When Lucas finishes singing “Addiction” for me, he smiles at me, his eyes glinting in the dim light of the room. “What do you think?”

“I love it.”

“Wait ’til you hear it when I record it with the full band. I’ve already got the entire arrangement figured out in my head. It’s gonna have a bass-heavy beat—an addicting beat.”

“I can’t wait to hear it.”

Lucas puts his guitar down. “Come here, baby. You’re too far away. My skin aches for you.”

I slide onto his lap, nuzzle my nose into his cheek, and inhale his masculine scent. I skim my lips over his and run my hands through his hair, reveling in him. “You’re a genius,” I whisper. “Mark my words. This is going to be your biggest album yet.”

Lucas kisses my lips. “You’re the secret sauce.”

My heart skips a beat. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re doing more than you know.”

“Lucas?”

“What?”

I sigh. “Nothing. Never mind.”

He brushes my hair out of my eyes and skims his lips over mine. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I like being here inside this little bubble with you. It’s nice taking a break from being ‘Lucas Ford’ for a while.”

“It’s nice taking a break from being ‘Abby Medford’ for a while, too.”

Lucas brushes his fingertips down the curve of my neck. “The paparazzi were getting to you, too?”

I chuckle. “Yeah. Damned paparazzi.”

Lucas chuckles and touches my hair again. “Who would you be if you could be anyone you wanted?” He strokes the back of my neck, gently massaging my tired muscles. “Would you quit law school?”

I nod.

“And then what would you do? Tell me, baby. Assume you had no student loans and didn’t give a fuck what your parents wanted. Who would you be?”

“I’d be a writer living in New York City.”

“Wow, you had that answer right on the tip of your tongue.”

I nod.

“You wouldn’t be a kindergarten teacher?”

I chuckle. “No. Although, standing offer, I’d be happy to read you a bedtime story any time you like.”

“Why, thank you.” He continues stroking the muscles of my neck. “What kind of writer would you be?”

I close my eyes at his glorious touch. “I’d work for a magazine. Not a fashion magazine, more like an edgy men’s magazine. Something like Maxim.”

“Always full of surprises. What would you write?”

“Articles for men from a female perspective. It’d be sexy stuff about what women really want and how to please them. Insight into what makes women tick. But I’d also write observations about life and sex in general. The same kinds of things I write about in this anonymous blog I write.”

He looks surprised. “You write a blog?”

“Just for fun—to blow off steam.”

“What’s it called?”

“Penelope Pleasure, Miss Pleasure to You!”

Lucas chuckles. “Show me.”

“Really?”

“Hell yeah.”

I slide excitedly off his lap and he grabs his laptop.

I navigate to my blog and he begins to read. To my surprise, he doesn’t give my writing a cursory glance. He reads my three most recent entries like he’s studying them for an exam. Finally, he looks up from his screen. “Abby, this is great. Well written. Sexy as hell. Your voice is totally original. And holy shit, woman, you’re hilarious, too—way more so in writing than in person. No offense.”

“I’m deeply offended.”

“I can’t believe I’ve been fucking a genius writer this whole time. And here I thought you were just a semi-funny-ish kindergarten teacher. Who knew?”

“Why is it I’m not sure if you’re complimenting or insulting me?”

He laughs. “I just mean you’re a badass of epic proportions but you don’t let down your guard enough to broadcast that. It’s like you’re hiding Superman underneath Clark Kent. I knew you were smart and funny, but I had no idea you were this smart and funny.”

Every square inch of my skin is covered in goose bumps. “Thank you,” I say softly. “That means so much, coming from a genius like you.”

Lucas grabs my face in his large palms, bubbling over with enthusiasm. “Why the fuck do you play your cards so close to your vest when you’ve got this amazingness bouncing around in your head?” He motions to his laptop. “Why not be that girl all the time? Forget conquering men. Let Penelope Pleasure conquer the world.”

I scoff. “I can’t be Penelope all the time. She’s nothing but a fantasy. Abby’s got to live in reality and pay her bills and function and not, you know, bring shame to her family. That’s why I do the blog anonymously. If my parents ever found out about it they’d disown me.”

“So what? You’re a grown-ass woman. Fuck ’em. They’ll survive.”

“It’s not that simple, Lucas. I’ve already put my parents through hell.”

“Here we go again. How did you put them through hell? You still haven’t told me what went down.”

I don’t reply.

Lucas puts his fingertip underneath my chin. “I guarantee you, whatever you did back then, you’re way overcompensating for it now.”

I remain mute.

“Abby, you’re not the same girl you were at seventeen, any more than I’m the same seventeen-year-old dumbfuck who sold his soul to the devil.” He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “We live and learn, baby. That’s how it works. After a while, we figure out everybody else is imperfect, too, and we forgive ourselves for our sins. Live and fucking learn.”

Tears prick my eyes.

“What happened when you were a train wreck?” he coos. “Tell me what happened, baby.”

“Which time?”

He smiles. “All the times.”

I sigh. “That would take too long. Suffice it to say, if there was a man I couldn’t or shouldn’t have, he was the one I wanted. And if there was something a man didn’t want to do, that’s the thing I wanted him to do for me. I could tell you a bunch of stories, but the two biggies were that I gave my AP English teacher a blowjob in his classroom during my senior year of high school, not realizing there was a security camera capturing the whole thing. And then I followed up that fiasco a year later by having an affair with my Art History professor at Brown. It turned out he was married with a newborn baby—facts I unfortunately only discovered a month into our illicit relationship. His wife found out about us and shamed me all over social media—a lovely experience that led me to get the hell out of Brown and transfer to the University of Denver just to get away from all the gossip and scandal. And so, here I am. I came to Denver to start a new life—plus a whole lot of therapy—and I wound up staying for law school.”

“How long ago was that thing with the professor in college?”

“Five years.”

“And you haven’t had what you’d consider a problem since?”

“Nope. I mean, don’t get me wrong, when I first moved here, I continued making horrible choices in men for about two years. I kept choosing losers and ‘bad boys’ who were all too happy to have a girl like me in their bed but not in their life. But it was pretty standard she’s-got-no-self-respect kind of stuff. No scandals or major issues for the past five years. Actually, for the past two years—ever since I started law school—I’ve been so squeaky clean and ‘healthy,’ I’m practically a born-again virgin. All my dirty thoughts get aired in my blog and nowhere else, and certainly not acted upon.”

Lucas shakes his head sympathetically. “Come here,” he whispers. He wraps his arms around me and kisses me, and soon he’s got me on my back on the couch and he’s on top of me, entering me, moving inside me, kissing me, whispering into my ear that I’m beautiful and perfect and fuck my parents and fuck trying to be anyone I’m not.

I grab his face and kiss him passionately, emotion welling up inside me. “I’ve been so ashamed of myself for so long,” I whisper, barely able to keep myself from crying. “They said I was ‘aberrant.’ They said I was ‘abnormal.’ That nice girls don’t have the kinds of urges I do.”

“Fuck ’em,” he whispers. “You’re awesome.”

“I’ve made so many mistakes,” I say.

“Live and learn, baby,” he says softly, his heart pressed against mine as he moves inside me. “One day you’ll figure out how to be you out there in the real world and not just with me. And that’s when you’ll conquer the world.”

The movement of his body inside mine is sending me to heaven. I know we’re not supposed to break character or talk about the role-play, but I’ve got to tell him I can’t bear the thought of rejecting him. That I’m falling in love with him and don’t want to be without him when this is all over.

“Lucas,” I whisper. “Please.”

But before I can utter another word, Lucas slams his hips into me, penetrating me as deeply as a man can go. He kisses my mouth with breathtaking fervor, and much to my shock, comes like a bullet train inside me.