After Ross told her that he didn’t want her to spend the night, Sharon began to worry that it would be awkward after they’d finished what they came for. She hadn’t ever had a one-night stand before. That just… wasn’t her usual style. Every time she’d left after a night of sex it had been from the home of someone she’d been dating. Not that she’d had a boyfriend in a few years. Work had just become too overwhelming. She would never regret that cost, not now when she had a dream job. She was head of Public Relations for a well-respected and powerful charity, one that not only did a lot of good, but was well-known in the community. Sharon couldn’t deny that it was a great step for her personal career in PR, but it was more than that. Now, she could finally help people the way that she had always wanted—by getting the word out and letting potential donors know that even the smallest contribution helped. If everyone contributed five dollars… It was a campaign slogan, yes, but it was also true, and Sharon Talcott was determined to make sure people understood that.

She had big plans for Hearts in Hands. As Ross had mentioned earlier, the charity wasn’t very well-known outside its home city of Pittsburgh. There had been talk of perhaps someday moving its headquarters to New York City, where many nationally recognized charities were stationed, but most felt that it was important to keep HiH centered in the city where it had been founded. It was Sharon’s job to promote HiH and shape public perception about it, and she was determined that it would one day be as well-known as the March of Dimes or other iconic charities.

Sharon glanced at Ross, who was stretched out next to her. The post-sex discussion had been lively as they’d come down from their high, chatting about the gala and art, but now it had lapsed into a surprisingly comfortable silence. Still, she remembered Ross’s stipulation that she should not stay the night. It was probably time for her to shower and then go.

“Mind if I take advantage of your offer to let me use the shower?” She asked, putting that teasing note back in her voice. She’d noticed that he liked it when she had teased him earlier. It hadn’t started out as a way to provoke him—only to test the waters. She had been curious to see if he would continue to pursue her if she didn’t throw herself at him. Ross had been so open about his intentions, and oddly enough it had made her doubt them. She wondered where he got such confidence.

Sharon had plenty of confidence herself… most of the time. But this job had been touch and go from the start. The last head of PR at Hearts in Hands had left unexpectedly following a family emergency, and she’d had to fill her predecessor’s shoes quickly. But the gala had apparently gone well, or had been when she decided to sneak out early with Dr. Tall and Handsome. Even though she had just landed this position and it was her first big event, she still felt guilty for leaving before the party was over. All in all, everyone at HiH seemed to like her.

When it came to love, well, she’d never had any confidence to begin with.

Ross looked over at her, blinking a few times to focus his eyes. Looked like he’d been about to fall asleep, then. But his smile was slow and easy, if a bit distant. “Of course. It’s just on the left there. Feel free to grab something from the fridge on your way out if you want, I don’t think anything’s open at…” He glanced at the clock on the nightstand, “damn, three in the morning.”

“Any particular reason you don’t want people to stay the night?” Sharon asked before she could stop herself. “I don’t mind leaving,” she added, backtracking a little. “I’m just curious.”

Ross’s expression was hard to read in the dark, but she could see him shrug. “I’ve found that people tend to think a hook-up has some kind of deeper meaning if you let them sleep over.”

“I can understand that.” Sharon buried her head in the pillow to hide her embarrassment. “I’ve never done the whole one-night stand thing before, so…”

Ross propped himself up on his elbows and stared at her. “You haven’t? Not even when you were young and crazy?”

Sharon laughed. “Not all of us went through a wild phase,” she replied, although it wasn’t entirely true for her. She had done her fair share of partying with her friend Leticia during college, but when it came to romance she’d always been a traditionalist. “I just always ended up in a relationship instead, so I’m not sure what the proper protocol is.”

“Protocol?” Ross laughed. “You make it sound like there are rules for these things. There really aren’t. It’s just a matter of preference. I don’t like it when people stay over, but some people don’t mind having overnight guests. Some people love waking up beside their one-night stand and making them breakfast in the morning. It varies.”

“I suppose making someone breakfast could be mistaken as proof that you wanted to see them again,” Sharon admitted as she thought it over . The way Ross talked about it made her feel terribly naïve. He was so nonchalant, as if he did this sort of thing every night (and for all she knew, he did). But until last night, she had only experienced sex within relationships. She really didn’t know how any of this worked.

“Don’t look like that,” Ross said in a gentler tone. He reached over and tucked a few curls behind her ear, just like he had at the gala. “I didn’t mean to be…” He huffed with frustration. “I’m sorry, I’m not good at this.”

Sharon pointedly raised an eyebrow and Ross laughed.

“I mean, this talking afterwards thing,” he explained. “I just… I had a bad relationship, that’s all. Since then I’ve found it easier, especially with my schedule, to stick to short flings like this. But people seem to get offended by that.”

“I don’t see that as offensive,” Sharon replied. “I mean, my post break-up strategy is usually to cry into a bucket of ice cream, but that’s just me.”

Ross laughed. “There was a fair bit of that,” he replied, winking, and Sharon couldn’t tell if he was just joking around or being honest. “It felt like I never did anything right. Nothing was good enough for her. So now I just do one-night stands, and I’m upfront about what I want and what I expect.”

“I think that’s a fair way to handle things,” Sharon replied, “but it does sound a bit lonely.”

“Life as a surgeon is lonely,” Ross pointed out, lying back on the bed. “I’m constantly being called away, even if it’s in the middle of sleep, or lunch, or a birthday party. It doesn’t really encourage long-lasting relationships when your girlfriend always feels like they’re playing second fiddle to your job.”

“I mean, any boyfriend of mine would have to deal with the same thing,” Sharon pointed out. “If there’s an issue with PR I have to go and deal with it immediately. And I’m seriously unavailable during the Christmas season.”

“Date someone who’s atheist?”

Sharon laughed and playfully whacked him in the arm. “You know what I mean, everyone uses December as an excuse to go and see family, and I can barely see mine because I’m running from fundraiser to fundraiser. No one’s going to want to date a girl who won’t put him first.”

“I guess this sort of arrangement works for both of us, then,” Ross pointed out.

“I’m not sure,” Sharon said. “I like the idea of being in a relationship. I mean, my last few haven’t worked out, clearly, but I enjoyed the time I was in them and none of them ended horribly.”

Ross nodded, and while the darkness made it hard to tell, Sharon thought he looked rather pensive. It seemed that Ross had been in a relationship which had ended horribly, and there was little doubt that it had colored his perspective. An experience like that could make anyone afraid to jump into another relationship.

That was a depressing thought.

“Anyway,” she said, feeling she had to speak before things got awkward, “I should probably get ready and go.”

“Of course.” Ross pulled back the covers for her. “Thanks for the night, it was a lot of fun.”

‘Fun’ barely even began to cover it. Sharon knew she was going to be fantasizing about this night for a long time to come. “Same to you, and thanks for the shower.”

Sharon untangled herself from the covers and quickly headed to the bathroom. It was a lovely room with a spacious shower. At any other time, she’d take time to relax and revel in the hot spray, but she needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to overstay her welcome. She scrubbed vigorously, trying to ignore how relaxed she felt. Ross had been right about that—she had desperately needed to work out some of her tension.

He’d been right about a lot of things, actually. He’d been right that she liked being praised and told what to do. More importantly, he had seemed to enjoy the fact that she liked her sexual partner to take the lead. In the past, she had been made to feel ridiculous for her submissive tendencies. She had sometimes wondered if she was being selfish by refusing to pull her own weight in bed. It had been nice to sleep with someone who saw her submission as a positive thing.

Sharon stamped down on the warm and fuzzy feeling in her chest. This was a one night stand, one that she’d desperately needed, but that was all. No use in overthinking it… except, perhaps, to keep it in mind for the next time she had a boyfriend. It was a new thing to add to the list of what she needed in a partner. Now that she’d had a taste of what it was like to be dominated in bed without being abused, disrespected, or shamed for her desires, she didn’t think she could settle for anything less.

She toweled her hair off as best she could, knowing that her curls were frizzing, and made a note to shower again in the morning with her proper made-for-curls conditioner. As she exited the bathroom, she was stopped short by the sight of Ross lying on the bed.

He’d fallen asleep in the time it had taken her to shower. There was a large window on one side of the apartment and moonlight was streaming in, making his dark hair gleam. Tall, dark, and handsome—it was like he’d wandered out of her fantasies and right into the gala, sporting a fitted suit and that predatory grin that made her shiver.

Sharon gathered up her clothes and refused to look at him any longer. This was a one-night stand. She was not going to linger, mentally or physically.

The moment she got into her car, however (after saying goodbye to Jose, who was finishing up the crossword), she called Leticia. It might have been three in the morning, but it was also a Friday, and that meant her friend wasn’t going to be asleep for another hour at least.

Sharon could hear the thumping bass as Leticia answered and knew her friend was, predictably, in a club. Leticia was an art historian who worked for the Carnegie Museum of Art, and was the reason that Sharon knew so much about art. She was also the reason Sharon was able to secure a prestigious art gallery as the venue for her gala. But you would never guess Leticia’s credentials if you saw her on the weekend. She still partied like she was in college.

"Hey girl!" Leticia shouted, struggling to be heard over the noise. "What are you still doing up?"

"Do you have a sec?" Sharon asked, climbing into her car. She needed to tell someone about this, and maybe get a metaphorical slap to shake her out of her weird post-coital mood.

"Always." There was the sound of something slamming, and all of the background noise vanished. "I've escaped into the alley. What's up?"

Sharon swallowed. "So I might have... slept with someone."

The pause that followed was so heavy that Sharon could feel it. After a long moment, during which Sharon plugged her phone in and started the car, Leticia spoke. "As in, a one-night stand?"

Sharon nodded, then remembered that Leticia couldn't see her, and said, "Yup."

"Oh my God!" Leticia's voice grew shrill and Sharon was grateful the phone was now hooked up to the car and no longer pressed against her ear. "Sharon! Finally! It helped with the stress, right? I told you it would! Who is it? Did you meet at the gala? Oh my God the gala was tonight, how did that go? Are you finally embracing Georges Braque? He wasn't a coworker, was he? Which dress were you wearing?"

Sharon took a deep breath against the barrage of questions, waited for Leticia to finally run out of things to ask, and then told her about the evening. She told her about how the gala had seemed to go well and everyone had seemed to like it, and then how she had been approached by Ross.

"He was so... refreshingly honest about it. Just, 'hey, let's help each other out, and oh by the way, would you like to have sex?’"

Leticia snorted. "I'm sure he put it better than that."

Sharon swallowed, remembering how Ross had put his arm around her waist, how his fingers had trailed along her jaw, and how he'd murmured quietly into her ear. "Hehe definitely did."

"So you went back to his place?"

Sharon described the rest of the night to her. She even admitted how good it had been to relinquish control and let someone else dominate her.

"I told you!" Leticia sounded as triumphant as if she'd been the one who'd just had sex. "I told you that you were a sub! You just had to embrace it."

Sharon pulled out of her parking spot and began driving home. "Kind of not the point here."

"Then what is the point? You found a gorgeous guy, you had amazing sex, and your first big gig with HiH was a success. It sounds like a good night all around."

"It's just..." Sharon struggled to put her thoughts into words. "He's the most emotionally distant person I've ever been with. I mean, the sex, hell yes. I'm almost worried that he was able to read me so well—I must be more obvious than I thought. But it was different from other times I've had sex. I mean, I was always in a relationship before, so of course it was different. Still, it was like he was holding me at arm's length. There were times when he'd smile and it wouldn't reach his eyes, y'know? And afterward… It's not like he was rude—he even offered for me to raid his fridge if I wanted to. But he was so casual about it, like he'd already dismissed me from his mind. Ugh, I must sound so clingy."

"Was he a jerk about it?"

"No, that's the thing. He was perfectly kind to me the entire time. There was just this distance. Like he wasn't letting himself open up."

Leticia didn't answer, and Sharon glanced down at her phone to make sure it hadn't dropped the connection. As she did so, she realized she was about to miss her turn. Shit.

She turned the wheel, trying to pump the brakes, but it was too late—she could feel the car spinning and skidding on the pavement. Shit, shit, shit. She kept bumping the brakes, trying to straight out, but the car was overcompensating on the turn now, heading straight for—

The left side of the car slammed into a sturdy light post and a mailbox. Sharon could feel the car door crumpling. Something crashed down around her leg and she screamed in pain, feeling like her bone had shattered into a thousand shards of glass.

The airbag deployed, knocking the wind out of her and giving her whiplash as her head tipped forward and then slammed back against the headrest. Pain continued to radiate up her leg and Sharon felt bile surge up her throat. Don't vomit, don't vomit, she thought. Please don't add humiliation to this by vomiting.

"Sharon?" Leticia's voice sounded tinny. The phone must have disconnected from the car. "You okay? It sounded like a crash. Sharon?"

"I'm okay," Sharon croaked, surprised at how rusty and dry her voice sounded. "I took a corner too quickly. I-I think I need you to call 911."

"Where are you?"

"Uh... corner of 5th and Lexington." Sharon tried to move her leg out of its metallic vice and gasped. It was like somebody had dipped her leg in molten lava. "I... I think s-something happened to my leg."

"Just hang tight hon. I'm going to call them right now. I'll put you on hold, just hang in there."

The pain was making her vision go white at the edges. Sharon tried speaking again, but it only came out as a murmur. "I think..." The pain was so immense. She couldn't think, couldn't speak, it was all just pain...

Fuzzy blackness closed in around her and then she felt nothing at all.