WHEN WE GOT HOME, Konstantin headed straight up the stairs to our bedroom. My heart started thumping in my chest, speeding up with each stair we climbed. This was it: he’d want to continue what we’d started down in the dungeon.

The bedroom had an adjoining bathroom for each of us. He disappeared into his and I heard the shower turn on. I raced into mine and did the same, washing the smell of smoke from my hair. Then I rushed into the closet in a towel and tried to figure out what to wear. What the hell did Christina wear for bed? Lingerie? Just panties? Nothing at all? In the end, I went for panties, but kept the towel wrapped around myself, too self-conscious to be topless straight away.

When I walked back into the bedroom, Konstantin was sitting on the bed, booting up his laptop, a towel wrapped around his waist. God, he looked incredible, the tan of his skin standing out against the soft white towel, droplets of water falling from his wet hair and leaving wet trails as they slid down his chest and abs. As I watched, he made a fist and pressed his ring to a metal plate on the edge of the laptop. I saw the screen change as it finished booting and his email appeared. His ring is the hardware key!

I sat awkwardly on the corner of the bed while he dealt with his work. What was their normal routine? Did Christina just wait for him? Did she do her own thing? He kept throwing glances my way and each time he looked, his gaze was a little more heated. I felt the warmth start to ripple down my body and my breathing went tight.

He suddenly snapped the laptop shut and strode over to a bureau. I jumped up and met him there, breathless and expectant, but still uncertain of the routine. Would he grab me? Kiss me? Just hurl me on the bed?

He opened the bureau and took out a bottle of vodka and two glasses, then poured us both a shot. What? They drank before sex? I looked uncertainly at my glass: I’ve never been much of a drinker. But he knocked his back and I did the same, feeling it burn all the way down my throat and then slam into my brain, making me reel.

He took the glass from my fingers and put it down. I saw his gaze track down over my face, my neck...down to my breasts. I looked down. The towel must have slipped a little when I jumped up from the bed because the top of it was dangerously low: another inch and you’d be able to see my nipples. When I looked up again, he was glaring at me. I was completely confused. Downstairs in the dungeon, he’d had me strip naked. Why would seeing some cleavage annoy him now?

He stepped closer. One big hand grabbed the towel at the front and twisted, bunching it, as if about to pull it off. He drew in a shuddering breath, every muscle in that magnificent chest going hard. What’s the matter? Why is he hesitating?

And then he closed his eyes and said, “Goodnight, Christina.”

And he turned and stalked off towards the bed. I was left standing there, hurt. Doesn’t he want me? Part of me was shocked by how fast things had changed: just hours ago, I’d been worried that he’d want to sleep with me. Now, I was worried that he didn’t.

He climbed into the huge bed...and lay down on his side, right at the very edge, his back turned to me.

And suddenly I understood.

Sex was for the dungeon. All that lust was carefully contained and locked in a box and he only let it out down there, where he could be in absolute control. Because if he had sex with me here, in a bedroom, if we acted like a normal couple….

Then he might start to feel something for me.

That’s why he was annoyed when my towel started to slip. He’d thought I was tempting him, and he’d had to fight with himself not to whip the towel off me and fuck me. It wasn’t that he didn’t want me. He wanted me too much.

I slowly climbed into bed and lay down on the edge furthest from him, just as Christina would have done. But I faced towards him so that I was staring at his muscled back. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. To sleep alone is horrible. But to deliberately sleep alone when you’re with someone, to deny yourself not just sex but closeness.... All I wanted was to press myself against his back and cuddle him, to ease the pain I’d seen on the rooftop.

It wasn’t just me. I could see the tension in his back, feel the need rolling off him in waves. He wanted to turn around and hold me. And I wanted him to because... being held by him would make me feel safe. I knew it made no sense: I knew how dangerous he was and what he’d do to me if he found out I was FBI. But when he’d wrapped me in his arms on the rooftop, I’d felt like nothing bad could touch me and I needed to feel that again.

But he stayed there, an immovable rock. And so I stayed where I was, four feet and a thousand miles away.

When I was sure he was asleep, I slid across the bed and sat looking down at him. Even in sleep, his face was tense. I brushed the hair back from his forehead and gazed at his scar: a nasty, jagged thing that led up under his hairline. What the hell had happened to him? What could make anyone shut themselves off so completely from anything that might make him feel?

One thing I knew without any doubt: Christina had been telling the truth about not loving him, and he hadn’t loved her, either. Because if they’d had any feelings for each other at all, the arrangement wouldn’t have worked. They would have snapped within days and grabbed each other.

Konstantin had found the one person in the world who could handle a relationship without emotions. Christina had been perfect for him.

The problem was... I wasn’t Christina.