I’m dreaming. I know I am, but I can’t escape. I’m in the airy, elegant room with its library and fresh floral fragrance. Midday, bright sunlight. The air is cool, the breeze warm. A man sits in one of the high-backed armchairs before an open window with a view of the garden and groomed acres beyond.

“I know why you’re here, London.”

My feet carry me toward him… this man who destroyed my life. Destroyed my dreams, my hope, my love. When I reach him, he smiles up at me, blue eyes crinkling warmly. Gray-haired, handsome, and distinguished. The look, as always, is grandfatherly. Full of acceptance and affection.

Lies, all of it. All of him.

“Why?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “‘If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’ Better to be the monster than be eaten by one, no?”

I grip the back of his chair, the urge to strangle him visceral. “Don’t quote Nietzsche to me, you pompous, arrogant fuck. Tell me WHY!” The word is a scream of primordial rage. It echoes in the dream, shattering the windows. Glass rains down like harmless confetti, disappearing before impact.

He sighs, smoothing a hand down his silk tie, his gaze on the lush garden. “Do you remember what I told you the night we met, London? No? I do. I told you to be careful, because there would come a time when you would have to choose between instinct and self-preservation.”

“You always were a cryptic sonofabitch,” I snarl. “Is this the time? Am I choosing now?”

“You were the daughter I never had,” he says wistfully, “and Paul was like a son. I’m truly sorry it’s come to this.”

Pressure on the back of my head. The cloying smell of gun oil. I don’t look back. Don’t need to see who it is—I can smell his distinctive cologne.

The man I loved like a grandfather stands and straightens his suit jacket. He’s not smiling anymore. “What will it be, my dear? Will you join us at the top of the world, or will you hold to meaningless ideals?”

I spit in his face. “Fuck you. Just kill me.”

The sad, blue gaze lifts over my head. He nods, and the world explodes white, then black.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re safe.”

I open my eyes to Cross’s face above mine. My mind is fuzzy, my mouth dry. I’m still in his bed, still naked, but cradled in his arms against the headboard. His bare chest is a furnace against my cool, damp skin. The lights in the bedroom are off, but there’s an ambient glow from the living room. Enough to register his concerned expression.

“What…” I trail off, my brain stalling in confusion.

A warm hand strokes my sweat-soaked hair. “I gave you a little something to help you sleep, remember? You were out for a few hours, then had a nasty nightmare. It took me a while to wake you up.”

It all comes back—the dream memory, the betrayal, the blackness and bleakness… I feel it again like it happened yesterday, not eighteen months ago. Mortified and near-tears, I try to jerk away, but Cross’s arms only tighten.

“PTSD is nothing to be ashamed of,” he murmurs, gentling his grip as I surrender to his embrace. “Neither is asking to die. Trust me, I’ve been there.”

I screw my eyes shut at the realization I must have been talking in my sleep. Just kill me. “It’s not what you think.” The words are empty, blatantly false.

“Mmm.” The noncommittal hum vibrates his body, sending soothing waves through mine. I begin to relax in earnest, a detached calm stealing over me.

“He didn’t,” I say vacantly, “kill me, that is. Obviously.”

“Who?” Curious, but without expectation.

“The man who murdered my husband.”

Cross goes still. Almost inhumanly so. In the silence, I imagine him weighing the pain in my voice against his own pain, trying to find common ground where there is none. His wife used him, betrayed him. My husband died because of me.

Sparing us both, I say, “I don’t know why he didn’t follow through. Sentimentality, I guess. But he ended up killing me in other, just as permanent ways.”

Torching my reputation. My career. My life.

“This is what you were talking about,” he muses softly, “when I accused you of being a criminal.”

My laugh is soundless, mirthless. “Yes.”

“Someone orchestrated a smear campaign against you,” he deduces. “I’m guessing you discovered or learned something you shouldn’t have. And your husband… he was law enforcement?”

“Good guess. ICE agent working for Homeland Security. I thought you Googled me,” I add wryly. “That didn’t come up in your search?”

“I didn’t read past the first few headlines. I’m not in the business of judging people by their pasts.”

I snort. “Didn’t seem that way.”

“Yeah, it probably didn’t. You were right to tell me off that day.” He pauses. “If it matters, I never actually thought it was true.”

I look up, startled. “Why not?”

“I’ve only known you a few short months, but there’s no way you seduced a fat-ass Russian mobster and asked him to kill your husband. No fucking way.” The words are calm, matter-of-fact, and their certainty nearly brings tears to my eyes.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

His brows lift, eyes soft and unguarded. “For what?”

“Believing me.”

He smiles slightly. “In my former line of work, the ability to read a person’s character sometimes meant the difference between life and death.” There’s a layer of darkness beneath the words, an unspoken current of history. His instincts failed him when it came to choosing a wife.

I want to ask—want to know—and the impulse shocks me enough to remember how dangerous Dominic Cross is. Especially this version of him, the man whose presence makes me feel… safe.

I need to get out of here.

“I… I think I’m okay to drive home.” I shift in his arms, angling for escape, but his laughter stills me.

“Not happening. It’s four in the fucking morning, and even though you don’t feel it now, you’re going to be in pain in about an hour.”

I still, narrowing my gaze on his face. “That wasn’t Tylenol?”

“It was. The kind with codeine.”

My eyes widen. “You drugged me?”

“Oh, kitten. It was just enough to take the edge off.” He chuckles, big body shaking beneath mine and bringing immediate attention to the thin sheet separating us. His lack of pajamas. His swiftly thickening cock, which sits nestled against my core.

Gasping, I squirm again toward the edge of the bed.

Only to be reeled back in.

“Relax,” he says chidingly. “It’s just an erection. You’re going to have to see it eventually.”

My face flames, my gaze averting from his teasing grin. Now that I’m aware of his nakedness, I can’t seem to think about anything else—or stop myself from teetering toward intimacy I don’t want.

“I can’t right now,” I whisper, “not after talking about… that.”

His hips subtly flex, teasing my softness with hardness. “I think you can.”

Low, controlled voice. The voice. My limbs go liquid with surrender. With relief. For an instant, I quail at the transition that seems so divorced from my control. I’m like Pavlov’s dog, rolling over on command. But as he effortlessly shifts my legs so they fall open on either side of his hips, then drags me directly atop his long, thick ridge, I realize giving in is a gift.

There’s no memory here—just feeling.

His hands cradle my neck, fingers massaging, drawing a soft sigh from my lips. “There you are. Do you feel me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Another, stronger movement of his hips. Sensation unfurling, heat cascading. My head falls back into the support of his hands as my body obeys a biological command to move. To seek and find the perfect friction, the perfect rhythm.

“Don’t stop until you come, kitten. And don’t forget to ask for permission.” His dark head lowers to my chest, sucking and biting, devouring one breast, then the other.

“Oh, God, sir, don’t stop.”

He hums in pleasure, one hand falling to my hip, anchoring me, moving me faster and harder against him. His groan lights every nerve ending in my body. “I can feel you dripping on my cock. So wet. So hot. Fucking you is going to be so good.”

“Please, please,” I chant.

He bites my nipple so hard I see stars. I cry out, seconds from falling apart. “Don’t you fucking come.”

“Please.”

“Not yet,” he snarls. “I want to feel it.” My thong is wrenched away, three thick fingers shoving inside me without warning, curling and mercilessly massaging my G-spot.

I scream through my teeth. “Please, sir!”

“Kiss me, kitten.”

Our open mouths collide and fuse in savage darkness. It’s not a kiss. It’s a battle for power on the only level playing field between us. As he claims me, I claim him, my fingers clenched tight in his hair. As he devours my cries, I devour his groans and hissing breaths. All the while his fingers pump inside me, his shaft tight against my clit. His taste, scent, grace, power… it’s ambrosia. Perfect agony.

Teeth clamping on my lower lip, he growls, “Now.”

I’m gone.

And I don’t care if I come back.