Thirteen hours away from her. It feels like thirteen weeks.

She’s stayed in my thoughts every second, all week. I can smell her on my skin. Feel her mouth on my lips and cock.

I’m in withdrawal from my sweet girl. The one I’m trying so hard to push away.

I wasn’t supposed to keep her. I was going to save her, make her stronger, and set her free. I guess this is what freedom looks like.

I unlock the door and walk inside. I shouldn’t even be here. Grace was meeting her friend Stephanie today and sampling cakes. I was going to go to a steakhouse with Fritz, drink vodka, and stay out late. Get home long after Grace had gone to bed. But I canceled at the last second.

The plan was to give her a whole day without me. No call or text. I managed that part. But when five o’clock rolled around and I got in the car, I just wanted to go home. I wanted to be with her.

“Grace?” I call.

She’s going to come bounding out to meet me like a sweet, lonely kitten. Or she’ll run up from downstairs where she’s spent all day planning an amazing party to please me. I can almost hear her high, feminine voice ringing through the air like a bell. You’re home! Oh, Bram, I missed you. Please don’t ever go away again.

“Grace?”

I walk into the kitchen. It’s spotless and empty. Upstairs, my bed is neatly made and every sign of her has been neatly put away. Her towel is folded over the stainless steel rack. Opening the bathroom cabinet, I touch the bristles of her brush. A silky strand of auburn hair snags around my finger.

Fuck, I miss her. I crave her touch. I had total control of her body and mind for three weeks, and now she’s leaving me. With my help.

She isn’t in the living room, or downstairs in the ballroom. Because I don’t want to give up yet, I even peer outside into the garden. It’s damp and windswept. No sign of her.

I turn away as a cold, empty space opens up inside me. For years it’s been there, and I’ve always relished it. It meant I was an island, a man who needed nothing and no one. I’d survive, no matter what.

But tonight, it feels like a bullshit defense. It hurts.

I should have measured my words. Grace felt my first, abrupt nudge as she stood on the edge of the nest, and she heard the message loud and clear.

Time to fly, baby.

And that’s exactly what she’s doing.

She walks in the door just before nine o’clock. It’s all I can do not to jump up from the couch. For two hours I’ve been like a frantic father, walking from window to window and fighting the instinct to call her every three minutes.

I want to shout at her. Where the fuck have you been? Why didn’t you call? I want to strip her clothes off and throw her over my knee to be spanked until she screams.

But I can’t. This is my doing. This is what I wanted.

And now I’ve got it. A stable, independent woman with her whole life ahead of her. She’s no longer racked by grief or her hatred for me. She’s not a danger to herself or my company anymore.

She doesn’t need me. She’s just fine, all on her own.

So why do I want to put her back in her room and start all over again? Why do I want her to need me, to depend on me like she did before?

I thought she’d resist the change. She seemed so happy and comfortable in this house. And at first, she did resist. She pouted. And I liked it.

I could encourage her self-reliance, knowing that she’d always be reliant on me first.

But when I led her to the edge of the cliff, she only clung to me for a moment. Then she let go of my hand and leapt.

What did I expect? She didn’t come to this house under her own power. She was forced. Kidnapped, if I’m being honest. It took time to smash the wall around her heart and gain entrance to her spirit. It’s no surprise that she’s dying to get back into the world and be a free young woman again.

“Hi!” she says, flitting into the room with three shopping bags like an excited butterfly. “I made good progress today!”

She thumps across the room in high wedge shoes and plops beside me on the couch. Her bare leg presses innocently against my thigh.

She smells like gardenias, and she’s wearing a mini-skirt she bought on her shopping trip with Coral. It’s so mini, in fact, that when she sits down it practically shows her panties. I stifle a growl.

“Tell me,” I say.

“Well, one of these bags is filled with material for the drapes I want to make. At the last second I decided velvet would be better.”

“Velvet,” I say, watching her flushed, animated face.

“Yup. I found some beautiful tablecloths at an event website, so we can just rent those, and for flowers I’m adding purple orchids and burgundy dahlias to the red roses. There’ll be so much deep color.”

The scent of gardenia drifts around my head. “Is that new perfume?”

Her eyes get round and excited. “Do you like it? My parents never allowed me to wear perfume when I was younger so it stills feels like a sin to wear it.”

I lean close and sniff her neck. It’s all I can do not to bite her instead.

“Did you buy the bottle?” I ask.

“Is that okay? You said to buy anything I wanted, but I only bought the perfume and some panties. That’s pretty good, right?”

Perfume and panties. Just what a girl needs when she has nothing tying her down. When she’s beautiful, unattached, and the man who fucking adores her has no claim to her.

“Right,” I say, but my voice sounds rough and irritable. Possessive rage rises in my chest. I circle my hand around her soft thigh.

As I expected, the edge of her panties is just under the hem of her skirt. So tempting, so alluring to every cock in the city. I can just imagine how many men stared at her ass, smelled her gardenia skin, and thought about fucking her. And she did everything she could to encourage it.

“It was a chilly day today,” I say. “You went out with bare legs.”

She shrugs. “I was so happy to be out, I hardly felt the cold.”

“I bet.”

Once I exorcised James from her heart, I assumed she’d be mine. I didn’t anticipate that the only person she’d belong to would be herself. Her free, beautiful, happy self.

She gives me a teasing smile. “You left early this morning, and didn’t tell me what to wear. If you’d said jeans, I’d have worn jeans.”

Lips pursed, I nod slowly. She’s right, but right can’t cool the boil in my blood. It can’t make me think straight, or change what I’m about to do.

“Stand up,” I say.

She sticks out her long legs and flexes her calves. Her new, bright-red pedicure makes my cock throb. “I walked too far in these shoes today,” she says with a satisfied sigh. “My feet are killing me.”

“Stand up.”

A frown flickers across her brow as she registers my tone. “What’s wrong, Bram?”

I shrug. “You were out all afternoon in a slutty skirt. I want to see what every other man got to see.”

She looks genuinely confused. Such an innocent, flirtatious little bird. “What?” she says.

“Every cashier, every married man, every college boy – show me what you showed them.”

She gulps down her nervousness and stands up. I wave her a few steps away. “Stop. Right there.”

Planting her wedges a foot apart, she drops her hands to her sides. Her lips quiver but her eyes are insolent.

“One week away from me and you forget your training? You forget to respect me?”

“One week away and you forget what you said?” she says evenly. “I can quote you verbatim. You need to start standing on your own two feet.”

The words sting like stones as she throws them in my face. She’s right, yet again. But still my greediness won’t subside.

“I said nothing about dressing to entice other men. Or not calling. Or coming home late as excited as if you just got fucked in the back seat of a car.”

A sharp frown creases her forehead. “I don’t understand. You said –”

I know what I said.

I wish she’d drop to her knees and wrap her arms around my legs. I wish she’d bury her face in my lap and beg for forgiveness, even though she did nothing wrong.

Am I this fucking insecure? This bonded to a woman I once thought of as a nuisance to be controlled?

She can’t detach this fast. It can’t be this easy.

I get up and stand in front of her. Hands on her hips, she stares at me.

She barely has time to suck in a breath before I whirl her around. My cock is so hard I feel lightheaded. This was always my courtroom fantasy. Strip Grace Garrett down and fuck her until she forgave me. Fuck her until she loved me.

“Please, Sir…” she stutters.

The word Sir washes over me like a healing wave. But it’s too late to stop what’s coming.

Hand in her hair, I march her to the dining room table. “Take off your panties and kneel on the table,” I say.

“Why?”

“Do it.”

She flashes the prettiest ass in the world as she climbs up onto the table. Her slit is pink and glistening. The combination of her pussy, bare ass, and the high wedges on her feet make her look sweet and slutty in the most innocent, fuckable way.

I stand behind her and unzip my jeans. I can’t even wait to get undressed. I’m going to have her now.

I wrap a hand around her throat as I enter her hard and fast. A little scream rips from her body as I bury my cock to the hilt.

Leaning forward, I take her ear in my teeth. “Self-reliance doesn’t mean you have control. I do. I always will.”

She reaches across the table and grips the edge. Knees braced, she takes another deep, hard thrust.

“Still sore from your first fuck?” I ask.

She nods. “And my sixth and seventh.”

“And who’s the man who fucks you, Grace?”

“You are,” she says.

I nail her hard, glad her pussy still aches. I never want the aching to stop. I want her to feel that ache when she wakes up every morning and remembers that she’s mine.

She may be free, but she’ll never be free of me.

Wrapping a hand around her pretty face, I give her my index finger to suck. “Make it nice and wet,” I say. “It’s going in your ass.”

She whimpers with her tongue wrapped around my knuckle. Her saliva feels like warm velvet running down my skin.

“That’s right. Good girl.”

She makes a beautiful sucking noise as I pull my hand away. I give her a deep, thick thrust, then pull out, leaving her pussy with only the head of my cock to hold onto.

Spreading her ass cheeks, I slip my finger inside. She hisses as I pierce her delicate flesh.

“Remember, your ass belongs to me as much as your cunt. Okay? Tell me you understand.”

She nods and her hair falls over her eye. “I understand.”

“Nobody else gets to fuck you. Is that clear?”

She nods as I corkscrew my finger further inside her. She clenches down hard and moans. “It’s clear.”

I’ve got my hand around her throat, my finger in her ass, and my cock all the way up her pussy. The first few times, I was gentle. This time, she’s discovering what a good, hard fuck really is.

Her cunt is starting to conform itself, to shape every exquisite contour to my cock. It feels different than it did every time before. She’s like warm wax, molding herself to my body and what I want. She can’t pull away from me now.

I grab her hair and yank her head back. Her gorgeous green eyes roll back to look at me. “You understand what this is, don’t you?” I growl.

She nods as best she can.

“What is it?” I ask.

A pretty tear streams over her temple. “You’re angry.”

I lean down to kiss her tear as it vanishes into her hair. Her back arches like a cat’s and her pussy clamps around my cock.

“This isn’t anger,” I tell her.

“It isn’t?” she whispers.

“No. I just missed you so fucking much today.”

Her body telegraphs relief as she relaxes. Everything is softer now – her cunt, her gaze, her ass around my finger. Trust floods back into her face. I see her pulse slow in her neck.

“Oh, Bram,” she says.

I lick the trail of her tear. “You did nothing wrong,” I say, and reward her by ramming my cock into her. “You were perfect. Your skirt was perfect. Your perfume was perfect.”

She’s crying now. I made her cry with my jealousy and my crazy fucking need for her. I want her to be like every other woman I’ve fucked, but she isn’t. She’s got her hooks into my soul. A month ago, my happiness depended on no one but me. Now, I can’t take a breath without thinking of her.

I pull back and step away. “Turn around and look at me.”

She turns on her knees. Tear-flooded eyes glued to my face, she sits on the edge of the table. Her wedged feet hang down.

“Fuck,” I say. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“What wasn’t?”

“I was supposed to change you. You weren’t supposed to change me.”

Her blouse is pulled to one side, showing her bra strap and one white shoulder. “How am I changing you?”

“I’m already doing things I swore I wouldn’t do,” I say. “I turned down an opportunity I’d have jumped on a month ago just for the fucking adventure of it. But I said no without a second thought.”

“What kind of opportunity?” she asks.

“To move to another country after the merger happens. I thought that’s what I wanted.”

Her huge eyes plead with me. “Don’t, Bram. Don’t give up what you want for me.”

“But that’s just it, Grace. I don’t want it. I don’t want the life I had before. The only fucking thing I want is you.”

Her forehead wrinkles. “But you said –”

“I know what I said. You shouldn’t depend on anyone but yourself. But fuck, you make me want to.”

She takes my still-rigid cock in her hands. She kisses the head like she worships me, and I feel it in a place I didn’t know existed. Not my soul. Deeper than that. Where I’ve buried all the pain and death and things I wish I didn’t know. The secrets I want to tell Grace but can’t, because I love her.

I fucking love her.

“Back on the table,” I say.

She gets up again. She goes to the table and kneels.

Bending down, I cover her perfect ass with kisses. I lick her cunt from behind and slick the juices over her hole with my tongue. Her little squeals and whimpers tell me she loves it. She loves that I lick her in the most private places like an animal. That I smell her gorgeous feminine heat and want to breed her.

When she’s good and slick, I position myself behind her. She wriggles her hips, begging to be fucked like a girl who’s just discovering the pleasures of a big cock.

“I need this,” I say.

“Take me.”

“Not your cunt, baby girl. Your ass.”

Her body freezes on instinct.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“Is it?”

“Yes. You’ll see.”

Pulling her head back by her hair, I demolish her mouth under mine as I press the head of my cock to her ass. Whimpering, she breathes against my lips. “You’ll go slow?”

“Yes. I won’t let it hurt. I promise.”

She exhales a long breath. Her hole relaxes and opens to me. “Perfect,” I say, slicking more of her juices around my shaft. “Just like that.”

Kissing and sucking her lips, I give her one inch, two inches, three. “Is that okay? Not too scared?” God, I love taking care of her. I love it as much as fucking her ass.

“I’m okay. Don’t – don’t stop. Please.”

Please. And I thought I couldn’t get harder.

I thrust my hips forward with gentle but steady force until her body starts to yield. She’s soft but so tight, the perfect virgin beauty. She moans and cries, and a hot tear splashes over my fingers.

This was what I always wanted – to feel her surrender. To hear her say yes to me a thousand times over with her body.

With a long, slow thrust, I fill her ass with my entire cock. Fuck, I love this girl. I have from the first moment I saw her beautiful, weeping face.

Her muscles pulse around me and her pussy gushes. “Why so wet, sweet thing? Tell me.”

She turns her head and blinks up at me shyly. But under those pretty, bashful lashes, her eyes simmer with lust. “Because I’m excited,” she whispers.

“For what? My cock in your ass?”

She nods.

“Out loud, baby girl.”

“For your big cock in my ass.”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Fuck, she turns me on. That high voice saying unspeakable things is almost more than I can take.

I shove my cock inside her again, harder this time. She moans. She’s walking the razor’s edge between pleasure and pain, and it’s like clinging to the edge of a cliff together.

“Tell me what you like.”

“I like it all,” she whispers.

“No playing shy. Tell me why you like getting fucked in the ass by a beast.”

The apples of her cheeks are bright red. I watch her lips move and relish every sexy word that comes from her mouth. “I like your balls stroking my clit.”

“It takes big balls to do that. Big balls like mine.”

I drive hard into her and her teeth rattle. Reaching around to her pussy, I feel her swollen, slick lips. “Mmmm,” she moans, dropping back her head.

“Mmmm what, my dirty-talking girl?”

“I want to come. My clit is aching for you.”

“So good girls love to come, too?”

“Yes, Sir, they do.”

My whole fucking heart warms like a ray of sunshine. “I didn’t hear you,” I say, though I did. I just want to hear it again.

“Yes, Sir.”

I smile. What she does to me.

Fucking her ass hard, I play with her drenched little clit. It’s a stiff, swollen rosebud under my fingers, so tiny and sweet.

“Feel good?”

“So good, Sir. Please…don’t stop.”

Her moans are still soft, but they sound different. They come from deep inside her, from her dark, animal soul.

“I’m going to – Bram…”

I lower my mouth to her ear. “Let go. Give it to me.”

And she does. Her lower back curves and her legs spread wide. A sudden cry splits the air as she comes, and her ass grabs my shaft tight. God, she’s amazing.

She’s still coming as I explode inside her. I fill her all the way to her heart. Nothing has ever felt so fucking good. So pure. So real.

As I pull her into my arms, I want to tell her everything. Right now, tonight, I’m sure of one thing. There should be no secrets between us. We’re too close. I care for her too damn much.

A war breaks out inside me as I kiss and hold her, and praise her for being such a good, strong girl. I’ll tell her now. There’ll never be anything between us again. Just peace and truth.

But I carry her upstairs without saying a word. I bathe her and put her to bed and kiss her, and say I’m sorry. And she thinks she knows what I’m saying it for.