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I reach out and gently wrap a hand around her wrist. The same one that fucking asshole grabbed. I’m getting worked up again just thinking about it. Her skin is so fucking soft. And her pulse is going crazy under my thumb.

“What’s your name, beautiful?”

She sucks her teeth. “It’s on my tag.”

“I wanna hear you say it.”

She rolls her eyes, but her voice comes out a little breathy. “Dylan.”

“How old are you, Dylan?”

Her chin goes up. “Old enough to not answer that.”

I wait, still slowly rubbing my thumb over the inside of her wrist.

She finally caves. “Twenty-two.”

Twenty-two. Twenty fucking years younger than me. Any other man my age would feel like a dirty old pervert right now. Not me. All I feel is my cock throbbing against my zipper and that same crazy thought pounding in my head. Mine. Mine. Fucking mine.

“I’m Sasha,” I tell her.

“Okay, Sasha.” She tugs at her wrist, and I let her go. She’s holding the folder to her chest like a shield. “Thank you. For real. You don’t know what this…” She shakes her head and swallows. “Thank you.”

“Go home, Dylan. Your shift’s over.”

“I got another hour.”

Her manager walks past right then, sees me looking at him, and nods so fast I think his head might fall off. “Dylan, go ahead and clock out, sweetie.”

She looks at him. Then back at me, and her eyes go wide.

“Who are you?”

“Go home, Dylan.”

* * *

I don’t fly home like I had planned. At three in the morning, I’m sitting in the back of my Escalade across the street from a raggedy building in Westwood with a busted gate and a dead palm tree out front. Misha is behind the wheel, scrolling through everything he could dig up in two hours.

“Scholarship covers her classes but not her rent. Lives with two roommates. Mom’s in Oakland. No dad in the picture.” He glances at me in the rearview mirror. “No man.”

I nod.

A light turns on in a window on the third floor. I can see her shadow behind the cheap blinds. She stands there for a long time, not moving. Then she sits down on what has to be her bed and drops her face in her hands.

I wanna go up there. Kick the door in, pick her up, and take her away.

But not tonight.

“Boss,” Misha says. “Jet’s ready.”

“Cancel it.”

“For how long?”

Dylan’s light goes out. She’s up there having no clue that her whole fucking life just changed forever.

“Get me a suite at the Wilshire,” I say. “We’re staying.”