‘I’m sorry.’ He brushes our lips, and I lose all resistance, the enticement of him impossible to fight off. ‘I’m so sorry.’

My tongue plunges relentlessly but softly, working smoothly and with complete reverence. We’re back to where we belong. My world is right again. Everything can be forgiven, except now there is so much more to forgive. His rules, the ones that prevented me from touching him and kissing him, are being blown out of the water now. I’m feeling him everywhere, kissing him like I’ll never have the pleasure again. It’s loving, meaningful, and completely mind-blanking. It’s perfect.

‘I love your punishments,’ he mumbles, twisting onto his side and pulling me closer to his chest, still kissing me and still feeling me everywhere. ‘Stay with me tonight.’

I’m the one who severs the contact, my lips stinging and swollen. His dark stubble is always so prickly and coarse, but familiar and comforting. I run my palm down his cheek and watch his lips as they part when my thumb drags across them. ‘I don’t want to stay just one night,’ I murmur. My eyes reluctantly climb his nose until I’m staring into blue circles of understanding.

‘I want you to stay for ever,’ he replies softly, following up his words with a hard push of his lips on mine. ‘I need to put you in my bed.’ He untangles us from the sofa and picks me up, resuming his kiss as I lie across his arms and he carries me to his bedroom.

‘Do you know how you make me feel?’ he asks, placing me gently down and encouraging me to turn onto my front.

‘Yes.’ I turn my face into the pillow when he begins a slow, delicate flick of his tongue up the column of my spine, finishing with a soft kiss on my shoulder blade.

The hard head of his erection teases my opening, making my arse lift fractionally to urge him on. ‘Thank God I have you again.’ He sinks into me on a harsh pull of breath, then holds still, trying to regain control of his breathing. I bite at the pillow, moaning quietly. The hardness of his torso is pressing into my back, pushing me into the mattress, and my fists are balling into the sheets. ‘You’ve taken the only resilient part of me and annihilated it, Livy,’ he whispers hoarsely, performing an easy grind of his hips.

I turn my heated face back outwards when I feel his lips at my ear and find dark lashes framing sparkling blue eyes. ‘I don’t want to take anything. I want you to give it to me.’

He retreats slowly and pushes forward firmly, again and again, drawing constant moans of pleasure each and every time. ‘What do you want me to give you?’

‘What’s the most resilient part of you?’ I groan the words through an excruciatingly deep thrust.

‘My heart, Livy. My heart is the most resilient part of me.’ He loses control momentarily and bucks forward on a bark.

My chest swells at his admission. ‘Let me see you.’ I wriggle under his body. ‘Please, I need to see you properly.’

‘Fucking hell,’ he curses, and quickly slips out of me, allowing me to spin over and grab at his shoulders before he quickly re-enters me, pounding forward uncontrolled. ‘Livy!’ he shouts, pushing his torso up on his arms. He holds still, panting and staring down at me. ‘I’m petrified of you.’

I tilt my h*ps up, making him drop his chin to his chest, his waves falling forward as he does. ‘I’m scared of you, too,’ I whisper. ‘Terrified.’

He lifts his eyes and circles his hips. ‘I’m an emotion virgin, Livy. You’re my first.’

‘What are you saying?’ I ask quietly.

He goes to speak, then seems to think better of it, his eyes darting all over my face. ‘I’ve fallen, Olivia Taylor,’ he whispers.

I bite down on my bottom lip to prevent a sob slipping free. That’s the only thing that matters. ‘You fascinate me,’ I counter. I’m reaffirming my feeling, making it known that nothing has changed. I’ve wasted too much precious time pushing him away – time that I could have been helping him and making myself stronger.

He drops to his forearms and starts pumping his h*ps slowly, carrying me further into rapture. ‘Please don’t drop me,’ he breathes.

I shake my head and feel the back of his head out, meeting each one of his advances with matching thrusts of my hips. I don’t know what’s happening, but I do know that my feelings are profound. And now they’ve only been strengthened.

‘I’ve been saved by a gorgeous, sweet girl,’ he whispers, gazing down at me. ‘She makes my heart quicken and my senses slow.’

I close my eyes, letting him drive on, the perfection of this moment tearing at my soul.

‘I’m going to come,’ he gasps, ‘Olivia!’

My eyes snap open, my body squirming under his hard physique. His pace has advanced, along with my pleasure. Our bodies are locked together, as are our eyes, and the connection remains intact until we both whimper as our cl**axes take hold in unison and both of us go rigid, gasping into each other’s faces. A strange sensation floods me. Literally. My insides are warm, feeling good. Too good.

‘You’re not wearing a condom,’ I say quietly.

Recognition dawns on his perfect face, his gentle drives halting too abruptly. He thinks hard for a few moments before he eventually speaks. ‘I guess I’m not the gentleman I claim to be.’

I shouldn’t smile, given the serious situation, but I do. Miller’s unusual show of humour, even if it’s inappropriate, makes it impossible not to. ‘You have a dry humour.’

He pushes into me, deep and high, his semi-hard-on stroking me, reminding me of the rightness of his bareness. ‘There’s nothing dry about our current condition.’

I laugh. Miller Hart never ceases to amaze me. ‘That’s terrible!’

‘It feels pretty damn good to me.’ He flashes me a boyish grin and dips to bite my cheek. He’s right, it feels incredible, but that doesn’t make it a good thing.

‘I’ll need to visit my doctor.’ I push my face to his mouth and muster the strength required to hold him tightly.

‘I’ll take you. I accept full responsibility.’ Pulling back, he studies me closely. ‘It felt better than I ever imagined. It’ll be difficult to return to condoms.’

I comprehend something immediately. ‘You knew, didn’t you? The whole time you were aware.’

‘It felt too good to stop.’ He kisses my startled face chastely. ‘Besides, we can ask the doctor to prescribe you the pill while we’re there.’

‘We can?’

‘Yes,’ he answers surely. ‘Now I’ve had you with nothing between us, I’m greedy for more.’

I have nothing to say to that.

‘Would you mind if we slept on the sofa in my studio?’ he asks.

‘Why?’

‘It soothes me, and with you in my thing, too, I’m going to sleep extremely well.’

‘I’d love to.’

‘Good, not that you had a choice.’ He scoops me up and transports me back to his art studio, where I’m placed neatly on the old squidgy sofa before he mirrors me, pulling me back to his chest and resting his head on mine so we both have the stunning view in sight. The silence surrounding us gives me an opportunity to consider some of the answers I’m still to learn.

‘Why wouldn’t you let me kiss you?’ I whisper.

I feel him stiffen behind me, and I don’t like it. ‘I’m reluctant to answer any more of your questions, Livy. I don’t want you to run away again.’

I find his hand and bring it to my mouth, kissing it sweetly. ‘I won’t run.’

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise.’

‘Thank you.’ He tugs at me, helping me to turn around and face him. He wants eye contact while we’re conversing. ‘Kissing is a very intimate act,’ he says, pulling my face to his and giving me a long, slow, languid one, both of us humming contentedly.

‘So is sex.’

‘You’re wrong.’ He pulls away and scans my confused face. ‘There is only intimacy if there is feeling.’

I absorb his words in an instant. ‘We have feeling.’

He smiles and makes an elaborate gesture of feeling by coating my face in wet kisses. I don’t stop him. I let him stifle me completely. I drown in his affection until he decides that my face has been given enough intimacy. The knowledge of Miller’s rules, the no kissing or touching, sends a warm feeling of satisfaction deep into the very centre of me, alleviating the anguish that’s crippled me since my discovery. He allows me to kiss him and he allows me to touch and feel him. Those women missed out on something obscenely gratifying.

‘You haven’t slept with a woman since you met me?’

He shakes his head.

‘Yet you’ve had’ – I pause, thinking what word I should use – ‘bookings?’

‘Dates,’ he corrects me. ‘Yes, I’ve had dates.’

William’s curiosity gets the better of me. He wondered how Miller managed to uphold his dates without ha**ng s*x with those women. If I hate my own curiosity, then I despise William’s. ‘If they pay to get the best f**k of their life, then how did you avoid giving it to them?’

‘It wasn’t without its difficulties.’ He brushes my hair from my face. ‘I’m not a fan of small talk.’

‘You talked?’ I ask, shocked.

‘I might have said the odd word when I was paying attention. Most of the time I was thinking of you.’

‘Oh.’

‘Are we done?’ he asks, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation, yet I’m not. I should be. I should be satisfied with his offered information, glad he’s opened up and enlightened me, glad there are no feelings involved. But I’m not. I’m too confused.

‘I don’t understand why those women want you like that.’ Good Lord, if they experienced what I have with Miller Hart, if they were worshipped, then I’m certain they would be bashing down the door to get to him.

‘I make them orgasm.’

‘Women pay thousands for an orgasm?’ I blurt. ‘That’s . . .’ I’m about to say obscene, but then I recall each of my own orgasms and Miller’s hint of a smile tells me he knows what I’m thinking. I deflate. ‘You make all women feel as good as I do when you have me in bed.’

He nods.

‘So there’s nothing special about me.’ I sound hurt. I am hurt.

‘I beg to differ,’ he argues, and I’m about to challenge him, but he hushes me with his glorious lips, sweeping his tongue through my mouth slowly. My senses scramble and I completely forget what I was going to say. ‘There’s something very special about you, Olivia.’

‘What?’ I ask, relishing his attention.

‘You make me feel as good as I know I make you feel – something that no one else has ever done or ever will. I had sex with women. Nothing about any of those encounters made my heart race.’

‘You said it was pleasurable,’ I remind him, keeping myself attached to him. ‘I didn’t get any pleasure when you took me like that. Did you?’ I definitely remember him cl**axing.

‘I felt nothing but disgrace before, during, and after.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I swore on my own life that I’d never tarnish you with my dirty brush.’

‘Then why didn’t you stop?’

‘I blacked out.’ He drops my lips and shifts uncomfortably. ‘When that switch flicks, I don’t register anything except my own aim.’

‘How do these women get any satisfaction from it?’

‘They desire me. But I’m unobtainable. Everyone wants what they can’t have.’ He watches me closely, almost apprehensively.