Jane arched her back, pressing her shapely, milky-white ass into my groin. Deepening an already deep angle. She was face down on the mattress, head down, ass up while I fucked her from behind.

I grabbed her, gathering her ass cheeks in my hands. I gave them a hard squeeze. She moaned. I grit my teeth. I didn’t want to come yet. I could last longer—I always lasted longer than this.

“Jane,” I growled. “Are you trying to kill me?”

She turned her head and threw me a wicked smile over her shoulder. Pink lips, white teeth, brown eyes. So confident. So…happy and real.

“I am,” she replied. “I want to make you scream bloody murder.”

I slid my hand up the furrow of her spine and wrapped her hair around my fist. I gave it a tug at the same moment I pounded into her, hard, making her tits bounce.

She moaned again.

Having sex with Jane would definitely come back to bite me in the ass down the road. But right now, it seemed like the best fucking decision I’d ever made.

“Let’s see who screams first,” I said.

I reached down and around and circled her clit, slowly, with my thumb as I thrust into her again and again and again. And then she was screaming, her cunt clenching around me, milking me, making me come half a heartbeat later.

I shouted, a sound I didn’t recognize. The orgasm pounded through me, so intense that for a second I swore I went blind, pulled under by the force of my release. Jane’s perfume—the feminine scent of it—filled my head and seeped into my skin.

This.

This was right.

Only it wasn’t. This was wrong on so many fucking levels. But I couldn’t seem to stop coming back for more.

I felt exposed. Stripped bare. Shaken.

I felt better. Everything—the sex and my mood and the orgasms—it was better than it’d ever been.

Without thinking I curled an arm around Jane’s waist. I pulled her to me as I collapsed onto her back, burying my face in the nape of her neck. Her body was warm and soft, arching further into mine with every breath she took.

My legs were trembling. I fell onto my side, bringing Jane with me so that we were spooning. My cock slipped out of her. The breath caught in her throat.

Shit, that’d probably hurt. I reached between her legs and gently cupped her pussy. Not sure why I did it. Like my fingers could really soothe her.

Maybe I just wanted to feel her. To figure out what it was about this cunt that made me lose myself like this. I knew I needed to pull away, I just…couldn’t.

Not yet.

“Sore?” I asked.

She nodded. “I can’t remember the last time I had this much sex.”

“So you’re saying you’ve been deprived.” I lifted my other hand to check my watch. Three forty-five in the morning. We’d been at it since—Christ, ten?

Had we really been fucking for six hours straight?

“I have been deprived,” she said. “Also, you’re a bloody animal. Don’t you ever get tired?”

I laughed. “Thank you. And no, I don’t. Although if I’m being honest, I’m a little sore, too.”

She was looking at me over her shoulder again. The brown in her eyes was translucent. Soft.

“Are you?” she said. “Honest?”

Jane was curled against me, naked and hot and vulnerable. She’d let me touch her in a way no one else ever had.

She was asking the question, but she’d already decided on the answer.

The wrong answer.

My pulse did this weird hiccupping thing. I blinked, looking away, and bit her shoulder.

“Honestly, I think we should get some sleep,” I said. I pressed the length of my middle finger into her slit, parting her folds. “Give this pussy a rest so you’re ready to go in the morning.”

Our arms and legs were tangled now. She was so warm. So perfect.

Her eyes were still on me. I met them. They were a little playful now.

“I didn’t invite you to actually sleep here,” she teased.

I grinned. “Are you really gonna make me beg?”

“No. But you can ask.”

“So bossy.”

“Ask.”

“As you wish, Highness.” I pulled her closer, then lifted the duvet and brought it over our bodies. “I’d like to make you scream again in the morning. Can I stay, please? So I can do that? I know it’s a lot to ask, but…”

Jane laughed, a vibration that passed from her torso to mine. “Yes,” she said, reaching for the lamp beside her bed. She turned it off. The darkness swam around us, quiet and complete. “I’d like that.”

I let my grin fall now that she couldn’t see it. I suddenly felt exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that was so deep and so loud I knew there’d be no sleep for me tonight.

“Me too,” I said.

It was warm underneath the blankets. Her bed was comfortable, and big. Big enough for us to spread out. But she stayed tucked into my body, her hair tickling my chest.

It didn’t take long before her breathing evened out. She was still. Comfortable. Dreaming.

Leaving the door to the proverbial henhouse wide open for me.

I felt the Warhol’s presence from across the room like an intruder. I knew it was there, I knew I had to take action, but I imagined that if I didn’t turn around, if I just ignored it and fell into this girl, fell asleep, it would disappear.

My heart was pounding.

Stealing the painting tonight wasn’t part of the plan. I was technically still in the recon phase of this job. I hadn’t thought things would progress so quickly with Jane. That I’d be breaking rules left and right for her.

But if I really wanted to, I could probably do it. The theft. A bold move, yes. But it would save us a lot of time. Even more money. And the sooner I got this thing done, the sooner Owen and I would be free.

I could do it.

My arm felt heavy as I gently pulled it out from under Jane. She shifted a little. I went still. Waited. Listened.

She was still sleeping.

I rolled over, my skin erupting in goose bumps at the sudden loss of warmth. I felt the condom, now cold and clammy, slide off my dick.

Jane stirred.

“Charlie?” she said, her voice soft with sleep. A little pleading.

Then she shivered, sucking a breath through her teeth.

I don’t know what it was. The shiver. The softness. The hopeful way she said my name. But something in that moment broke me. There was another crack inside my chest, same as last night. Like a bone being set back in its socket.

Fuck, I thought. That can’t be good.

The thought hit me—that if I stole the Warhol now, I wouldn’t see Jane again. Ever.

Honestly, taking off now would probably be the kind thing to do. Getting out of her life as quickly as possible. Causing the least amount of damage.

But the idea that this was the last time I’d ever hold her bothered me. A lot.

What would mom have me do here? I wanted Owen and I to be free to run the deli on our own. But I was making Jane feel better by being here. She was making me feel better by…just being better.

She was so much more than I deserved.

My reasons were hopelessly muddled. I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

So I did what I wanted. What I wanted, not what Jimmy did. Not what Charles Redford the billionaire did.

I turned back over and pulled her into my arms. She snuggled into me, and I could smell sex on her skin, sex and her perfume.

“I was only teasing,” she murmured sleepily. “About you asking to stay. Of course I want you to stay.”

“I’m staying, Highness.”

“Good. I’ve never had a pirate in my bed before, much less one who knows so much about butt stuff, so…”

God damn it, I was grinning. I didn’t want to. I wanted to wallow in the darkness by myself. But that was apparently impossible if Jane was in the room.

I kissed her shoulder. “So?”

She took a breath through her nose, let it out. Slowly. “So I feel like I should keep you around a little longer.”

You shouldn’t, I wanted to say.

“You should,” I said instead.

There it was again—that crack inside my chest. Only this time I gave in to it.

I surrendered to the fact that this job was going to end badly no matter what happened.

Might as well enjoy my time with Jane while it lasted.