Nate and I tripped out of the club and into a cab. The driver shot us a look that said he knew what we were up to. Nate passed him a fifty and muttered an address. I texted the address to Lex, who’d given me her blessing before I left, as insurance.

And then we were kissing. Nate’s mouth was hot, his hands everywhere and nowhere. I stifled a moan as he skimmed my thigh under my skirt.

Fuck I wanted him now. Wanted to know if underneath the clothes, out of the crowd, he was worth everything I’d been feeling in that club.

I heard the screech of brakes outside. A horn. It startled me, but the reaction it caused in Nate was worse.

In an instant, his hands and mouth were gone. He bent over, bracing his head between his hands. His eyes were squeezed shut against the world, blocking out me, the cab, everything.

What the…

I was frozen for what felt like years. Realizing I was getting no better read on the situation, I finally jumped into action.

“Hey!” I tried, but Nate didn’t answer. Just breathed shallower, faster, hunched like an animal in the seat across from me. My heart hammered in my chest. “Are you OK?” Fear edged into my voice.

I glanced up at the cabbie, who caught my eye in the mirror. “No getting sick in my cab,” he said emphatically.

“No, he won’t.” At least I didn’t think so.

I was about to ask the cabbie to take us to a hospital when Nate finally responded.

“What?” His eyes were glazed when they opened. Disoriented.

I had zero experience with whatever this was, but being the second youngest of four kids, I’d seen my share of accidents and injuries.

“Do you need a doctor?” He shook his head, the only response. “Take it easy,” I said as steadily as I could. “Breathe for me, OK?”

After a terrifying and endless moment, he finally spoke. “I’ll be all right. I get this sometimes. Just not usually … Shit. Where can I drop you off?” His voice was tight and strained.

There was no way I’d leave him when something was this wrong. What if he had another … whatever this was? Or the cabbie kicked him out and left him by the side of the street?

“Not until I make sure you get home safe.” The need to help surged inside me, overtaking any fear. It was basic compassion—something tugged at me, seeing another human being in shock and in pain. Maybe I’d regret this, but if he was acting and this was a ploy to murder me, the guy deserved an Oscar.

“Do you have keys?” I asked as we pulled up to the address Nate had given the driver. After a brief hesitation he fished them out of his pocket. We stumbled toward the door and I swiped the tag to let us in.

“I’m fine,” he managed as we shuffled toward the elevator. “You’re not walking me up.”

I ignored him, stepping in first and waiting for him to follow. “Floor?”

Nate hit the button himself, shooting me a look like I was babying him.

The fluorescent lights in the elevator cast a harsh glow over his face, and I could see beads of sweat on his forehead. The fear was fading, and whatever monster had taken hold had retreated.

For now.

I followed him out of the elevator and down the hall.

“This is me,” he said abruptly when we stopped in front of a door.

I waited for him to open it. He waited for me to leave.

“You’re not going to invite me in?” I prompted.

“No.” Nate looked at me like I was crazy. It would’ve been funny under different circumstances.

“What am I going to do, overpower you? Beat you into submission?” I held up the satin clutch the size of my hand, then opened it, peering inside. “Or are you afraid I’m going to draw on you with my lipgloss?”

Nate watched me warily for a long moment, then unlocked the door. He stepped inside ahead of me. Once more he looked the way he had when I’d first seen him across the sweaty, sparkly club.

Tall.

Built.

Handsome.

But his brand of contained calm had been disrupted and the quirky, charming vibe from the club was gone. Impressing me wasn’t on Nate’s radar.

It didn’t matter because it was off mine too. We both knew we weren’t going to have the kind of night we’d envisioned.

Which is too damned bad, because I need something to keep my mind off tomorrow. And I’d really, really hoped you were it, Suit.

Inside, Nate kicked off his shoes, shrugged his jacket onto the floor, and went straight for the balcony. I stepped carefully out of my heels and laid my coat on top of his. There was a closet, but I wouldn’t be staying long enough to use it.

The apartment was gorgeous. Open concept, hardwood floors, and windows along one side. “You must sell a shit ton of underwear,” I breathed.

“Huh?” Nate grunted from outside.

“I said, ‘Great apartment.’”

What am I doing here? Oh yeah. I wanted to get him talking. Make sure he’d last the night on his own before I took off back to Lex. Despite his surly assurances that he was fine, I didn’t want him doing a repeat of his childhood Superman stunt off the balcony. Or hurting himself any other way. My gut said he was too self-centered to ruin all that pretty, but I’d hate to be wrong.

“Do you want some water?” I looked toward the kitchen.

“Whiskey. Right-hand cupboard.” I paused. “I’m not getting drunk,” he said, reading my mind. “It helps.”

I opened the cupboard door, finding glasses nearby.

On second thought …

When I joined him on the balcony, Nate was still staring at the skyline. He took the glass I passed him, turning his head to look at me with serious eyes. “I’m going to sound like an asshole, but why are you still here? You don’t know me, you’ll never see me again, and I just went all One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on you.”

I took a breath. “Can I call someone for you? A friend? Family?”

“A few friends know. About this,” he added, gesturing to his head like there was something on it. “They think I’m doing better. I don’t want to disabuse them of that notion. I’ve brought girls home before. It’s never been an issue.”

I ignored the comment about his sex life. If I looked like him I’d probably buy Trojans in bulk too. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He took a sip of the whiskey. “No. But I want you to tell me one more thing.”

I wasn’t sure how much more I wanted to share with him. “We agreed, remember? I gave you seals. You gave me shed. That’s all.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not much for rules. Besides, you’re in my home, drinking my whiskey—” he’d noticed I had poured one for myself too “—and you just watched me self-destruct in an embarrassingly intimate fashion. I think you owe me something else.”

He wasn’t wrong.

I should’ve left then. Ran as far as I could.

Instead I took a sip of my whiskey, making a face as it burned down my throat.

“Fine. Hit me, Suit.”

“Do you ever feel like you’ve fucked up?” he asked. His eyes searched mine in the darkness like he was hanging on my answer.

“All the time.”

“No, I’m talking on a grand scale. Like, fucked up your whole life.”

“No. But ask me again tomorrow,” I said honestly. The pressure of our plans for Travesty was eating at me. We were pitching to a big magazine editor the next day. Lex and I’d been working toward this for years and I was terrified I’d let her down.

Nate smiled grimly.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-one.”

A satisfied nod. “You’ve got time.”

“Time to fuck it all up?” I snorted despite his dark mood. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.” He said it like he’d admitted to being fifty. Then he took a sip, closing his eyes as he swallowed. “And I have utterly and monumentally fucked all of it up.”

I tried to tread lightly. I really didn’t know anything about him. Though I was desperately, morbidly curious. “How bad can it be? I mean, did you break the law?” The words were out before I could stop them.

Good one, Ava. What if he says yes?

But he shook his head. “My transgressions are beyond the grasp of the US justice system,” Nate replied cryptically.

He was spiraling downward. I didn’t know how to handle this. But I knew self-indulgent. Nate was definitely upset, and probably had a right to be, but wallowing never helped. And if he hadn’t broken the law, that meant he hadn’t done something really bad. Like killed or hurt someone.

So screw treading lightly.

“You know what, Suit?” I set my glass on the table between us with a loud clink. “Here’s my naive twenty-one-year-old view of the world. You don’t have a monopoly on fuckups. You did bad things. I did bad things. We all did bad things and we can’t change them. But life can be pretty damn long, and if you’re lucky enough to have a pretty damn long life, writing it off for one mistake is both sad and ungrateful. Maybe it’s time to get over it and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

When I came up for air, Nate’s expression was darker than the night that wrapped around us.

His hands gripped the arms of his chair as he leaned forward. “You want me to stop feeling sorry for myself? You don’t even know me. You don’t know my family and you certainly don’t have the first fucking clue what I live with every day.” He stared me down, daring me to apologize.

I stared right back, leaned in. I wasn’t some meek girl who’d take whatever shit was dished out to her. “Well you don’t know me, Suit. And if your Hugo Boss–wearing, Porsche-driving, zillionth-floor-penthouse-living life is such a cross to bear, I’m sure there are people less fortunate who’d trade with you in a heartbeat. No matter what’s happened to you.”

Nate looked like I’d slapped him. His eyes moved angrily back and forth on mine.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Ava,” he said in a low voice that implied it was anything but. “I’ll call you a car.”

Making him mad had been a risk. But at least he was angry instead of weak. Now, he could take care of himself, and if he couldn’t, it wasn’t for my lack of trying.

Nate pulled his phone from his pocket and spoke a few terse words to the dispatcher. When he disconnected we stood at the same time.

“Thanks for the hospitality, Suit,” I muttered.

He hung back to let me go inside first, and I stepped through the doorway, my hand on the frame of the sliding glass door so I didn’t trip.

“You don’t have to walk me—” to the door. My words cut off as I realized Nate was nearly on top of me. Neither of us had bothered to turn the apartment lights on, and his tall frame and broad shoulders were dimly silhouetted by the city lights.

“Yeah, I do.” His voice had warmed a few degrees. “My manners seem to have abandoned me,” he murmured after a long moment. “I’m not used to being called out like that.”

“Well, I’m not used to minding my own business.”

Our fight had started, and ended, in a few moments. Now adrenaline was pumping through my veins like I was ready to face off against some unknown foe.

But the threat had vanished, leaving me alert and vibrating.

As I reached for my bag on the back of the couch, my hands shook. I realized I was even more worked up from our angry words than I had been from dancing with him, though in a different way.

My head tipped back to look at his face. The angle of his jaw took shape as my pupils dilated, soaking up whatever light they could find in the dark apartment.

The scan slowly revealed planes and angles. Deep eyes. Sculpted mouth.

The scar on his brow from his childhood antics was just visible.

Awareness hit me like a fist for the first time since we’d been kissing in the cab. Now that Nate had put whatever had come out of the box, raging, back inside, he was once again in control. This time he was close enough to touch. To smell. To feel the heat of his body. And this time, we weren’t in a club.

I shivered as a gust of winter wind came in the open patio door to hit my bare arms. I rubbed my hands over my goose bump–covered flesh. Then jumped a mile when Nate’s hands settled over mine.

“I’m sorry I made you sit outside. It’s freezing.”

“You didn’t make me do anything. It’s fine.”

Now that he’d recovered, it should’ve been simple to walk away. To put on my coat, shake his hand or whatever the hell you did after a night like that, and get in my cab.

But his thumb stroking the flesh of my arm stopped me.

“It’s not fine,” he murmured. “Most people wouldn’t do what you did for someone they’ve never met.”

“Well, I’m not most people.”

“I’m starting to get that.” His tone was unreadable. Then he bent down, haltingly. Brushed his lips over my cheek. Light. Grateful. “Thank you.”

The memory of kissing him an entirely different way less than an hour before came raging back.

“I don’t want your thanks,” I whispered without thinking. Nate froze, pulling back to meet my gaze.

He paused, watching and waiting. “Then what do you want?” he asked softly.

I didn’t know if he was being suggestive. But my mind grabbed it, stole it, ran with it. Instantly my brain was feeding me images of an imaginary performance, as dark as it was provocative.

When I’d agreed to go home with him, I’d figured I knew the score. Knew what I was getting into. We’d have one night. Nothing personal. But he was changing all the rules and I suddenly felt unsteady.

The backs of my eyes burned and I squeezed them closed. Fighting this madness that made me want him, despite everything.

Because of everything.

When I finally raised my gaze to his face, his lips were parted and his eyes were on mine.

Nate was overwhelmingly and intoxicatingly close, and suddenly it was too much.

I took a step back. A moment later, he followed. I took another step. So did he. The next step I took pressed me to the door, and I could feel the hammering of my heart through my back against the wood.

“Ava?” His voice was low, coming from somewhere in the darkness inches away. My name wasn’t a single question. It was as many as I could conjure.

The hum that bubbled up from the street, the perpetual noise the city wore like a blanket, all of it stopped while we stood.

Nate’s phone buzzed in his pocket, startling us both. “That’s your car,” he said.

I swallowed. And we watched each other. I could practically feel the heat crackle between us, but he didn’t reach for me. Just waited, that perfect composure back in place, creating a tenuous barrier between me and whatever lay underneath.

“What do you want?” Nate asked quietly.

I wanted those lips on my skin instead of spouting cynicism. Wanted those blue eyes glazed with heat, not pain. Wanted his sculpted body tight with passion over mine instead of with anxiety, haunted by some ghost I’d never know. And I didn’t want to spend tonight lying awake alone, thinking about tomorrow, when the rest of my life would be decided for me in a single meeting.

“Can the car wait?” I breathed after what felt like a year.

He expelled a long breath and it shook at the end. “Ava. Don’t get me wrong. I want you,” he said tightly. “I want you … every way. But I can’t be gentle. I can’t go easy. It’s not in me tonight.”

I nodded.

For a long moment Nate just held my gaze with his. Those eyes blazed into me fiercely, like he was asking me to be sure. I lifted my chin in response.

With a groan, Nate fused his mouth on mine.

It wasn’t a kiss. His tongue invaded, wild and mindless between my lips. Stroking, stoking.

I reached for him. Felt the tie loosen, the top button undone.

I was used to guys worshipping me. I liked it, being able to flirt and tease. To be treated like … well, like a girl.

Nate hadn’t gotten the memo. He slammed his body into mine on a groan, my arms winding around his neck and my hands in his hair. He lifted my legs around his hips like I was weightless. Turned and set me on the back of the couch, pulling back to look at me.

“Is this what you wanted?” he demanded, panting.

“Yes,” I gasped. Whatever this was, I’d never felt it. But it was addictive.

More.

I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to me. Nate kissed me so hard I fell backward. I gripped his shirt for balance, and while my hands were there, unfastened the row of buttons and pushed the shirt off.

I found his body, smooth skin over hard muscle. I wanted to purr just touching him.

Nate pulled me off the couch, setting me on the ground and swiveling me. The top edge of the couch dug into my stomach as he pressed me into it.

His hands unzipped the back of my dress, then he yanked it over my head in one tug. “Why are you still here?” he muttered into my neck, capturing my hands at my side so I couldn’t move.

I pried my hands out of his grasp, spinning back to face him. “Why did you let me stay?” I volleyed back, running my hands up his chest, pulling off the tie that was dangling. His belt and pants went next.

Wordlessly he turned me around so I was facing into the couch, and he pressed his hips into my lower back, like he was molding me to fit him. Nate unclasped my bra and pulled it off. Stuck a finger in the side of my panties and ripped them down.

No ceremony, no patience.

Shit.

Nate was hard against me, his skin burning everywhere in contrast to the cool leather of the couch. One hand slid up my stomach, reaching to play with my breast, squeezing while his thumb brushed my nipple. What was left of my sanity spiraled off into another dimension. I moaned low in my throat, arching into his palm and grabbing the back of his neck with my hand. His mouth dragged along my neck.

No matter what he said about checking his issues, he was showing me with his body that he was in control, of himself and of me. It was heady and terrifying in equal measure.

Nate’s hot breath burned across my shoulder. I needed whatever this was. Needed it to stop, and needed the sweet relief from the agony his hands and his mouth and his body were creating.

“Faster,” I told him, reaching back with my other hand, sliding it between us to wrap my hand around his cock.

Fuck.

He was impossibly huge and hard. I wrapped my fingers around him, barely, and he hissed out my name.

“It’s not a race, kitten,” Nate ground out. “We’ve got all night.”

I was going to explode in the next five minutes, with or without him. I squeezed him to say now, and his breath hitched.

“No,” he muttered, reaching a hand between my thighs, fingers stroking where I was desperate. I cried out. When Nate’s lips dragged across the shell of my ear, I felt his words along every nerve ending. “You’re so wet. Is that all for me?”

His words sent me higher. I bit my lip and twisted my head to look at him, pleading with my eyes. “Now. I can’t—”

He slid a finger into me, stroking. Then another. “God, you’re tight.” His mesmerizing voice would have trapped me there even if his hands hadn’t.

Yes. I started to position him at my entrance but he stopped me. Reached for his pants, grabbed a condom, and rolled it on.

Shit. I’d nearly forgotten protection. That’s how gone I was.

Then he positioned himself behind me and pinned my hips to the couch again.

I squirmed back against him, almost sobbing with impatience. My body was strung so tight I thought I’d break, and he wouldn’t let me.

“Stop it.” Nate’s voice was dark and authoritative in my ear, the teasing gone. He grabbed my ass firmly to hold me still, and new sensations shot through my core. “You wanted me? You’ve got me. And you’re not getting me over with. I want to feel you melt around me.”

Sex was supposed to be fun and easy and not at all like this. This was agonizing. It was like I’d fallen off the edge of the world and into another universe. A universe where everything was this man. His voice, his hands, his body. All on a backdrop of velvet darkness that blinded me and heightened my other senses. I stiffened.

Nate’s finger reached around and tilted my chin toward him, like he knew something was off. “Hey. I will make this good for you. I promise. Let me, Ava.”

It was the softening in his tone that got to me. Nate was more experienced than me, that much was clear even before I’d followed him home. But would it be the end of the world if I succumbed to it?

Did I have a choice?

I stopped trying to match him and just let myself feel. His hands on me, his body pressed into me. Miles of skin and sensation I just lived.

Nate grazed my opening, the faintest touch of his cock on my slick skin.

A moan escaped. “Oh God.”

He reached around and palmed my breast with his other hand. Let his cock slide against my ass. His fingers tugged on my nipple, erect from the cold and his touch. Nate had said he’d make it good, but he was torturing me, stroking his thumb over the swollen tip and making me arch against the unrelenting couch. I’d never felt this much, as if the air was suddenly alive and pressing on every pore of my skin, brushing over each nerve ending at once.

“I can’t. It’s too much,” I protested.

I heard him half laugh and half groan into my neck. He dropped a kiss, chaste compared to what we were doing, on my shoulder, then ran open-mouthed kisses up my neck, catching my earlobe between his teeth, sucking. My eyes rolled back.

The head of his cock pressed against my tight opening, teasing before sliding up my back. His tone darkened. “All night I’ve been thinking of making you forget everything but what it feels like to have me inside you. Since you shouted at me I’ve been imagining you begging for this.”

Shit …

Because he was right. At that moment I wanted nothing except to know what it was like to have him fill me. I’d never been so far gone. For any guy.

I managed to change the angle and catch him while he slid back. Then I thrust my hips desperately onto him and took him into me.

The first thought I had was that he wouldn’t fit. He was barely inside and my body clenched against him.

Nate hissed out a breath next to my ear. “Shit, Ava.” I felt his fingers harden on my hip, trying to keep it together as he pressed further inside me. Two inches, four, more… “Fuck, you’re better than anything, kitten.”

My mouth fell open in a silent scream. I leaned back against his hard chest, the backs of my eyes burning and my insides tightening again and again, fighting against the invasion. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t be like this.

“Breathe for me, Ava,” he murmured, sensing the tension in every part of my body. I forced myself to comply and my muscles slowly started relaxing. “Good girl,” he whispered, a hand running gently over my shoulder and down my arm to distract me. Then the discomfort faded into tingling, and within minutes a new need burned in me.

My face turned and I pressed my lips into his neck. I trailed a finger across the scar of his eyebrow. “I’m tougher than I look,” I managed hoarsely. “Maybe even tough enough for you, Suit.”

On a low grunt, he pulled out slowly. My body resisted his departure as much as it had resisted his entrance.

“Hey,” I protested, “what’re you—"

Together we groaned as he pressed back in, his fingers bruising my hips. The feeling was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

“Fuck, yes.”

Again.

Another noise, from him or me I wasn’t sure.

Again.

“You’re so damn beautiful right now,” he whispered.

His words went to my head, but the pace wasn’t enough.

“Make me forget,” I begged. “Make us forget.” Forget tonight. Forget tomorrow. Forget this year. Forget everything.

Nate pushed me roughly against the couch, pressing my body forward so I was doubled over, my toes lifting off the ground when he drew out of me. Then he slammed back in, both of us crying out at the force of it.

I could feel him in every cell of my body. His intention. His intensity.

Holy shit. If this was passion, I’d never felt it. If this was sex, I’d been doing it wrong.

Nate brought me so high I thought I’d explode again and again, riding the edge in a dance of sensation, powerless to do anything but feel. Then I slid further and the wave crashed into me, pulling me under again and again until I barely knew my name.