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“You’re lying.”

I was silent and glanced away from him.

“Duncan.”

“You gotta let me figure this out in my head,” I finally said. “Because I’m having trouble.”

“Trouble with what?”

I raked my fingers through my hair, tugging before letting my head loll sideways so I could see him.

“Duncan?”

“It’s like a circus.”

“What?”

“Being with you,” I huffed out. “It’s like joining the circus, exciting and without a net. But I don’t know if I wanna be under the lights in the big top for everyone to look at.”

He went very quiet; I could actually see the recoil. “My life is not some frightening side-show carnival, and how dare you compare it to one?!”

“Do you even know the difference between a circus and a carnival? If you’re gonna get pissed, at least know what you’re pissed about.”

“Yes, Duncan,” he said implacably, “I do.”

And the offense he took was normal, and that sort of calmed my momentary terror over … not what we were about to do—not about the op—but us.

“I cannot believe that you⁠—”

“Wait.” I chuckled, which I realized instantly was not a good reaction.

I hadn’t meant to be patronizing; it was completely unintentional. The whole conversation was just stupid, but when I saw how big his eyes got, I knew I was in for one hell of a blistering tirade.

Moving quickly, he took the seat beside me, slid his laptop sideways onto the seat he’d just left, and then yelled Miguel’s name. His bodyguard’s voice came instantly from the front of the car, asking if he was okay.

“Everything’s fine,” he answered curtly. “Please raise the privacy partition, and do not stop this car until you’re instructed.” As he finished, he pulled off his suit jacket and flung it back into his vacated seat. The partition rose at the same moment.

“Aaron,” I coaxed faintly.

“No,” he roared, and in the small space, it was really loud. “Do not handle me!”

He hit another button on the console near him, and my window whooshed shut so fast that I was lucky my hand wasn’t outside.

“We’re having a mis⁠—”

“Stop.” His voice bottomed out as he was suddenly there, pressed tight against me, pulling, tugging, wanting my clothes off.

The cotton dress shirt surrendered first, the buttons torn free and flying everywhere as it was roughly opened and then peeled free of first one arm and then the other. The white undershirt was yanked over my head without concern, and then he divested himself of his own clothes as quickly as possible.

I realized that Aaron Sutter did a whole hell of a lot of his communication through sex, and I got it, because normally, I did as well. The thing was, though, with him, I wanted more.

“You’re going to run. I can feel it.”

That was my fault; I was scaring him for no good reason.

Most people could count on two things, some more and others less: We each had a personal life and a professional one. At any given time, at least one had to be working right for us to truly function in society. So maybe the job was shit, but your home life was solid. Or domestic bliss was not in the cards, but your career was moving along at a healthy clip. If it was either/or, you could get by. But unfortunately, in a span of minutes, I had taken both from Aaron Sutter.

He was already missing work—and the pride that came with it, the identity it gave him—and then I had made sure he knew we weren’t solid either. My timing was fantastic.