We feast on cheeses and fruit, not quite acknowledging the buildings that peak around us like mountains. She trusted me enough to stay on the roof, and for now that will be enough.

The sun sets in a glory of golden blue while she sips champagne, her gaze studiously on my own. I fill my own glass and take a drink, because I need the courage more than her. She’s already the bravest woman I know. I’m the one wondering how I care about her so much after so little time. Wondering what I’ll do when she’s done with me.

I may have decided not to use her for revenge, tonight, but that does not mean I’ll ask no questions. In fact I’m brimming with questions. Running over with them. I set the glass down carefully, wondering how much to ask. Needing to know the answers.

“Will you tell me now why you wanted to lose your virginity in this way? I know there’s more you aren’t telling me. More than loneliness.” I suspected that from the very first night, a secret motivation that drives her, something close to desperation. It would have stopped a moral man from touching her.

Unfortunately for her I gave up any semblance of morality long ago.

She sighs, looking out at the city. Has she ever seen it without a panel of glass blocking it? A cool wind touches my skin. It gives her hair a sense of ceaseless motion, as if it’s alive. “There is a reason. I mean, I was curious. I’ve always been curious, but when I turned twenty…”

At her pause I force myself to stay silent. This is her story; I have to let her tell it. But I do take her hand in mine, because that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? My body and the comfort it can bring. It’s all I have to offer.

Her hand squeezes back. “Someone proposed to me.”

Shock tightens my stomach, though I don’t know why I should be surprised. She’s a beautiful, smart, extremely desirable young woman. Even trapped in her castle, she has suitors. There’s a churning inside me, a strange mixture of jealousy and loss. She was never mine.

“What was your answer?” I’m pleased that my tone comes out light.

“I said I’d think about it, but I don’t want to marry him.”

Worry furrows her expression, and I feel myself grow hot from anger. “Are you afraid to tell him no?”

If there is someone threatening her I have no problem standing up to this faceless, nameless asshole. I may live a life of ease and luxury these days, in high-rise hotels and satin sheets, but I was a street mongrel once. I fought and scraped and clawed my way through Tangier’s back alleys. A rich frat boy in Tanglewood will not stand a chance.

She looks away with a slight shake of her head, not quite agreeing, but not refuting it either. “This is going to sound weird, but I had this feeling that he only wanted me because…”

The final piece falls into place, making acid rise in my throat. “Because you’re a virgin.”

“I mean he didn’t say that, but it felt like that was part of the reason. There’s never been anything romantic between us. He’s been with lots of women in the papers. So why would he propose to me unless there was something different about me.”

There are many different things about Beatrix Cartwright, and they have nothing to do with the hymen that I took from her. But I do not point that out. If she doubts the motives of this man, then he is not worthy of her. “Have you told him that you are no longer a virgin?”

If he wanted her innocence, he might become angry when she tells him.

She seems to sense my concern. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Then why not simply tell him no?”

“Our relationship is… complicated. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

A sudden suspicion makes my blood pressure spike. “This man who proposed. Is he perhaps the same person who became your guardian when you were a child?”

She looks stricken. “How do you know about that?”

I force myself not to growl in frustration. “Someone must have done so. You were underage.”

“Yes, he was my dad’s business partner. And he became my guardian.”

“And he wants to marry you?” This time I do not manage to sound light or calm. I’m furious.

“It’s not like we were ever close. He didn’t become a parent to me. He was more like… the money person. He was the custodian of my trust. And he made sure I had everything I needed.”

If he had really done that, Bea would be able to leave this hotel. “He must be older than you.”

A miserable shrug. “I suppose. That’s not the reason I don’t want to marry him, though. I just don’t love him, you know? Not even as a guardian, really. And definitely not as a husband.”

It’s almost impossible to control my breathing. I’m like a bull, snorting and pawing at the ground. The image of anyone hurting Bea, coercing her, making her feel small—the red cape. “You don’t need a reason to tell him no.”

“I know that I can say no. That I should say no, but I think… once he finds out I’m not a virgin anymore, he’ll lose interest. And that will be easier. That’s why I called the service that first night. Why I wanted sex without the pleasure.”

My stomach drops. “Who owns the penthouse suite, Bea?”

“He owns the hotel.”

“So you have to marry him or he’ll kick you out?” For any other heiress that wouldn’t be a hardship, but for a scared young woman with anxiety and agoraphobia? Yes, that’s a sufficient threat.

My blood runs hot, because only a true bastard would give her that choice.

“He didn’t say that,” she says, defensive.

“But you’re worried that would happen.”

“I’d rather avoid the problem.”

And that sums up the reason she’s still in the penthouse, why the biggest step she’s taken in ten years is onto this rooftop. Because she wants to avoid fear instead of facing it. In some ways she’s incredibly strong—the music she makes, the empire she’s built from it.

Even hiring me, a stranger, to do intimate things with her, fighting years of isolation, took a strength most people don’t have. In other ways she’s still a scared little girl, trapped by her grief.

I brush the back of my fingers against her cheek, pushing aside the idea of this man trying to marry Bea, letting go for a few blissful moments the idea of revenge. Ignoring the knowledge that at some point, I’ll be the problem Bea wants to avoid. Dread forms knots in my stomach, but it can’t touch the immediacy of feeling her skin against mine.

She turns her face, pressing a kiss against my knuckles.

“Here?” I ask softly, giving her the option to retreat. It’s the better part of valor, after all, and she’s shown plenty of valor tonight. Being here on the roof is a new place to her, even if it’s technically part of the building she’s called home for over a decade.

She does not look away from my eyes, her green ones dark as emeralds in the final glory of dusk. “Something to remember this night.”

Even she can feel the sands of time slipping away.

I lean close to her, pressing a kiss to the constellations across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes are closed, so I kiss one eyelid and then the other. She blows out a soft breath, still not looking at me, but feeling me. She’s so attuned to me in this moment that she knows when my gaze lowers to her mouth. Her lips part, and I make her wait. Cruel, this. I make her wait while I study those plush pink lips. There’s even the faintest spray of freckles over her lips.

When I kiss her I imagine I can taste them, these stars. They taste like woman and salt and something elemental to the universe, as if I’m taking sustenance from her. Nourishing myself with her flavor.

“Look up, Bea.”

She looks at me, and that should be gratifying to me. It’s not quite an accident that I ended up in a profession that amounts of exhibitionism with a different woman every night. They like to look at me, and I enjoy being looked at. But I want something different for her. Something better.

“Up,” I say, giving her a tap on the chin.

Obediently her lashes lift. She looks up at the stars and lets out a shuddery breath. “How do people do this every day? They walk outside and they don’t even worry? It seems impossible.”

“You do things that are impossible,” I tell her, tracing a finger lazily down her jaw. “You make beautiful music that millions of people want to watch.”

And you make me dream of a different life than this.

Her eyes become wet with tears, but she does not look away from the dark sky. “Anything could happen. We’re not protected out here.”

And then despite my best efforts I cannot help but to think of her. Of my mother who could not even find safety in the small rooms we rented. “Safety isn’t real, Bea. It’s a dream.”

A tear runs down her cheek. “Why would you say that?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, immediately contrite. That isn’t for her. That’s only for me, the sense that I will never be safe, that I will never be enough. That I can never make up for being a scared little boy in the closet.

She shakes her head. “No, don’t be. You’re right. Oh God, you’re right.”

I can’t convey to her all I wish to say—that she should be free, that she should be mine. Only one of those will come true. “No, I was foolish. But of course safety is real.”

Except that I’m lying, and we both know it. Safety is a dream that only children have. Both of us grew up too soon, aware that everything we knew before would never come true.

Her eyes are as wide and as mysterious as the universe itself. She is a galaxy and a black hole, creation and destruction in one female-shaped body. “Dream with me,” she says.

That’s the only invitation I need. I lay her back on the picnic blanket, resting her head on my folded-up jacket. Unveiling her body to the moonlight has a sense of rightness, as if I’ve been waiting all my life to see her pale curves made luminescent, as if she’s been waiting forever to be bared.

Sailors used the night sky to guide their path. That’s what I become this night, finding my way over the slope of her breast to the tight point of her nipple, following down the flat of her stomach. They are signposts along the way, but my direction is the North Star. For this I must spread her legs with my hands, push her thighs apart and part the copper-colored curls.

The feel of her clit against my tongue is almost enough to burn. Too bright for mere mortals. I curl myself around her, letting her feel my desire, my devotion. She’s the one who moves first, finding friction against my tongue. Yes, mon ami. Take what you need. Fuck me.

I don’t have to say the words, because she’s finding freedom underneath the stars. Finding safety in this shared dream, where she can rock her hips against my face, pulling her own orgasm to the surface.

Two fingers slide in easily. It’s a little harder to fit the third, because she’s still tight. Still untried, so I move her softly—easy, easy. I twist my fingers inside her to the same rhythm she’s given me, because she is the one playing me. I may have arrived with my bedroom tricks and my sexual experience, but they were only an ordinary song. She’s the one who turned it into something new, something beautiful. Something uniquely her own, the way she does at the piano every day.

She comes with a wild sound at the sky, her head thrown back.

There’s something animalistic about her like this, naked and primal. It calls to something primal in me, and I tear off my clothes with an urgency that causes the bespoke shirt to rip. And I don’t fucking care. All I need is to feel her against me, around me, underneath me. Nothing else matters.

I mount her with a need unlike anything I’ve ever known, barely tugging on a condom before I press inside her, expecting to find relief, surcease in the wet heat of her pussy. It only drives me higher, the swollen pressure, only makes me need more, feeling her dampness at the base of my cock.

She doesn’t watch the night sky anymore. She’s looking in my eyes, but her expression holds the same wonder, the same wariness. What does she see inside me? There’s a vast emptiness there, too. Only she has the stars. Only with her is there ever any light.

“Once more,” I tell her. “Come again, so I can feel you on my cock. That’s how I want to come, Bea. Against my will, with your beautiful body forcing it out of me.”

Her eyelids lower. “Make me.”

So I angle her hips to receive my thrust in the right place and then drive home. It only takes a single thrust before she’s panting, squealing, squirming to get away. It’s too acute, this kind of pleasure, but the challenge can only be answered this way. Again and again. I fuck her until she comes with an almost guttural sound, grasping at my shoulders, clawing at them as if we’ll never get close enough.

The pain would be enough to wake me from a dream, so I relish the red marks she leaves on my skin, proof that I must be awake even as an orgasm rips through my body like a shooting star, too fierce to be contained by my body, rushing out of me like a thousand fiery sparks. I convulse over Bea’s body, collapsing onto her because she’s the only relief I’ve found in a wide-open universe, the only light in a too-dark sky.

We’re spread out on the seat cushions, which are the only thing separating us from cool, hard concrete. That and the dubious protection of my jacket as a blanket, but I’ve never been warmer. The residual heat between us simmers in the air. Bea rests her head on my arm, looking up at the stars. They’re beautiful, I know. Luminous and ever-expanding, but I can’t take my eyes off her profile. The faint constellations of her freckles glow a thousand times more.

Without the physical sensation the dread rushes back, gnawing and fierce. The realization that we have very little time left. Maybe only tonight. My hands tighten instinctively around Bea before I can catch myself. I release her, right away, pretending to run my hands down her arms, but she looks back at me with too much awareness.

“Is it difficult?” she asks, so soft I almost don’t hear. “Doing this?”

My standard answer would be something charming and glib. Of course I do not mind having sex. It’s the easiest job in the world. Something keeps me from giving her pretend, because it’s not always easy. The sex is good, but the façade… it wears on me. Having to be someone else.

I don’t want to do that with her. “Sometimes.”

Her fingers draw lazy circles on my chest. “If you aren’t attracted to a woman?”

“That’s rarely a problem. I love women. Their bodies. Their hearts. Their minds. The way they’re so wrapped up saving the world that it almost hurts them to focus on their own pleasure.”

She looks skeptical. “There’s never a woman you don’t want to…”

“There’s not much honor in my profession,” I try to explain. “But if there’s one part… a woman who doesn’t feel beautiful. One who isn’t attractive, according to what society tells her. Showing her that she deserves to be cherished is something worth doing.”

“Is that what I am to you?” she asks. “A charity case?”

There’s a wild thump in my heart. Surprise. “Non.”

“What am I then?”

“You’re a gift.”

Bea rests her chin on my shoulder, watching me with too much knowledge. “What about you?”

“I do feel beautiful,” I say blandly, a small attempt at humor.

She gives me a shy smile. “You deserve to be cherished.”

My stomach clenches, hard enough that I’m afraid the baguette and brie will make a swift return. It’s no secret that women want me for the way I look, for the way I make them feel. No one wants what’s inside. There’s nothing here. A hollow space where a person might be.

I look up at the stars, counting them, distracting myself from the earnest woman, warm and willing in my arms. As if I won’t dream of this later.

The tickle of her hair is my only warning. Her lips are warm and lush against my chest. Every muscle in my body tenses as she places another kiss, this one an inch lower. My cock does not mind that it has just been spent; by the third kiss it’s already hard again.

Her lips are heaven alone, but the brush of skin as she moves over me drives me insane. The whisper of hair over my body makes me mad. “God,” I groan. “What are you doing?”

“Can’t you tell?”

She’s halfway down the plane of my stomach, working across the ridges of my abs with clear appreciation. My cock flexes as if anticipating where she’ll go next.

Down, down, down.

“You can’t—” I’m panting now, almost incoherent. “You don’t have to—”

Her smile is devilish, almost enough to make me come from the inherent feminine power within. “What did you tell me? It’s rather embarrassing how much I want to.”

My breath hitches. “Bea.”

“But only with your permission.”

This will be more than a blowjob. That much I know, because I want her more than air. I’m already moved by her belief in me. Humbled that she would give me her virginity, in every way. There won’t be any recovering from her after this. “Please.”

Before I’ve finished speaking the word her lips touch me. She tastes me with an innocence that makes me harder, the peach blush of her lips impossibly pale against the dark red arousal at my crown. First there is only a kiss, far too quick, the way you would buss someone on the cheek. Friendly but impersonal. She comes in again for a longer press, this one testing, unsure.

Only then does her tongue dart out, a small swipe that makes my hips jerk.

“Like that?” she asks, but she already knows. Her eyes sparkle with mischief.

“Devil woman,” I say, cursing her in every language until her mouth returns. Her lips circle the head, and I lose all sense of words. There’s only sensation—hot, wet, deep. An ocean so wide and dark that I would drown here. I never want to leave.

She is clumsy, at first, which only serves to emphasize the gift she gives me. The way her tongue explores me, darting and quick. The way she takes too much inside, her eyes going wide. I push her back gently, stroking her hair. “Go slow, mon ami. Be careful.”

Someone must be careful with her, because I cannot. I’m reckless with her, this fragile flower, made of sunshine in a bottle. I’m spilling her everywhere.

It does not matter that she has no practiced moves to make me come. I’m close, from seeing her taste me, from feeling her mouth and her passion.

Except… there.

She touches her tongue against a certain spot and my eyes roll back. God, that was close. I almost came in her mouth, without warning, like the most crude sort of man. It must have been an accident.

And then she does it again.

My hips thrust into her mouth, without permission from me. “Mon Dieu,” I mutter, panting, unable to see anything except stars.

When my eyes focus again I see her watching me. That’s how she’s doing this. Because she’s watching me, gauging every reaction, weighing every touch. Figuring out what I like best, because she thinks I deserve to be cherished.

Desperation fills my chest, because eventually she’ll find out the truth. I’m not worthy of her mouth, her body. I’m not worthy of anything.

She touches that place beneath my cock for a third time, and I lose control. Her hair is grasping me, or I’m grasping her hair, pulling her close. Pressure bursts from the base of my spine, turning every muscle in my body to pulsing stone. My mouth opens on a silent cry, the only sound a guttural surrender as my cock empties down her throat.

There’s no reason for her to stay within my grasp, to let me pull at her and thrust into her mouth two more times, wringing out the most intense orgasm of my life. This is a base act, almost cruel the way I used her. I can’t hate myself for it, because I would do it again.

She sits up, wiping her thumb across her bottom lip, looking both pleased with herself and self-conscious. “Was that okay?”

At this exact second I’m struggling to move my limbs or form words. It feels like a Herculean effort, putting together a complete sentence. “That was incredible. Come here.”

I don’t wait for her to snuggle in but instead pull her down, rolling on top of her with a burst of gratitude. My hand slides down her body, reveling in the way she twists and turns into my touch. Her body is wet and swollen, made ready for me.

The blowjob turned her on. That knowledge sits inside me, too powerful to resist. I slip my fingers inside, my thumb rough on her clit. I stroke her once, twice, three times. She comes with a soft exhalation, her body turning pliant, eyelids heavy as she sinks into sleep.

Through the walls I can hear the soccer games that Mr. Alami watches every night. From somewhere a baby cries. The windows don’t close all the way. It smells like the smoke from the hookah lounge down the street. Our building is never quiet, never asleep, but no one came when Mama let out a short, surprised scream. They didn’t come when I yelled at the man hurting her or when he hit me.

He’s gone now. The bed stopped making that horrible creak. From the crack in the closet door I watched his shadow stand up and fix his clothes before he walked out the front door.

Mama’s shadow got up much slower.

I can tell she’s in pain by the way she’s hunched over, by the sniffles she probably thinks I can’t hear. She didn’t come and move the chair locking me inside. Does she not know I’m here? Did she forget? I stay silent, my arms wrapped around my knees. I can tell my eye is getting big and swollen where he hit me, but it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like anything.

There’s a high-pitched sound that I recognize as the pipes that are behind this wall. The shower is running, with its leaky spray and its hot water that runs out. Mama.

It feels like forever when she finally comes and lets me out.

I run to her, pressing my face against her warmth, her dress clean and soft—not the stiff uniform she wore home from the hotel, smelling of sharp chemicals, the one she wore when he came. We have to call the police, I tell her in French, my words too fast and too afraid.

She shakes her head, slow and sure. “Non. We call no one.”

I have grown up for seven years on these streets. No one trusts the police, but this is something very bad. This is what they are supposed to protect us against. “He hurt you.”

There is no mark on her eye. It was not that kind of hurt. “He’s a powerful man. Very rich. Staying at the hotel in the top floor. The penthouse.”

He may be very rich in the top floor, the penthouse, but he came into our rooms. “So he can do that and nothing happens to him?”

She looks away, hiding the tears. “Don’t, Hugo.”

Or maybe she’s looking away because she does not want to see my tears. “You are wrong,” I tell her, even though I’m afraid she’s right. Rich men and women can do anything they want.

The sheets on the bed are still rumpled, the pillows fallen off. It’s her bed, but I have crawled in at night to cuddle with her, when my cot in the main room feels too cold and sad. There’s only one bedroom, and it has never bothered me, never felt too small or too poor until now.

On the floor there’s something brown and flat. Something that does not belong.

I pick it up, feeling the very smooth material. Inside there is scribbled writing I can’t read. And money. So much money.

Mama gasps, “What is that?”

She knows what it is.

I know how to pick pockets. This one would be a prize, but tonight I’m not interested in the pink and green slips of paper. I’m looking for something with a picture on it. A name.

There is nothing except for a matchbox with a design on it, like stars.

And the letters L’ETOILE.

Mama takes the wallet from me, very quick, the way she would do if I had taken something I shouldn’t, if I had done something wrong. “We have to give it back.”

“At least keep the money.” I don’t know what we will do with the money. Buy food or a better lock for the door. Maybe a knife so I can stop another man who tries this.

Her eyes become dark. “I do not want his money. I’m not a kahba.”

For the most part Mama speaks French or the English she learned working at the hotel. That word is Arabic. It means the girls who stand on the streets. The ones who visit the lounge late at night and leave with American men. They would get to keep the money.

That’s what I learn that night.