‘I only smile for you.’ He pecks my lips and pushes his torso up so he’s braced on his long, lean arms. ‘I love your br**sts.’ He flicks his eyes to them and licks his lips provocatively.

‘I don’t have much.’ I almost want to cover my lack of assets with my palms but my hands have other ideas and are feeling out his forearms.

‘I beg to differ.’ He gasps a little and slowly closes his eyes as he delivers the ultimate, deep, precise grind. My muscles stiffen, and I push against his rooted arms.

‘Oh my goodness,’ I gasp, feeling the head of a delicious orgasm brimming.

‘Are you going to come, sweet girl?’

‘Yes,’ I moan, my back bowing, my legs curling around his waist. The hot rush of pressure in my groin is descending swiftly.

Dropping his head, he slowly peels his eyes open and falls to his forearms. ‘Give me your lips.’ He groans as he plunges, retreats, and inches carefully back into me. The crippling pleasure that he’s inflicting on me is sending me dizzy. ‘Livy, I’ve asked once.’

He puts his face closer to mine so with a slight lift of my head, our tongues meet and begin duelling delicately, but when I start shaking as my cl**ax takes hold, he pushes further into me, kissing me ardently and moaning loudly. My hands find his hair and dive into his wet waves, pushing into the back of his head.

‘I’m coming,’ I groan. ‘Miller, I’m coming.’ I start to contract around him and try to harden my kiss as I’m attacked by waves of pleasure, but he doesn’t allow me to. He just pulls away ever so slightly for a few seconds before brushing our lips together, silently guiding me.

Hot sparks of pleasure seem to attack me from every direction. I can’t breathe through the overwhelming sensations. I scream. I explode. My flesh pulses and my eyes become heavy as he continues to worship my mouth and thrust lazily into me. I can feel the shattered pieces of me pulling back together again under his adoring attention. We can do this. As long as we have each other, we can battle through the challenges before us. My fortitude has never been so strong.

‘Thank you,’ I sigh on a smile, letting my arms flop above my head.

‘Never thank me.’

Through my blissed-out state, I vaguely register the absence of him softening within me. ‘You haven’t come,’ I wheeze.

He slowly pulls out of me and starts to kiss his way down my body until his head is between my thighs and he’s sending me delirious with a tickling flick of his tongue over my quivering flesh, followed by a firm lash straight up my centre. I writhe under him, trying to control the pulsing twinges as he crawls back up my body and sinks his tongue back into my mouth.

‘I worship you.’ He drops a kiss lightly on my forehead and circles our noses. ‘Give me my thing.’

‘My arms don’t work.’

‘Give me my thing, Livy.’ He raises cautionary eyebrows at me, making me smile more. ‘Now.’

It doesn’t take much effort at all to fulfil his demand. My arms circle his shoulders and crush him to me. ‘I want to be in your bed,’ I mumble into his hair, wishing I were there already.

‘Then you will be.’ He rolls over, taking me with him, and then pushes me up so I’m astride his stomach. He studies me quietly.

‘What are you thinking?’ I ask.

‘I’m thinking I’ve never been shocked in my life,’ he says, reaching up and circling my ni**les until they’re bullets, tingling and sensitive, ‘but when you threw that money on the table in Langan’s, I had to resist coughing up my wine.’

I blush a little at my own brashness, wholeheartedly wishing I never had. ‘I won’t be doing it again.’

‘Neither will I,’ he whispers, transferring a hand to my wrist and stroking over the area where the sores have now faded to nothing. ‘I’m so sorry. I was so consumed with desperation to—’

I pull my arm from his grip and shut him up by dropping my body to his and my lips to his mouth. ‘Please don’t feel guilty.’

‘I appreciate your compassion, but nothing you can say will ease my remorse.’

‘I pushed you.’

‘It’s no excuse.’ He sits up and shifts us to the edge of the bed, placing me on my feet. ‘I’m going to make it up to you, Olivia Taylor,’ he vows, standing and cupping my cheeks in his palms. ‘I’ll make you forget that man.’ His lips meet mine, reinforcing his words, and I nod my acceptance against him. ‘He’s not the man I want to be for you.’

I let him drown me in his mouth and remorse, let him push me up the wall desperately, let him feel me everywhere. ‘Take me to your bed,’ I plead, needing the comfort and security that being in Miller’s arms and bed brings – something that I’m not wholly feeling here in this hotel room, where the four-poster bed is a constant reminder of an entirely different Miller.

‘I’ll do anything you want me to,’ he breathes, letting up a little on his apology kiss and pecking continuously at my lips. ‘Anything you want. Please try to erase what’s happened.’

‘Then take me away from here,’ I insist. ‘Get me out of this room.’

He starts to panic a little, pulling away when he realises the extent of my desperation to escape the reminders. It’s made him desperate, too. He shakes himself into action, removing the condom and getting dressed at lightning speed, not caring for a straight tie or a crease-free suit. He leaves his shirt half unbuttoned and hanging out of his trousers, his waistcoat is thrown on haphazardly and his jacket equally so, before he’s snatching up my dress and quickly getting me into it.

After grasping my hand, he leads me away from the coldness of the extravagant hotel room. We take the stairs, and he looks back every few steps to check up on me. ‘Am I going too fast?’ he asks while keeping up his determined stride.

‘No,’ I answer, my legs struggling to keep up but wanting to go faster. Nothing will get me out of this place quick enough.

We hit the palatial foyer of the hotel, both of us catching the eye of the posh clientele in our dishevelled state. I’m not concerned by the looks and neither is Miller. He practically throws the room’s key card over the desk to the lady at the reception. He’s as desperate to get out of here as I am.

The car park feels like miles away, when it is only around the corner. The journey feels like hours when it’s probably only minutes. The stairs to Miller’s apartment feels like thousands, but there are probably only a few hundred. And as soon as the door is shut behind us, my dress is pulled impatiently from my body, my underwear discarded, and I’m lifted up to his carelessly dressed physique and carried across his apartment, while he indulges me in his mouth the whole way, except we don’t enter his bedroom. He takes me to his studio and places me on the sofa, where I sit awkwardly and a little bewildered by his mounting desperation as he hurries out of his clothes, leaving them a pile of expensive material on the floor. Bringing his body down over mine, he engulfs me completely and pins me to the old worn sofa beneath me. His face is in my neck, taking a long inhale of my hair, and then his mouth is on mine, working through delicately with his tongue, humming and moaning as his kiss gets harder, completely defeating the whole purpose of our reunion. It is always me driving things forward and Miller insisting on calm, and now I know why. But worry is getting the better of him.

I try to slow our kiss, bring it down a few levels, but he’s blinded by purpose to make me forget. It’s not incredibly hard, not at all, yet it’s not what I want or need. ‘Slow down,’ I gasp, breaking away from his lips, but he homes in on my neck, resuming the force there. ‘Miller, please!’

At my short plea, he bolts upright in shock, his hands delving into his waves. The fear in his eyes is more than I can cope with, and it’s in this moment I realise he’s two entirely different people – physically and emotionally. At least he is now that I’m in his life. I suspect before me he was simply the man disguised as a gentleman and the punishing lover – or escort.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask, inching myself up into a sitting position.

‘I apologise.’ He stands and walks to the huge window. His na**d back in the night glow looks almost ethereal. I feel the overwhelming need to be close to him, but he’s lost in thought and I should let him have those thoughts. For so long, I’ve thought it was just me who’s the damaged half of this relationship. I was so wrong. Miller’s more broken. I’ve seen the result of this lifestyle. I saw the effect it had on my mother and the lifelong impact it’s had on my grandmother. And on me, too. I’ve done some stupid things. Except Miller has no family to affect. There’s only him, no matter how I ask the question. And he isn’t on his way to hell. I’ve pulled him back, but that sobering claim strengthens my hope. Miller has spent too many years doing something he didn’t want to.

‘Miller?’

He slowly turns, and I don’t like what I see.

Defeatism.

Sorrow.

Sadness.

His head drops. ‘I’m f**ked up, Olivia. I’m sorry.’

‘You’ve apologised enough. Stop saying you’re sorry.’ I can feel the panic flaring in me. ‘Please, come here.’

‘I don’t know what I’ll do if you choose to, but you really should run a mile, sweet girl.’

‘No!’ I snap, worried by his change in approach to our reunion. ‘Come here.’ I’m about to physically fetch him myself when he starts to make his way over. He sits at the other end of the couch, too far away. ‘Don’t say things like that,’ I warn, lying down on my back and resting my head in his na**d lap so I’m looking up at him.

He drops his head so his eyes meet mine, his hands stroking through my hair. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘If you say that one more time,’ I warn, reaching up to feel his neck out. I pull him down, forcing him to bend so we’re forehead to forehead. ‘I’ll . . .’

‘You’ll what?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admit, ‘but I’ll do something.’ So I kiss him, because that is all there is left to do. And he lets me. It is me setting the delicate pace, me who’s guiding Miller. I’m the strong one right now. Me. It doesn’t matter what has come before me. What matters is that we have both found each other and finally accepted each other. I feel it’s like the blind leading the blind, but my determination is now fierce. I’ve let him break down my barriers and, in the process, I’ve innocently bashed down his, too. This feeling of his lips isn’t something I’m prepared to surrender. This sense of belonging isn’t going to be given up. This is where I’m supposed to be. I’m not prepared to fight against this any more. I have the strength to help him. He gives me that strength.

He halts our kiss abruptly and breathes heavily in my face, making a deliberate show of stroking my cheeks and hair so very tenderly. ‘Was that you telling me off?’ he asks seriously, dropping a light peck on my nose. ‘Because if so, then I’m sorry.’

‘Stop it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re being silly.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll do something,’ I warn, pulling a little on his hair.

He shifts my head from his lap and lays himself down, repositioning me so I’m spread all over him, my face level with his. ‘Please do,’ he whispers, putting his lips close to mine and blinking teasingly slowly.

‘You want me to kiss you?’ I ask quietly, keeping the distance between our mouths minimal and resisting the urge to capture the temptation within licking distance.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’