“We’re going to keep the heels on…” I yank her thighs further apart and trace a hand up the inside of her leg. She watches my hand, riveted. I keep my lips in a straight line, but I want to grin at her obvious hand fetish. She’s had one since we were in college. My breath hitches when I touch her.

She’s very ready. She folds her lips in and her eyes close. I feel like a teenage boy scoring for the first time. How many minutes, hours, days — have I dreamed about touching her like this? I want to savor the feel of her. I play with her, teasing, rubbing, sliding. I never got to do this the last time, so I take my time. I am so fascinated by the feel of her, by the noises she’s making that I could easily do this for an hour. I could do this every day. I want to do this every day. Our foreheads are pressed together, our lips touching, but not moving. She has her hand wrapped around the back of my head. I can feel her need in the way her body is tightening. I like that I’m the cause of her untidy breathing and the jerking of her muscles. I like how her body responds to my hands. I still have one finger pressed inside of her when I speak.

“I’m not going to make love to you this time.” My voice is husky. She’s pushing my pants down, her tongue pressed against her top lip. I bite her tongue and move my mouth to her ear.

“I’m going to f**k you.” She stills — or freezes is more like it. I push my own pants down and step out of them. She’s eyeing me with wildly glazed eyes.

She lies back, her hair draping over the side of the desk — so long it’s sweeping the carpet. Her legs are bent at the knees; heels perched on the edge of the desk — looking every bit like she stepped out of an erotic fantasy. And just when I think I have her, that I’ve seduced her into submission, she licks her lips and says:

“Hard and fast, Drake — and make it last longer than last time.”

Afterwards, we lie on the floor of her office. Me on my back, one arm behind my head, the other wrapped around her waist. She’s lying on my chest in the picturesque postcoital position. About halfway through our tangle of hard sex, we started making love. We can’t avoid it. Everything with us eventually becomes emotional — even when we try not to make it that way. I am replaying every warm second of it in my head.

“I think I’m sexually addicted to you.”

“It’s just the newness of it,” she says, “because we never did it before.”

“Why do you always try to downplay my feelings for you?”

“I don’t trust them,” she says after a minute. “You claim that you love me, but you’ve loved other women in between.”

“You pushed me away, Duchess. I’m a human being. I was trying to find someone to replace you.”

“What about Leah? You married her.”

I sigh. “Guilt. I dragged her into something, she fell in love with me, and then I lied to her about the amnesia. I felt like the only way to make up for everything I did was to marry her.”

She’s very still in my arms. I wish I could see her face, but I want to give her privacy to deal with my words.

My heart. If my heart had knees that’s where it would be — doubled over, throbbing from the pain. I pull my arm from behind my head and rub my eyes.

“Olivia…” my voice catches.

I want her to demand the whole story, make me relive the seconds that changed both of our lives, but she pulls her fingers away and darts up to kiss me. Sliding on top of me, she reaches a hand between us, and I forget everything — everything except us.

Chapter Nineteen

The door was slightly ajar when I arrived. I was about to knock when it swung open and a man came out carrying a garbage bag. I stepped back, too startled to speak. My thoughts spun in a hundred directions. He wasn’t her type. I was going to kill him. Why was he taking out her trash? Did he sleep here often? I waited for him to look up, thinking every man deserved a chance to explain himself before he got the shit beat out of him.

He was mildly startled to see me standing in front of him. He looked past me to see if I was with someone else, and then said, “Help you?”

He hadn’t pulled the door to Olivia’s apartment closed, and I could see inside.

Empty.

I felt the air leave my lungs. I closed my eyes, tilting my head back. No, no, no.

I walked away, my hands in my hair and circled back to where maintenance was looking at me curiously. My instant jealousy had caused me to miss the uniform and name badge. Why did I leave her? Why didn’t I just stay? I knew she did this. She ran when she was afraid. I thought — what had I thought? That I could keep her because we’d made love? That her demons wouldn’t find her in the orange grove where I’d sold my soul to be with her?

I eyed the badge clipped to the front of his shirt.

“Miguel.” My voice sounded raw even to my ears. Miguel raised his eyebrows as he watched me struggle with a sentence. “When did she — how long?”

“This one’s been open for twenty-four hours,” he said, referring to the apartment behind him. “We have a waiting list. Have to make it ready for next tenants.”

Twenty-four hours? Where did she go? Did she leave right away? Did something scare her away?

I ran a hand through my hair. I’d left her just two days earlier to go settle my affairs. I danced with her in the parking lot before I left. She tried to tell me the truth, but I stopped her. When she found out about the amnesia, she’d think of every possible reason to run from me. I’d planned on locking her in the apartment, making love to her again and convincing her that we could make it work. But, first I had loose ends to tie up.

I’d left Olivia and gone straight to Leah’s townhouse. When she opened the door, I could tell she’d been crying. It took me thirty minutes to break her heart. It hurt me to do it. She had done nothing to deserve what I was doing to her. I told her I’d met someone. She didn’t ask who, though I suspected she knew since she’d followed me to Olivia’s apartment a few weeks earlier. Before I left, I kissed her forehead. I didn’t tell her about the amnesia. I didn’t want to hurt her any more than I already had.

I went to my condo next. As I stood under the shower, I thought of our week together. I thought of the orange grove, the way she tasted, the way her skin felt like cold satin beneath my fingers. When my mind went to that first moment of being inside her, the way her eyes had widened and her lips had parted, I had to blast myself with cold water.