Sex followed by the quiet breakfast foreshadowed what was to come. Saturday night Caine didn’t come over to my place. He called the next day and said if I was around he’d come over that night.

And he did.

We had mind-blowing sex in my living room and then he left.

Monday through Thursday that was pretty much our lives. We worked together under the pretense of complete professionalism. I went home around six thirty and Caine came over around ten thirty. We fucked and then he went back to his apartment.

There was nothing romantic about it. Yeah, it was hot and that heat only seemed to be getting hotter, but Caine’s walls were still high and impenetrable and I had no clue how to break them down.

I was failing miserably.

But then two things happened that gave me a spark of hope. The first was that Caine had an art gala to attend that Friday evening that was being hosted by the wife of one of his board of directors. As soon as I arranged for one of his tuxes to be pressed, I was on tenterhooks, worrying about the person he would invite to go with him. I couldn’t attend because we’d decided to keep our relationship private. However, we also hadn’t discussed whether we were going to be exclusive during our affair. I was more than gratified, then, when Caine told me that he was going to the event solo. Still, I wished I’d had the courage to ask him about exclusivity so I could know for certain one way or another.

Come Friday the second thing happened to give me my answer …

The stationery room was about to pay witness to my printer-induced rage.

I’d spent the last twenty-five minutes fiddling around with the digital computer screen on the damn thing, trying to work out why on earth it wouldn’t print.

“Argh!” I smacked the side of it. “What is wrong with you?”

“This is just a guess but I’m thinking it’s the tall lady physically abusing it.”

Recognizing the voice, I cut Henry a look out of the corners of my eyes. He was lounging against the doorframe, grinning at me. “I should warn you that I am this close to committing printercide, and if that doesn’t calm me down I’m moving on to homicide. Closest person gets it.”

Henry chuckled and ignored my warning by walking casually into the room. “Let me have a look.”

I stepped back, doubtful. “I’m not sure there’s any point.”

“I’m offended,” he said, not sounding the least bit as he leaned in to look at the screen. “You think a Lexington doesn’t need to know such provincial things as fixing a malfunctioning printer?”

“Well, yeah.”

He chuckled and started flicking through the screen. He hit a button and suddenly the printer whirred to life.

My jaw almost hit the floor. “How did—but how …?”

Henry reached for my letter as it printed out. He handed it to me with no small amount of smugness. “You look like you’re going to cry.”

I took the papers from him and nodded. “I feel like I might. I’ve been in here for twenty-five minutes. They were the longest twenty-five minutes of my life. And then you walk in, spend two seconds with the thing, and just fix it. Voila. Like it’s nothing.”

“Oh, poor baby.” Henry laughed and put his arm around my shoulder, leading me out of the room toward my desk. “You should have called.”

“How was I to know that Henry Lexington is fluent in Printer?”

“Ah, well, there are a lot of things about me you’d learn if you gave it the time.”

I rolled my eyes at his flirting, more than used to it by now.

“Where have you been?” Caine stepped out of his office door, stopping us in our tracks. Displeasure registered on his face when he took in the sight of Henry with his arm around me. I gently extricated myself from his friend’s grasp.

“The printer wouldn’t work.” I waved the letter at him.

“For thirty minutes?” he snapped.

I frowned at his tone. I thought we were past him talking to me like that. “Yes,” I snapped back. “For thirty minutes. I don’t do printers. Luckily Henry came along and fixed it.”

Caine’s eyes narrowed as they swung back to his friend, who stood watching us carefully. “Oh, did he?”

Henry raised an eyebrow at the predatory tone. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Instead of answering his question, Caine continued to glare at him. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds and then Henry said to me, “Always a pleasure, Lexie.”

I smiled at him, refusing to be cowed by Caine’s temper. “Henry,” I murmured, and gave him a little wave as he left.

“My office,” Caine bit out. “Now.”

Scowling at his back, I followed him inside and shut the door. “What is your problem?”

He whipped around, his face like granite. “My problem? My problem?”

“Well, mine isn’t that I have a hearing problem,” I huffed. “No need to repeat yourself.”

“Alexa,” he warned.

“Don’t you ‘Alexa’ me.” My hands flew to my hips. “I was going about my job minding my own business when suddenly I found myself hurtled back into the past where my boss talks to me like I’m garbage under his shoe.”

“And I stepped out of my office to find out why my PA wasn’t answering my calls to discover it was because she was too busy flirting with my best friend, who had his hands all over her.”

I froze at the realization that Caine was still jealous.

Exultation rushed through me and it took all of my self-control not to grin in triumph. Caine was still jealous of Henry and me? Even though there was nothing going on between us. That had to signify something, right? A person wasn’t jealous and possessive over someone he didn’t care about. Right?

“There’s nothing between me and Henry,” I assured him. “He flirts. It’s meaningless.”

Caine glowered. “You don’t need to flirt back.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. And I don’t want you to do it again.”

I took a tentative step toward him. “I would never do anything to encourage your best friend, Caine. You must know that.”

Regret instantly flashed in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t …” He shrugged. “It’s just … I just … Not Henry, okay?”

Sensing how important it was for him to hear the words, I nodded. “I won’t flirt with Henry. I promise.”

Appearing altogether uncomfortable with the whole thing now, Caine gave me a sharp nod and reached for his phone, avoiding eye contact. “I’d better go meet him.”

Catching Caine in a vulnerable moment was surprising, but it gave me that hope about our no-strings messed-up-affair. I also thought it was an opportunity to clear up something. “Caine?”

“Hmm?”

“I know this is just sex …”

He stiffened at the sudden turn in conversation and glanced over his shoulder at me. “Alexa—”

“But maybe we should discuss if this affair is exclusive or not.”

“Exclusive.” His voice was terse, like he was pissed I’d even had to ask. And then it seemed to occur to him that he’d answered the question emotionally. “I’ll see you after lunch,” he muttered, and strode past me.

I jumped at the sound of his office door slamming shut behind him.

How was I supposed to interpret that? On the one hand his seeming possessiveness could be construed as a step forward to him admitting that he had feelings for me. On the other hand, he’d raced out of here like I’d suggested we wear a vial of each other’s blood around our necks.

Having an affair with Caine Carraway was not only deliciously physically exhausting, but not so deliciously emotionally exhausting too.

That night my uncertainty won.

Caine didn’t come to me after the gala. In fact, I had no word from him at all that night or the next morning.

I did not have a good feeling about that.

“Go get him.” Effie nodded at Caine’s door.

I grimaced. “He’s going to be pissed I just showed up like this.”

And by “like this” I meant it was Saturday afternoon and I’d decided I was done playing this Caine’s way. We weren’t getting anywhere playing the game by his rules, so I’d decided to start acting like a grown woman. If I wanted to see Caine, there was nothing to stop me from going to see him. I didn’t have to work around his schedule. No, sirree, I did not.

The whole acting like a grown woman thing deserted me when I got to the building and suddenly feared Caine outright rejecting me by refusing to allow me up to the penthouse.

So I’d called up to Effie instead and explained the situation.

As Caine had warned me, Effie knew we were having an affair. She was also smart enough to know I was angling for more and she also liked me enough to want me for Caine.

Effie was on my side.

It was a small comfort, but one nonetheless.

Effie sighed at my less than inspiring performance of “a woman on a mission to win her man.” “You don’t know that. Now knock on the goddamn door before I do it for you.”

Realizing she would do just that, I pressed the buzzer. As soon as I did, Effie hurried back to her penthouse. She could certainly move for an old lady.

I was still staring after her in amusement when Caine’s door opened.

My head jerked forward and my gaze raked over him. He was unshaven, unkempt, and wearing a black Def Leppard T-shirt and well-worn jeans.

Yum.

“Hey.” I gave him a small wave.

In return he frowned at me but stepped aside to let me in. “What are you doing here?”

His tone was definitely less than welcoming.

I imagined a dozen metal sheets of armor flying across the room and clipping on around my body like Iron Man. I was going to need all the protection I could get to defend against the sting of Caine’s possible rejection. And considering his tone, that rejection was becoming more and more of a possibility.

“I just thought I’d stop by.” I shrugged. My gaze moved to his breakfast bar. It was covered in paperwork.

He’d been working.

“And you never thought to call first?” He stood in front of me with his legs braced and his arms folded over his chest.

Yes, there was absolutely nothing about him that said welcome.

I tried not to flinch. “It’s okay for you to drop by my place unannounced, but it’s not okay for me to do the same thing?”

“Not when you’re here looking for something.” His eyes narrowed. “What, you didn’t hear from me, so you presume the worst? Did you think you’d come over here unannounced and catch me fucking someone else?”

My eyes grew round at the accusation. It seemed to come from nowhere. “Excuse me?” I huffed. “First of all, if that had been my intention I would have come around unannounced in the morning when I would have had a better chance of catching you fucking someone else. And second of all, don’t put whatever jealous, stalkerish, creepy shit that other women have done to you on me. I came around for coffee or sex. Possibly both. Now I’m not in the mood for either.” I threw him a disgusted look and made to stride past him.

Caine wrapped a hand around my upper arm, halting me.

I looked up at him warily.

“I don’t mean to be a bastard, okay? I’m just busy today.” He nodded in the direction of his work.

I pulled gently at my arm, but Caine wouldn’t release me.

He tugged me closer, his eyes warmer. “I really want to fuck you and make you some coffee afterward, but unfortunately I have to get this work done today. There’s tonight, though.” Wickedness glinted in his eyes. “I could come to your place.”

Although my body instantly liquefied at his suggestion, I found some small satisfaction in being able to turn him down. “I can’t tonight. I made plans with an old work colleague.” And I wasn’t lying just to be peevish. Sofie had lost her internship from Benito and had called me looking for sympathy from someone who understood. I’d offered to take her out on the town to take her mind off it for a few hours. “We’re going dancing.”

Caine’s grip tightened imperceptibly. “To a nightclub?”

I gently extricated myself, not sure why the fact that I was going dancing was a cause for concern. “Possibly several.”

Caine stepped back from me. He was shutting down.

I sighed heavily. This visit had not gone at all to plan. “So we’ll talk tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

He was turning away, about to head back to his paperwork, quite ready to forget my existence already, when the impulse to pull him out from whatever wall he’d just slammed up took over me. I placed a hand on his arm and went up on tiptoes to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. As I pulled back I smiled into his now-arrested face. “Bye, Caine.”

Before I could move away I found myself tugged against him. I let out a little gasp of surprise seconds before his mouth fell on mine.

He wrapped his arms tight around me and kissed me with a passion that flooded molten heat into my blood. I held on for dear life, returning the deep kiss with my own.

It grew hotter and wetter as he crushed me as tight against him as he could. I could feel his hard-on digging into me. My skin flushed into a greater blaze.

When Caine eventually lifted his lips from mine and gently released me, I was too lost in a lust-filled fog to say anything.

The kiss had come out of nowhere.

“We’ll talk later,” Caine said, his words thick with arousal.

“Later,” I croaked, smoothing my hair with trembling fingers.

Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes.

The waitress placed another mojito in front of me and gave me a knowing grin. “From the cute blond in the navy suit by the bar.” She nodded in the bar’s direction.

I glanced over and caught sight of a good-looking guy in said navy suit. As soon as my gaze hit him he smiled and raised his glass to me.

“Ooh, he is cute,” Sofie said, nudging my elbow with hers.

I pushed the drink toward the waitress. “Sorry. Can you take this back?”

She smiled and removed the mojito from our table. “Gotcha.”

“What are you doing?” Sofie narrowed her eyes on me as the waitress walked away. “You just turned that cute guy down. Why? I thought you hadn’t gotten laid in, like, a year and a half.”

I frowned at that calculation, counting back to when I’d last been in a relationship. To my shock I discovered Sofie was right. Before Caine the last guy I’d slept with had been my boyfriend Pete. We’d only dated for three months and the relationship naturally fizzled out because neither of us was that into it.

But yeah, that was eighteen months ago.

The last time I had sex, however, was of course a totally different story.

I sipped the mojito I’d paid for and avoided Sofie’s eyes, pretending to innocently inspect the bar. We were at Brick & Mortar in Cambridge and as always it was packed.

“It was a year and a half ago, right?” Sofie sounded suspicious.

“Mmm-hmm.”

She grabbed my arm, forcing me around to look at her. “Oh my God. Who are you sleeping with? You have to tell me! It will totally take my mind off the fact that I just lost my internship. Please, please, pretty please.”

“All right, all right,” I huffed. “I met someone at work, but I can’t tell you his name because there’s this whole employee fraternization thing, and plus, you know, we’re not serious. It’s just sex.”

Sofie’s eyes were round. “I’ve never done casual sex before. Is it hot?”

I wouldn’t know. There was nothing casual about sex with Caine despite his silent protestations that what was between us was the epitome of casual. “Uh, sure.”

“Wow. Getting engaged young is a good thing, but at the same time I feel like I’m missing out on loads.” She lifted her hand and stared at her simple but pretty engagement ring.

I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Trust me, you’re not.”

She smiled. “So you can’t even give me a clue who it is?”

“Nope.”

Her eyebrows drew together in concentration. “The only person I even know that works there is the man himself, Caine Carraway, but I know it’s not him because he kind of hates you.”

I flinched on the inside but somehow managed to give a small smile. “Yeah, boy, does he ever.”

“So you’re really going to turn down hot guys all night? Because you’re having a casual fling with someone? I mean …” Sofie looked around. “I’m getting married but I’d still like to dance with someone. Dancing is okay as long as the guy doesn’t get handsy.”

I grinned. “Okay, you find us two nonhandsy guys to dance with and you’re on.”

I hugged Sofie good-bye in the taxi, but she wasn’t done.

“I had so much fun!” she cried. “I missed you so much, Lex. We gotta do this like more. Like a lot more. ’Cause I love you, Lexie.”

I smiled at her drunken affection. “Love you too, babe.”

Relief moved through me when her fiancé, Joe, opened the driver’s door. Although I was tipsy, Sofie was smashed. I’d forgotten what a lightweight she was. After we’d danced the night away in a few bars in Cambridge, changing dance partners when they got too “handsy,” I’d tumbled Sofie into a taxi and had the driver drop her off first even though she lived in Southie. My worry had been that I’d have to carry her into her apartment, but Joe had obviously been keeping an eye out for us.

“Joe!” Sofie cried, her whole face lighting up at the tall, handsome redhead. “I love you, Joe.”

“I love you too, Sofie. I’ll love you even more if you keep it down.” He reached for her, helping her out. He shot me a smile. “Thanks for bringing her home, Alexa. What do I owe you for the cab?”

I shook my head. “It’s on me.”

He smiled gratefully. “On us next time, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Bye.”

“Night.”

“Bye, Lexie!” Sofie shouted, and I laughed as Joe tried unsuccessfully to shush her and half carry her into the house.

As the driver drove back toward my place, I contemplated directing him to Arlington Street. I was still wide-awake and Caine had suggested we get together tonight.

I chewed my lip, thinking it over.

Eventually I decided against it, wishing it could be easier between us, wishing we could trust each other enough not to feel so insecure around each other. For all I knew, Caine didn’t even feel that way. I was probably projecting my neurosis onto him.

He’d been so busy that day that he’d more than likely passed out surrounded by paperwork. I decided he’d be even less amused than he had been earlier if I showed up unannounced again.

It was a shock, then, when I stepped out of the cab and found Caine sitting on my stoop.

I stared at him as the cabdriver pulled away, taken aback to see Caine sitting there in a sweater and jeans, his phone dangling between his hands. He looked like an ordinary guy. A very hot, ordinary guy, obviously, but gone was the impressive, intimidating businessman. Right then Caine was just a guy waiting on his girl.

Except … I wasn’t really his.

“Did you have fun?” he asked quietly in the hush of the very early morning.

“I danced a bit,” I replied, my voice as soft.

He nodded and looked away, staring off into the distance. “Alone?”

I stared at his handsome profile, trying to work out what was going on here. “No,” I admitted.

After a few seconds he looked at me. “May I come up to your apartment?”

In answer I strode toward him, my heels clicking loudly on the sidewalk. Caine stood up as I approached and he held out his hand to help me up the stoop.

I curled my fingers around his, shivering at the slide of skin against skin.

We were silent as I let us into the building, and we were silent as we climbed the stairs to the first floor. We were silent as we walked into my apartment and I locked the door behind us, and we were silent as I threw my purse on the sofa and kicked off my shoes.

No words passed between us at all as Caine reached for me.

The only noise that filled my apartment was the rustling of clothes, the panting of breaths against lips, and our groans as Caine took me hard on the floor of my living room. We were so frantic to have each other that we couldn’t even make it to the sofa, never mind the bedroom.

I was nearing climax when he pinned my hands above my head and stopped thrusting into me.

“Caine?” I gasped, the first word spoken between us since the stoop.

Fierceness tightened his features along with his impending orgasm. Something primal glittered in his gaze, something thrilling but terrifying that I’d never seen there before. “Say you’re mine. Right here, right now, you’re mine,” he growled.

I pushed my hips against his, desperate for him to move again. I was so close. So, so, so close. I whimpered, “Caine.”

“Say it.” He almost slid all the way out of me. “Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours, I’m yours,” I agreed, barely cognizant of what I was agreeing to. “Please.”

He crushed his mouth over mine and started to pump harder into me.

It wasn’t until long after, after we came in unison, after he picked me up and carried me to bed, and after I woke up in the early hours of the morning to discover he’d left, that I realized what Caine had asked of me.

And if he hadn’t snuck out on me and ignored my call a few hours later, I would have said his caveman request was a turning point.

Maybe it still was.

Or maybe it had him running scared instead.