I’m trapped, suffocating, and I can’t get out. I can’t get out...

“Shit!” I shout the word into the pitch-dark of my own apartment, struggling with everything I have to untangle myself from the comforter. It’s caught over my face like it’s being held there by invisible hands, and I can’t get it off, I can’t get it off—

Finally, with one last violent tug, it comes free. I jump out of the bed, anxious for space, and stub my toe on the narrow desk that’s wedged between the bed and the wall, not enough room for a chair between them. The pain, sharp and pure, sends me tumbling back onto the bed, clutching my toe.

“Fuck.” At least this time it’s muffled by the pillow.

I grit my teeth, waiting for the pain to subside, holding onto that toe for dear life. It seems like a thousand years before it recedes, but my heart still races.

My toe wouldn’t be throbbing if I hadn’t taken things to this extreme. I could have rented a slightly bigger place, dipped into my savings a little—but no. No, I can’t afford to do that now.

I sit up and flick on the lamp on my even tinier bedside table, bathing the room in its warm yellow glow. My heart pounds in my chest. I don’t know what time it is. All I know is that I’ve made a horrible mistake.

I came back to the city, back to my postage stamp of an apartment, and gorged myself on takeout Chinese until I’d successfully numbed the failure of the estate sale. And then, like any powerful, self-possessed woman, I’d climbed into bed fully dressed and fallen asleep.

Shit. Shit.

I grab for my phone, wrenching it off the charger. It’s three in the morning, and I’m wide awake.

There’s a single text message from my mother. It came in just after eleven. 

How’d things go?

I never answered.

I never called, and I never sent a reply, because I was too chickenshit to call and too full of Chinese food to stay awake long enough to get that text.

I’ve made a horrible mistake.

My heartbeat is so loud it drowns out the shouts from outside. In this neighborhood, it’s relatively quiet during the day, but at night there’s always some degree of…well, general unrest, I guess. I never know what people are shouting about. 

All I can think about right now is Levi Blake.

I throw my hands up above my head in frustration. All that food wasn’t enough to erase the memory of his gray eyes burning into mine, the way his suit jacket hugged muscular shoulders, the way he smelled, clean and sexy with just a hint of spice...

Heat rushes to my cheeks, and then ricochets down between my legs. Here I am, sick to my stomach at the thought of letting my family down and fantasizing about the man who embarrassed me at our estate sale. At least in the privacy of my own apartment I can admit that he was gorgeous. He was so damn hot. And if it had been anywhere else, at any other time, I might have flirted with him a little, talked to him, tried to stay by his side...

If we were alone he could wrap those powerful arms around me and sweep me off my feet, taking me to a bed or, who the hell cares, even the floor. I wouldn’t be able to struggle in those arms. I wouldn’t want to. I’d want him to take control. I’d want him to spread my legs wide with those hands of his and force me to look into his eyes while he dipped his finger into my folds, rubbing my clit until—

I slip my own hand down between my legs, shoving past my pants and underneath my panties. As soon as my own fingertips make contact with my already swollen clit the muscles in my shoulders relax. A man like Levi Blake would want me open for him, exposed to him, so that the lightning in his eyes could settle on my most private skin, making it his—

I want it so badly that I can’t hold back. It’s a furious attempt to wipe away the last of the pain from my foot and the rest of the panic from my chest, and my fingers are slick with my own juices when I come a moment later, hips jerking away from the surface of the bed. I ride the wave as long as I can, then turn over onto my side, catching my breath.

What a bastard. Levi Blake is nothing but—

I sit bolt upright in the bed, my heart in my throat.

Oh, my god.

Levi Blake is the solution. The mortifying, sexy, arrogant solution I never wanted.

But he’s the only option I’ve got.

I have to go back and get that card. I have to call Levi Blake.

I don’t want to—Jesus, it’s going to be so damn embarrassing—but he’s my best option for a solution right now, and we need one. After that disaster of an estate sale, there’s no other solution. At least, there’s not a solution that won’t take another few weeks to put into play.

I made this mess, and now I’m going to clean it up.

I won’t be able to stand looking up Levi Blake’s offices on the internet and dialing through some receptionist. I’d have to explain who I am, what I’m calling about. The number on that card—private, unlisted, unavailable to everyone else—that’s the one I need.

This can’t wait until Monday. I have to do this now.

I shove myself off the end of the bed and strip off my clothes, dropping them to the floor next to my dresser. Yoga pants and a hoodie will do—they’re clean, at least—and while I get dressed I call a car, cursing myself for not just putting that stupid little card into my purse. It’s an hour there and an hour back.

Shit. Was the cleaning staff going to come after the sale?

I take the stairs down to the lobby two at a time, praying fervently that they’re not going to show up until tomorrow.

The car is waiting outside, and I throw myself in, giving the address in the same breath.

The driver raises his eyebrows in the rearview mirror. “That’s going to be a hefty—”

“I know. I’ll pay now, if you want.” There’s a scanner in the back seat, and I’m already reaching for my card.

“No, that’s fine, miss.” He steers the car away from the curb. As we drive past the building two doors down, I see what the shouting was about. It’s a big party, people dancing on the stoop.

I don’t have time to think of them for long, because Levi Blake is back at the forefront of my thoughts. What if he doesn’t take my call? What if he laughs at me, and I have to explain to my parents that I’m the one who royally screwed up the estate sale that was supposed to save them? I remember the look in his eyes, the heated, piercing look, and a shiver runs down my spine.

What if my only chance is already gone?