I saw Lucas again several times in the next week, though it seemed like we never got a moment alone together. Alice would watch Luna on the days I couldn’t but he would always pick her up before he came back to the apartment. I didn’t ask Lucas if it would be okay to leave Luna with Alice overnight so that we could spend time together—I had a feeling he was always trying to make up for Maria’s absence in Luna’s life, that he wanted to be there for her as much as possible. I couldn’t put myself in the way of that, so I enjoyed the time we did get to spend together. Often, Lucas would bring Luna over for dinner. She would fall asleep in my room and we would spend a few frustrating hours on the couch, touching and laughing, before he snuck a sleeping Luna out in his arms with one last kiss to me.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, sitting next to me on the couch. My legs were in his lap and he was tracing them up and down with his fingers, teasing me because he liked it when I was frustrated. He touched my lips, looking into my eyes. “You’re frowning.”

“My book sales,” I said, sighing. “I just have a lot on my mind. The sales have been terrible and I have no idea how to get things moving.”

“You’ll figure it out,” he said, kissing my forehead. “Is there anything I can do?”

I bit my lip. There was something I’d been thinking about asking him but didn’t know if it would be crossing the line. At this point, though, I knew I had to try. Nothing else seemed to be working for me.

“Actually, there is,” I said. He was staring at my mouth, and I licked my bottom lip to make it shine for him. When he leaned in to kiss me, I pulled back before he could make contact.

“Anything,” he said, his voice a soft growl as he tried to kiss me again. Again, I pulled away, a grin on my face.

“Anything?”

He nodded, lifting his hand to my face to pull me against him, to take my mouth in the kiss that he wanted. I let him kiss me, let him taste my mouth before I pulled back again.

“I want you to be my cover model.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Your cover model.”

“Yes,” I said. “For my books. I think they would sell like crazy.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve never done modeling before.”

“You’re perfect for it,” I said to him, touching his cheek with my hand. “You’re so gorgeous.”

“I really want to help you,” he said. “I do, but I have no idea what I’m doing—”

“Please?” I asked him, making my eyes wide and innocent and sweet. It was a cheap trick, a look I’d learned he couldn’t resist. There had been several nights when he’d tried to keep his hands off me and I’d had to convince him to do otherwise.

He sighed, grinning, knowing exactly what I was up to.

“I can’t say no, can I?” he asked. I shook my head, leaning forward to kiss him in the way that he had been craving. He kissed me back, shifting our bodies so that he was on top of me.

“Daddy?” Luna called from the other room. Lucas sighed and sat up, shooting me a look before he stood to go to her. A few minutes later he emerged with Luna wrapped around him, and I stood to give him a kiss over her shoulder before they left for the night.

We made arrangements to have Alice come over and do the shoot for us one evening after Luna went to bed. I was nervous to be around Alice again—even though I knew Lucas wasn’t interested in her in a romantic way and that there was nothing between them, I still felt intimidated by her presence. She was so beautiful, like one of the women from my novels. I felt a tension in my stomach when Lucas came over with Luna, who was already asleep. He disappeared into my room to put her on the bed and came back out, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“Are you ready for this?”

“Not really,” he said. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I’ll tell you what to do,” I said to him.

He gave me a sly look. “It’s usually the other way around, isn’t it?”

I felt myself blushing. There had been a few times that I’d found Lucas to be quite bossy when we were both on edge. I still hadn’t managed to fuck him, something that I thought about constantly whether he was around me or not.

He leaned in to kiss me again when the doorbell rang. I answered it to see Alice on the other side, a camera around her neck.

“Hey,” she said, giving me a small wave. I invited her in and she looked around the place, taking in the light and the setting.

“This place is perfect,” she said. It was pretty early and there was a little summer light left, a soft glow that illuminated the room in a way that was almost dreamy.

“Thanks,” I said to her. “Lucas says you’ve done this before?”

Alice nodded, aiming the camera at me and taking a picture. I shied away from the camera, instinctively placing myself behind Lucas.

“I’ve done fashion photography before,” Alice said. She gestured at Lucas. “Take your shirt off, Luke.”

“So bossy,” he said, but did as she told him. I drank him in for a moment, looking over his perfect body, the lines of his muscles. I met his eye when he caught me staring and he winked at me with a grin, making me blush.

“What exactly do you want him to do?” Alice asked.

“I just need some standard shots,” I told her, dragging my eyes away from Lucas. It was hard when he was so gorgeous. Just looking at him, I had no doubt my books would get a boost in sales. He was impossible not to fall for. “We can start on the balcony.”

Lucas laughed. “Seriously?”

I nodded. He shrugged and we went outside. Alice started to take the pictures as soon as he leaned against the rail. He was a natural, perfect, and as I looked at the photos over her shoulder I knew I’d made the right choice.

“Relax a little, Luke,” Alice said. “And stop smiling so much.”

“Sorry,” he said, but there was still a smile on his face when he met my eye. “I’m distracted.”

“Do I need to send the pretty girl inside?” Alice asked, her voice teasing. “You can’t even focus for a minute when she’s out here.”

“No, I’ll focus,” he said, looking away from me. Alice shook her head, continuing to take the photos until we lost some of the light. We went inside afterward and took some on the couch, then in the spare bedroom. I’d thought that things might be tense and awkward with all three of us in the room—it wasn’t that I didn’t like Alice, but it usually took me much longer to feel comfortable around someone than it did with her. I found she was easy and fun to talk to and that she brought out a silly side of Lucas that I loved seeing.

By the end of the night, the three of us sat on the couch and looked through the photos she’d taken on her camera. They were perfect, and I knew right away which one I wanted to use for my most recent novel.

“What do you think?” I asked, turning to look at Lucas.

“Do you like them?” he asked. I nodded, smiling at him. He leaned over to kiss me softly. “Then I like them,” he said.

“I’m going to leave you two alone now,” Alice said, standing up with a smirk. “Thank you so much for letting me do this, Ellie. I’ll send you the pictures tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Alice,” I said. I stood up too and walked her over to the door. She surprised me by turning around and wrapping me in a hug.

“You make him happy,” she said. I felt myself blushing, growing flustered for some reason. She laughed, hugging me again before she left. I turned to Lucas, who was standing behind me. He was still shirtless, and I put my hands on his chest, tilting my face to kiss him. He kissed me back, taking my hand and pulling me out to the balcony, shutting the glass door behind us.

“What are you doing?” I asked, smiling as he pulled me onto his lap in one of the chairs outside.

“Do you know what I spent all night thinking about?” he asked. I leaned against him and he wrapped his arms around me, his lips near my ear.

“What’s that?”

“I was thinking about being alone with you. About all the things I’m going to do to you the moment we get some time to ourselves.”

“Tell me,” I said to him.

“Oh, are you still in charge tonight?” he asked, his voice playful and teasing as he nipped at my lobe. “Are you telling me what to do?”

“Yes,” I said. He pressed his lips to the spot just below my ear and I felt him smile against my skin. His hands were resting on my hips but they moved forward, sliding along the outsides of my thighs.

“Well, I think about fucking you all the time, but tonight was different.”

“Why?”

“Because usually in my imagination, you’re spread out naked on my bed with me on top of you. But tonight I thought about what it would be like to watch you ride my cock.”

“Oh,” was all I could say. I felt myself squirm on his lap just imagining it. It wasn’t something that I’d done very many times, nor was it something I enjoyed, but thinking about doing it with Lucas was completely different.

“Would you like that?” he asked, planting a kiss a little lower on my neck. “Do you think you’d want to fuck me like that?”

“I—I haven’t really done it very much,” I said, blushing. “I’m not sure I’m any good at it.”

“God,” he muttered, his voice almost a groan. “God, that’ll make it even fucking better. You’re going to do such a good job, angel. I can’t wait to see your face when your little pussy takes my cock as deep as it can.”

“Will you help me?” I asked him. “Help me learn how to do it?”

“Yes, baby, I’ll help you,” he promised. Our bodies were grinding together, his face in my neck. Occasionally he would kiss and bite the skin there as he spoke, sending waves of desire through my body. His hands were on my thighs and he spread them apart, lifting my dress up slightly.

“What else—what else do you want to do to me?” I asked him. I craved his words as he touched me, craved the images that he put in my mind. His hand was on my pussy and he was stroking it gently through my panties, teasing me.

“I want to make you scream,” he said. “That’s why we can’t do this now. I want to hear you moan for me while you come.”

“What else?” I breathed as he dipped his hand into my panties and started stroking my bare wet pussy, slipping a finger between my lower lips to trace my slit up and down.

“You know how I said I think about having you underneath me?”

“Yes,” I told him, whimpering as he circled my clit with the tip of his finger, not touching it directly.

“Sometimes I think about what your face would look like if I fucked you rough like that,” he said, nuzzling my neck again. “If you were underneath me with your legs wrapped around me while I fucked you nice and hard. I have a feeling you’ve never been really fucked before. Am I right?”

“Never like that,” I said to him. Sex with all of my exes had been tepid—I’d never even imagined that sex could be anything like what I wrote about in my novels, yet I knew that it would be with Lucas.

“Good,” he said as he slipped his fingers inside of me. He slid them in and out, breathing against my neck as he curled them inside of me, rubbing my clit with his palm.

I couldn’t speak anymore and I didn’t think he could, either. He was having trouble holding himself back—even more so than usual. His cock beneath my ass was rock hard and throbbing, and I rubbed myself against it even as my climax started to grow. I moaned and he put his free hand over my mouth, stroking my pussy even harder until I came all over his probing fingers. I shuddered on his lap, trembling until my body calmed. He stood, lifting me with him, and turned me around to kiss him.

“We’ll have a night together soon,” he promised, looking into my eyes. His expression was soft but hot at the same time, and his kiss was the same way when his lips took mine. “Goodnight, Ellie.”

“Goodnight,” I told him, and when he left with Luna I went into my bedroom to lie down. I couldn’t get him off my mind and hadn’t been able to since I’d met him. It made me worry to think how much I was letting my guard down around Lucas. I was letting him in, letting him get to me, and I knew from experience what that could mean—it would be heartbreaking to find out he only wanted me for sex or that he had been seeing someone else this whole time. I’d sworn to myself not to let him get too close but I already had, and at this point I knew there was no going back.