After, he cradles me in his arms and eases me back onto the bed. I keep my hands on his chest as he slips under the sheets with me. With care, he pulls them up and over me, as if making sure I’m tucked and resting.

As my palms press against him, I can’t get enough of the sweaty, manly feel of those muscles and that warm skin. I swear I’m floating on a cloud, high from what he just did to me.

I don’t even stop to think of the tenderness between my thighs or wonder why I liked being dominated by him so much. It just is.

Under the sheet, he walks his fingers down my bare hip, exploring my skin, and I snuggle my face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, my favorite place. Or at least one of them.

“You’re spoiling me,” I say softly, almost drunkenly.

“For what?”

“Any other man in the future.”

I don’t know why I said that. Maybe it’s because of the way he’s holding me, so intimately, as if I matter beyond what our arrangement says. Honesty seems so natural with him right now in this raw afterglow, but I have no idea what happens after having sex. Do I keep on talking about how incredible he is and no one will ever compare?

Or is this where we start to talk about exes and all the other things I don’t want to reveal?

God, I can’t think about those secrets. Not while I’m here with Cage.

He hasn’t said anything else, but his fingers are still busy, slowly trailing down the front of my thigh. Goose bumps make me shiver.

“If you just want me to be quiet,” I say, “I can do that.”

He laughs a little, seemingly relaxed. “Generally, this is the point where I get asked about my crazy dating life and my casual affairs and why I’m not the serious type.”

“Because your other women want to know if they’re different from everyone else? They want to see if you’ll let them, out of everyone else, stick around?”

“I think that’s what some of them are up to. That’s why I’m not much for pillow talk.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t grill you.” And I hope he won’t do the same to me, asking about my past, because I’m not about to tell him. It’s enough for him to know that he took my virginity. Nothing else is relevant.

His fingers go still until he smooths his hand up and over my thigh, cupping the back of it so casually that I almost believe we’re a couple who’s done this before.

“I won’t bore you with the details of my social life anyway,” he murmurs. “I don’t want you to think I’m a complete bastard.”

“You’re not?”

He presses his lips against the top of my head then talks against me. “I grew up on my own, and I’ve never had anyone who was…close. My mother died and my father is no longer in the picture. I’ve never exactly been a…warm…individual.”

I wait for him to continue, to tell me how his mother passed away or why his father isn’t around, but he never does. I only imagine that he’s got that darkness in his gaze again as he continues to hold me.

As I keep pressing my hand to his chest, feeling the thudding of his heart, I realize that Cage and I have crossed yet another line. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t reveal anything to anyone about himself, doesn’t like to feel vulnerable at all, and the fact that he just let me in a little bit more…

I sigh again, running my hand from his muscled chest to his cut waist. I pull myself closer to him until my breasts are crushed against him and my leg nestles between the two of his.

Heaven.

“I understand what you’re saying,” I whisper against him. “Sometimes it’s not easy to get close to people. It’s always been hard for me, too.”

“You?”

He laughs, and that makes me smile against him.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“You don’t come off as someone who has a problem with getting close to people.”

For a terrible second, I remember what’s waiting for me back home, and I tense up. Cage must feel it, because he rises to his elbow so he’s propped up, looking down at me. He’s frowning, trying to read me in the dimness of the room.

I pull the sheet up to my shoulders, almost as if that will hide every secret I’ve been keeping.

Cage tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Do you have any idea how you really come off to others, Karini?”

Great. Is he about to tell me in his cutting way that I’m average, but I have a great personality. Or maybe I’m just a good girl who’s a challenge until you break her in.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I tell him. “I know I’m not like those other women you see. The elegant, stunning, exciting ones you run around town with.”

His eyebrows draw together even tighter. “Jesus. You really don’t know.”

“Know what?”

His gaze runs hot again as he brushes it over my face. Then he lazily begins to pull the sheet away from my body.

I tug it back over me, but he wins, yanking the sheet off, leaving me exposed.

He already had his way with me tonight, so there’s no reason I should be shy as his eyes take a long stroll over my body. But I am bashful, and I bring an arm over my breasts and cover my sex with my other hand.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

The desire in his voice changes everything, and I take my hands from myself, curling further onto my side like a kitten, watching him, waiting for what he’ll say next. As he keeps devouring my body with his gaze, a flush eases over me, and just like that, I’m ready for him again.

Ready for anything.

“What I see,” he says as he touches my hair, “is a woman with big gray eyes and a smile that turns me on every time I see it. Don’t you know that? You’re fucking gorgeous, Karini.”

Maybe, during college, I did see some changes both physically and mentally whenever I looked at myself in the mirror, but I never quite believed I would be anything other than what I’d always been.

I think Cage sees someone totally different than I usually do.

I look into his eyes to determine if he’s really putting me on, trying to get me to screw him again without him having to work very hard for it. But all I find in his gaze is truth, and it sends a rush of warmth through me.

Then real life returns, because, once again, if I’d seen myself as Cage sees me before now, I wouldn’t be in such trouble.

There wouldn’t have ever been a Liam who’s way overdue to send another text…

But it’s as if there’s a new connection between Cage and me, something pulling us toward each other as he draws me back to him, holding me tighter than ever as he embraces me, our bodies intertwined.

He doesn’t have to say anything else as he strokes my back. Soon his breathing evens out, and in his arms, feeling more loved and safe than I’ve ever felt, I fall asleep, too.

* * *

The next morning is cold as I wake up in bed alone, the soreness between my thighs the only reminder that he was even there.

He’s gone into work without letting me know. Sure, he’s made arrangements for Daphne, the personal chef and grand dame of his kitchen, to treat me to a delicious breakfast and lunch. He’s also texted me that I should make myself at home until he returns. But I sense that his distance has returned, and I suspect the reason.

He regrets letting me into his room.

He hates that he told me even a little bit about his past.

I know instinctively that Cage Bryant just doesn’t make himself this available to anyone, so I tell myself to be patient as I take a swim in his small, private pool, then summon the on-call massage therapist and manicurist who come over to pamper me with a spa day. I chat on the phone with my family and friends, lying to them about this “end-of-the-summer wingding with some college buddies.”

I wait for the next text from Liam, and thank god there isn’t one.

By the time Cage returns, he’s all business, appearing in the library where I’m kicking back on a stuffed sofa, reading some Jane Austen.

At the sight of him in his pressed suit with his brown hair slicked and tamed, I go full horny for him—so powerful, so intimidating. I’ve been daydreaming about him, walking an emotional tightrope as I wonder what mood he’ll be in this time.

“I’ve made a decision,” he says, sliding behind his desk like an inaccessible boss and taking his seat.

Okay, we’ve got a read on the mood, and it’s Arctic.

I don’t let that bother me. After all, I’m here to serve. I sit up and put the book down on the glass table in front of me.

He continues. “We’ll be dining with Igor Vasiliev the night after tomorrow.”

So we’re definitely going there. But there must be something else he’s leading up to.

“Great,” I say. “Just let me know how you want me to dress and what I should and shouldn’t discuss during the meal. I already learned my lesson about saying too much.”

He seems pleased by my answer, but he’s still cool. “Since I can’t put anything to chance with Igor, we’ll be having rehearsals, so to speak.”

Ah. This was what he was building up to.

Sudden thoughts of an old musical I saw with my parents, My Fair Lady, clutter the front of my mind. “Am I going to be schooled in the art of being a lady?”

“A girlfriend. My girlfriend. But, more to the point, we need to seem as if we’re a real couple. If we can carry that off, I’m certain I can cement the deal with Igor to do business with him in Russia.”

My heart falls a little. Cementing the deal means having my “relationship” with Cage come to an end. But it’s not all bad, right? That means I’ll have my money—plus some extra—and I’ll get Liam off my back for good. No more texts, no more worries about keeping my secret.

“I’m game,” I say. “What does ‘rehearsing’ entail?”

“Not much more than it did when Igor saw us going out for ice cream.” Cage is so confident, as if he’s thought all of this through. “For the next couple of nights, we appear in town, dine together, smile in each other’s company, then have that dinner with him. It’s just a matter of sticking to an act.”

“Basically, we pretend to be significant others for the next couple of days and I don’t say anything to mess it up.”

“Precisely.”

I should be ecstatic at the thought of being wined and dined by an incredibly handsome billionaire who’ll pull out all the stops for me, but it seems so…empty.

Even so, I smile at him. “I’m all in. Just tell me which lesson comes first, Professor Higgins.”

From the slight, professional smile on Cage’s face, I know he gets my vintage reference to My Fair Lady.

But the darkness I see in his eyes is as ruthless as I’ve ever seen.