The month turns over into September, but it doesn’t matter—the only thing that keeps beating in my mind, over and over, is that two-week timeline—two weeks, two weeks, two weeks.

It’s pure torture to spend an entire day in intensive study for my next set of exams, but the evenings with Weston have taken their toll on my study schedule. I’d shut myself in my own apartment, but the air conditioning goes out on the kind of fall day that makes it feel like the height of July, and by noon, I’m sweltering and seriously considering calling the nurse hotline to ask about heatstroke. His den it is.

There’s a knock somewhere between the salad I ate for lunch and whatever he’s planning for dinner, and he pokes his head through the door. “How’s it going, angel?”

I can’t help but grin at him. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I took the afternoon off.”

I stiffen in spite of myself. It’s not that I don’t want Weston here. I do want Weston here. Today, in the heat, he’s changed out of his tailored summer-weight suit and into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that still manage to come off as high-end. The way the shirt hugs his abs has me salivating, wrenching my mind away from Criminal Law and into the verging-on-criminal things I’d like to do with him. Right now. Maybe pressed up against the window of the penthouse. The sight of him turns me on, juices already starting to pool between my legs. But I can’t. I really, really can’t.

Because when this is over....

I clear my head of the thought and give Weston a smile. “Were things slow at the office?”

He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. “Things are never slow at Grant Pharmaceuticals, but I decided to take a little more time and think over the deal I was finalizing today.” I smile again, watching the sunlight play across his eyes, but before I can speak— “Don’t look so torn, angel. I’m working on a project this afternoon. I won’t bother you.”

It’s crazy, how even as relief spreads across my chest my heart sinks. “Good, because I can’t afford to take a study break.”

Weston frowns. “Not a single study break?”

There’s no way this can continue long-term, even if Weston wanted to. And that would be highly out of the ordinary for a man like him, if Serenity Kowall is any indication.

Then there’s me, with my core melting into passionate heat and every inch of me aching for his touch. It doesn’t matter at all that a minute ago I felt a flash of irritation that he was interrupting my precious study time when I have an exam on Monday morning. 

I give him as stern a look as possible. “Five minutes.”

He’s inside the door in an instant, shutting it behind him, his hands flying for the hem of his shirt. “I can make five minutes worth it.”

An hour later, I’m still breathless and trying my best to pick up where I left off with Criminal Law.

We didn’t make it under the five-minute mark—and that’s saying the least of it. Somewhere around twenty minutes in, Weston had me bent over and spread wide on the ottoman in front of the fireplace, his hand firm and unyielding on my lower back, his fingers toying relentlessly at my clit while I struggled to stay in position. “That’s it, angel,” he growled in the still silence of the den, the only background noise the nearly inaudible hum of the air conditioning. “Come for me. Like this…like this....”

It hadn’t been the first orgasm of the five-minute break, or the last.

I scan my outline again, starting at the beginning.

I wouldn’t do that with anyone else on earth.

The thought breaks into my careful review of my notes, and it’s followed by a stab in my chest—pure heartache. I wouldn’t do that kind of thing with any other man. I’ve never wanted it with anyone else. I’ve heard about that kind of relationship before, but with Weston it’s nothing like the movies.

He takes control. I give it away.

And it feels so good.

What am I ever going to do without it? Without him?

I raise my chin and straighten my back even though there’s nobody around to see me. I’ll get back to my life—that’s what I’ll do. I’ll get back to my life and my routines, and I’ll set up a payment plan with Weston, something automatic, through the bank, so I don’t have my heart ripped out of my chest seeing him when I deliver checks month after month.

It’s the only way I’m going to survive it.

I could stay with him....

I laugh out loud at the thought. Weston Grant is not a long-term prospect for people from upstate New York with six weeks’ worth of a law degree and a father who’s sliding rapidly into the kind of descent that’s going to take up more and more of my time. I don’t have anything to offer him except years of tiny payments and two weeks’ worth of a fairytale bargain.

If he really wanted more than that, anyway, he would have found it by now. And not with me. With somebody who can play on his level.

I take in a deep breath and exhale all of it out of my mind. 

Four days from now, the two weeks will be over, and all of this will be in the past.

It feels like a rock in my gut to think about it. So I think of Criminal Law instead, my mind laser-focused on the outline.

I’ve slapped my notebook shut when the door to the den flies open, scaring the living shit out of me. Weston stands silhouetted in the doorway, a suitcase in one hand and a sweatshirt—again, where the hell does he find sweatshirts that look so luxurious yet so normal at the same time?—and I can’t quite make out the expression on his face.

Not until he steps all the way into the den and the recessed lighting above him illuminates him like a statue of a Greek god. He’s absolutely beaming. “Good, you’re done studying.”

“I’m never done studying, but for now—”

“Come on.” He tosses the sweatshirt over his other arm and holds his hands out to me. “We’re leaving.”

My heart beats faster. Last time he swept me out of a place like this....

I take his hand, scooping up my laptop and notebook and bag in an unruly pile in my arms. “Where are we going?”

Weston’s eyes dance in the darkness. “Did you think I was going to spend my last weekend with you anywhere short of paradise?”