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"Right there. Don't stop." My voice cracks. My walls grip him so tight he groans against my throat.
His forehead drops to mine. Our ragged breaths tangle. "I won't stop. Not until you come on my cock. Give me one more, sweet girl. I know you have it in you."
His hand slides between us. His thumb finds my clit, swollen and slick, circling with steady pressure. I writhe beneath him, fists twisting in the sheets, hips driving upward to meet every thrust.
"Daddy." A wrecked whisper against his lips. "Daddy, I'm going to..."
"Come for me. Be my good girl."
I cling to him, out of breath and my heart racing.
The orgasm slams through me with a force that steals every sound from the room. My body clamps around him in tight, pulsing waves.
“Daddy!”
He buries himself to the hilt and follows me over the edge with a broken groan pressed into the hollow of my throat. The pulse of him inside me triggers another wave and my whole body shakes beneath him while the world goes dark and hot and infinite.
For a long, quiet stretch, we breathe together. His weight settles over me, warm and heavy, and I hold on because letting go right now is physically impossible. My fingers trace slow patterns across his shoulder blade while our heartbeats find the same rhythm.
Reckless has never been my brand. Drinking whiskey alone in bars, following strangers into buildings with military-grade locks, wrapping my legs around a man twice my age and calling him Daddy while he's buried inside me? None of that belongs anywhere near the woman I was twelve hours ago.
But here I am. And God help me, I would do every bit of it again.
I wake in the blue-gray hour before dawn with his arm heavy across my waist and his breath warm against the back of my neck. He's in a deep sleep and his body is curved around mine with a possessiveness that should raise every alarm in my head.
All it does is make my chest ache.
I lie still for a long moment, memorizing the weight of his arm, the slow rise and fall of his chest against my back, the scent of sex tangled in the sheets. My body is sore in places that make heat creep over my skin and my heart is doing something dangerous. Reaching toward a man I have no right to keep.
I know what his scars mean. I know what the watch and the apartment and the locks and the empty walls add up to. I grew up fluent in the language of dangerous men, and this one speaks a dialect my father would have translated as run, baby girl, and don't look back.
I press my lips to the inside of my lover’s wrist where his pulse beats slow and steady against my mouth. He doesn't stir.
Then I slide from beneath his arm, gather my clothes in the dark, and dress in silence. My hands shake as I zip my dress. My eyes sting with something I refuse to let fall.
I take one last look at him from the doorway. I love the way his dark hair stands out against the white of his pillow. Another memory I’ll hold dear.
I close the door behind me and step into the cold Chicago dawn.
My legs carry me three blocks before the tears come. I wipe them with the back of my hand, hail a cab, and give the driver the address to my bakery.
The ovens will need preheating in an hour. The apple tarts won't bake themselves. And if I keep my hands busy maybe I'll stop feeling the ghost of his hands on my hips and the sound of his voice calling me sweet girl in the dark.
I press my forehead against the cold cab window and close my eyes.
I don't believe my lies for a second.
CHAPTER 3
THANE
Cold sheets and the ghost of her warmth wake me.
My hand reaches across the mattress before my eyes open. The space beside me is empty. All I find is cool cotton where warm skin used to be. I press my palm flat against the indent her body left and the fading heat sinks into my fingers like a goodbye.
She's gone.
The apartment is dead silent. The soft breathing that lulled me to sleep is gone, and so is the rustle of sheets and the steady thud of her heartbeat against my chest. I strain for any sound that signals she is somewhere in my apartment. But all I hear is silence.
