I hung up with Brian, my mind working with everything he’d just told me. He hadn’t found the link yet, but I knew damn well it was there. A connection between Carlson Marks and Bastien Cole. I’d spent most of the night trying to remember. And trying to keep my thoughts from straying back to Grace, just down the hall.

Images of how she’d looked last night, the feeling of her in my arms had haunted me till the early hours. My body and mind had been charged, fueled by the sheer power of need she created in me. I’d pulled it in, collecting it, letting it build, using it to drive me forward. I’d learned years ago that sexual power unleashed creativity, energy, and unlimited success. So long as it was kept in carefully in check. During my youth I’d wasted it, chasing one hot woman after another, leaving myself empty and spent. But by my twenties, I’d learned better. I’d learned to harness that power by letting it build. Build to near explosive levels. And then to deny my body what it craved most, so that I could use that energy in building an acquisition and demolition empire. I needed every drop of power I could summon now. To fight Bastien’s political games to stop me.

I ground my teeth thinking of the shit that asshole had put me through. Five long fucking years to put together a plan for demolishing Rance Street and putting in a housing project, and this fuck was voted in by the narrowest of margins.

Cole headed the one committee that had blocked ARC Developments again and again, and it was time for it to stop. This was the last fucking straw. I didn’t give a shit that those houses could be historic landmarks. I wanted the entire street taken out, and it was looking more and more like I was going to have to leave La Laisse earlier than I’d planned to make sure that it happened. No matter what, that fuck wasn’t going to win this time…

I paced the floor, my cock still hard from last night and my adrenaline pumping. This was the way I always felt here. Sharp, tense, charged and ready for whatever I had to go back into the business world to face. And that was exactly the way I’d always wanted it. I didn’t come to La Laisse like the others, to waste my energy and my power. I came here to build it. To charge myself. And the price I had to pay in frustration had always been well worth the outcome. I was thirty-one with a multimillion dollar company. And I was always the one in control.

I shifted uncomfortably and walked over to the bar to pour myself a glass of mineral water. I took a swallow and felt it go down in a lump.

Everything had been easy here until the last few days. Before Grace, I’d always gone in with a plan and stuck to it. With all the others, I’d just watched them, keeping any real physical contact to a minimum. I’d used them for their beauty, for their sexuality. But I had never gotten so close. I felt my body jolt as the memory surfaced… rubbing my cock against Grace’s slick little pussy… Christ, I’d been so fucking close to slamming myself inside her and losing control completely…

For a second I allowed myself the indulgence, and imagined her writhing under me. My fast, impatient couplings as a youth would be nothing next to the kind of experience I could give her now. With her, I would use all the control I’d learned to make it last for hours. I’d learned how exquisitely sexual every part of a woman’s body was, and with Grace… Fuck, I wanted to learn every inch of her. Every breath, every movement, every sound, every response I could draw out of her… In the last two days with Grace I had felt more… normal than I had in my whole life. And I was beginning to like that feeling…

I slammed the glass down, spilling what was left of the water. It simply wasn’t possible. It would never be possible. Not for a man like me. The simple fact that Grace made me want to lose control was bad enough.

There was just too much inside me to ever risk that. Too much pain, too much regret. Too much fucking guilt. I was just too goddamn dangerous to the people close to me.

There were just too many scars from the past.

* * *

“Kaine?”

I heard her and turned. She was dressed, her hair in a long golden rope over her shoulder. Something tight inside me seemed to tighten more as the light caught her hair and showed that blush of strawberry I’d noticed the first time I saw her.

“I didn’t know… so I showered and dressed…”

“And you’re lovelier every time I see you,” I answered, careful not to move closer. My body was all too anxious to betray my best intentions.

“I was going to order breakfast before I go. The kitchen is exceptional here. What would you like?” I headed for the house phone.

“I… you’re… leaving?”

I turned to see her face darken slightly. She didn’t understand. And I couldn’t explain. As a fucking matter of fact, I wasn’t sure I could have even explained everything I was feeling to myself, let alone to her.

“Business is all,” I offered abruptly. “I should be back in a couple of days and Mrs. Sparr can see to your needs. Anything you wish and you only have to ask. Now, what would you like for breakfast?”