Three days later, Jackson and I are sleeping in tangled sheets when his cell phone rings. I shoot instantly awake, my gaze flying to the clock. It’s three in the morning.

Next to me, every muscle in Jackson’s body tightens, and he sits up and mutters, “Fuck.” He picks up the phone and turns away from me, putting his feet on the floor. “Yeah.”

I can’t hear what the caller is saying but it’s a female voice.

My heart skips a beat. What woman is calling him at three in the morning? His sister? But why would she call in the middle of the night? A wife? But how can that be? We’ve been together almost constantly. We haven’t been discreet. What wife would put up with that?

The muscles in Jackson’s back flex, and the tat his left shoulder ripples along his skin.

A wife of Jackson’s, that’s who.

He runs a hand through his hair. “Slow down. What happened?”

There’s more talking and a sense of unease creeps along the back of my neck. I pull the sheet up to cover my breasts.

He gets off the bed, and starts picking up random items of clothes we’d tossed in the urgent dash to get skin to skin.

I blink. He’s getting dressed.

He’s leaving.

The call is important enough to make him leave my bed in the middle of the night.

As he starts putting on his jeans his face is remote, his expression unreadable as he listens, but he sure as hell doesn’t meet my eyes.

My stomach twists.

“Got it.” He sits on the chair where I’d straddled him countless times, working my hips to drive him out of his mind. He crooks the phone between his ear and shoulder and starts putting on his boots. “Just sit tight. I’m on my way.”

He hangs up and puts the phone on the table before pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

When he doesn’t speak, I do it for him. “You’re leaving.”

He nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I sit up and lean against the headboard. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

In the shadows I can’t see his face, can’t read what he’s thinking. He shrugs his shirt over his head and covers his magnificent chest. “What would you like me to say?”

His voice is cold. Nothing like the one that had been whispering in my ear like he couldn’t live without me. The Jackson I met that first night is back, the one that hasn’t made an appearance since the day we’d spent at the lake.

The coldhearted bastard.

I cross my arms over my chest. “Oh, I don’t know, how about an explanation?”

He sits back, casting his features even more in darkness, making it impossible to read his expression. “I have to go.”

He’s not going to tell me. There’s only one reason I can think of why he’d get a call from a woman in the middle of the night. Only one reason I can think of as to why he’d leave me because of it.

The fact that I don’t want to ask the question tells me everything I need to know about my emotional state. Of course, I’d known I was in deep. But only right now has the full impact hit me. How infatuated I am with him. How much I want him.

Because I don’t want to know.

Not because I don’t want to hear his answer, but because I don’t want to be forced to stop.

I’m that addicted to him. I want to bury my morals, my values, my sense of right and wrong. If I don’t ask, I can continue. The thoughts scare me. I will not become that woman.

I force the question to my lips, the question like dirt in my mouth. “Jackson, are you married?”

My heart pounds as I wait for his answer.

His fingers flex, curling into a fist. “No.”

Relief floods my system, so strong it makes me dizzy. I ask again, just to be sure, so I can relax completely. “Would you tell me if you were?”

“Yes, I would.”

There’s a heavy silence between us. If not that, then what? What is driving him? “Then why are you going?”

He sits forward and puts his hands on his knees. “My time still isn’t my own.”

“What does that mean?”

He picks up his phone and keys from the table. “It means I have to go.”

“Fine.”

He stands, his face is still in shadows, but his shoulders are ridged, his posture stiff and unforgiving. “This isn’t a relationship, Gwen. I told you that from the beginning.”

That’s true. He had. But like all the other women he’s been with before me, I hadn’t believed. Not really. I’d believed what I’d wanted to believe, just like he said I would.

My throat tightens and my eyes brighten with tears. I need him gone so I look away and shrug. “Go.”

And without another word, he walks out the door.

I didn’t want to leave.

I want to ignore the call.

And worse, I wanted to tell Gwen everything.

An urge I’ve never had. An urge I don’t want. A dangerous urge. I do not share any part of my life with the women I fuck. Ever.

But after five days of her clawing her way inside me, I want to let her in.

I want her that much.

And that’s why I left without a word.

There’s no point to this, to us. Fucking until this burns out of our system is the only point, and that doesn’t seem to be working.

Her life is in Chicago. That’s where she belongs.

My life is here. There is no escaping that. No matter how much I want to.

The problem is, I want to.

She makes me want to.

It panics me. The cold rush across my skin and skip of my heartbeat tells me everything I need to know. This isn’t sex. It isn’t even lust or chemistry.

It’s something I can’t name and don’t have time for.

So I’d done the only thing I could. I’d been a bastard and left.

It’s the only way. I need to escape her before she causes any more damage. Since I’ve been back home I’ve obtained a certain amount of peace I can live with. Gwen threatens that peace and I can’t allow that.

What happened in that room—the way I felt—the desperate desire for her proves this needs to end.

I pull my keys from my pocket and make my way to my bike, roaring away before I change my mind.