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Like the gate, the door opened for me automatically. A butler – who wore a gun at his waist – greeted me and took my purse before leaving me in the company of one of the henchmen from Palm Springs. The same one who had held me as Reeve had body searched me – Anatolios.

“Ms. Wayborn. Please, come in. Mr. Sallis is waiting for you. Follow me.” His tone, like last time, contradicted his welcoming words, but this time he looked at me with more interest, his expression lewd and ugly.

“Thank you,” I said, stepping after him, but really what I meant was Please don’t stay with us at the pool. It was stupid to even wish it silently because I knew from experience that he’d at least be watching from a distance, and from the look he’d just given me, I could tell he got off on the voyeurism. Once again, I wondered what he might know about Reeve’s other women, about Amber. That was a question I’d never have an answer to, though. While I was pretty sure now that I knew the price to get him to talk to me, it was not a price I was willing to pay.

From the foyer, the house’s design became apparent. It was long and narrow with large rooms stacked side-by-side so that each looked out at the canyon beyond. The entire back wall, in fact, was made of floor-to-ceiling windows. And the views were breathtaking. The kind of breathtaking that made me pause midstep so that I could look without the distraction of moving at the same time. From every direction, there was something to look at, the far side peering out over Franklin Canyon Park, the windows to the right revealing Fryman Canyon Park, and to the left, the Sunset Strip.

Then, when I acclimated to the grand scene, I saw another view that made my pulse speed up and my breathing uneven – the pool. More specifically, the man in red swim trunks sitting on a deck chair next to the pool.

And fuck if all the windows didn’t have perfect sightlines to every inch of the backyard.

“This way, Ms. Wayborn.” Anatolios stood ahead of me pointing not toward the yard, but toward an open door.

I raised a questioning brow.

“If you’d like to change.”

Change. Into a swimsuit. I hesitated.

It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with nudity. I’d done modeling and bit parts on cable television that called for no clothing. Before that, with Amber, I’d done so many things beyond stripping that being naked had become no big deal.

My apprehension now came from another angle entirely. I’d be naked. With Reeve. In front of the butler and Anatolios, who’d probably get a hard-on over it, and whoever else was in the house, as well as anyone who might have binoculars in the houses across the canyon.

The whole scenario was an epic turn-on.

It was another check against me in the vulnerability category. If I did this, if I walked out there and let the scene unfold the way I so very much wanted it to, I wouldn’t be able to turn back. It would be like going down the rabbit hole. There would be no way I’d come out the other side the same.

But it wasn’t like I could change my mind about wearing a swimsuit – I hadn’t brought one with me at all. And really, turning back had stopped being an option a while ago now.

With revived determination, I turned down Anatolios’s offer. “Nope. I’m good, thank you.”

If this surprised him, he didn’t let on. He pointed to the glass door ahead of us. “Right that way then.”

He wasn’t accompanying me any farther, which meant he’d been told to stay behind. Been told to leave Reeve and me alone.

My stomach fluttered. Oh, God. I was a goner.

It felt like miles from the door to where Reeve sat in his chair, reading from a tablet of some sort. Nervousness spun through me, dizzying me. Keeping me frozen in place.

Then, he looked up. Looked right at me as though he sensed I was there.

It was all the invitation I needed. Focused on him, the walk became easy. He wore sunglasses, but the tilt of his head, the stillness of him told me his eyes were glued to me as I made my way toward him. He was an incubus, calling me with a seduction song so well known to me that I didn’t have to hear it to respond. My body hummed with it naturally. The air vibrated with the tune, the rhythm of it growing stronger with each step I took.

When I reached him, I realized I’d been smiling since I walked out of the house.

“You made it,” he said, with a smile of his own. The radiance of it competed for attention with the bronze, toned planes of his chest. I wanted to touch them, follow the dips and ridges with my fingertips. Trace them with my tongue.

But I also wanted to keep staring at those lips.

“Did you have any problem finding me? I realized too late that I should have sent a car.”

“No. It was fine. No problem at all.” I didn’t add that I would have turned him down if he’d offered. I preferred the freedom my own vehicle gave me.

He must have read between the lines. “You wouldn’t have accepted it anyway. I get that, I suppose. You could have come in earlier, though. Instead of parking down the street.”

A blush crawled up my neck. “I suppose I should have expected that.” But the embarrassment quickly passed when I realized he’d been waiting for me. Watching for me. It should have been irritating to have my movements so scrutinized. Instead, it made me ridiculously thrilled.

“Probably.” He never stopped looking at me. I didn’t want him to. I couldn’t stop looking at him either, both of us with grins that bordered on goofy.