And then, he fucked me.

“Shit, shit...shit.” His voice scrambled with breath. Inside me, he grew thicker, heavier, harder, hitting the top of me with every pound.

He was wild, unleashed; his control and lies undone.

His face, normally so handsome and regal, splintered into a broken veneer as he let go.

“Fuck!” An animalistic roar fell from his lips, his orgasm tearing up his back and into me.

I let him do what he needed.

I drank in his vulnerability and relished in the fact he let me see him the way not many people would.

He shattered.

He shivered.

He shuddered as the last wave wrung him dry.

Only once long moments had disappeared, and we’d returned from whatever stratosphere he’d catapulted us to, did his fingers unlock from my wrists and trail down my arm to cup my cheek.

With eyes soft and no longer angry about things I couldn’t understand, he kissed me.

This kiss was different.

It wasn’t a claiming or a thank you.

It was a stripping back; a peeling of the masks we wore.

An acknowledgment that we’d started something that, unfortunately, wouldn’t have a happy ending.

Chapter Twenty-Three

THE LARGE CLOCK hanging in Penn’s kitchen said I’d only been at his place one hour and thirty-two minutes, yet the whole world had changed.

Either time sped up without me, or we shot into the future where everything was different.

Where I was different. My body was different. My entire outlook altered.

I ran my hands down my buttoned blazer for the tenth time, smoothing my skirt. I tried to ignore my tangled hair that needed a deep condition and an hour with a brush, and pretended I wasn’t bare beneath my clothing.

Once we’d finished and Penn withdrew from me, we’d dressed silently and reconvened in the kitchen. I stuffed my lingerie into the black bag full of sex toys, intending to take both home. However, Penn grabbed the handles and placed the parcel on a cupboard on the way out of his bedroom.

He didn’t say a thing.

His body language alone said all of those items were staying here—whether I liked it or not.

He moved barefoot while I clipped in heels. He ducked around the large island and grabbed two glasses from a frosted-glass cupboard. Filling them both with water from a carafe in the fridge, he passed one to me, watching me over the rim as he drank.

He’d slipped into light colored jeans and a black t-shirt, looking every bit the bad boy I should never introduce to my father, let alone go along with his lies that we were engaged.

Nerves multiplied with tiny legs, racing over my shoulders the longer we stared in silence and drank. I wanted to call David to collect me. The longer I stood in Penn’s presence, the more he withdrew to the point that any warmth that’d existed between us howled with frost.

I shifted on the spot, placing my half-drunk glass of water on the counter. “I guess—I guess I’ll go home now.”

He raised an eyebrow and finished his water. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he nodded. “Good idea.”

I tried to hide my wince, but I wasn’t successful. I didn’t know why he’d shut me out—then again, he hadn’t let me in. He’d invaded my body, but that didn’t give me a return pass to rummage around in his soul.

The idea of calling David and waiting for him inside Penn’s apartment wasn’t appealing. The sooner I was away from the harsh intensity where splinters of whatever we weren’t saying stabbed me, the better.

Hugging myself—making sure my broken blouse was tucked tightly into my skirt to prevent gaping open and my blazer was buttoned tight—I nodded as if we’d concluded business and the meeting was over.

Realistically, this was a business contract. He didn’t like me. I didn’t like him. But the sex had been incredible. I had nothing to compare it to, but if I had to do it all over again and let Penn relieve me of my virginity, I would.

Moving toward the door highlighted how sore I was. The tenderness of my inner thighs, the achiness of my core. The heavy pulling made me want to sit down, not walk down flights of stairs and wait on a cold street for my driver.

But I wasn’t welcome anymore.

Penn’s glare said as much.

He lied about us being engaged, yet couldn’t lie about how much he needed me gone.

I stopped by the exit, keeping my back stiff. “Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” He’d escorted me to the door as if not trusting me to leave on my own. Reaching around me, he unlocked the door and opened it. He pursed his lips as I stepped over the threshold. He didn’t smile or offer a word of kindness or even condolences.

It felt like a break-up even though we were never together.

I shrugged, fighting the urge to fidget. “Um, thank you. I...enjoyed that.”

A slight smile warred with an impenetrable glare. “Me too.”

Nothing else.

No hug. Or promise to do it again soon. Just two little words that put a full stop—no, an entire page break—between what’d happened in his bedroom and now.

Questions whispered in my ear. Do you want to see me again? Why did you keep my lingerie and sex toys? Did I feel as good to you as you did to me?

I silenced each and every one.

Turning my spine to steel, I raised my chin and walked away.

* * * * *

My phone was dead.

Of course, it was.

Tonight had gone from blissful to full of heartache, and I only had myself to blame. Standing outside Penn’s building, I took note of how far my apartment was. I figured it was walking distance but didn’t know how long it would take. And in heels, after an incredibly long day, and extremely passionate sex, my body was not in the mood to hike through the city.