I’d booked a room at the Bellagio before I left Philadelphia.

Now, as my driver came to a stop at the elegant, grand entrance, I tightened my hand around Kaleb’s. He was staring at nothing, and I knew part of him wasn’t here.

He was thinking about his sister.

I wished I could take the worry away, but I was too acutely aware of the sort of trouble she might be in. The first month I’d been at the shelter, I’d worked with a girl who’d tried to get away from her john. She’d tried so hard.

One day, she left the part-time job at a coffee shop, and he caught up with her, threatening that she still owed him.

When she stood up to him, he’d beaten her senseless.

People like this Stefano were bottom-feeders. We had to find out how to help Camry.

“Thanks, Delano,” I said as he helped me out of the back of the car. I passed him a twenty. “Would you be available tomorrow if I need you?”

“You just give me a call, Ms. Van Allan.” He tipped his hat to me and nodded at Kaleb as he climbed out.

Offering my hand to Kaleb, I waited for him to take it before we started inside.

The concierge had seen me coming, and he already had my room key ready as well as a bellboy on hand to take the luggage Delano had unpacked from the trunk.

“I still can’t get over that,” Kaleb said abruptly.

I glanced at him, puzzled.

He gestured to the bellhop walking in front of us as we started down the hall. “You didn’t even have to check in. They were just…waiting for you.”

“Ah…” Blood rushed to stain my cheeks red. “Well. Yeah.”

He laughed. “You’re embarrassed by it. I imagine your dad would be furious if a place like this wasn’t ready to get down on bended knee the moment he walked through the doors.”

“Probably.” I nodded at the bellboy as he held the elevator doors for us, nudging Kaleb in the ribs so he’d stop.

But he either didn’t get the hint or refused to take it. He met the bellboy’s eyes. “What’s it like? Working at a place like this?”

“It’s a good job, sir.” He smiled politely at Kaleb.

“I’m not a sir.” Kaleb snorted. “I’m only here because I’m lucky enough to be hooked up with her. Otherwise I’d be…hell, a week ago, I was taking my clothes off for a living.”

“What was that like?” The bellboy smiled again, still polite, but I saw a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Working at a job like that?”

“Good one,” I murmured. Then I winked at the bellboy. “Ignore him. He’s had a rough few days.”

“I understand.”

Once he had my suitcase in the room, he nodded at us and accepted the bill I extended, then left, closing the door softly behind him. Meeting Kaleb’s eyes, I said, “When I’ve had a bad day, I get a little bratty, just to make me feel better. It looks like we share that in common.”

“Sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“Oh, it takes more than that to embarrass me.” I sat down and reached for the ankle strap of my shoe. “But questions like that to an employee, in a place like this? The wrong kind of answer, overheard by an asshole sort of manager could get somebody fired. I think that would make you feel like shit.”

Kaleb hissed out a breath and turned away, shoving both hands through his hair. “That doesn’t make sense. I was the one being an arse.”

“But this hotel is meant to cater to the guests. If a manager decided that the kid had somehow insulted you…” I shrugged. “Things are different here when it comes to that sort of thing. People are more uptight a lot of the time.”

“You’re not.” He looked back at me, eyes wild and hot. He came to me, and a few feet away, he went to his knees.

I’d been in the process of reaching for my other shoe, but at the look in his eyes, the muscles in my body started to feel curiously lax and limp, overheated too, like a puddle of hot wax. He crawled to me and bent over, pressing his lips to one knee, then the other.

“I missed you,” he murmured. “I didn’t expect that to happen, but it did. It’s like you’re a fever in me, Piety. I’m not certain I like it.”

He reached for my remaining shoe and sat back on his heels, staring into my eyes as he freed the strap and slowly slid the shoe off.

“I wasn’t expecting any of this to happen,” I said truthfully. “But I’m not exactly unhappy with it.”

It kind of stung that he might be.

“I didn’t say I was unhappy with it.” He ran his thumb along my instep.

It sent a shiver through me, and I had to swallow a sigh when he began to dig his fingers into the tight muscles of my left calf. “You’re the best damn thing to happen for me in ages. But I don’t have time for this…for you…for all the things I feel for you.” His fingers moved higher. “And damn me if I give a flying fuck.”

My breath caught in my lungs, stuttered, and hitched there.

Then he straightened, coming up in front of me and tugging me to the edge of the bed until we were eye to eye, chest to chest, belly to belly. “I get around you, and it’s like nothing else matters. I don’t like that, Piety. I have to think about my sister and you make me not want to care about anything.”

“You’ve spent most of your life taking care of her.” I traced my finger across his upper lip. “It’s okay to want something for yourself every now and then.”

“She needs me.” His gaze fell away, his hands resting on my thighs.

For a moment, I thought he’d get up, walk away.

Then he looked back at me. “But I need you.” He leaned in and kissed me, his mouth hot and demanding.

I didn’t even have time to brace myself, not that it would have mattered. The kiss was deep, and his hands were hard, hungry, as he pushed my skirt up and stripped away my panties.

“Tell me you want me,” he said against my lips.

“More than I’ve ever wanted anything.” And it was nothing but the truth. I needed him so deeply, so desperately.

He tugged me closer, and I thought he just might pull me down onto his lap and take me right there, but he went for the hem of my dress instead, peeling the skirt of it up and stripping it away until I sat naked in front of him. The surplus cut front had let me go without a bra, and I shivered a little, the cool air drawing my nipples into tight, hard buds.

Then his mouth closed over one, and it was heat and wet that made me shiver, that puckered and tightened my flesh.

I cried out and shoved my hands into his hair.

He gripped my hips, fingers restlessly kneading.

He went back and forth between my breasts, and I wiggled closer, an ache spreading through me.

When he slid one hand between my thighs, I whimpered and spread them wide, eager for more.

But he didn’t touch me.

In fact, he straightened and stared down at me.

Panting, I waited, watching him.

“What are you doing?”

He shook his head and caught my shoulders, easing me down to the bed.

When I lay flat, he kissed the underside of my left breast, rubbing his chin back and forth across my flesh so that the stubble growing on his chin rasped over my skin. He kissed my belly. My hip.

I arched up, whimpering.

When he nuzzled the folds between my thighs, I whimpered and curled one leg around his upper torso.

Then he licked me, opening me with one long stroke of his tongue.

I arched up, screaming, but the sound was breathless and broken.

He did it again, then stabbed at my clit with his tongue.

“Piety…”

Even the brush of air over my skin felt like too much, and I fisted my hands in his hair, trying to draw him closer. “Please,” I moaned.

“Tell me.”

I couldn’t, another moan choking out the words.

He caught my wrists and dragged them from his hair, pinning them next to my hips. “Tell me what you want, baby. Do you want my mouth on you?”

“Yes…please…fuck…yes. Your mouth, your tongue…you.”

He flicked his tongue over me again, raked my clitoris with his teeth.

Then he pushed two fingers inside me and pressed up.

I came in a rush, startled by the suddenness of it.

He was inside me before it was over, the thickness of his cock stretching me.

“Look at me,” he said, tangling his hands in my hair and arching my head back.

Blindly, I stared at him, whimpering as he twisted his hips and sent the head of his cock sliding and rubbing over my G-spot. Grabbing for him, I clutched at his sides, my nails sinking in deep.

“I don’t want to think about being without you,” he said against my lips, only a second before he kissed me.

I caught the words, clung to them. I wanted to ask him what it meant – did it mean anything at all?

But he was stealing the breath and soul from me, riding me fast and I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

“Come for me, Piety…come.”

Like I had any other choice.

* * *

We lay curled against each other, the room dim and quiet, sweat drying on our bodies as we stared at each other in silence.

It should have been awkward.

There were no words spoken, nothing that I could think needed to be said in that very moment.

I’d come to need him and it could either be the best thing that had ever happened…or the very stupidest thing I’d ever done.

I didn’t know.

But right then, I didn’t care.

Snuggling in closer, I rested my head on his shoulder and sighed in satisfaction as he curled his arm around my shoulders.

The silence, warm and comfortable as it was, stretched out, but it couldn’t last forever.

Finally, Kaleb said, “We need to talk.”

“I know.” Rubbing my cheek against his chest, I slid my hand up, then down his abdomen. Muscles jumped and clenched under my touch. Lifting up, I stared down in his eyes. “But do we have to do it now?”

“No.” He cupped my cheek. I felt him kiss the top of my head. “We don’t have to do it now.”

“Good. Because I’m not ready to.”

“Me neither.”