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“Forget the wine—I want to lie down with you.”

She couldn’t argue with that, especially when they crawled into the lavish king-size bed and Damon pulled her naked body close, kissing her forehead.

Then he fell asleep, but she didn’t mind—in fact, she almost thought it was cute that even sex god Damon Andros fell prey to slumber after an orgasm.

Watching him doze, smelling the fresh but still masculine scent of his body, watching the way his longer locks began to dry in little curls from when she’d nearly drowned him with her enthusiasm…she couldn’t help reflecting on the myriad experiences this man had given her. And the myriad emotions he’d drawn from her. She’d realized in the tub that the sex was so overpowering as to obscure emotions, but even that in itself, an awareness that all you wanted or cared about was the cock ramming into you…wasn’t that an emotion in itself?

She found herself remembering their other encounters, too. Her desires today at the pool had been so utterly intense. As intense as at Fetish, but somehow even more extreme. At the bar, she’d behaved brazenly, but had at least needed a closed door. Whereas at the pool, she’d meant what she’d said—she’d wanted him so badly that she’d stopped caring about spectators.

And maybe, just maybe, a really deviant part of her had even been turned on by the idea of being watched by women who wanted what she was getting. She’d acknowledged that in the pool, but the truth was, she’d been thinking about more than just having them watch her kiss him. She’d known the fleeting desire to have them watch her fuck him, watch her take in the cock they lusted for but couldn’t have.

And still, despite all that, what they’d done tonight, in private, somehow made everything else pale in comparison.

She’d never thought much about real, true intimacy before. She supposed neither Wayne, nor the few other men she’d been with, had ever really inspired such feelings. Yet she knew that tonight she had experienced it with Damon.

Brenna was still watching him when, a little while later, his hand moved across her bare hip beneath the sheets and his eyes fluttered open. “Hey,” he said with a sleepy smile.

“Hey.”

“Sorry I drifted off.”

She gave him a tolerant grin. “Orgasm can do that to a man.”

“Fucking you that hard took a lot out of me,” he admitted with a lecherous little smile of his

own. Then mused, “Lights are still on. Music, too.”

Truthfully, she hadn’t noticed, too caught up in Damon and the overwhelming sexual awakening he’d given her over the past twenty-four hours. “I’m too cozy to get up right now.” And besides, the bedroom lamps were off—only light from the bathroom and dining area filtered in through the doorways, keeping the room shadowy and romantic.

He nuzzled closer. “Me, too.”

When her gaze fell on the cross at his throat, she reached out to gently slide her fingertip down the smooth silver. “Is this special? I never noticed you wearing it before last night, but you’ve had it on ever since.”

“I wear it all the time. Just ends up under my T-shirts most days.”

“So it is special.”

He gave a light nod against his pillow. “My grandmother gave it to me on my confirmation, when I was twelve. She brought it with her from Greece as a young girl.”

“Wow.” His reply surprised her on many levels. It amazed her to find out the cross was so  old. And that Damon Andros was the sort of guy who treasured his grandmother. And that  Damon Andros had a religious side. “I hadn’t guessed you for a good Catholic boy.”

He cast a sideways glance. “Catholic, yeah. Not necessarily good.”

She smiled in reply. “Is your grandma…still alive?”

His expression transformed into one of warmth—maybe a sort of comfort—she hadn’t seen there before. “Eighty-five and still going strong. She’s back in Brooklyn with the rest of my family.”

“Wow,” she said again. She’d just never thought about Damon even having a family. “I bet

they’re proud of you.”

He let out a short, cynical laugh. “Yeah, it’s every parent’s dream to have a son accused of sexual misconduct on national TV.”

She winced. “Sorry—I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about your job.”

“They love me and accept what I do—but it wasn’t exactly their first choice.”

“What was?”

He sighed. “Until his retirement a few months ago, my father sold insurance out of the same little office on the same Brooklyn street since before I was born. I have three older sisters, but my parents kept on trying until they got a boy so there’d be somebody to take over the family business.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t imagine the pressure that would put on a kid. “And one of your sisters

didn’t qualify?”

He grinned. “They’re very traditional. And proud, too—proud as hell that my grandfather started the business fresh off the boat and that my dad kept it going. So I was groomed from an early age to be the next Andros Insurance guy.

“Problem was, I liked music a whole lot more than insurance. I got into a band in high  school, but when I figured out I wasn’t much of a musician, I got a job at CBGB instead. So  by the time I was eighteen, I was working in the insurance office by day and the bar at  night.”

Brenna was duly impressed—she knew the small Manhattan underground club had been the place to launch punk and alternative bands in the seventies. Groups like Blondie, the  Ramones, and the Talking Heads had made their way to fame from CBGB’s stage. “That must have been fabulous.”

“It was un-fucking-believable,” he said. “I was there in the early nineties and worked my  way up from busboy to sound mixer to events coordinator. I got to see bands like Sound  garden, Pearl Jam, and Smashing Pumpkins before anyone knew who they were.

“In fact,” he said, casting her a this-will-surprise-you look, “I first met Jenkins there.”

She drew her chin back. “No way.”

“Yep. Blue Night was brand-new then, and he was doing his own scouting in those days.  We started talking music, and he thought I had a good handle on it. We got to know each  other and he offered me a job.”

“Was it hard to pack up and move to L.A.? Tell your dad you were leaving the insurance  biz?” Before a few minutes ago, she couldn’t have imagined anything being difficult for  Damon Andros, but hearing about his family, picturing him as a young boy in Brooklyn,  changed that.

“Yes and no,” he said, his voice softening. “I didn’t like letting them down, but I was  suffocating there. Leaving to pursue what I really wanted to do was very…freeing. In more  ways than one.”

“What do you mean?”

His gaze flicked from the ceiling to her, then back again. “I was engaged.”

It was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping. “Really?”

He gave a slight nod. “Her name was Angie, and she was a nice Greek girl from the block.

We’d dated since we were sixteen and…”

“And what?” she asked when he trailed off.

“It was kind of like the insurance business. I didn’t want to be there, but I felt stuck.”

“Oh.”

He looked back to her. “I did love her once—but I had to go. Smartest thing I ever did. And a lesson learned.”

Brenna bit her lip. “What was the lesson?”

“That being tied down in any way makes me feel…well, tied down . So since then, I just

don’t do it. I’m happier that way. And I don’t risk hurting anybody.”

“Sounds wise,” she said, trying to ignore the slight churning of her stomach. And it did  sound wise, so why was her gut twisting? It wasn’t exactly a news flash that Damon didn’t  get into commitment or relationships. He was basically telling her what she already knew.

Only maybe hearing it out loud made it sound a little different.

Because maybe she really liked him.

Not just liked sex with him—but liked him . Being with him, talking with him, learning from him, laughing with him.

“Tell me about your ex,” Damon said, catching her off guard with the request. When she

didn’t answer right away, he added, “Unless you’d rather not.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t mind. I…met Wayne five years ago, and he seemed like my dream come true. We married after a year—big, traditional wedding, all the trimmings—and then a year after that his company transferred him from Ohio to L.A. So we moved out here and all seemed well. I guess, over time, I felt us growing apart a little, but I chalked it up to both of us being busy—me with my job at Blue Night, him with his systems development job, and he’d joined a health club and was working out a lot.

“Then one night he went to the gym, but forgot his cell phone. I noticed a missed call, and  thinking it might be something important, I listened to the message. I heard a woman  saying she was running late, but that she’d be there soon and that she had on a new  teddy under her jogging suit.”

“Damn.”

She nodded numbly, lost in the reverie. “Yeah—damn.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to the gym. And I found them working out together and confronted him. He told me  everything—that he’d met her there, that they’d hit it off, that one thing had led to another.  She was married, too, and a mother of three.”

Brenna appreciated Damon’s grimace.

It allowed her to share her feelings on this particular subject. “I know sex is great and all, but there are a couple of things I hold sacred: marriage and family. I mean, why even bother with those things if they’re not what you want?”

He nodded. “Exactly. Which is why I don’t have ’em.”

“So you can see why I couldn’t forgive him.”

He glanced over at her. “He expected you to?”

“That’s what he wanted. But…once that trust was so totally breached, I knew I’d never feel

the same way again.”

“I don’t blame you, babe,” he said, then leaned over to give her a little kiss, which she

really needed at the moment. “But I’ll tell you a secret.”

She moved closer, glad they were leaving the subject of her ex behind. Their breakup couldn’t have contrasted more with new Brenna. “What’s that?”

“His loss has definitely been my gain.”

They kissed again, then Damon’s eyes fell shut, leaving Brenna back with her own thoughts—and her own words: Once that trust was so totally breached, I knew I’d never feel the same way again . Wasn’t that how Damon would feel if he found out about her deception, that she was stealing the job he loved and had done so well for so long?  Somehow, she’d almost forgotten about it today—so much excitement had passed between them, making it easier and easier to brush anything negative aside.

She knew she was committing all manner of sins with Damon, but the lie was far worse than the others, and as she eased out of bed, walking naked to turn off the stereo and lamps, she suffered a more heartfelt sense of guilt than she had up to now. Because she knew him now. And because this was seeming like a little more than just sex now. At the very least, she knew they had become friends. Well, friends with benefits.

Yet as she strolled to the wide wall of windows in the spacious living area, peering out on the lights of the city, she forced herself, once again, to shove the guilt aside. After all, hadn’t he said that what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas?

So the sex would stay in Vegas.

And with any luck, maybe the guilt would, too.

THE FOURTH NIGHT

“A sin takes on a new and real terror when there seems a chance that it is going to be

found out.”

—Mark Twain

One

She couldn’t know how good she’d felt to him last night.

Damon was used to waking up with a woman next to him, but when he rolled on his pillow to see Brenna, their heated bathtub fuck came roaring back to his thoughts. She was the very first woman he’d had sex with sans condom since leaving Angie—a damn long time ago. A lifetime, it felt like.

He hadn’t done it purposely. He’d just climbed into the bathtub, invited her in, and

somewhere along the way it had occurred to him he didn’t have a rubber anywhere handy.

And maybe it had been unfair not to point it out, not to remind her, since clearly she’d forgotten, too—but he hadn’t. Because when she’d slid down onto him, so moist, so tight, when he’d felt that hot, slick cunt hugging his cock, flesh to flesh, he simply hadn’t the strength to stop feeling it.

He knew he was safe, because he’d always been careful up to now. And he was pretty damn sure Brenna was safe, too—he was pretty sure he was the first guy she’d fucked since leaving her shithead husband. And he knew she was taking birth control pills because she’d mentioned it among the things she had to do yesterday morning upon heading back to her room to get ready for their breakfast meeting with Blush. He’d suggested she put them in her purse so she wouldn’t have to go dashing back to her room in the future.

Just then, her eyes fluttered open.

And he looked away. He wasn’t sure why, but he supposed he didn’t want to be caught watching her sleep. Something in that sounded…well, like someone else, not him.