The night sky stretches to infinity, but the moment is almost unbearably intimate. We are lying on the rooftop, naked but for a lace-edged sheet we stole from her bed. Bea’s body is slung over mine, her hair a pleasant cloud of sensation against my neck. Her hand plays idly over my chest, tugging lightly at the springy hair, tracing down the muscles of my abs.

“Are you sad?” she asks. “About Edward?”

“He lost his hold on you. That’s enough.” It’s more than whatever wealth he has in the world, actually. More precious than gold. Though nothing will ever be punishment enough for what he did to my mother. So I suppose it’s fitting he gave up something priceless. “The truth is I feel more guilty than anything.”

“About Melissande. Has she called you again?”

“No.” I stare at the sky, which feels heavier when I think about her. “Not since I gave her a few thousand to start over somewhere else.”

“What she did was wrong, Hugo. Selling children. You were a child, too, Hugo, when she took advantage of you. She didn’t deserve your loyalty.”

“Loyalty is a strange thing. It doesn’t always need an excuse. In the case of Melissande, she took me from a place where I had no future and turned me into something women paid thousands of dollars to spend time with.”

Anger flashes through Bea’s green eyes, which are usually so calm. “She has no idea what you’re worth. She never did.”

Bemusement is a warm fire in my chest. “You are kind, mon ami.”

“Yes, that’s me. Kind and so incredibly selfless that I’m willing to spend my nights with the most sought-after man in Tanglewood, that I’m willing to have this body—” She walks her fingers down my abdomen. My cock is a predictable creature. It becomes hard beneath the blanket, despite the number of times I’ve taken her this night. “—bring me pleasure.”

A small laugh. “If there’s one thing I’ve taught you it’s to appreciate pleasure.”

“You taught me more than that,” she says suggestively, and I know she’s thinking of the rather athletic round of sex we had after our picnic of grapes and manchego.

I touch my finger to the bronze of her eyebrows, tracing them. “While you have learned your lessons well, there is still plenty more to teach.”

“Oh?” she asks, her lips forming a perfect peach circle.

“I expect we will spend many nights on the rooftop.”

She laughs. “I thought you were the one who wanted me to leave the hotel.”

“Oui, but you have taught me things as well. For example, you taught me to appreciate staying between these four walls.” It has been three days since I signed over L’Etoile to her. Since that time I have not left. There has been only sex and talking and the occasional break for delicious food. “Perhaps we will leave next week. Where would you like to go?’

She draws swirling circles on my skin. “There is an exhibit at the Tanglewood Art Museum I’ve had my eye on.”

I think of the traveling exhibits. “The one with mummies?”

“No.”

“The one about bugs in gemstones.”

“No.”

And then I groan. “It’s the instruments of the Middle Ages, isn’t it? That’s a permanent exhibit, mon ami. Part of the original collection, I believe. It hurts my heart that you have not seen it.”

“I know,” she says, hiding her face against my chest.

“We will work up to it,” I promise.

Naturally I don’t mention that I know the director of the museum on an intimate level, that she was a regular client who was rather peeved when I told her I would no longer be working. Perhaps I could even arrange a private show of the instruments for Bea…if I made it worth the director’s time. But no, we will attend the museum the old-fashioned way, with a ticket of admissions.

She shivers in my arms, still not quite ready to venture out. “Okay.”

“I must tell you one of the most wonderful things about leaving your bed. It’s thinking of all the delicious things to do to you when I return.”

Her hand slips under the blanket. “Delicious?”

My breath catches when she touches somewhere particularly sensitive. “Yes.”

My innocent ex-virgin has turned into a sex goddess. Her fist closes around my cock while her lips hover near my ear. “I do love the way you taste,” she whispers.

I groan and press my hips up toward the night. “Please.”

She moves down my body and takes me to heaven with her mouth, her hands. Her eyes, full of reckless confidence. This is how I want her—unafraid. The climax hits me, almost violent in its strength, making me choke out her name in a litany, “Bea Bea Bea.”

It feels incredible, but nowhere near as good as it does to flip her onto her back. To turn the sly grin into an O of shocked bliss. We dine on the best food available in the city, in the world, but none of the flavors compare to the sweet salt of her arousal. The essence of this woman, which has become like sustenance. The taste that made me come awake, after so long spent in the dark.