“Slow down, love,” he whispered and played me effortlessly with his fingers, dipping in and then out, finding the sensitive nub and flicking it and then teasing me by darting away.

But I didn’t want to go slow. I wanted fast and hard and rough before I changed my mind.

“Declan.” I bit his neck, making him grunt. “Make me come.”

He kissed me harder, his tongue fucking my mouth like I wanted his cock to. “I want you so bad I can’t think straight,” he whispered between kisses.

“Me too.”

I’d gone over the edge when it came to him.

I’d lost all sense of where I was … who he was … my past .

Yet …

Darkness inched in bit by bit. This wasn’t some guy from my calculus class I could control. This wasn’t some nerdy guy who’d thought he’d won the lottery when I propositioned him.

This was Whitman University’s Sexiest Man on Campus.

He was part of the beautiful people—just like Colby.

He was everything I shouldn’t want but did.

Suddenly there was space between us, and I realized I’d been the one to shove him off me. He obliged readily, I acknowledged thankfully as he panted from a few feet away, his face red, fists clenched tight at his sides.

My own chest heaved and I looked down at my nightgown, its straps pushed down, exposing my bare breasts still rosy from his ministrations.

God. Things had gone too far.

I gazed back at him, but he was already in the kitchen pouring a glass of water and chugging it with his back to me. I studied the taut lines of his shoulders and the tightness in his stance, recognizing he’d let go when I asked.

No matter who he was, he wasn’t Colby.

Yet how could I have been so stupid? He was a dangerous fighter with enough sex appeal to blow up a building. He was entirely wrong for me.

Tension escalated as he still didn’t turn around, but his voice came out rough, like it had been dragged over gravel. “Get out of here, Elizabeth.”

I sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry—”

“Go!” His body heaved.

I turned, bolted out the door, and slammed it behind me.

“WHERE’S NADIA? SHE’S usually here with you,” my father said as I stepped into the study where he and Dax already sat in leather club chairs. My stepmum Clara and my stepsister Blythe played on the floor with a puzzle.

I shrugged noncommittally at my father, knowing it drove him bonkers.

We’d just finished a five-course dinner with rather stilted conversation in the dining room, where my father had talked about his business projects and the various vacations he and my stepmother, Clara, planned to take in the coming year. My four-year-old stepsister, Blythe, had been fed by the nanny in the kitchen while the adults chatted.

My family lived a prestigious life, which I guess wasn’t surprising considering he came from a long line of privileged military men and she was the daughter of a real estate mogul.

My mum, on the other hand, had been a secretary and merely a casual fling that had resulted in a pregnancy. He’d married her when she’d refused to have an abortion and then he’d promptly given her a small house, a lump of money, and divorced her. Most of that had been to save his career and reputation.

Mum should have been the one living in this huge colonial mansion with a pool, tennis courts, and a stable full of Arabian horses, not the younger version Father had replaced her with.

The sharp ache of a distant memory touched me, one of Mum lying on her bed. Weak. I’d been upset—even angry—with her, too naïve to see her illness. All I’d focused on was that the giggly woman who’d made the best shepherd’s pie, the woman who’d come to my martial arts classes and cheered me on, was missing.

God, that cut deep, and I closed my eyes, wishing I could jump back to that one point in time and tell her I was sorry , that I didn’t mean any of the stupid shit I said.

She hadn’t told us until the very end.

I’m dying and your father is coming to take you away.

She died a week later.

A man I hadn’t seen in nine years had shown up at our house the next day, his face a mask of iron, his eyes dismissive as he took in our small house filled with the belongings of two messy boys. He’d heaved a great sigh and told the packers to forget bringing anything with us. We’d left behind our cozy home in London for a mansion in Raleigh, North Carolina.

It had been the beginning of my hell.

“Declan, I asked you about Nadia.”

Still I didn’t answer, my eyes touching on the huge plate glass window behind my father’s desk, and I recalled how angry he’d got with Dax one summer in high school over his failing grades. He’d shouted loud enough at Dax that I’d heard them and came in to see my father waving his fists at him. A big barrel-chested man, he’d got in our faces plenty of times, but had never used his fists. I don’t know if he would have that day, but I didn’t give him a chance.

Rage had driven me to use my own fists. We’d wrestled on the floor of the study, his hands connecting with my face more times than I care to remember. Sweat and blood had flown, and when he tossed me off him and I’d stumbled, the force of it sent me straight into that window and right out onto the concrete drive.

I’d ended up in the hospital with a concussion and over a hundred stitches across my back.

To say things had been rocky between us since was an understatement.