I undressed in the locker room while humming under my breath, feeling freer than I’d felt in a long time. I don’t know what Brent said to Curtis. I didn’t really care. I just knew Curtis well enough to know that whatever it was, it scared the shit out of him. And I believed him when he said he would never come near me again.

That was more freeing to me than anything. I felt like I could soar, that I could sprout wings and just fly above all this.

Brent was in the bar when I walked in, sitting on the couch with his leg crossed over his knee, looking like he owned the place. He tipped his glass in my direction when I took a seat at the bar, but he didn’t make any move to come near me. He just watched as I flirted with half a dozen customers, one of them a beautiful female accountant who worked for a very powerful firm downtown. She liked to drink tequila and slide her hand under my skirt where no one could see it. I found myself watching Brent as she did it, wondering what he would think if he knew how far I let her go.

Was he jealous? Or did it turn him on to see me with a woman?

And then this well-known city politician came over and whispered in my ear. I immediately stood and held my hand out to him, leading him down the hall to my room. I glanced back at Brent just as we slipped through the back door. He was watching, his eyes hooded, his jaw flexing. I bit my bottom lip to hide a smile as my lower belly began to tingle. Just the idea that this might bother him was a bigger turn on than almost anything I could think of at that moment. And I couldn’t get the fire in his eyes out of my mind the entire time I worked my fingers into the politician’s back.

It was a long night. It was Sunday, so there weren’t as many clients as there might have been on a Friday or Saturday night. But enough. I was sitting close to another client, a lawyer with a big firm downtown, listening to him talk about his college-aged daughter when Rhonda stuck her head in the door and announced closing time. I glanced at Brent and thought I saw relief in his eyes. Or maybe it was just the exhaustion of another long day.

I changed slowly, thinking about my life, about my savings, about the things I wanted out of life. They didn’t seem as far out of reach tonight as they had before. I thought about my parents back in Connecticut, my younger brother, my friends. I wondered if they ever thought about me.

The room was nearly empty when I finally finished, tugging the last of the pins out of my hair and allowing it to tumble down my back. I snatched up my bag and tossed it over my shoulder, stepping out into the hall just as the last of the girls came laughing and joking behind me. The two guards were on the back door, as usual. Brent was standing off to the side, leaning back against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. His biceps were flexing, his head tilted just enough to hide his eyes, but I could see the muscles popping in his jaw.

“Ladies,” he said as the other girls walked past him.

“Looking good, Mr. Stone,” a brunette named Claudia said.

“Good enough to eat,” another of the girls said.

Brent didn’t respond other than to wave at one of his guys, directing him to take the girls out to their cars. I moved to follow, expecting him to join me, but he stepped in my way, blocking my exit.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home.” I looked up at him, a small smile escaping. “Actually, to this nice hotel with this really hot guy.”

“I don’t think so.”

My smile faded as doubts suddenly bounced around in my head. Was he saying he didn’t want me to stay with him anymore? Was he so jealous that he no longer wanted to be with me? Had I pushed it too far with the overzealous flirting tonight?

He studied me for a long moment before touching me, his hand sliding over my throat before coming to rest against the curve of my jaw. He was breathing heavy, his lips slightly parted as he moved closer, the heat of him bathing me in this rich scent that made the tightness that had been building in my lower belly all night expand tenfold.

“I don’t think I can wait until we get to the hotel.”

He took my hand and pressed it against his erection, moving my palm over him in a movement that was as exciting for me as it appeared to be for him. He closed his eyes and groaned, his head tilting back for a brief moment. Then he was kissing me, burying himself inside of me like he wanted to disappear there.

I slid my hand over the back of his head, my fingers working through his hair as I searched for the fly of his jeans, as I slipped it down and slid my fingers inside. He shivered when I found him in that denim prison, pushing the material of his briefs aside to run my fingers gently up along the hard shaft of his erection. His hand came down along my ass, pulling my thigh up around his hip, his own fingers trying to find my innermost secrets in the same way, but my jeans were a little less conducive to such a thing.

We needed to get out of there. We needed to find a place where we could get naked. And fast.

A half-dozen ideas crossed my mind while I could still have a concrete thought, places we could go. The most obvious was the last, of course. But it was as brilliant as it was convenient.

I pulled away, ducking under his retraining arm and strutting back down the hall.

“Where are you going?”

I turned and held up a hand, wiggling one finger to encourage him to follow. He did, nearly snatching my arm before I managed to twist out of his grasp. I burst through the door of the locker room, dropping my bag on the bench in front of my personal locker like twelve hours had already passed and it was time to get back to work. But I kept moving, shedding the clean t-shirt and soft cotton bra I’d just put on less than fifteen minutes ago.

I could feel his eyes on me, could feel him following close behind. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see him stoop over to grab my bra. He held it up, something of a bewildered look on his face. But then I made a show of tugging the snap loose on my jeans and he dropped it, moving quickly to catch up with me.

I quickened my step even as I tripped over the leg of my jeans, shedding them and leaving them like an obstacle in his path. My panties were the last thing left, a common pair of yellow cotton panties that weren’t anywhere near the erotic qualities of the lace panties I’d discarded at closing. But Brent didn’t seem to mind. He paused just inside the wide entrance to the showers, dramatically biting down on the corner of the jeans he’d scooped up off the floor as he watched me dance my thumbs under the thin elastic waistband.

“Is this what you want?”

He groaned. “More than you’ll ever know.”

“Then you better come and get it.”

He immediately lifted his shirt over his head and kicked off his heavy work boots, his jeans already partially unfastened and sliding easily over his narrow hips. As much as I enjoyed watching him undress, I turned my back on him and moved deeper into the high-school-like showers, moving to the last faucet on the end that someone had jerry-rigged to run continuously as a shower should. The hot water felt heavenly as it poured down over my muscles, massaging away the tension of the day. And then he was there, stealing away the water for a moment as he allowed it to rush over his head. Then it was all about me, his eyes, his hands, sliding over the length of me as he pulled me into him, the water allowing our bodies to slip perfectly against one another.

Things slowed then, his need tempered by the promise of getting what he wanted. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me for what felt like forever. It was one of those kisses that was new, but familiar, a kiss that was more than a kiss. It was more than a touch, more than a physical sort of release. It was so much more than all the kisses I’d known before, a touch that spoke directly to my heart, to my very soul. It was a connection that felt like a promise.

I didn’t want it to end.

I don’t know how long we were there, how long his hands moved slowly over me, how long he explored my back, my sides, my hips, how long he stayed away from those places that would lead to something more, how long he just held me close against him. I was lost in him, in the taste of him, the feel of him. I was lost in this sort of fantasy of what could be. I was so afraid that when he finally sought what he’d come in here in pursuit of, things would change, that it would break this spell I found myself in. But it didn’t. When he lifted me up against the cool, wet tile on the wall, it was just a continuation of what he’d begun, what we’d begun. The pleasure was part of the promise.

This was the way it was supposed to be. He was the one I was supposed to find. This was where I was always supposed to be.

I don’t think either of us wanted it to end. When we came to our separate conclusions, he just held me, pressed up against that wall, the water still rushing over our heads. I clung to him, tears in my eyes as I hid my face against his shoulder. He dropped kisses on the side of my face, my throat, then sighed, the sound vibrating through his entire body.

“What the hell was that?”

I giggled a little against his shoulder because I didn’t know what else to say.

He pushed my head back and stared into my eyes.

“Dane…”

He stopped, his eyes moving over my face. He moved close, scraped his lips over the bridge of my nose, his breathing still a little wild. Then he pulled back again, staring at me like he thought the answer to his question would be written in the lines on my face.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted by one of his men calling his name.

“Brent? Are you in here?”

He groaned, drawing my head against his shoulder again.

“What is it?” he called, irritation clear in his voice.

“We’ve had an incident. One of the girls…you should come talk to her.”

He groaned again, his arms coming tighter around me for a long second. When I lay my head back there was apology in his eyes. And reluctance.

“I’ll be there in a moment.”

He touched the side of my face, smoothing the wet hair that wanted to stick to my cheek away. “I’ve got to go,” he said, like I hadn’t heard the exchange. “But we aren’t done here.”

I kissed him gently. “It’s okay. I’ll wait for you in Rhonda’s office.”

He kissed me back, harder than I’d kissed him. Then he slowly began the simple, yet difficult, work of separating our bodies. I stood under the hot water and watched him walk away, admiring the angles of his back and the almost graceful movement of his legs, my heart feeling like it might burst if I watched him a second longer.

When he was gone, I turned toward the wall and let the hot water run over my head again, running my hands over the places he’d touched me, the places where his kisses had burned a teeny piece of him into my flesh. I felt marked. I felt possessed. And it wasn’t the same suffocating possession I’d felt with Curtis. This was…it was like finding the half that made me whole. It was like a missing puzzle piece from the fabric of my life had finally been found and put back into place. It was…it was insanely cheesy and stupidly romantic. But I couldn’t help myself.

I finally pulled myself away from the soothing pulse of the running water and redressed, combing out my hair and twisting it into a simple braid before stepping out into the hallway with my bag over my shoulder once again. The door to Rhonda’s office was locked, so I stood against the wall, my ankles crossed, and studied the screen of my phone. I found myself looking up my little brother’s Facebook page, reading the public posts he’d created in recent days. He was seventeen, looking forward to high school graduation and the implied freedom he still believed came with college. He liked scary movies and loved to post memes that featured Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers. He listened to 21 Pilots and The Weeknd, and drove a BMW Alpina B7 that probably cost our parents more than four years of college tuition. Maybe that’s where my tuition had gone.

I came across a picture of my brother with a group of friends, his dark eyes piercingly serious as he regarded the person behind the camera. It killed me, seeing how much he’d changed these last five years. When I left home, he was a funny, awkward twelve-year-old with a heart of gold. Now he was what my coworkers would probably consider a hottie.

I’d missed so much!

I turned off the phone and slid it into my back pocket, my heart twisting in my chest. I’d never really thought about what I’d left behind. Not like I was now. But I had. I left behind more than a good education, a prearranged engagement, and a set of parents who were only doing what they truly believed was the best. I left behind a life.

Was it possible to have regrets and to be grateful for the road chosen all at the same time?

Brent’s face was filled with tension when he came through the back doors with three of his men. He was barking orders, something about monitoring the cameras for the rest of the night. He paused halfway down the hall, finishing his discussion with his men before turning to me. He took both my hands, sorrow in his dark blue eyes.

“There’s been another attack.”

Cold fingers danced down the length of my spine. “Who?”

“Allison. She was getting out of her car at her apartment complex and someone grabbed her, dragged her into the bushes and beat her pretty badly. She’s at the hospital. They say she’ll have to stay overnight to monitor a concussion, but she’ll be okay.”

“What does that mean? Is this guy following the girls home now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He brushed a thumb over my cheek. “I’m assigning a man to each of the girls, including you. Everywhere you go, one of my guys will follow.”

I started to shake my head, but then I thought of Rachel lying in her hospital bed. Would one of Brent’s men shadowing her have prevented that? Would she still be awake, talking and laughing, if Brent had been around?

“It’s an inconvenience, but if it keeps everyone safe…”

Brent took my hand and pulled me toward the door.

“We’re doing everything we can. Hopefully we’ll find this guy soon and this will be over.”

“If only…”