Coming out of the bathroom later, Synek was met with a darkened room that immediately made his heart trip over itself.

He knew the fear was irrational.

He knew that anything that came at him now would bloody well regret it, but that didn’t stop his skin from feeling like spiders were crawling all over him whenever he was in a dark space.

“What are you doing, Iris?” he asked, tossing his towel away, already feeling that familiar panic rising in his chest even as he tried to shove it down.

“One problem at a time,” she said with a shrug of her shoulder, indifferent to his agitation. “That’s what you like to say, isn’t it? Okay, so we’re dealing with your fear of the dark first.”

Even if he hadn’t already been in a shit mood, what she said might have put him there.

He knew she didn’t mean it the way she’d said, but the illogical part of his brain didn’t focus on the concern she had for him, but rather the part of himself that was ashamed of being afraid of something so fucking childish.

“Now?” he asked. “You want to do this now?”

“If you’re gonna kick the fear, we have to start at some point.”

He heard her, he did, but that didn’t stop him from moving across the room and attempting to turn the light on.

Nothing happened.

“For fuck’s sake.”

“There’s nothing to fear, Syn.”

“You don’t think I bloody well know that?”

He was losing his patience and with it went his temper.

He was starting to feel trapped, and that feeling only made him want to crawl out of his skin.

Though he had half a mind to just go back into the bathroom and wait her out, she came across the room at him before he could even take a step.

She grabbed his face and forced him to look at her and fuck if it wasn’t the wrong move to make. Not when he was teetering on the brink of madness and he was liking her aggression.

“Use me,” she said, her gaze level on his face.

Fuck if those words didn’t go right through him. She didn’t know what she was asking for—she couldn’t—because he’d give her an entirely new definition of the word.

“Turn on the lights, Iris,” he muttered to himself, unable to even bring himself to acknowledge what she said.

“You have to replace the memory of something bad with something good.” She tugged at the button of his jeans, and fuck, if he did anything to stop her. “So use me.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” he asked, touching a hand to the curve of her hip, needing to touch her somewhere before he did something he would regret.

“Because that’s what I want.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

She thought that was what she wanted, but by the very definition, when he used something because he was in a dark place, he took everything and gave nothing in return.

“Then show me,” she said, her words like a drug.

Fuck it.

Whatever restraint he thought he possessed flew out the window as he reached beneath the sleep shirt she wore, dragging her knickers down with one quick jerk of his hand. She stepped out of them before yanking the last of her clothes off, leaving her naked in front of him.

He gripped her jaw in one hand, loving the way she got that little hitch in her breath. How her pupils dilated.

Sometimes, even he forgot she wasn’t as fragile as glass—that she could and liked to handle whatever he gave her.

His little monster.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, his lips a whisper from her own.

He’d asked her those words before, back when things hadn’t been so simple between them—back when the only thing he wanted to do was hurt her the way he’d been hurt.

Now, he still wanted to break her, but this time in a way they’d both enjoy.

“No,” she said, though her voice shook a little, and he could feel the way her pulse was racing.

A quick denial that even he didn’t believe. And even as he wanted to tell her there was no need, that she didn’t have anything to fear from him, he could already feel his baser urges consuming him. The only thing he could think about was fucking her until neither one of them could move.

Of getting his dick in her and feeling her come. Feeling the tight clenching heat surrounding him.

Fuck. “Kneel.”

She didn’t hesitate, and before he even opened his mouth, she was reaching for his jeans again, yanking at the button until she could get them undone and his cock in her hand.

He wrapped her hair around his fist, pulling just enough to make her suck harder.

Now he wasn’t thinking about the way he’d been beaten and the pain of it all. He could only think about and feel Iris’s lips around his cock.

She sucked him like she was hungry for it.

His first thought was to drag this out, make her work for it, but whether it was the shadows around him or the need she inspired, he couldn’t wait.

He pulled her off his cock, positioning her the way he liked, and before his brain could catch up with what he was doing, he had his cock at her pussy and thrust in.

A sharp gasp escaped her, the sound going straight to his dick even as he froze, trying to focus on her rather than how bloody tight she was. The closest he’d ever get to heaven was right here between her legs.

“Too fast?” he asked, forcing those two words out, needing the distraction.

She gave an indiscriminate shake of her head, neither a confirmation or a denial, but it didn’t seem to matter a moment later as the hand she had on his shoulder urged him closer.

It took everything inside him not to pull out and thrust back in. He craved the sounds she made, the way she always got so fucking needy when he had his cock in her and his finger on her clit.

But easy.

He needed to calm the rampant beast inside him trying to break free.

He adjusted, holding his weight up on one straightened arm, using the hand of his other to grip her thigh and push it higher and wider. It was enough to ease some of the tension inside her, and this time when he eased his cock deeper, a breathless sigh left her lips, her head tipping back to expose more of her throat.

And the moment she did, he let go of everything and did what she wanted. He used her, fucking her until the wet glide of their bodies, the way his name sounded on her tongue, and the dig of her nails in his back were the only things he knew and saw.

With her like this, he wasn’t thinking about the dark anymore.

Just her.

Always her.

As he came back down, the room and everything else around him coming into sharp focus, he felt Iris’s hand move on his side, right above the scar on his hip.

He looked up at her face a second before she tapped him three times in quick succession.

Laughing, he understood exactly what she hadn’t said—she was tapping out.

* * *

Iris should have been sleeping after the hours spent with Synek, but she couldn’t bring herself to fall asleep. In the end, she started surfing channels, thinking about what the next day would bring. But as she considered turning the television off completely, she spotted a breaking report.

She wasn’t sure what made her pause just then to make sense of what she was seeing, but a few seconds later, she was glad that she did.

Because what appeared on the screen did more than just make her sit up, a slow smile creeping onto her face—it made her heart race.

Exiting his office, Governor Spader had his hand out in front of him, trying to hurry past the swarm of reporters waiting for him. There was another man, his assistant maybe, who hurried along in front of him, trying to clear his way, but even as they rushed past, that didn’t stop the reporters from lobbing questions at them.

“Governor, is it true you’re having an affair?”

“Governor Spader, can you explain this photograph?”

“Who is the woman you’re seen with, Governor?”

The screen cut to a shot of the photograph in question, one that Iris had never seen before. She wondered if this was Synek’s doing—whether he had thought results were a little slow as well and had tried to speed it along—but whether it was or it wasn’t, she was happy for it.

Iris heard the front door open and close, but she couldn’t take her gaze off what was unfolding in front of her.

“Anything to say, Governor?”

Finally, as he stood next to his car, Spader turned and faced the crowd as the lights shined in his face. He waited until the reporters clamoring eased before he spoke. “The accusations against me are baseless and hold no truth. For the past twenty-one years, I have not only served my country, but I have also been a devoted husband to my wife who I love very much. I suspect that the truth will come out, and my name will be cleared. I have no further comments at this time.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Iris mumbled with a smile, reaching up to clasp the side of Synek’s neck as he leaned over the back of the couch to kiss the top of her head.

“Bullshit or not, it’s enough to get people talking.”

His tone made her look back up at him. “Is this a bad thing?”

He stared at the screen, an uneasy expression on his face. “This wasn’t our doing.”

“Canina, do you think?”

Iris tried to think of who else could possibly want to see the governor fall, but considering she had no idea the scope of his reach and the things he’d done over his lengthy career, that list could be infinite.

“Possibly,” he hedged, coming around to sit beside her. “Let’s go ask her.”

* * *

He was too fucking happy about this.

From the moment he’d made her get dressed and come with him, Iris knew she wasn’t going to like whatever he had planned. Not because of Canina but because of him.

Iris didn’t bother to hide her grimace. “I have no doubt you can handle this one,” she said with a pat on his back.

“She could be dangerous,” Synek said with all the conviction in the world as if he actually believed what he was saying.

“You’re more dangerous.”

His grin spread wider. “It’ll be fun.”

“Right, because the highlight of my night is watching the governor’s mistress eye fuck you more than I do,” Iris responded dryly, climbing out of the car after him just in time to see the way he was fighting not to laugh. It was a good look on him.

“Are you jealous?”

No. Maybe. Yes, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of getting that answer out of her. “Doesn’t matter.”

“No?”

“Not when you’re coming home with me,” she answered, giving him a cheery smile while casually walking past him to the stairs to get to the second-floor walk-up.

Canina wasn’t home, that much Iris could guess before Synek made quick work of picking the lock and letting them inside. She was expecting some sort of lavish apartment only seen in movies or magazines, but to her surprise as she ventured through the space trying to find anything of value, everything was rather ... understated.

And more curious, had she not already known that McDaniel lived here, she would have thought the apartment belonged to someone else. The woman she had met at the fundraiser had been flashy and dripping in jewels, wearing a designer dress worth thousands. Yet the only thing memorable about her apartment was the piece of artwork hanging on the wall.

Iris stopped in front of it, her gaze discerning.

It was a painting of a snake eating its tail, the scales done in surprisingly realistic fashion. It appeared black at first glance, but as she shifted, she could just see a hint of fluorescent green reflecting off the paint. Understated but bold, it didn’t fit her idea of who McDaniel was supposed to be.

Synek was already in the lone bedroom, hunting through whatever he could find that might be of some help, but once she walked into the room behind him, she could already tell there would be even less to find in here than there had been out in the living room.

“There’s nothing here,” she said to his back. “If anything, it’s a little too clean.”

Even her hotel room was more cluttered than this after she had been there for more than a week. This was where Canina lived?

“Maybe this is just where they—”

Synek always heard even the most minute of sounds, which was how in the middle of her sentence, she found his hand over her mouth, his eyes telling her to stay silent. Iris didn’t dare move, not wanting to risk them getting caught.

But easily, as if he were only moving himself, he shifted and walked them both into a shadowed corner behind the door just as someone entered the apartment in a flurry of motion. Heels clicking on the floor. An exasperated feminine sigh.

McDaniel was home.

It was hard to see what she was doing from Iris’s position, but through the crack where the door was still open, she could just see the other woman pluck a cell phone from her bag and dial a number, but before she could speak a word, Synek exploded out of the room, startling the woman and sending her phone clattering to the floor.

He was too quick for her to get away or even to fight, and whether it was because he looked as if he knew what he was doing, she went along with what he told her, going to sit in the chair, her hands resting on her knees.

“Tell me, yeah? Why would anyone suspect you’re having an affair with the good governor? D’you leak it to the paps?”

“I had no reason to,” Canina said with a shake of her head.

She looked nervous, even a little scared, but her gaze was steady.

“I loved him,” she continued.

“You used him,” Iris cut in with a grimace. “There’s a difference.”

Unlike with Synek, Canina didn’t try to amp up her innocence. There was something a little too calculated about it now.

“I don’t think it’s going to matter very much now,” she said, tilting her head to the side as she regarded Iris, and when she did, Iris could just see what looked like a tattoo of a snake on her collarbone. “This is just the beginning.”

The beginning of what?