Some dreams are just better than others.

But this one’s a freaking Big Mac of better. With extra cheese and secret sauce.

So damn good, a lot of the details climb out of the sleep fog with me. I swear I can still smell Reece Richards on my skin, smoky and spicy. I can feel the lingering warmth of his climax on my throat…and everywhere else.

Everywhere.

I roll to my side, twisting the bedcovers against my pussy, moaning into my pillow as the sensitive surfaces swell to life…

As if I really did climax over two dozen times for the man last night.

As he did nothing but watch.

Impossible.

But so wonderful to think about.

I trail a hand down and slip my fingers beneath my panties. The world beyond my closed eyelids is still too bright, meaning there’s time for at least a quick fantasy before prepping for work. This time, I’ll be awake for it too. Yessss.

I roll to my back and kick the covers free, letting the room’s warmth drench my skin. I get rid of my panties in an equal hurry, luxuriating in the softness of the sheets and pillows—and do I mean soft. New fabric softener for the win. My discount cotton sheets suddenly feel like thousand-thread Egyptian stuff, and I’m damn Nefertiti in the middle of them.

With a fantasy pharaoh filling my mind’s eye.

His stare, silver and charged. His face, striking and bold. His body, proud and etched. Oh, that body. His chiseled torso pulls my stare in, and I push heavy air through my chest as I trail the gaze of my dream-self down to the best part of him.

Oh.

That.

He’s magnificent. Undaunted. So unafraid to show me how his cock wants me. I’m not even bashful about using the word cock.

My sex clenches as I trail my fingers down, finding the most tender part of my clit. As I stroke those sensitive nerves, my mind blooms with an image of his stalk, long and gleaming and erect…

And delicious.

Oh yes. That too.

As if my dream is actually a memory, I relive every moment of pulling him inside my mouth. All the way down my throat. He groans, amazed that I take him so deeply. Even I’m astounded. Somehow, his come has cauterized my gag reflex. I’m able to suck his cock all the way inside. Deeper and deeper…

He grows inside me. Bigger and bigger…

He fucks my mouth. Harder and harder…

I release a sigh. Spread my legs. Dig my heels into the bed, thrusting my pussy into my hand. I moan, rubbing faster. Trying, with urgent need, to keep up with what the dream does to my blood, my nerves, my sanity.

Needy gasps tumble off my lips.

His hungry snarl tangles with them. A beautiful sound…only now it seems so real…

Too real.

I force my eyes open. Every muscle in my body stops. This isn’t my little bed nook at my studio apartment. I’m in a room twice that size, in a bed my whole kitchen could fit into, set on a platform overlooking everything between the Brocade and the Pacific Ocean. Golden sun spills over all the buildings, streets, and cars before glimmering on the sea along the far horizon. Just as distant but just as real is a memory of this room by night…from the vantage point of Reece’s arms.

Reece.

He’d asked me to call him Reece…

I’d agreed…

In the same giddy haze I find myself now…

And never want to leave.

Especially as the man drops his sweats—the only thing he’s wearing—and kicks them aside, stepping onto the riser and bumping his knees to the bottom edge of the bed. If I didn’t just shudder with ten kinds of new arousal, I’d seriously start wondering about the dream angle again. But holy shit.

“This is real.” I finish the thought aloud, needing to hear myself speak it. “You’re real.”

“It is.” His gaze heats. “I am.” He slides one hand around the base of his erection. As he strokes that mesmerizing length, his body tautens into amazing lines of muscle. “And you are. Thank fuck.”

At once, I start moving too. Any fragment of uncertainty or insecurity is scorched by the spell he casts on me. Is the air sparkling? And if it really is, why am I not surprised? It’s him and that bizarre but beautiful force field of his. He ignites my blood and electrifies my pussy in the same incredible second…

Every inch of my intimate triangle cries out, demanding attention. I writhe, shameless in my lust. My thighs start to ache. My nipples pucker, painful and pulsing.

It all gets worse—and better—as he hikes both knees to the bed and scoots his way toward me.

“Spread for me, Velvet.”

Velvet.

Oh, my God. That wasn’t a dream either.

With a surrendering sigh, I obey him. My attention is rapt as he widens his pose, scraping my inner thighs with his knees. The coarse hair covering the amazing muscles of his legs is a deeply primal turn-on. Take me. Please.

He keeps fisting his erection. Up and down, up and down, up and down. His strokes are bold and demanding, corresponding to the force of his stare on my body.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” The words rasp from between his locked teeth as he leans over, bracing himself with his free hand. “Just looking at you like this… Feel what it does to me.”

My gasp twines with his groan as his hand halts on his cock. The muscles in his arm constrict, aiding the extra hard squeeze he gives just under the purple mushroom at his tip. The slit in it brims with a liquid pearl—a drop he aims directly over my clit. We both watch that gleaming bead, hovering…teasing us…

“Oh,” I croak. “Oh.” When I lift my head, his stare awaits, severe as a dagger and slicing me just as deep. I’m not nearly so sure of myself. Of any of this. Will that liquid, pumped from that wicked place inside him, have the same effect on me as last night? Will it feel as good on the outside of my pussy as it did from the inside? I can barely force my brain around the questions, let alone my lips.

His mind and mouth aren’t so hesitant.

“You want it, Velvet?”

I shiver from the electric caress of his voice. “Y-Yes.”

A corner of his decadent mouth kicks up. “Then you have to say it.”

I gulp hard. “I—I want it.”

“Say it all. What do you want, Emma? And where do you want it?”

I groan.

He smirks.

“Please…Reece…”

“Say it.”

“I… I want your come. Right here. In… In my pussy.”

He squeezes and his liquid drips into my shivering folds.

I shoot to the stars.

The orgasm hits hard and fast. My eyes blaze wide. A scream spirals up my throat and is consumed by Reece’s brutal kiss. I give him the sound with open abandon, too shocked and aroused to fight his sweeping, searing attack. His tongue is the center of my world, a life raft of reality in an ocean of unthinking ecstasy. He groans hard in response, the sound emanating from his core as he drips again onto me, making me burst again.

“Ahhhh!” I shriek while breaking away to search for air and logic and what’s left of my sanity. “What’s going on?” My plea shoots toward the ceiling. “Wh-What the hell are you doing to me?”

The cherubs sculpted into the corners of the crown molding have no response for me. But the man between my legs sure as hell does. He’s everything they aren’t: full of motion and passion and wicked, wild intentions firing like quicksilver in the depths of his focused stare.

“Doing to you?” he echoes, grabbing my face to angle me for his deep, hard kiss. “Everything I possibly can, Miss Crist. Everywhere I possibly can.”

“Yes, Mr. Richards.”

I’m not sure what turns me on more, the formality she automatically returns to or the submission with which she does. Everything this woman does and says has my cock surging with magma, pressure building, heat increasing, like a volcano about to explode.

There’s no more time. Her surrender, open and generous and perfect, is all I’ve been waiting for.

I slide my hips forward, impelling her legs to widen for me. I aim my aching dick toward her willing entrance, ready to take her pussy with one full push—but stop myself. Fuck. Twelve months of imposed celibacy and I’ve really gone as stupid as a teenage virgin.

“Damn it.” I lower my head and push up a little, breathing hard. Our foreheads are pressed together, so I feel her puzzled frown at once.

“Wh-What’s wrong?”

Shockingly, I’m able to grunt out a laugh. “No condoms.”

“Wh—” She huffs. Stares at me harder. “Are you kidding?”

“Wish I were.” I raise my head a few inches more to study every adorable line of her scowl. “And you don’t believe me.”

“Would you, if you were me?”

Damn good point. Probably not. But hell, I want to change her mind. Right here, right now, I want to give her all the real answers for trusting me. As in, I want to tell her everything. All of it. For just once, for just this woman, I long to come out of the shadows. To trust her with everything. The whole truth, from beginning to end, exactly as it happened last year.

Out in the foyer, there’s a loud chime.

Emma starts. I break away, springing off the bed.

“What is that?” Anxiety fans her tone. Before I can stab both legs back into my sweats and throw on an old T-shirt, she’s clutching the cover to hide her breathtaking nudity.

“Stay here.” I curl one knee to the bed, grab the back of her neck, and slam an adamant kiss to her lips. “We’re not done yet.”

Not by far.

I shut the bedroom door and clear the hallway into the foyer just in time to plaster a professional smile on my lips. It’s enough of a reply, at least for the moment, to the questioning gaze in the pretty face of the woman stepping off the elevator.

“Miss Jain. Good day. What can I do for you?”

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

I rasp it at least twenty more times while peeking through the crack in the door at Reece and Neeta. I’ve dragged the comforter off the bed with me, certain Reece has simply gone to sign for a package or something. But now I’m gaping at my boss, who stands there with her boss, less than ten feet from where I flailed and screamed like a porn star last night. While he watched.

Yeah. I’ve finally realized it wasn’t a dream.

And no, I’m not thrilled about that fact.

Especially because I can’t see if Reece had the time or inclination to clean up after our debauchery last night.

And holy wow, what debauchery.

I let my head drop into my hands and succumb to a nearly silent sob. This is fate’s version of ultimate sarcasm, but it’s not funny. I’ve finally escaped the OC, gained freedom, independence, and a great job, only to risk it all because I got horizontal with my tantalizing god of a boss—who, by the way, also happens to be the most amazing lover on the planet.

And no, I don’t need to sample the rest to be sure of that.

My attention rivets back to the discussion in the foyer. Neeta’s talking about me—and looking pretty stressed about it.

What the hell?

“…can’t believe she fell ill like that so fast.” Her hair catches the sunlight coming through the same bank of windows that caused my holy-shit-is-that-China gawks a few hours ago. She’s dressed in the same suit she wore for last night’s shift, making me realize it isn’t as late in the day as I first thought, though she still looks as fresh as the moment we first clocked in. I’m not sure if I admire her or hate her for that, especially as she executes a classic toss-toss of her ebony mane. The move would’ve likely preceded a sweet and worshipping smile at Reece if the subject matter weren’t my health. I can’t even blame her. Reece is, as Wade and Fershan would phrase it, “clickbait for the chicks’ sake.” I’m not sure of that definition, but it’s close enough to “freaking hot” that Neeta’s thin ruse of a flirt is no-brainer obvious.

“Stomach bugs can be capricious,” Reece responds diplomatically. “Which was why I insisted on calling a car for her. She wasn’t in any condition to drive.”

Neeta’s head jogs to the side. “She told you that?”

I’m oddly tempted to restart the shit-shit-shit litany as Reece takes a second to consider her question. I’d have thought a man who spent more time on nightclub couches than conference calls would be better at bluffing, not worse.

“Not in so many words,” he finally says, re-earning his master bullshitter stripes. “She wasn’t really in the mood to…talk.”

Neeta’s forehead pinches. “Oh. I see.” Though I wonder if she really does—another instinct I’m unable to verify, since she clearly forgets the thought behind it once Reece folds his arms, returning to pharaoh mode. The move—so arrogant it can only be pulled off by a man of his glory—stretches his clothes across his muscled limbs until Neeta defaults into flustered-and-faltering mode. I don’t blame her. I’d be doing the same—if I weren’t so preoccupied with wanting to brain the man.

“Well, then.” She readjusts the shiny red purse on her shoulder. “May I be forward and ask if she followed up with you…to let you know she got home all right? I normally worry because she insists on taking the train home, but if you had a driver take her—”

“He called after the drop-off. Told me she got in fine.”

I swallow hard. The easy undertones in Reece’s voice are gone. He’s lying through his teeth and not happy about it.

It’s so time for shit-shit-shitting again.

Instead, I let the comforter drop and dart into the bathroom, hoping beyond hope he somehow brought my—

Yes.

My suit has been placed onto a couple of hangers that dangle from the side of a door to the connecting bathroom. As I shimmy into my skirt, I fling a longing gaze to the palatial setup of the space. Roman tub with jets. A shower so big it has a seat. A little vanity area with a mirror lined in adjustable lights. In a little side room, there’s a toilet with an electronic bidet extension.

I’m thiiiiis close to letting the skirt fall in the name of honoring this bathroom by having sex in it, but then Reece’s voice bleeds through the door beyond the bed. He’s still uncomfortable about the charade for Neeta’s sake—a pretense he propagated, I might add—but I’m not about to sit around and extend the fib any longer.

With a few twists, I reattach enough of the buttons on my blouse to get out of here without flashing the world. The effect is better once I get my suit jacket on, especially because there’s no time for the whole bra thing. It, as well as my panties, can be his souvenirs for the blue-ribbon debauchery.

Hell.

Debauchery.

No way will I ever be able to hear that word again and avoid remembering last night’s precious, perfect, mind-altering version of it…

Or the man who gave all that wickedness to me.

The man I now have to escape at all costs. No matter what.

I need this job.

I. Need. This. Job.

Not just keeping it. Thriving in it. Excelling at it. Showing Mother and Lydia and everyone else at the club that “little Emma” is capable of succeeding in the big, evil city. That their checklist for happily ever after doesn’t have to be mine. That not everyone on the face of the earth measures success with a house that sleeps thirty, a car that transports ten, and a passport that’s stamped in Paris, Milan, and London.

My checklist is bigger.

So much bigger.

It starts with this job. And does not include shacking up in the penthouse with my boss.

I need to get out of here. Now. Before he finishes chitchatting with Neeta. The second her elevator returns, he’ll be back in here, frying my resolve with his force field magic.

I creep to the door on the other side of the room, praying it leads to a back corridor of some sort. The front elevator that brought Neeta up isn’t the only way into this place. Reece himself usually gets up here via the private elevator in back, which is located somewhere along this side of the tower.

I crack the door and sneak down a short hallway until I enter the kitchen. Still a good sign. The back elevator is also the service elevator for the suite, so direct kitchen access makes sense.

I step across a polished black wood floor and through a culinary spaceship made of glass and stainless steel. Side-by-side ovens, a fully stocked wine cooler, and a coffee bar nearly induce me to another orgasm—okay, so maybe I do miss a few creature comforts from the golden land—but there’s no time for more than a few drops of drool right now. I need to locate that back elevator.

Ding ding ding.

A small anteroom also turns out to be the landing for the elevator. I pad across it and stab the call button for the car. “Please, please, please,” I whisper, hoping the car is already parked at this level, but since Reece came up in the main elevator last night, I have to wait while the system brings it up.

Thankfully, the gears work fast. Not so thankfully, as I hurry into the car and jab the button for the ground floor, the last sound I hear from the penthouse is Reece’s unmistakable baritone, bellowing my name from the bedroom. His voice all but topples the walls between us, thundering straight to my belly, making me wrap both arms around myself.

As the doors shut, I lean against the elevator’s back wall, seeking solace from the silence that encompasses me.

I’m doing the right thing.

I’m doing the right thing.

I’m doing the right thing.

And soon—please God, soon—the rest of my senses will catch up to the strength of that mantra.

Because right now, it feels freaking useless.

Useless. This all feels fucking useless.

Even as I pulse yet another asshole bank robber into the waiting arms of the cops, I can’t escape the ruthless claw of my feelings. Eight thwarted crimes in three days, and goddamnit, there’s still nothing in my gut but half a bean-and-cheese burrito and a shit-ton of unanswered rage.

Fury that seems to have only gotten worse since the moment I stood in the penthouse kitchen, watching the numbers over my private elevator doors descend—and never come back up again.

Ramping up the Dudley Do-Right gigs have only made the rage worse. It’s like a field of electric towers in my brain right now, buzzing louder and louder, pushing the limits of my skull thanks to the screams of the civilians, the wail of the sirens, and the antics of the scumbag himself.

“Yeah!” As the officers scoop him off the floor, he jumps a few feet, a victorious grin on his face. “I was zapped by Bolt, y’all! I was zapped by Bolt!”

“Fuck,” I mutter while whipping a double take at the asshole, who’s juiced more by the cheering crowd. “What the hell?” I bellow, unsure whether I mean it more for him or them. Why can’t everyone calm the hell down and get back to work and their lives? On the other hand, why the fuck do I care?

My confusion triggers his. “What the hell, what?” He nods, indicating my leathers—necessary attire despite the fact that it’s nearly ninety outside today. “Come on, man. You’re really him, right?”

“Him who?”

“You serious?” Harsh snort. “You really don’t know?”

A chuff comes from the cop double-checking his cuffs. “He’s probably been too busy lately to notice the news, asshole. You know, dealing with scumsuckers like you?” He tips a grin my direction. “Some of us are just more grateful than others for it.”

I return his compliment with a glare. The move dances on the edge of asshole in its own right, but my bafflement doesn’t know the difference. “The news about what?”

“You have a name now, buddy,” the cop supplies.

A headache develops behind my scowl. “A what?”

“A name.” He chuckles. “What? You don’t like Bolt?”

“Bolt?” I pronounce the word so slowly, it almost becomes two syllables.

As two more officers come in and haul the criminal out, he’s given the physical freedom for a shrug. “Beats ‘super hero dude in tight leather,’ yeah? Unless you’re all about the look?”

“Sure.” Now I soak it in sarcasm.

“That’s what I thought too.” He takes a step closer, going for a just-between-us-guys kind of thing, though giving his true outlook away by glancing over at his buddies with a shit-eating smirk. Look at me. I’m chattin’ it up with Bolt.

Bolt.

Shit.

As nicknames go, it’s not the worst. If I were a dog, I’d be something like a Doberman or a Great Dane, right? Considering how I’ve chosen the mongrel therapy route this week, I should have seen this coming. Dog discovers toy. Dog really likes toy. Dog loses toy. Dog deals by pissing electricity all over the city.

Or something like that.

“Figured with all the power you’re throwing around, the suit helps keep it in check. Something like that?”

“Yeah.”

Speaking of moving on…

Though the cops still have the bank lobby locked down, the blare of camera lights through the tinted windows alerts me I’ve overstayed my welcome at this party. The cop, Officer A. Feliz according to his name badge, could’ve been a guy I’d hang with for a while, pounding beers and playing darts. The old Reece likely would’ve suggested such a thing. Hell, the new Reece likes the idea too. But the two Reeces don’t get to share a universe. It was part of the deal I made with Karma. The bed I made and now must lie in.

Where I’m having issues with Karma is the bridge between figurative beds and real ones.

Like the one in which I’d finally felt alive for the first time in a year. Alive because of the goddess who’d slept in my arms. White-gold hair, cream silk skin, sated sighs. Who’d stayed the night. The whole night.

The first woman—the first person—who’d given me a gift more important than all the shiny objects I’ve possessed in my twenty-nine years of existence.

Hope.

I’d fought it that night. Damn, how I’d fought it. But after those hours of holding and smelling and breathing her, the sensation took root. The sliver of belief, however tiny, that maybe Karma would be merciful and give me one person who didn’t feel like crawling out of their skin just because I was in the room. That maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to think about every day of my life going down just like this one.

Waking up alone.

Putting some bad guys away. Saving a few thousand people.

Going to sleep alone.

For a few amazing hours, I’d let myself think otherwise. Held the gift in my arms. Savored it. Treasured it. Been able to shove aside the fact that this nickname they’ve given is more ideal than anyone realizes.

Bolt.

Why the hell not? It’s the way I’ve treated my own life for so long. Why shouldn’t it be the way I’m treated now?

Why shouldn’t it be the word I’m celebrated with as I crouch low, surrounded by cheers I barely hear, and sprint from everyone’s view—and in a few minutes, from their minds too—as their lives go on again, secure because of the super hero they can forget as swiftly as a tabloid magazine cover?

Again.