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“And you have an enormous cock.”

I chuckle. “I don’t need my cock to make you come.” I plunge my fingers into her and she arches against me. My thumb circles her clit and pushes through her folds as my fingers slip in and out of her.

“Ben,” she splutters. “Ben!”

“You see? You’re going to come again and my cock has nothing to do with it. I know your body.”

She groans and grabs my wrist like she’s trying to get me to slow down or stop. Except I know she doesn’t want me to. “Ben.”

“You’re so close again, aren’t you?”

“I want you inside me.”

“And you’ll have me. But not for this one. This one I want to feel against my hand.”

She arches again, her juices coating my hand as she starts to vibrate, and I feel like I’ve come home. To Avril.

TWENTY-ONE

Avril

I glance back at the entrance to Ben’s building, as if I’m expecting him to be chasing me down the street at five in the morning. I couldn’t let myself wake up next to Ben this morning. It might have been weird. It would have been weird. And that would have been too much to handle.

Last night was…incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so close to someone, and I found myself falling deeper into whatever this is between us. Last night things were intense. I know that I can’t undo that. I can’t not feel things I’m feeling. And if Ben can…if I looked at Ben this morning and I didn’t see anything of what happened between us last night, it might break me a little. I need some time and space to process what any of it means, if it means anything at all.

Which is why I’m out on the streets of New York before it’s light, scuttling back to my apartment like I’m doing a walk of shame.

I just need to shower and then I can head to the hotel early. I need to keep busy, busy, busy. Keep distracted. And somewhere along the way I need to figure out how I can turn off all these feelings I have for Ben. They’ve been rumbling in the distance, like a wave gathering speed and momentum. Last night, the wave reached its peak and broke on the shore.

And I don’t know what it means.

All I can think about is that if I hadn’t agreed to the stupid time-out, I wouldn’t be thinking about whether Ben’s going to change his mind about helping me with Boston, about whether he’s going to turn around and insist that we can’t stay professional because…we couldn’t stay professional. But every time I think about his lips on my skin, his hands on my hips, his dick, deep inside me, I can’t regret anything.

I don’t understand that. I don’t understand any of it. I don’t even know why I agreed to a stupid time-out. I just couldn’t resist him. I was the shore to his wave, helpless against his power.

Ben’s the kind of man who’s almost worth losing Boston over, worth losing everything I’ve been working toward—the independence, the evidence that I’m capable, that I’m a grown-up.

When I get home, I dump the bag I flung a few things in and pull out my phone. I’m going to email the real estate broker again. I want him to see if he can speak to the seller’s agent one more time. I might get lucky.

I think about what else I could do. Who else do I know who might be able to help? Worth has some really powerful friends—don’t any of them know people in Boston? Or maybe I should fly up there. If only I knew the name of the seller. I might be able to get a meeting with them and try to find out what they would need to be persuaded to sell.

Or maybe something else has come on the market. It might be a good idea to see the realtors in town face to face, to see if there’s anything expected to come up for sale. I know that’s supposed to be my realtor’s job, but maybe I need to do that myself. Or maybe I need to change realtors.

I’m spiraling.

I strip off and jump into the shower, trying to focus on Boston and not on the way my limbs ache from last night. Or the fact that I can still smell him on my skin. It took everything I had not to slip back into sleep when I woke and was nestled into his body.

I let the water wash over me and try not to think about how it’s cleaning away all the evidence from the night before, which is what I want, but I also want to hang on to every last detail and memory.

When I’m done in the shower, I dress quickly. I don’t want to wake Poppy before I leave to go to Hotel on Ninth Street. I don’t want to have to explain myself. I don’t know what I’d say—I slept with the guy I’m living with? The guy who bet I’d fall in love with him in a week is the best lover I’ve ever had? And I feel like I’m teetering on the brink of something that makes me want to run barefoot to Boston and stay lying in his arms at the same time.

“Avril?” I hear Poppy call out.

My shoulders slump. So much for getting out of here unnoticed.

She knocks on my bedroom door and pokes her head around. “Hey, how come you’re here?”

“I forgot something.”