One week slid into two.

Sly and I would go out for pizza one night, and then he’d surprise me with a candlelit dinner the next.

I wouldn’t dare let myself think that he was trying to woo me, or that we were dating per se, although apparently, half of Vegas did. Tonight, we were out for a walk, and a photographer snapped a picture of us together. Sly flipped him off in the next shot.

“Aren’t you worried those fans of yours will see that?” I asked him, and felt a brief wave of anxiety that tensed up my spine and spread through me. I didn’t want to be seen either. Not that publicly. Not if that photo could end up being seen by the one man I wanted to stay the hell away from.

“Nope. Yet another benefit of being known as a surly bastard. They don’t just accept my bad behavior, they expect it.” He tightened his hold around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss, slamming his mouth down on mine as he ran one hand down my back, eliminating even the hint of air between our bodies. When he finished kissing me breathless, he murmured against my lips, “They might as well see that, too.”

Later that day in his suite, I found myself opening up to him about some of the things that made me so uptight. It all started when I went down on him and when it ended, as I sat with my head on his thigh and he combing his fingers through my hair, Sly said, “I just don’t get it. Two weeks ago, you were a virgin and now you’ve got me wondering how I could’ve turning you into such a sex-hungry seductress. I didn’t just ruin you, I corrupted you. But I fucking love it.”

It had made me laugh self-consciously, but it had led to a talk about…me.

After everything he’d revealed to me, how could I hold back on him?

How could I not tell him about the time when I’d been twelve years old and walked in on my mother getting it on with the guy who did the maintenance on the pool, or how she’d had given me a vibrator for my not so sweet sixteenth birthday? Or her gift of condoms the first time I had a date to a dance. The woman was a hippie swinger to the power of crazy, thinking back on that now. Thank heavens I didn’t turn out to have three baby daddies and an STD before I hit my twenties. Maybe seeing her at such an extreme end of the sexual spectrum shot me to the complete other end of the scale.

“Sounds like your mom has her own special way of doing fucked up shit,” Sly told me.

“She does.” I felt guilty confessing that. “Mom was the baby of the family…a late-life surprise and from what I can tell, she ran pretty wild. Didn’t have much in the way of discipline or anything.” Rolling my eyes, I glanced at him. “She and Angel’s mom are sisters. The two of them are like…they’re night and day, seriously. Angel would end up grounded for bringing home a rare C on her report card, but me? I could skip school two or three days a week and Mom wouldn’t even care. I’d get a pat on the head and she’d say something like, Well, kids do need the occasional mental health day…try to go tomorrow, love.” I squashed the lingering frustration and shrugged. “She loves me, I know she does. But she’s so free-spirited, and wrapped up in her own weird life, I’m sometimes an afterthought.”

“At least they got the brains to love you.”

A few days later, he asked me to join him at a club.

When I asked what kind of club, his answer had made my eyes bug out.

“A BDSM club.”

Wow, did he have to do some talking to convince me to go, but he took my face in his hands and whispered, “As fucking sexy as you are, you should be able to do anything you want and not feel self-conscious. Now if you’re not curious…tell me, and I’ll let it go. But if you are…”

So we went.

I left there so aroused, we didn’t even make it back to the hotel before I looked over at him.

That was when I found out that Sly didn’t have so much as a bit of modesty in him. In the parking garage, after his clever fingers unlocked a door marked Employees Only, I found myself face first against the door, my skirt pushed to my waist, and then I was stuffed full of cock as he thrust up into me.

“You spent the entire time walking around looking like a kid in a candy store…look but don’t touch…and you wanted to touch, didn’t you?” Sly muttered in my ear, that raw, low voice of his like another caress on my senses.

“Yes.”

“Other men there wanted you. Could you tell?” He slid a hand around and thrust his fingers through my curls, seeking out my clit. “They looked at you and they wanted…a few women, too. Could you tell?”

“Yes.”

“And you liked it, didn’t you, baby?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” I admitted. Then I turned my head around, craning it until I could brush my lips against his cheek. “But I only wanted you.”

He swelled inside me, so thick and heavy, it almost hurt.

“Good girl.”

He drove into me harder and harder until I went screaming over the edge, then he followed.

Not even a minute later, he was tugging me out of the dark room. I had no idea what was inside there, nor did I care.

On the way to his car, he tossed something in the trash. The condom, probably. And maybe even my panties.

I had been wearing a pair, but they were gone now.

I didn’t even care.

* * *

“It’s just a walk.”

The morning after I’d gone to the BDSM club with Sly, I stood at the main entrance of Casino Torrid, staring out at the strip and trying to convince myself I could go outside and take a walk.

I’d been taking short walks with the baby that just involved strolling back and forth in front of the hotel, maybe going up the escalator and circling back down, but I always stayed close.

I was beginning to feel like a prisoner and I was the one who’d crafted the walls.

I needed to stop letting fear rule me.

I’d do that when I stepped outside the perimeter I’d made for myself.

Sometimes, Topher still called.

I told myself I should just get rid of the phone, and change my number. But a part of me had some morbid idea that if he was calling me, it was because he was still looking for me, which meant…he hadn’t found me. I was safe.

He hadn’t been seen here.

It had been a couple of months. Surely, if he was going to find me…

“Stop torturing yourself and just go outside,” I muttered.

Sly was right.

He’d told me I should be able to do anything I wanted and not feel self-conscious and this wasn’t a matter of self-consciousness but fear. Still, the same principle mattered. Topher hadn’t been able to stop me before. I hadn’t let him. I wasn’t going to let the memory of the fear he’d inspired in me stop me now.

Emboldened, I stepped outside.

Sucking in a breath of air, I looked up, then down the strip, trying to decide what to do next. I had absolutely no idea what action I wanted to take or how to go about it, but I knew where I needed to start. With a broad smile, I headed toward the replica of the Eiffel Tower I’d seen so many times.

* * *

Three hours later, five hundred dollars richer—it would’ve been a thousand, but I spent five hundred on a new purse—I started to make my way back to Casino Torrid. Home, I realized. Crazy, but I was starting to equate a hotel with the word home.

And Sly, I realized abruptly.

I was falling for him in the worst possible way and it was something I had to keep to myself.

As good as we were together—at least I thought we were good—we weren’t getting involved in anything other than a physical relationship. He’d made it clear he didn’t want anything more.

I wasn’t going to burden him with the fact that I was falling for him.

I swung around the bottom of the escalator, ready to take the next flight down, smiling a little despite the maudlin turn my thoughts had taken. I glanced up when a group of young women—girls, really, broke out into shrieks of laughter.

That was when I saw him.

That familiar, despised face.

Wavy golden brown hair framed a face that might’ve been pleasant, but the intensity in his otherwise mild blue eyes turned his everyday Joe appearance into one that made others shy away. It was obvious, even as he stood there. A mom with her two kids guided them to the stairs rather than get closer and the giggling girls abruptly went silent when they saw him.

Topher didn’t seem to even notice.

He was staring at me, that strange smile of his appearing on his lips.

He took one step.

I all but flew down the last escalator that would put me on street level. I took off running, then, glad I hadn’t stopped to do anymore shopping. The new purse I had banged against my leg in its sack and if it had gotten in my way, I would’ve dropped it without batting an eye.

At the very last moment, I kept myself from crossing into Casino Torrid. The strip was huge. There were thousands of hotel rooms, hundreds of hotels in Las Vegas. He couldn’t know where I was staying, could he?

But I wasn’t risking anything. I ducked into the hotel across the street. I didn’t dare look behind me, not yet. I walked straight to the security guards—I’d learned to identify them by hanging out so much at Casino Torrid. Security guards all had a type.

The one who noticed me first gave me a nod then. “Ma’am?”

Pulling Topher’s image to mind, I said, “There’s a man back there who’s been following me. He has wavy, brown hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans.”

His eyes didn’t leave my face. “Nobody fitting that description came in after you.”

I almost sagged in relief. Nodding my thanks at him, I smiled, feeling more than a little shaky. “Is there any way you can point me to the taxi area? I’m staying at the Torrid across the street but I don’t want to risk him seeing me come out of here.”

“Good call.” He called for someone to come take his position. “I’ll walk you down and find you a car. Will an Uber work? Most of them have tinted windows so even if he’s watching that will make it more difficult.”

* * *

A walk that would’ve taken me five minutes was a twenty-minute Uber ride.

But I knew every second was worth it. The security guard had gotten my name, then exchanged a few words with the Uber driver, and once I got into the car, he pulled his phone from his pocket.

I didn’t think much of it until I got to Casino Torrid twenty minutes later and found a small army of security guards waiting for me.

They surrounded me and hustled me inside. I was so thoroughly surrounded, I couldn’t see beyond their bodies. No way was anyone seeing me inside their living, breathing wall.

Once inside, the security wall fell away, all save for two, and the shorter one turned to me. What he lacked in height, he made up for in presence and sheer…bulk. He looked to be half as wide as I was tall and I’d bet my eyeteeth he was pure muscle.

“Ms. Montrose, I’m Stefan, one of the heads of security. Mac briefed me on the situation some time ago.” He hesitated, looking me over. “I’d ask if you were sure, but you look rather shaken.”

I nodded.

“Security across the street notified us.” He offered a card. “Put that number in your phone. It’s my direct line. If you ever see him again while you’re out on the strip, call me. But do it only after you do exactly what you did—get inside one of the casinos and find security. The hotels here take the safety of their guests very seriously.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.” I offered a weak smile and brushed my hair back from my face.

“Can I ask a couple of questions?” He offered a conciliatory look. “I know you’re bound to be upset, but it will help me prepare my team in case there is any trouble.”

“That’s fine.” I nodded, feeling more and more silly. I’d seen him on the street. In broad daylight. What had I expected him to do? Grab me on the street in broad daylight?

* * *

Ten minutes later, I left the security guards to head up to my room. I had no doubt I was under their very watchful eye. They had pictures of Topher that had been passed to every member of the security team and the bell staff and the people who handled check-ins. If he tried to check in, he would be recognized, I’d been assured.

That was assuming he didn’t try to change his looks, I was assuming.

That was why Stefan had asked about whether Topher had done anything to change how he looked.

The thought twisted my guts inside me and I found myself hurrying across the lobby floor to where the elevators were. Without thinking, I went to the elevator that went directly to the floors for LeVan, Sly, and Mac and I punched in the code that Sly had given me.

I don’t know why—I wasn’t thinking.

Okay, I was, but only on the most basic level.

I was thinking…I want him to hold me for a little bit.

The doors slid open and I jumped a little at the sight of Sly. He looked at me, a smile forming, but it faded fast. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

I took a step toward him, which had me in the elevator.

He clearly didn’t care, because the doors closed on us. Neither of us noticed it whisking upward as I threw my arms around him, the shakes hitting me hard and fast.

“He’s here,” I said, my voice a trembling mess. “I saw him, Sly. Topher is here. He was just…standing there and watching me.”

His arms came around me, a strong, secure, tight band. “Baby,” he murmured against my temple. He rained a string of kisses across my cheek, each one a comforting touch. There was no seduction in the touch and when he reached my mouth, I sucked in a breath, all but sealing his mouth to mine.

He kissed me gently, lightly.

The doors slid open.

We both glanced up.

Sly went rigid, but I barely noticed.

Mac stepped inside and I continued to cling to Sly, still shaking. “Can I stay in your place for a little while?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice gritty.

I didn’t think anything of it, either.

He pulled away, but not entirely. Taking my hand, he stood there, rubbing my inner wrist with his thumb. Just as the doors opened, he leaned in and murmured, “It will be okay, Emmy.”