The water dripped. One. Two. Three. Four.

Vaughn slammed his hand on the counter. “What was that, Em? What?”

“That was me trying to help you.” I threw a kitchen towel on the other side of the sink and spun on my heels. “Didn’t you like the roasted chicken?”

He growled. “I don’t care about the menu. I want to know how and why.” He shook his head. “Why was Paul Auclair in our apartment? How do you even know him? When did you meet Aubrey?”

“Why didn’t you tell me who Eloise really was?” I fired back, ignoring all his questions.

He stopped. “This was Eloise? The whole thing was her?”

“Yes.”

He hung his head. “What did she say? What did she tell you exactly?”

“That’s your response?” I pulled the high heels from my feet and tossed them in a heap near the couch. “You introduced me to her like she was a normal person. A French person. You lied to me when you said she was our realtor. She is clearly not a realtor.”

“It was her lie, not mine.”

“You went along with it.” I put my hands on my hips. “You let me believe she was something she wasn’t. You pretended you didn’t know her. Instead, the entire time, she was evaluating me. Watching me. Analyzing us. How could you let that happen?”

“It wasn’t my call.”

“You said we’d be honest with each other. You swore there wouldn’t be any more secrets. Eloise was a secret. Living in the same building as Paul was a secret. Where you work. What you’re doing. They are all secrets.”

“It’s my job,” he roared.

I stepped backward before I said something horrible. “Today, Blackwing gave me a job and I took it. For you. You think I sought them out? You think I wanted this?”

“No. I don’t want you anywhere near them. If they ask again, the answer is no. It’s always no.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “I didn’t have a choice.”

He huffed. “This is a game you don’t want to play, Emily. Blackwing is fucking with me. I get it. But I want you to stay out of it. Don’t go near them, especially Eloise.”

“I didn’t. She came to me. She found me.” I stormed back to the kitchen. Vaughn followed me. “I was trying to buy a damn coffee table.”

I thought I saw a flash of concern in his eyes. “Tell me what she said. Everything she said.” His voice was calmer.

I scraped the leftover bits of kale and spinach off the salad plates. “She said you weren’t acting quickly enough. She said it was my fault and I needed to do something to help you with your assignment.”

“That’s—” He stopped. “Ok. What else?”

“She said that I needed to invite the Auclairs for dinner. She told me Paul was at work and that Aubrey was home alone. It had to be tonight. I couldn’t put it off.”

Vaughn sighed. “Did she tell you why?”

“Not exactly. I tried to ask questions, but she wasn’t giving me much to go on.”

He shook his head. “This is fucking insane. You are supposed to be off limits.”

I stopped scraping plates. “She thinks I could help. That I could be useful.”

“No.” His eyes were piercing.

“Why not? You don’t think I can handle it?”

Vaughn buried his face in his hands. After a few breaths, he looked at me. “You are the one good thing in my life. The light. Remember? I’m not going to let them do this to you. Stay away from Eloise.”

“No one has done anything to me. I hosted a dinner party. It’s the most productive thing I’ve done in a month.”

“You want to work for Blackwing because you need a hobby?”

“No.” I didn’t know whether to feel insulted or humiliated.

“Let me guess. Eloise told you how brilliant you are. How you’re wasting your talents playing housewife. Was it something along those lines?”

My mouth hung open. “So you disagree?”

“No. Hell no. I know how smart you are. You’re smart enough to know she’s manipulating you. It’s what she does.”

“Just because she was trying to manipulate me doesn’t mean there wasn’t some truth in what she said. What am I doing? Picking out paint colors? Fabric swatches? Planning dinners with roasted chickens? Who am I here?”

“Babe, it hasn’t been very long.” His tone was gentler now.

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Maybe not for you, but for me three weeks of decorating has felt like three years. I haven’t looked at a court case. I haven’t discussed law. I haven’t helped anyone do anything. Except this dinner tonight. This was supposed to help you with your job. And even that didn’t require tremendous amounts of brain cells.” I pressed my hands into the counter. The stone was cool against my palms. “I saw the newspaper in your office. Are you going to pretend you didn’t hide it from me?”

“I thought it would upset you.”

Part of me was relieved he didn’t try to cover it up. “You know what working on Lana Foley’s case meant to me.”

“Yeah. I also know there’s nothing you can do about it. Reading about it is only going to make you want to—”

“Want to what?” I pressed.

He stared at me.

“What? You think it will make me want to read more? Call Lana? Go online? What? What could have possibly been so terrible about me reading the updates on the case? What did you think I’d do?” I tried to catch my breath.

“Leave,” he answered.

I blinked. “Vaughn.”

He rounded the island, catching my hip in his hand. “It sounds stupid.”

I nodded. “It is stupid.”

“At least we agree on something tonight.”

I didn’t mean to smile, but I did anyway. “One thing.” I wasn’t giving in on anything else.

“I should have told you there was an update in the case, but I know you. You aren’t satisfied with part of the story.”

“No I’m not.”

“Even now?”

“Especially now,” I admitted. “It’s hard to trust someone else with her case. To know that I’m not taking Senate Mitcherson to court.”

“It’s not like you can go back.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I know I left her and all the women I was trying to help.” The dishes were a way to keep my hands busy, but I wasn’t in the mood to clean or straighten. I wanted to climb in bed and pretend today hadn’t happened.

I walked past Vaughn, silently making my way to the bedroom. I was exhausted. The rush of adrenaline that had taken over all afternoon was gone. Between the wine and the fight, I didn’t have any energy left.

“That’s it?” Vaughn followed me.

I stepped out of the flowy pants and peeled my shirt over my head. I picked up my toothbrush and toothpaste.

“You aren’t going to answer my questions. What’s the point?” I turned on the water and squirted the mint paste on the toothbrush. “I just want to go to bed.”

“The point is that you are valuable to Blackwing now. They gave you an assignment. You took it, and damn it, you did exactly what they wanted. Very successfully.”

I spit in the sink. I looked at Vaughn’s reflection over my shoulder. “I was successful?”

“You got me into Paul’s lab, I’d say you knocked it out of the park.”

I dropped my toothbrush in the holder and turned around. “That was what you needed? Access to his lab?”

He nodded. “For this stage. Yes.”

“So I was helpful?” I felt a new sense of adrenaline surge. It was different than what had fueled me all day. It snaked through my veins slowly at first, then jolted my system.

“Yes.”

I wrapped my hands around his waist. “Let me help you more.” My nails dug into his back, pressing through his shirt.

He groaned. “It’s not going to happen. You have had your first and last job with Blackwing.”

I began to work the buttons on the front of his shirt. I pushed the sleeves off his massive shoulders. He stood in front of me, his bronze skin sculpted and contoured. I ran a finger from his sternum to his navel.

Vaughn tangled his hands in the back of my hair. “This won’t change my mind.”

I released his belt buckle, twisting the zipper until his pants were on the floor.

I bit my lip. “It might.” I shoved the black boxer briefs over his thighs. He kicked them off his ankles. “I could be valuable to you.”

His breath was hot against my neck. He kissed behind my ear, dragging his lips over my skin. He quickly tugged my panties to the floor before he lifted me on the counter. I moaned when his hand slid between my legs, spreading my knees wide.

“You are valuable to me. You know that. But you’re not going to work for me. It won’t happen.”

Maybe it was crazy, but I had already given up everything that mattered. Why couldn’t I work with Vaughn? We could be a team. Then there would never be any secrets. No more nights like tonight when he was blindsided. When I was trying to navigate a situation without all the information. His life would be our life. It did sound crazy, but was it any crazier than what I had done so far?

He unclasped the hook on my bra and the straps fell from my shoulders.

He lowered his mouth to my nipple. He lashed his tongue over it with a heated stroke. “You understand, Em?”

I pressed the back of his head to my chest. I wanted more. I wanted to feel every second of every touch. Of every lighting strike. Of every orgasm. There was something intoxicating about walking through a dangerous situation that had turned me on. I couldn’t explain it, but I was surging with a new type of power.

I lifted his square jaw toward my face. “Are you going to take me to bed?”

“No.”

I let out a ragged breath of pleasure when he pushed his cock to my entrance, stretching me with his incredible thickness. Vaughn gripped my hips and plunged inside me with a single powerful thrust. His hands rounded under my ass, lifting me off the counter every few seconds.

My legs bounced wildly in the air as he pumped inside me. I sought his lips. Our mouths collided and our tongues thrashed with fierce hunger. We climbed higher and higher. Our bodies knew this dance, but every time, we found something new. Something surprising. A new reward for giving in to every impulse we had.

Vaughn pressed his hand into the mirror, angling his hips downward in an impressive move. I whimpered with the intensity. I looked at him, but his gaze was focused on our reflection. He pressed a kiss on my lips before sliding his cock from me and settling my feet on the cold marble floor.

“I want you to see what I see,” he growled.

I gasped when he spun me around and planted my hands on the counter. I looked up. I caught the fire in his eyes. The animalistic intensity dripping from his body. I studied us. My nipples pointed. Our bodies flushed. Sweaty. My hair fell along my shoulders.

Just as my eyes landed on Vaughn’s gaze again, he slowly knelt behind me. His fingers cupped the edges of my ass, opening my pussy wide. I felt exposed. Possessed.

“Oh God.” My head rolled to the side as he pushed his tongue inside me. His fingers worked my clit, making me jerk and rock, wanting to come like this. I dared to open my eyes and watch myself.

My breath came in short gasps as he continued to spread my folds, lick and suck, teasing me into a frenzy.

I slammed my hands on the counter, knowing I was going to shatter. That every last thought I had would become tiny slivers, cascading through my body. The only thing I would know was him. What he did to me. What he could do to me.

“Please,” I begged.

He took one last slow lick before planting a kiss on my lower back and then my shoulder.

I panted, waiting for him. Our eyes met in the mirror. The hunger. The pain. The satisfaction of what our bodies could do together.

I was walking a tightrope. Only one more touch and I’d fall. He had left my core needy and desperate for release.

“Please,” I moaned.

The smolder in his eyes was enough to make me come. He made a circle at my entrance, coating himself in my juices before burying his cock inside me. I screamed out as the orgasm whacked me with a jolt of pleasure so electric I couldn’t feel my feet. My knuckles turned white as I flattened my hands into the counter.

Vaughn’s exhales were hot and long as he fucked me harder and faster.

“Oh shit,” I hissed, knowing another orgasm was peaking.

He wrapped a strong arm under me while he pumped in and out, racing toward his own climax. I clamped down on his cock when he let out a howl.

“Fuck,” he whispered. His heart hammered against my back. We stood for a moment, trying to regain our balance and process what makeup sex had meant to us.

Had we made up? Was I still angry? Had I done anything to change his mind?

Vaughn exhaled. “Shower?”

I nodded, frowning when our bodies were disconnected again.

He walked to the shower door and reached inside, turning the faucets on. He pulled a couple of towels from the linen closet and laid them on the teak bench outside the shower.

“You coming?” He motioned toward the shower.

I walked gingerly toward the hot water. My legs had finally regained feeling. Epic orgasms had a way of robbing me of immediate activity. Vaughn held the door for me as I stepped under the water. It felt good against my skin. Vaughn lathered my back.

“Are we good?” he asked.

I nodded, turning to face him. “That was good,” I teased.

“Hey, you know what I mean. The sex is always good. Are we done fighting?”

“Are you going to let me help you?”

His hands dropped to his sides. “No.”

“Then we aren’t done fighting.”

“Damn it, Em.”

I turned back around to wash the bubbles from my body. “I’m not mad. I want to help. There is a difference, you know.”

Vaughn rinsed off and reached for our towels. He tossed one to me.

“Why are you so hell-bent on this?” He ran the towel over his hair.

“Why are you so against it?”

We turned off the light and wandered into the bedroom.

“I can keep you safe if I can keep you out of Blackwing. I can’t control them. This I can control.”

We crawled under the covers, our naked bodies aligning. I nestled against his chest. I loved the clean smell of soap on his skin.

“I don’t want you to think of me as something to control. You have to realize how that sounds.”

“I don’t want to control you. I want to keep you safe. You don’t know what you’re trying to get involved in. You have no idea.”

“Then tell me.” I pushed up on my hands to see him. “Let me make the decision.”

“You want me to tell you who Paul Auclair is?”

“Yes. God, yes. That would be a good place to start.”

“All right.”

“All right?” My eyes bulged.

“You’re a fucking siren. You know that?”

I twisted my lips together. I didn’t care what he called me right now as long as he told me why we were in Paris. I wanted to know his assignment. Why Paul Auclair was his target, and what I could do about it.