I had to. I don’t know why it made me even hotter, even more out of control, but it did. I’d never seen myself like this before. I didn’t know how to process it.

“Tell me what you want,” Sean said, his mouth moving down to my shoulder again.

“I want…”

“Tell me.”

“I want you to touch me.”

He was touching me. He was still fondling my breasts, but I wanted him to touch me somewhere else, somewhere better. I was wet and aching, and I could feel my desire throbbing between my legs and behind my eyes.

He kept one hand on my breast but slid the other down between my legs.

I gasped when he stroked me intimately. I bent even more at the waist, holding myself up with hands flattened on the dresser top.

I’d dropped my head without thinking until Sean said, “Look up.”

So I looked back in the mirror to watch myself as he fucked me with his fingers.

I was so turned on that it didn’t take long. Both our eyes were fixed on my face in the mirror as my body tightened deliciously and then broke out in shudders of pleasure.

I’d never watched myself come before. I had no idea what to think.

Sean was pushing against my bottom with his erection, and I pushed back against it as my body relaxed after the orgasm.

It didn’t feel like I’d had enough yet.

Not anywhere close to enough.

“Don’t move,” Sean murmured, stepping way and leaving me standing naked over the dresser, bracing myself, bent slightly at the waist.

He went to grab a condom and returned in less than a minute.

He stared at me for a while in the mirror without touching me. Too long. “Look at you,” he breathed at last.

I was looking at myself, so I could see what he saw.

I could see how much I wanted this, wanted him. I could see how badly I wanted him to fuck me. I could see how eagerly I responded to his every touch and word.

And it made me feel sexier than I’d ever felt in my life, wanting him the way I did.

He took out his erection and rolled on the condom before he moved back into position behind me. He spread my legs apart even more and pushed on my back so I was bending more deeply. Then he started to enter me from behind.

“Keep your eyes open,” he said when my eyelids automatically slid down in response to the tight penetration.

So I was looking at myself when he started to thrust.

Despite this little game he was playing, he didn’t actually appear to have much stamina tonight. His rhythm was fast, urgent, and his face was already twisting with effort and pleasure.

His response just made me even hotter.

I straightened my arms and arched my back, my bottom still pressing back into him. Our flesh was slapping together as he fucked me, and it felt so good I was making little whimpering sounds.

I was close to coming again. Already.

“Look at you,” he rasped, his mouth near my ear again. “Look at how hot you are, how much you want this. This is who you really are, and only I get to see it.”

I couldn’t help but see it too, and it pushed me over the edge unexpectedly. I gave a little sob as my body clamped down and then shook through the wave of pleasure.

He choked on a muffled exclamation as I came, but he managed to hold back his own release. He was taking me hard now, holding on to my hips to keep me in position. My breasts were bouncing shamelessly. I saw them in the mirror. My hair was swinging, and my face contorted as I felt another orgasm rising on the heels of the first.

I was almost sobbing as I came again, and this time he came with me.

I moved my eyes at the last minute so I could see his face as he came.

He looked just as needy, just as overwhelmed, just as sexy as I did.

For some reason that surprised me.

I was hot and tired and shaking and still experiencing little afterquakes of pleasure as I bent my elbows and let my upper body fall down over the dresser. I might have actually collapsed had Sean not wrapped his arms around me and then turned me around.

I propped up on the edge of the dresser for support and fell against Sean’s chest. He hugged me tightly, and I wrapped both my arms and my legs around him.

I’d missed him in the past month.

I’d missed him a lot.

And I could have been wrong, but it felt a lot like he’d missed me too.

It was a few minutes before he finally released me. He kissed me softly on the mouth before he finally stepped away.

While he went to take care of the condom, I collapsed on the bed.

He returned to the bedroom and lowered himself onto the bed too, pulling me over against him.

It felt so good in his arms like this. His body was warm and relaxed now. I could feel him breathing, feel his heart beating.

I wanted to stay that way. For a really long time.

But the fact that I wanted it so much scared me, and I knew better than to invest in foolish, ungrounded daydreams again.

I’d tried that with John, and look what had happened.

I wasn’t going to do it again.

So I pulled away and made myself stand up, grabbing the pajama set I’d brought with me and my underwear.

I went to the bathroom, washed my hands and face, and put my pajamas on.

I felt more like myself when I returned to the bedroom.

Sean was sitting up.

He grabbed both my hands and pulled me over so I was standing right in front of where he sat on the edge of the bed. He gazed up at me, looking like he might be about to say something significant.

My heart did a series of frantic flips.

“You feel okay about everything?” he asked.

That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. I’m not sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t that.

My heart stopped flipping, and I felt a hot flash of embarrassment for thinking even for a moment he might say something else. “Yes. Of course. What do you mean?”

“You’re okay with continuing this?” He gestured to the bed. “The way we were doing before. The contract and all?”

“Oh. Yes. I’m okay with it. I’m here, aren’t I?”

His eyes were strangely sober as he murmured, “Yes. You’re here.”

He was still holding my hands, and it was making me nervous. “What’s in the box?” I asked, changing the mood between us with the one question.

Sean smiled and stood up.

We ate two cupcakes—sharing them so I could taste both flavors—and we talked about work and about all the frantic plans my mother and sister were making for the wedding—which was coming up in less than a month now.

Then we had sex again on the bed, and Sean lasted longer this time.

I had a good time, and I was sated and relaxed at two in the morning when I finally left to go home.

We’d gone back to normal. In fact, we’d jumped backward to where we’d been before the anniversary of his fiancée’s death, before things had become tangled emotionally.

It was better this way.

No confusion. No fear. No risking my heart when it wasn’t safe.

I could have a good time with him and know that was all it would ever be.

I was smarter now than I’d been even a month ago.

I knew this might be only second best, but it was what I needed right now.