After we arrive in front of Connor’s building on Billionaire Row, I scamper ahead him out of the limo and smile at the doorman as he ushers me in. I’m wearing my dress again, but this time without my panties, and I’m barefoot, carrying my high-heeled sandals by their straps since I don’t see the point in putting them back on. Even at night, the summer heat coats my skin with humidity.

Then again, there’s much more than that on my skin, and I get into the elevator before Connor coolly arrives there, too. The ice cream and sensual sweat from our bout in the limo might have something to do with all the lovely stickiness on me.

As the elevator speeds up to the penthouse, Connor stands near the chrome doors with his back to me, beginning to undo his tie. In the reflection of the car’s mirrors, I can see him looking pleased with himself.

The game is on, the electric space between us humming.

When the doors open, he stands aside for me, and I don’t look at him. I can feel his eyes caressing me all over, and I vibrate with the knowledge that he’ll soon be making me scream.

Soon can’t come quickly enough.

I wait for him to open the door as I lean against the wall, casually starting to undo the hidden zipper on the side of my skirt. The buzzing sound only adds to the tension. He makes that low, throttled, growly sound as he holds open the door for me.

I walk past him as if heading toward my bedroom for the night, but he presses his hand to the bare small of my back, redirecting me toward the nearest room.

The dining room, with its long glass table, chrome-lined chairs, and stark white spaces.

Without a word, Connor guides me to the head of the table. He knocks aside the chair there, and it crashes to the floor.

My heart bumping, I stand there with my fingertips poised on the glass. The air conditioner hushes on, and I feel the breeze brush over my arms, making my hairs stand on end. Connor runs his fingertips over my goose bumps, and a building scream rises from my clenched belly to my chest.

I hear the quiet pop of buttons behind me, and I think he’s undoing his shirt with one hand. After he removes his fingers from me and I hear something fall to the floor, I’m pretty sure he’s gotten rid of his jacket and shirt.

He presses against me until I feel every contour of his hard, naked torso, and I bite my lip. Skin on skin—his abs and chest to my back. The bulge of his cock is already nudging between the cheeks of my bottom, and I can feel it even through my dress. I shift against him.

With a strangled groan, he grips my hips. I instinctively lift my hands back to grasp his thick arms.

He slowly grinds his cock against me, making promises sweet promises that my pussy weeps for, and as I moan again, I reach to the clasp of my halter and wrestle it free. This slow seduction is killing me. My pulse is fast and out of control, just as our sexual encounters usually are, and I want to push Connor into fucking me right now, demanding and hard.

But he only stretches out my torment by peeling off my top. Let loose, my unzipped dress slumps to the marble tile. I feel like the lace fabric—fluid and formless and ready to slip down to his feet as well.

Without my dress to cover me, I’m completely bared, and a breath hisses out of him as he eases his hands around me, bringing them up to cup my breasts. I rise along with him, my breathing loud and uneven.

He nuzzles my ear. “I’m trying to decide which part of you is the most sensitive besides the obvious. I know when I touch your clit, you get hot. When I finger you, you get wet. When I fuck you with my cock, you cry out. But what else does my little queen like?”

Oh, his dirty talk does it for me, and one of those mewls that I’ve been making a lot recently purrs in my throat, ready to go full voice.

“Will your next orgasm come when I touch your beautiful tits, Allyson?” he asks against my ear.

I’ve never thought of them as beautiful. Average, perky, nice. But beautiful is a word that turns me on with such tight force that I groan.

“Or,” Connor says, “is it somewhere else that’ll make you scream first?”

He slides a hand to my naked belly, right above my pussy. Gently, he pets me there, light fingertips, wispy strokes that make me wetter and wetter for him.

As my excitement climbs, I snuggle back against his cock.

“Yeah,” he says. “My girl’s going to come soon, and it’s because her tits and her belly like it when I pay slow, dirty attention to them. But where else does she like it?”

He coasts his hands to my back, feeling me up and down there with feathered caresses. Then he skims down to the curves of my bottom. He sweeps his fingers over my cheeks, exploring, but when he strokes his thumbs to my cleft and parts me, I heave in a jagged breath. My clit knots up with painful need.

“How about this part of you, Allyson? I think you showed me in the limo that you want more of this.”

He presses against that naughty button he pushed earlier, and I fall forward, my hands braced on the table.

“Oh…”

“Oh?” he asks in a relentless whisper. “Does that mean you like it?”

“Oh…yes…”

He rubs me there some more, and a strange, stirring arousal brings my clit to the edge of a silent scream. The sensation only grows and grows as Connor keeps massaging this forbidden yet erotically charged spot. I move with every rub, heat taking me over until I feel as if I’m going to blow.

Every time he touches me anywhere I want to scream, and I think he knows that.

As my head spins, I hear Connor curse, and he suddenly eases me onto the table. He takes his hands off of me, and I pant for more. I’m on all fours looking back at him as he strips off the rest of his clothing.

“Goddammit,” he says with that fire in his eyes. “You’re a sexual time bomb all over your body. And you never fucking knew that before?”

“No.” I can barely form the word.

He comes back to the table, and I excitedly get down to my elbows, my ass in the air, inviting him to touch me there again with no trace of naive shyness. Whatever he does to me is magic, and I’m trembling with anticipation as well as the orgasm that’s just waiting to explode inside me.

I’m a freak, I think. His ecstatic freak who comes for him no matter what he does.

He runs his hands over my ass with slow appreciation, then sharply pats it, sending lances of desire through my clit. When he slips his fingers between my legs, testing my pussy, sliding through my cream, I’m hardly disappointed that he’s not stimulating my backside anymore. How can I be when I’m writhing once again at the fierce pounding inside me?

Silently, he leads me all the way down to the table until I’m on my back. One of my arms flops over my head, the other over my breasts. I squeeze my arm against my chest, adding a sensuous pressure that only excites me more as he pulls me toward him, my skin loudly rubbing against the glass.

“My little queen wanted new experiences,” he says, bending my right leg and wrapping it back around his waist. He pushes my other leg back between his thighs until he has me almost doggy style, but with a twist that allows me to watch him. “Here’s an adventure for you, Allyson.”

His cock is ready to enter my pussy from the back, his tip probing my clit. I make a needy sound that tells him to just fuck me. Just do it. But he takes a long, hot moment to look down at me instead, and shudders wrack my belly. Pulses of agonizing lust take my breath away.

Then, with a smooth thrust, he enters me with his big, thick shaft. I gasp as he goes deep, and when he reaches down to lightly strum my clit in rhythm to every one of his expert strokes, I sink into a pool of whirling darkness. Even though Connor is working me slowly, I’m caught up in a thrashing vortex that’s sucking me down, down with its pressure.

My mind keeps spinning, my world speeding up as his thrusts get more demanding. I try to rise through the darkness I’m in, to get a breath, but he’s fucking me so hard, faster, faster that I suddenly cry out, vaulting out of the whirlpool, thrown far and wide, arching down and down and coming with a violent bang.

In the aftermath, I breathe as my body shimmers from all that sharp heat, the jarring, wet climax I just had. When I look up at Connor, I realize that my sex is completely soaked, and it’s because he’s already come inside of me. His juices trickle out of my pussy, coating my thighs and the table as he watches me, the veins in his neck pulsing, the heat in his eyes all-consuming.

With a primal grunt, he sweeps me into his arms. I’m so weak that I can only sink against his chest, and when he ultimately eases me under the covers of my bed, I only wait for him to join me.

He does, and my heart sings. Then he holds me close, and I revel in the warmth, in feeling safer and more taken care of than ever in my life.

“Did I scream?” I ask softly, my energy sapped.

“You shook the walls.”

He kisses me softly, and I smile and curl up to him, wondering if all of this is still part of our deal, because it feels like so much more. Maybe I’m imagining it though, because how many women has Connor bedded? How many of them were so swept away by his prowess that they thought the same thing?

He’s always been clear that this is purely a business arrangement, and even if this night was amazing for me, it’s probably just what he ordered from Highest Bidder…

I drift off in his arms. I sleep like I’ve been given a potion, and when I wake up in the morning, Connor is still with me. His muscled arm is draped over me, his body spooning mine, and I kiss his skin, holding onto every moment I can with him.

I have only four more days left with this man, and every time I think of it, I hurt.

He’s sleeping like a rock, and I need to go to the bathroom so I creep out of bed, looking back at him with my heart winging through my chest. After a sigh, I do what I need to do, then put on a short silken robe and go to the kitchen, thinking that I can whip up a breakfast for him just as he did for me.

Before I even open the fridge, I check my phone to see what kind of campaigning my family will be doing today to get me back together with Robbie. Even in my sheltered little world where all that exists is Connor, this one thing still needles me.

There’s the usual amount of texts from Robbie and my family, and now even my friends. There’s a message from Ella, too, but when I open it, I see that my ex best friend isn’t texting me with more apologies about what she did with Robbie.

Ally, what the hell is going on?

It’s followed by a link.

After I follow it, I see the expected pictures of Connor and me plastered all over the pages of a tabloid, and that increasingly familiar thrill whizzes through me. Is everyone going to find out my secret now? Will it finally show everyone I’m not the doormat they think I am?

But as I read the headline, I nearly drop the phone in complete horror.