Leaning back, she looked up at me. “But you make me feel amazing, and wanted, and yes, part of me still wishes to rub that in his face.”

I couldn’t hold back my grin. I f**king loved the idea of that bastard seeing me f**k Sara senseless. Because the biggest mistake of his life—his infidelity—had given me the best part of mine.

“Me, too. I’d love him to see how you look when you’re coming. Since I bet he didn’t really manage to see that much.”

She laughed, licking up my throat. “No.”

And f**k, for the first time in my life, I wanted to be someone’s only.

I led her to the couch, then kneeled on the floor between her legs.

Her hands laced into my hair.

“What do you want me to do?” she whispered, looking down at me, always so willing to give me anything.

What do I want? I struggled to find the right answer, suddenly more than a little overwhelmed with the enormity of that question.

You over me.

You under me.

Your laugh in my ears.

Your voice in my chest.

Your wet on my fingers.

Your taste on my tongue.

I think I want to know you feel the way I do.

“I just want you to enjoy this tonight.” I leaned forward, pressing my mouth between her legs. She smelled dizzying, tasted too good, looked too beautiful. Sara’s sounds were quiet and aching and seemed to be tailored entirely for my ear. Her fingers ran over my head, scratching my scalp lightly before she let go and pulled her leg higher, spreading wider, giving me better access. She didn’t move with exaggerated sexuality; she was slow and calm and easily the most accidentally sensual being in history.

And as I focused on making her feel good, I imagined how she looked from outside this room, with my fingers in her and my mouth devouring her and her back arching up from the couch. I was so used to seeing her with the mask now that it wasn’t jarring or distancing; the way she looked at me from behind it made me feel like I’d just been given the entire world. The silky black wig framed her face, made her skin paler, her lips redder. Those same lips parted as she began to beg quietly, instructing me to move faster, to not stop sucking on her, to f**k her harder with my fingers.

As she began to fall, her hand moved up her torso, over her breast and up her neck to her face, where she slipped her mask off, exposing the last bit of her skin that had been covered.

Her huge brown eyes were trained on my face, her lips still parted in a quiet pant.

When she came, she never once looked away, never once even blinked her attention to the windows behind me.

Someone was on the other side of that glass. I could feel it. But I don’t think we could have been any more alone in this room even if we really were at my flat. Nothing in this world existed other than the way she pressed into my mouth, crying out when she came.

Then she sighed, tugged on my hair, and laughed. “Holy shit.”

So maybe if I ever met this Andy twat I wouldn’t actually punch his smug face after all. Maybe I’d shake his hand for messing things up with Sara so epically that she moved to New York and stopped being the woman who did what she was supposed to do, and started to be the woman who did what she bloody well wanted.

I kissed my way up her torso, let her suck her taste from my mouth, my tongue, my jaw. Beneath me she was warm and slow; her arms curled lazily around me, her laugh faded into my neck.

“I think that was the most fun I’ve ever had,” she whispered.

And I suspected I’d do almost anything to spend the rest of my life making this woman happy.

Fifteen

I knew it wouldn’t be good to have every night of the week filled with Max, because it would shatter my ability to think about anything else. On my morning run, I thought back on what we’d done together, and came up with some of the wildest fantasies I’d ever had in my life: crawling under Max’s desk and sucking him off while he spoke on the phone, or having him in the elevator on the way up to his apartment.

It was fun to finally let myself indulge in these sorts of daydreams, and I was starting not to care that he disrupted so much of my structured life. And after what he did for me at the club, I was beginning to realize I’d walk across flaming coals for the man.

I’d been nervous, no doubt. The club felt darkly indulgent and was supported by patrons who’d been thinking about this kind of sexual fantasy maybe longer than I’d been alive. I wasn’t sure if there were unspoken rules I was meant to follow. Don’t speak too loudly. Don’t cross your legs. Don’t look anyone in the eye. Don’t drink your cocktail too fast.

My parents were so wholly innocent next to this world. Their idea of a wild night out was seeing The Vagina Monologues and dinner at some trendy Asian-fusion restaurant. To this day, my father considered sushi just a little too adventurous for him.

And here I was, walking into a secret sex club, and on my first night there, letting Max go down on me where anyone present could watch.

I had no idea, in the end, if anyone had in fact been watching. We left through the back door to the room, where Max’s friend Johnny met us and let us leave through a service entrance. Max watched me carefully the rest of the night, like he was wondering if I was ready to bolt or break down. But in reality, I was shaking so hard because everything about it had felt right. Max had been on his knees, between my legs, and had refused to let me reciprocate. Instead he kissed me for long minutes, helped me dress, and gave me a look so pregnant with meaning that goose bumps spread across my skin.

It was one thing to play in a library, but compared to the club last night, that felt tame. And on the way home after, with Max’s hand on my knee and his lips on my neck, my ears, my mouth, and—finally—his body over and inside me, completely wild on the backseat, I realized how crazy my life had become.

Crazy good.

Crazy amazing.

It’d been so long since I’d been infatuated like this that . . . I had forgotten how fun it was.

“You’re swooning,” George said Thursday morning as I approached his desk. He stuck the end of his pen back between his teeth, murmuring around it. “You’re thinking about your Max.”

How the hell did he know that? Was I grinning like an idiot? “What?”

“You like him.”

I gave up. “I do,” I admitted.

“I saw how he looked at you when he came in here Monday. He’d let you carry his balls around in your pocket.”

Grimacing, I opened my office door. “I’d rather they stay where they are, but thanks for the idea.”