I watched the door of Paige’s building, anxiety building in me with each ticking second.

Her asking me to come get her was good. I’d been paying the taxi driver to chauffeur me around the block anyway, hoping to hear just that. As eager as I’d been to rush out of Paige’s apartment earlier, I was now just as eager to speak to her. There were things I needed to say. Things I couldn’t go on without saying.

Here’s hoping she was willing to listen.

Though I took the back exit, like Sophia suggested, once I got a cab I went ahead and waited out front. I didn’t know what Moretti’s guys looked like, but if they followed Paige around constantly there was no use in trying to shake them off.

Anyway, they probably already knew I’d spent the night at her place, so the cat was out of the bag no matter what I did from now on.

Paige appeared through the glass of the building’s front door, right in front of where the taxi sat parked on the curb. I hurried from the car to open the door closest to her. She flew down the stairs, a duffel bag in one hand.

I eyed the bag but didn’t say anything. She kept her own gaze down and dropped onto the leather seat. I shut the door behind her and took my place next to her.

I gave the driver my address and wearily leaned back in the seat, warily watching Paige from the corner of my eye. She stared out the window, avoiding me. With her long, loose hair sweeping her shoulders, lack of makeup, and simple white t-shirt, she looked the exact opposite of the sultry vixen I first laid eyes on.

Not that she wasn’t still damn hot. In fact, she wore the natural look better than most women.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked.

She looked at her bare arms as if the season was something she hadn’t even taken into account when getting dressed. “Oh. Yeah.”

She pulled a sweater from her bag and slipped it on, and went back to staring out the window.

After a few minutes, I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“I didn’t know.”

Her head snapped towards me. “Really?”

“Not when I met you, no.”

Her lips pursed. “But you found out?”

I slowly nodded, not wanting to cop to it.

Her lashes fluttered. She seemed to be in shock. “I can’t go back there. I can’t look Sophia in the face.”

“Let me take you somewhere,” I impulsively said. “Away from here.”

“Where?”

“Let me surprise you. I’ll take you out of the city. It’ll be good.”

She seemed hesitant. “I don’t know.”

“Where are you planning on going?”

“I don’t know,” she said again, sounding like a broken record.

“Paige.” I reached forward the slightest bit, pressed just the tips of my fingers against the top of her hand. She shook slightly from the touch.

Just our being together was dangerous. For all I knew the damage could be irreparable. She’d been promised to another man. A man who had the power to make and break people.

Mostly break.

But with us there, alone in the backseat of a cab, there seemed to be no other option. I needed Paige with me. Now that I knew just what kind of situation we were in, I needed to protect her.

“Do you trust me?” I asked.

Her breath caught. “I...”

My fingers trailed across her hand, making their way up the length of her arm. Paige’s eyes fell closed.

“Yes,” she practically whimpered. “I trust you.”

Her eyes popped open. “You were trying to sneak out.”

I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

She dropped the back of her head against the seat. “It’s okay. I mean, I guess… Because I get it.”

“But not because I wanted to hurt you.”

She looked right at me. “It’s okay. Really. There are bigger things to think about now anyway. I just want to get the fuck out of here.”

We fell silent after that. I couldn’t help but glance into the rear-view mirror every minute or so to see if any cars followed us. None of them looked familiar, though I knew Moretti’s guys were probably back there somewhere, tracking our moves.

After exiting the cab, we went straight to the building’s valet. Since I had my own bedroom full of clothes and other belongings at the Atlantic Beach house, there was no reason to go upstairs to my penthouse.

The valet brought my white BMW around, and we set off. With Saturday morning traffic, we hit congestion every mile, but I focused on winding my way through it, eager to put the city far behind us.

For the first thirty minutes of the ride we were as quiet as in the cab.

As we turned a right onto 495, leaving Brooklyn and the Manhattan skyline behind us, Paige turned to me. “She’s known,” she simply said. “She’s known for a long time.”

My hand gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Everyone has their secrets.”

That was damn true.

“She’s all I have,” Paige whispered. “I don’t even talk to my extended family. I barely have friends. Sophia is my best friend… She’s my everything. We shouldn’t have secrets from each other.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. You have me, occurred as an option, but I knew I couldn’t respond with that promise. I didn’t know if it was true. Even if I wanted to become committed to being in her life, I didn’t know if that was up to me.

Probably not.

Atlantic Beach appeared, still and sleepy in its off season. Paige pressed her face close to the window, taking it all in.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been here,” she said.

I looked at her in interest. “Really? You grew up in the city. Your parents never brought you out here for a weekend?”

“We always went to Rockaway or Coney Island. Show me around?”

I smiled over at her. It seemed escaping the city was proving to be a good choice. From what I could gather, no one had followed us from Manhattan. If Moretti’s goons knew Paige had left the city, it didn’t seem to concern them. “There’s not much to see, but I’ll do my best.”

I slowed the car down, taking my time and pointing out all of the familiar spots I’d grown up with. The boardwalk I spent every summer of junior high and high school waltzing up and down, looking for trouble with my friends. The diner where Dominic and I would sometimes head to meet girls.

I parked along the street and we ambled around for a bit. Paige halted at the window of a kitschy gift shop.

“Wow,” she grinned. “Atlantic Beach snow globes. That’s ironic. Isn’t this place a summer destination?”

Her eyes lit up a little bit while she giggled. When they glanced over at me I quickly looked away, not wanting to get caught staring.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Very few people actually see it when it snows here.”

We stopped at a small, family run Italian restaurant for lunch and I escorted Paige inside, my hand on the small of her back and my eyes warily roaming about the place.

We seemed to be in the clear, far away from anyone who might see what we were up to and report back to the powers that be.

Our luck would only last so long.

I didn’t know just what I was doing, or just what I planned to do. All I knew was that I couldn’t leave Paige to deal with things on her own. Already being involved with the drama, I was obligated to seeing things through. I needed to stay close to Paige, no matter what happened.

“This place is nice,” she murmured, scooting her chair into the table for two tucked away in a back corner.

I smiled over at her. “It gets packed in the summer. There’s often an hour-long wait. It’s the best authentic Italian in town.”

Her eyes swept across the dining room, empty except for two other tables. “But now we have the place to ourselves.”

A fire started in my groin, spread up through my stomach, enveloping my body. “We’ll have the house to ourselves as well.”

Lightning flashed in her eyes. “Good.”

I internally sighed in relief. She didn’t hate me. It was good to know, because my shepherding her away from the city didn’t necessarily mean much.

I gulped and resisted the urge to drag her out of the restaurant. The main course hadn’t even arrived.

“I told you about my summers here,” I slowly said. “What about you? What did you do when you were a kid?”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “I mostly kept to myself. I had Sophia sometimes. She was always more on the social side, so whenever she was off with friends, I’d just entertain myself. I read a lot and did a bit of sketching.”

“That’s… cute.”

“No it isn’t, but that was me.”

“What about when you were older? A teenager?”

“It was kind of the same deal. Minus the sketching.”

“At least you have good taste in company.”

She snickered. “Thanks.”

“And, after you gave up the art stuff, what did you do during all those hours alone?”

She tucked some hair behind her ear. “I still wrote a lot. Poems and songs mostly. Sometimes short stories, but I didn’t get very far, with midterms and such.” Paige noticed the smile on my face and added, “What?”

“It sounds a lot like me when I was that age. I used to spend hours writing these awful songs on my electric guitar.”

Her eyes playfully narrowed. “I thought you were out chasing tail with your friends.”

I rested my arms on the small table and leaned forward. “That too,” I admitted. No sense hiding who I was. “But when I wasn’t doing that, I was at home nursing a dream to be the next Bon Jovi.”

“Bon Jovi? Really?”

I ducked my head. “So now you know something about me no one else does.”

“I’d like to hear one of these songs you wrote.”

“Who knows? Maybe we can find an old recording at the house.”

Paige bit her bottom lip and smiled wider. “This is going to be good.”

“Hold on now. If we happen to find an old recording and you listen to it, we need to make a trade. An eye for an eye.”

“Huh?”

“Sing me one of your old songs.”

Her back went rod straight. “Hell no.”

I shook my head. “I need some kind of reparation.”

“I’ll think of something else.”

Beneath the table cloth my dick hardened. I shifted in my seat, unable to get comfortable. Her promise had my head spinning and my pulse doubling. Visions of what I would do to Paige and just where I would do those things to her once we got to the house filled my mind.

Lunch couldn’t end soon enough.

As soon as we finished, I dropped some cash on the table without waiting for the check, and extended my arm to Paige.

Wind whipped across the barren street, nothing but a van and a black SUV parked down the block. Paige went to the passenger’s side of the BMW but before she could grab the handle I slipped my hand around her waist and spun her around.

She gulped in surprise. Half a second later and I stepped my leg between hers, pushing my thigh against her jeans. My hands pressed tight against her back and I swooped down to claim what I’d been thirsting for all morning.

Her lips parted automatically, giving way and allowing mine to take control. She seemed so fragile in my arms, a bird either about to take flight or crumble. I could do anything I wanted to do with her.

And what I wanted was to keep her all to myself.

How could I have even thought for a moment about walking away from her? The taste of her skin, the feel of her waist beneath my hands, the little noises she made when I touched her… Everything about Paige took the cake.

My tongue pushed between her teeth, enjoying the sweetness of her mouth. She moaned slightly against my lips and my body responded with a tremor. My dick grew harder, straining to break out from the restraining fabric of my pants.

I gripped the back of her neck as I broke off the kiss.

“I’m going to take you home and devour you,” I whispered, the words unnecessary but still exciting to say.

She nodded, her eyes wide, her pupils quickly dilating and shrinking. “All right.”