She woke with his hot mouth on her, his tongue swirling through her wet folds, his hands holding her hips down, and his head between her thighs. It was still early, but sunlight had begun to filter through the sheer curtains and the rose-gold light of sunrise gave the whole experience a dreamlike quality. Brandi closed her eyes and let the sensations of having Declan give her pleasure roll over her. She reached for him, weaving her fingers through his hair and rocking her pelvis into his face. He hummed in approval and the vibrations shot through her like an electric shock. She gasped as her body tightened. He sucked her clit between his lips and her orgasm crashed over her. She cried out and his fingers dug into her hips as he kept suckling her until the sensations became too much. He lifted his head and grinned at her.

“Good morning,” he said and she laughed.

“A very good morning,” she said as he crawled up her body.

“I hope you don't mind me waking you.”

“Not at all, especially when you do it like that.”

She felt his erection as it slid through her over-sensitive lower lips.

“You’re all dressed and ready to go,” she murmured taking note of the condom he was already wearing. She reached for him and pulled him down to her.

“I'm all about being prepared,” Declan said before kissing her.

She shifted her hips and he slid into her. Their coming together so intimately felt so right that she wondered how she had gone without it for so long.

“God you feel good,” Declan breathed against her neck as he rocked into her, reading her mind.

“Mm,” she moaned in response.

Brandi tilted her hips and wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer, deeper. They moved together, no rushing, no straining. Their rhythm was slow and deep. It was perfect.

Declan rolled them to the side without pulling out and hitched her leg higher over his hip. She arched her back and he sucked a nipple into his mouth. This was lazy, relaxed love-making, not the fevered passion of their first time together or even the hunger from last night. This, this was something more, something deeper, something neither of them were prepared to acknowledge.

Her second orgasm for the morning built slowly, but it was no less powerful when it peaked and she cried out, her voice breaking the silky silence that had cocooned them. Declan didn't give her time to recover before pulling out and rolling her over onto her stomach. He lifted her hips and entered her from behind. His arms wound around her torso and lifted her so she was perched on his thighs as he thrust up into her. She leaned her head back against his shoulder as his hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs thrumming her tight nipples.

Her own fingers found her clit and she pressed down against it as her third orgasm rocked through her body. Her voice was louder this time and she felt Declan lose his rhythm as he throbbed his own climax into her.

His arms tightened around her as he panted into her neck and she relaxed against him, soaking in the strength of his body as he held her. She felt completely surrounded by him and safe.

He gently lowered them both to the bed and she snuggled into his side. It would be easy to think that there was more between them just the sex, but Brandi would be a fool to let herself go there. Sure, sex with Declan was above average (it seemed too clichéd to say it was the best she'd ever had) but that's all it was… sex. However much she wanted to sink into the soft, comfortable fantasy of falling in love with him, she knew that it was a fool’s errand. He would never love her.

He nuzzled her neck and placed tiny kisses on the sensitive skin. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Maybe she could pretend, just for a little while longer, just while he held her so closely, just while he loved on her.

His lips found hers and she opened willingly to him, sinking into his warmth, letting the fantasy play out. What would it be like to be loved by a man like Declan? She sensed that he was the type of man who would love with abandon if he ever let himself love at all.

And that there was the crux of it all. Would he ever let himself fall in love? From the little he had told her about his family, Brandi didn't think he would. On the surface Declan seemed to have a devil-may-care attitude, but she thought that it perhaps hid something deeper. There was something of the lost little boy about him that both attracted her and saddened her. He’d grown up with every material need met in abundance, but had he ever been loved? Had Declan, the boy, known what it was like to be loved unconditionally? It broke her heart to think that he hadn't and as a defence mechanism, he had developed this easy going persona so that no one ever got too deep to see the scared little boy underneath.

Brandi buried her nose in the crook of his neck and breathed him in. She felt his heart beating against hers, his pulse throbbing against her lips, and she forced the soft feelings into a box that she hid in her heart. She would unpack that later, but for now she needed to keep the emotional distance between them. She was a soft touch, she knew that and if she wasn't careful she would fall in love with this beautiful man in her arms and he would end up breaking her heart.

Shower sex was good, great even, especially when the shower was built with it in mind. Declan didn’t know what had come over him but he couldn’t get enough of Brandi. He would have had her on every piece of furniture in the suite if he could have. Unfortunately they both had work and so, after the shower sex, he’d ordered them room service and they’d had breakfast like civilised people. She’d dressed in the clothes she wore the night before and after a very hot kiss at the door, Brandi had gone, leaving him alone in the suite with a smile on his face and a feeling of well-being that he couldn’t quite understand.

What was it about her that got under his skin?

Declan lived life in perpetual movement, he couldn’t sit still. He didn’t know why but he had accepted that the busyness that buzzed under his skin was just a part of who he was. It was why his business was so successful. He thrived on work and was always looking for the next thing. Most people would look at him and think that he was all casual and laid back and that nothing ever got to him. The truth was he was like that duck on the surface of the pond - calm and serene on the surface and yet kicking like mad under the water.

But all that agitation he felt within himself was soothed when he was near Brandi. That need to constantly move, the part of his brain that was always thinking ahead, it all fell silent when he was with her. And not in a bad way. He didn’t feel stifled or numb around her, he just felt peace. It was an odd feeling and completely addictive. It was why he wanted to be near her, it had to be the reason he couldn’t get enough of her. He couldn’t remember ever having those demons in his head silenced. Just being with her, in his office while they talked business, at dinner, in his bed. It didn’t matter where or what, just being with her had a profound effect on him.

He stood in the silence of the penthouse suite and tilted his head back, breathing deeply. He could still smell her, the delicate scent of her perfume was in his nose and with it a sense of ease. He took a moment just to breathe her in. As soon as he walked out the door and back into his life all that busyness would return so he took a moment to soak in what it felt like to have a second of stillness.

With a harsh exhalation, he snapped back into himself and out of the fantasy land he had been lingering in. He didn’t hate his life. The truth was he loved it. He loved the changing nature of his business and the new opportunities. He loved that each day was different and that with each hotel he built he got to go bigger and better. But as much as he loved it, there was a part of him that was tired. Part of him screamed for a time when he didn’t have to move so fast or so often. It was that part of him that wanted to linger in the suite where he still felt the calming influence of Brandi’s presence.

With one last look back at the suite and one last revisiting of the memories of what they had done in it, he left, a smile splitting his face. He needed to go home and change clothes and then he had to be back in the office for a day of meetings. Tonight he had an international call to deal with some issues they were having with the opening of his new casino on a small island of Le Beau.

His day was filled to the brim, just the way he usually liked it. But he didn’t look forward to it as he normally would. He didn’t want to rush through his day jumping from one project to the next. He wanted to laze around in bed while the warm morning sun brightened the room. He wanted to have a certain blonde snuggled up next to him, feel her soft skin against his as they talked and laughed. Being with her was so easy. He didn’t have to strive, his mind didn’t wander.

As he strode through the lobby and out to the valet stand to retrieve his car, he wasn’t thinking about the next big thing that would come across his desk, he was thinking about when he could see her next. They had made a date for the hospital benefit, but there was nothing until then. Already his skin had begun to twitch and he tapped his fingers against his thigh while he waited for his car. They were symptoms of his busy mind and they never normally bothered him, but this morning they did. It had been an entirely new experience for him to be completely relaxed and now that that serenity was leaving him, he missed it. He hadn’t realised just how irritating his little personal tics were. He supposed everyone had their quirks and he could usually hide his under his constant motion, but this morning they annoyed him.

The valet handed over his keys and Declan slid into the car. A long, fast drive would go a long way to soothing his agitation, but he couldn’t do that. He had to deal with the slow moving traffic as he drove home and then he had to dress and drive back into the city to his office. All the while the peace he had found in Brandi’s arms got further and further away from him. He needed to see her again. Tonight. He needed her tonight.

Brandi ignored the buzzing of her phone as she headed into the hospital. This was the fourth time Declan had tried to call her and she had ignored all those calls as well. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to him, she did desperately, which was why she wasn’t giving in to the temptation. She knew that if she answered the phone he would talk her into spending the night with him and she couldn’t do it. She needed a little bit of space from him for her own self-preservation. It would be so easy to fall into a quasi-relationship with him, but none of it would be real. And she had to keep reminding herself of that.

Pasting a smile on her face she headed into Caitlyn’s room. It wasn’t one of her normal days to come into the hospital, but she couldn’t stay away. She wanted to spend as much time as she could with Caitlyn while they still had time. Brandi paused in the doorway and took in the sight of the little girl. Had she gotten thinner since the weekend? Her skin was definitely paler and there were dark bruises under her eyes. She wasn’t wearing a head scarf and the smooth skin of her scalp and the fine hairs that had begun to grow back made her look even sicker than Brandi had expected.

She took a deep breath and Caitlyn’s eyes fluttered open. It took a while for her to focus on Brandi but when she did, the little girl smiled. It wasn’t the big grin that Brandi was used to seeing on her face, but there was genuine happiness in her eyes.

“Brandi,” she said, her voice cracked and rough.

Brandi walked into the room and sat beside Caitlyn, taking the cup of water from the tray and helping her to sip from the straw.

“How’re you doing chicken?” she asked as Caitlyn eased back on the pillows.

“Not so good today,” Caitlyn replied.

“Were you up all night partying?” Brandi asked, trying for levity.

Caitlyn smiled. “You know me. I’m all about the parties.”

Brandi reached out and smoothed her hand across Caitlyn scalp. The little girl closed her eyes at the touch and Brandi had to fight back tears. How could such a little body take so much abuse under the guise of medical treatments? Why was such a pure soul so tormented by such an insidious illness? It just wasn’t fair that Brandi had been given everything; wealth, family, health, an opportunity to do what she loved, and Caitlyn had to spend the majority of her young life either in pain or in hospital.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket again and she slipped her hand in to switch it off.

“Who’s calling you?” Caitlyn asked.

“It’s nothing important,” Brandi replied.

“Is it a boy?”

Brandi looked into Caitlyn’s eyes and saw a spark of interest. If her miserable love life was something that might lighten Caitlyn’s day, then why not tell her about it.

“It is a boy,” she said with a smile and a blush. “We only met on the weekend.”

“Did you go out on a date?”

Could she call last night a date? They’d had dinner at a nice restaurant so she supposed it could be considered a date. “We went out to dinner last night,” she said aloud.

“And he’s already calling you? He must like you.”

Brandi laughed. “What do you know about dating?”

Caitlyn shrugged. “Just what I read. Isn’t there supposed to be a three-day rule or something? You know, he’s not supposed to call you before three days after the date?”

Brandi bit her lip. It was true that the men she dated tried not to seem too eager to see her again, or maybe they just weren’t eager to see her again. She was a booty call at best.

“Yeah I suppose there is,” Brandi said.

“So why aren’t you answering it? Maybe he wants to see you tonight.”

Brandi smiled. “He probably does, but I don’t want him to think I’m too eager.”

Caitlyn rolled her eyes. Since they had been talking she had regained some colour in her cheeks and her eyes had brightened.

“What does he look like? Is he good-looking?”

Brandi bought up an image of him in her mind and couldn’t stop the smile that broke across her face. “He is gorgeous,” she said. “He has thick brown hair and these gorgeous hazel eyes that change colour in the light.”

“Is he tall?”

“He is tall, taller than me even when I’m wearing high heels.”

Caitlyn sighed. “I’d like to meet him,” she said, “but that would be awkward wouldn’t it?”

“Oh I don’t know,” Brandi said, grinning. “I told him about you.”

Her eyes widened. “You did?”

“Of course I did,” Brandi replied. “You’re my friend. I talked about all my friends to him.”

Caitlyn’s small hand found Brandi’s and squeezed gently. “I like having you as my friend. I don’t get many visitors and mum and dad have work and everything. I know it’s hard for them to get in to see me but I get lonely. I’m not allowed to play with the other kids in case I pick up germs from them.”

“I like being your friend,” Brandi said turning her hand over and weaving her fingers through Caitlyn’s.

They shared a moment of silence and Brandi fought back the tears. Maybe there was something she could do to help Caitlyn’s family so they didn’t have to work so hard to afford her treatments. She had plenty of money, not to mention a trust fund at her disposal. She made a mental note to look into how she could help and then looked at the bedside where the book she had left with Caitlyn sat.

“Have you been reading the book?” she asked.

“A little bit,” Caitlyn said, “but my eyes get so tired.”

“Would you like me to read some to you?”

Caitlyn nodded and settled into the pillows as Brandi opened the book and began to read.