I’d had to sweet talk my way onto the penthouse level where Jacen was staying. Luck had been with me, though.

A man on his way up had been seriously drunk, and when he’d dropped his key, I’d managed to convince him that I was the cute girl staying in the room across from his. I’d left my key card in my room, and my friend was up there, if he’d just let me ride up…

I’d hated lying, but I’d needed to get up to that room, and with Jacen dodging my texts, I hadn’t known what else to do.

The last thing I’d expected was for him to just open the door.

Then pull me inside.

Then kiss me.

And while I’d hoped to find Daytin there, I hadn’t expected to find her laying on his couch. With wet hair. Wearing his clothes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked focusing on the more important matter first. If she’d OD’d, we’d have to go to the emergency room and that would seriously mess things up when it came me to trying to get her back into the program. They wouldn’t take her for another month after a discharge from an overdose, and she’d never just sit around and wait.

“She’s just tired,” Jacen said from behind me as I hurried over to her. “Fell asleep a few minutes ago.”

Just tired—

Coming up short, I turned to look at him. “She’s just tired. She’s lying on your couch because she’s tired and decided to take a nap? Why is she wearing your bloody clothes?”

That didn’t come out the way I’d intended. I had no doubt he’d been a complete gentleman. The moment the bouncer had told me Daytin was with Jacen, I’d known she’d be okay as long as she stayed with him.

“Because she got sick on hers walking over her.” Jacen shrugged, clearly not taking offense. “I washed hers out in the sink while she was in the shower. And for the record, I don’t think she planned on falling asleep. But…hell, the girl’s exhausted, Camry. It’s probably been days since she’s slept well.”

“Longer,” I whispered, the memories crashing over me, tiring me out. Feeling all the adrenaline draining out of me, I dropped down into the chair angling toward the couch and looked at him. “Thank you,” I said quietly as he came to crouch by my knees. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

He rested a hand on mine. “I was trying to figure out how to talk her back into rehab. She freaked out at the idea of me calling you. I think she’s ashamed.”

“Yes. She might be. She shouldn’t be—not with me anyway.” With a weak laugh, I added, “Nobody knows better than me what she’s going through.”

“I think she looks up to you.” Jacen’s wide shoulders stretched the faded material of his T-shirt as he shrugged.

I dragged my eyes away before I reached for him. Then I’d have to drag my hands away as well.

Behave, Camry, behave…

I didn’t want to, though. Not with him. Never with him.

Swallowing, I focused on his words. “She shouldn’t.” Daytin, looking up to me? What had I ever done that was the least bit inspiring? “I’m a bloody wreck, Jacen. Kaleb is furious with me—not that I’m not furious with him, but he constantly waits for me to disappoint him, and I always do. I can’t manage any more than four classes a semester. I left without telling him. Worried him and Piety.” Sighing, I leaned my head into the padded cushions. “I feel like I’m barely hanging on and she looks up to me?”

“But you’re doing more than hanging on, Cam. You got clean, sober. A year ago, you were working the streets. Now look at you.” He reached up and flicked at my earrings, a trio of dangling silver chains I’d found on a discount rack. “You look a million dollars.”

“American or Australian?” I asked weakly. His fingers had touched my neck and now little sparks were shooting through me.

“Whichever one is stronger. I can never remember.”

Which one of us leaned in first? I didn’t know. But we were hovering only a breath from each other.

“I want to kiss you again,” he said, his breath ghosting across my lips.

I shivered as he brushed my hair back. “I want you to kiss me again.”

He did, but it could barely be counted as a kiss, it was so light and fast. Not even enough to whet my appetite.

“That wasn’t a real kiss,” I said, trying not to pout just to get him to give me more. I’d never liked kisses until he’d kissed me.

“Maybe you should give me one then.” He fisted his hand in my hair and tugged me forward.

I slid onto his lap, limp and lax as a puddle of wax. But I didn’t kiss him, not right away at least.

“Should we be doing this?” I whispered. I wasn’t talking about Daytin being in the room either. He did have a bedroom in the suite after all.

“I don’t know.” He pressed his lips to my forehead, massaged my scalp with those strong fingers of his. “Maybe we should…maybe we shouldn’t. But the thing is, why are you questioning it? Because of you...or because of your brother?”

He pulled back then, meeting my gaze.

“I…yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Well, here’s my suggestion. He can bugger off.” His mouth crushed down on mine, his hands holding my head in place as he devoured my mouth. I grabbed his shoulders, tangled my tongue with his. His hands dropped to my hips, and then he stood, fingers digging into my ass. Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his hips and clung to him as he walked us across the room.

“That’s a terribly mature way to deal with it,” I said, panting for air when he finally released my mouth. We were in the bedroom by then, and I had my shoulders back against the door while he worked on unfastening my shirt, button by button by button.

His lips cruised down my neck. “I don’t care about being mature. I don’t much care about your brother either right now. I care about you and getting you naked. Are you okay with that?”

In response, I wiggled around as best as I could and managed to get my shirt off, tossing it to the floor. “What do you think?”

The windows faced out over the city, giving a stunning display of the skyline, but I barely noticed as Jacen laid me down, pressing his lips to the slope of one breast before he peeled off my bra. I moaned as he covered one nipple with his mouth, the other becoming subject to the rather sharp ministrations of his talented fingers and thumb. Little bites of pain went through me, the sensation at such a contrast to the soft, wet, heat from the other side that I couldn’t decide which drove me crazier.

I buried my hands in his hair, scratched my nails on his scalp and earned a nip from his teeth.

“Jacen,” I breathed his name as his fingers moved between us, quickly unsnapping my shorts and sliding his hand under the waistband of my panties.

“What do you want, darling?” He punctuated his question with a quick, hard kiss.

I glared at him. “You know what I want.”

His finger slipped over my clit, barely a touch, but it fanned the fire inside me enough to make me give in.

“Make me come,” I demanded. “Use your fingers to get me off.”

He grinned at me, eyes locked with mine as he moved his hand. Quick, rough strokes over my clit until I came with a cry, and then he was pulling off the rest of my clothes.

I was naked now.

He wasn’t.

“Not fair,” I pouted, tugging at his shirt. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

He simply smiled at me as he traced my newest tattoo. I had three of them, each one with meaning. I’d gotten the halo at the base of my neck, and the devil horns at the small of my back two days after I’d arrived in Vegas. It had been my promise to myself to show the world an angel, but be the devil I was inside. My rebellion. Instead of removing them when I got clean, I’d chosen to get something new to remind myself of my new start, and I’d made my decision of what that would be in April. Now, the right side of my ribcage had a flying phoenix, and under it were the words from the ashes.

Jacen looked up at me again, something warmer in his eyes than pure desire. He kissed the words, then moved between my legs. He pressed an open mouth kiss to my calf, then the inside of my thigh as he moved...shit. I stiffened. He raised his head, a curious expression on his face. I forced a smile and nodded, unable to tell him that I wanted to stop.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have sex with him, but rather that I didn’t want him to do...that.

Only johns had ever done it to me, and only a few of them had ever bothered. It had always been weird and uncomfortable and embarrassing. I’d always pretended that I’d enjoyed it, but then again, I’d always pretended to like everything. Oral sex had been just one more thing, and nothing I’d ever considered experiencing now that sex was my choice again.

But then Jacen put his mouth on me. He licked me. Then he kissed me, almost like he was kissing my mouth, and my world shifted yet again. I moaned, shuddered, thrashed like a woman caught in a dream. Except this wasn’t a dream and I didn’t know what it was except sheer, pure bliss.

It was like nothing I’d ever felt before, nothing I could even come close to describing. As his tongue moved over me and inside me, I found myself whimpering, gasping, hands fisting in the sheets, eyes closing as I let the pleasure wash over me.

When he stopped and lifted up, crawling the length of my body to kiss me, I didn’t even consider turning him aside. I was too far gone to even consider it.

His hands cupped my butt, and he lifted me up, steadied me. I was hardly aware of him moving until he was inside me, and the shock came less from the size of him than it did the feel of him.

Inside me.

Naked.

No rubber.

“Jacen!”

He brushed his lips across mine, and the taste of me on him was almost enough of a distraction that I forgot. But I couldn’t forget. “Jacen…you…we need a condom.”

“No,” he said, catching one of my wrists, then the other and dragging them up over my head. “Unless you think there’s a reason we do. I’m clean. I suspect you are or you wouldn’t be here with me.”

That was the truth, but it was beside the point.

When I tried to tell him that, he twisted his hips and I shuddered at the feel of him inside. He felt so good. It was almost painful how good it felt to have him inside me. I quaked as I brought my knees up, pressing them to his hips, trying to hold him still.

“We should use a condom. I mean, I take the pill, but we should still…”

“Do you trust me?” Jacen lifted up just enough so his eyes could meet mine.

I didn’t even have to think. “Yes.”

“And I trust you. But if you really want me to stop…”

Dammit. It felt so good, so right.

“Don’t stop,” I whispered. “Don’t ever stop.”

He began to move, slow, deep strokes that reached parts of me I hadn’t known existed before him. Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe he’d created them when he’d given me choices, when he’d taken the time to make sure I enjoyed what he did.

“I don’t ever want to stop,” he said, kissing me again.

Then he stopped talking and focused on me. All on me, and I wondered if it was possible to die from pleasure.

But what a way to go.

* * *

“Oomph.”

Cold feet pressed up against my calves, and I wiggled around, yelping as I tried to escape. I’d been so close to falling asleep, and then he’d gone and done that.

“What?” Jacen’s voice sounded innocent. Too innocent.

Rolling over, I glared at him.

He smiled at me and leaned in, pressing his mouth to mine. “That’s better.”

“You put your cold feet on me just so I’d look at you?”

“I put my cold feet on you because they’re cold and you’re warm.” He nuzzled my neck, tongue flicking out to tease my skin. He added in a roguish voice, “Hot even. So fucking hot.”

He palmed my breast as he said that last part, plucking my nipple, but neither of us had the energy now to do much of anything else. He’d spent the past hour teaching me things about my body I’d never known. And me…well, I’d just enjoyed his.

I’d spent so much of my adolescence wondering what it would be like to touch him as much as I’d wanted that, presented with the opportunity to do just that, I’d been unable to resist. Even now, I couldn’t stop myself from running my fingers over his muscled forearm, up his biceps to his shoulders. He was all lean muscle, each part of him sculpted with perfect definition.

I could have spent all night like this, but it was well after midnight and I needed to sleep. “I need some sleep if I’m going to be able to figure out a way to convince Daytin to go back to the clinic.” My mouth curved into an ironic smile. “Maybe I can get a good paper topic for one of my classes in the fall.”

“What are you going to school for?” he asked, brushing my hair back.

“Counseling. Drug counseling specifically. So I can help people like me. Like I used to be. Like how Piety and Astra are.” I always added that in, I realized. Like I was trying to remind myself that I was paying back a debt that could never truly be settled.

“What about your art?”

I gave him the same argument I gave myself time and again. “I can always draw. I don’t need some fancy art degree to do that.”

“But maybe doing something with art would make you happier.” He ran his finger over my shoulder and down my arm, then traced along each of my fingers. “I remember how much you used to love to draw as a kid.”

His words were a nagging reminder of what my professor had told me. But I’d already made up my mind.

I was doing the right thing.

And it would make Kaleb happy, too. Maybe even proud.

That was what mattered.