I wake up early in the morning, after a night spent tossing and turning beneath my sheets. They’re a tangled mess, and so is my mind.

I don’t know what I was thinking getting into that car with Dominic last night.

I shouldn’t have agreed to a ride home—I shouldn’t have answered the call. It was ten o’clock at night, I’d been at the office all day, and it’s unprofessional.

But I wanted him.

I wanted him so much that it kept me up most of the rest of the night, and when I dozed off a few hours ago, I fell into fitful dreams of him. Most of them were unbearably sexy, but at some point, every time, his eyes would go cold and distant, and I’d know that I’d said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing, and that it was over.

I throw myself onto my back and cover my eyes with my hands with a groan. Morning light is filtering around the edges of my curtains, but I’m exhausted.

And horny.

And sorry.

I’m wishing I could explain myself to him. I’m wishing any part of this was normal, was real, so that I could tell him everything and ask him out on a date.

I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to me. For some reason, Dominic let me see that he wanted me last night, but does he want to date me? I’m not billionaire material. Okay, I am billionaire material—I'm not about to start devaluing myself—but I’m a career girl. I want to climb the ranks and do well for myself. I’m not about to spend the rest of my days hanging off some man’s arm like a decoration.

Even that thought doesn’t ring true, but the words in my mind are becoming jumbled, completely overtaken by the pulsing throb between my legs.

I still want Dominic Wilder, and now that I’ve had the chance and ruined it for myself, I want him even more.

I get out of bed, frustrated as hell, and stomp over to my dresser. There, in the top drawer, covered neatly with a layer of my going-out panties—most of those haven’t seen the light of day since I joined the FBI—is a sleek black vibrator, top of the line. I bought it for myself a few years ago, thinking it would make some of the lonely nights easier. Before Dominic, the lonely nights were seeming like a small problem.

I hate that he has this effect on me.

But I can’t deny it, not now, not this morning. The urge is too strong.

I slip off my t-shirt and panties and slide back under the sheets, laying against the pillow with a sigh, and close my eyes.

This time, I don’t fight it.

I let myself linger on those deep blue eyes of his, on his low voice whispering dirty things into my ear, of his hands, so powerful yet so gentle, caressing my skin. I want to know what he would look like stripping off his clothes, coming to me with his cock already hard and ready. And me—

Me, on the bed, on my hands and knees, ass pressed up into the air, exposed and open for him, waiting.

I flip the switch on the vibrator and bring its silicon surface to my pussy. I’m already wet, and I trace over my folds and bite my lip.

Me, on the bed, spread open wide, waiting, nipples hard even before he starts to trace his tongue around them, teasing me, torturing me, bringing me closer and closer to the edge of sheer, blinding pleasure.

Me, bent over his desk, skirt shoved up around my waist, one of his hands evoking a gentle pressure there, one thundering down onto the bare flesh of my ass, the heat and pain turning me on.

I gasp in the silence of my apartment. This is the part of me that’s filthy, that’s not professional, that’s not strong and independent, not like I am in the daylight, at my job, in the world. This is the part of me that feels the uncertainty of the earth beneath my feet and wants badly to have someone else take the reins for a while. The part of me that gets a dirty thrill to think of a man spanking me, punishing me, and how much I might enjoy it.

I press the vibrator harder against my clit, circling it again and again. I imagine the punishment, the spanking, turning into pleasure, turning into this, the reward settling in while my ass still stings, and then Dominic thrusting into me from behind, taking me, filling me, his thighs pressing again and again into my punished bottom, the pain and the pleasure mixing into a sweet high that I ride over and over until I can’t come again, until he comes hard into me, and then I explode over the vibrator, my hips jerking away from the surface of the bed, rising with each wave until there are no more waves to ride.

I turn the vibrator off and toss it to the floor, feeling the heat in my face, feeling the blush rising to my cheeks. These are secret fantasies, the kind Dominic can never know. The kind nobody can ever know.

I roll over. It’s still two hours before my alarm is set to go off, before I have to get into the shower and get dressed and walk into Wilder Industries like nothing happened last night, like everything is fine. Now that I’ve come by thinking of him—and not for the first time—I can sense sleep settling down over me like a blanket, relaxing my muscles, carrying me away.

I’m almost there, almost slipping into a peaceful dream, when the thought occurs to me, crystal clear and plain as day.

I can’t leave things like this.

What happened last night might not have been wrong, but I don’t like how we—I—left things. I don’t like how coldness crept into the moment, how Dominic turned away from me.

It might not be professional. It might not be right. But I owe him an apology, and I’m going to give it to him.

As soon as I wake up.