I’m at home watching Die Hard for the hundredth time when I get a phone call from Sophia. Muting the sound, I answer, smiling. “Hi. This is a nice surprise.”


    “Are you busy this afternoon?”


    “Not if there’s anything you want to do with me, no.”


    “As a matter of fact, there is something I want to do with you. Meet me at the Fairmont. I booked us a room.”


    My heart skips a beat. I sit up straight and turn off the television. “You booked us a room?”


    “I did. I need to see you. In private. And not somewhere there might be photographers lurking around, like at your house.”


    Her voice is calm and even, but I sense there’s something going on. “Are you okay?”


    After a pause, she says, “I’ll be a lot better when we’re naked in bed together. I’m leaving the house now. I’ll text you the room number when I check in. How soon can you get there?”


    “Half an hour. Forty-five, tops.”


    “Perfect. See you soon.”


    When she hangs up without saying goodbye, I sit in confusion, worrying, until Ie to my senses and jump to my feet. I take a quick shower and change my clothes, then run out the door.


    I almost tten the valet parking guy when I pull into the Fairmont Hotel’s elegant circr driveway. He leaps out of the way just in time.


    Jumping out of the car, I apologize, then hand him the keys and wait impatiently as he tears off a valet stub. I snatch it from his fingers and jog toward the hotel entrance, scanning for any sign of Sophia. I’m cruising through the lobby when she texts me her room number.


    In the elevator, I fidget impatiently. When the doors open on her floor, I burst through them, then jog down the hall to her room and knock.


    “Come in.”


    The door is unlocked. I walk into the room. She stands by the windows, looking out, the gauzy white curtains silhouetting her figure.


    She’s nude.


    And she literally takes my breath away. I stand stunned, my hand over my heart, feeling its heavy thudding, and drink in the sight of her beautiful body.


    When she turns and looks at me, I’m still standing at the door in awe.


    Her eyes are dark and shining. Her hair is long and loose, cascading over her shoulders and around her breasts. Without a word, she gestures to the bed.


    I don’t know what this is about, but I know it’s important. I can see it in her face, in the expression in those eloquent eyes. Something inside of me quakes.


    I say her name tentatively. She closes her eyes briefly and shakes her head.


    “I just need to feel you. I’ll be better then.”


    Moving slowly, I cross the room, ignoring the elegant furnishings, the linen-draped room service cart with the champagne bucket and choctes, the faint sounds of traffic floating up from the street below.


    Her clothes are draped over the back of a leather chair. A pair of low heelsy abandoned beneath the chair, as if hastily kicked aside.


    I take her face in my hands and kiss her.


    She sags against me with a soft moan of relief, digging her fingers into the muscles of my back.


    “What is it?” I murmur, squeezing her against me. “Baby, what’s wrong?”


    She gazes up at me with something ineffably sad in her eyes. I brush a strand of hair off her cheek and tuck it behind her ear, desperate to find out what’s happened.


    After a moment, she smiles. “You’re here. Nothing could be wrong.”


    She starts to unbutton my shirt, slender fingers working quickly.


    I wish I were a better man, the kind who didn’t getpletely distracted by the sight of a pair of gorgeous bare tits and hard rosy nipples, but I’m not that guy.


    My dick is already aching for her.


    She pulls my shirt down my arms and flings it away, looks my chest over with hungry eyes, then wraps her arms around my shoulders and kisses me passionately, arching her naked body against me.


    The feel of her bare breasts on my chest is so amazing, it makes me groan into her mouth.


    I run my hands all over her body, squeezing her ass and her breasts, following the curve of her waist and the rise of her hipbones. Everywhere I touch is soft and yielding. Her skin is warm and as smooth as silk.


    She breaks the kiss to push me backward toward the bed. Walking with her hand pressed t on my chest, she gazes at me with hot eyes. My calves hit the edge of the mattress. I can’t go any further.


    She pushes me down to a sitting position on the bed, straddles me, and kisses me deeply, holding my head in her hands. Then she breaks the kiss and guides my mouth to her nipple.


    I suck on it greedily, my heart racing and my dick throbbing. She sinks her fingers into my hair and pulls on it, scratching my scalp as she rocks her hips against mine. She drops her head back and moans, forcing me to her other breast and its tight, waiting nipple.


    I lick and suck on it, cupping both breasts in my hands and squeezing as she writhes against the bulge under the zipper of my jeans.


    Without warning, she rolls off me onto her back on the bed. She spreads her legs, draws her knees up, and licks her lips, gazing at me from under lowered lids.


    “Be my good boy, Carter,” she whispers. “You know what I need.”


    I almost pass out from excitement.


    Instead, I drop to my knees on the floor next to the bed and shove my face into her plump pink pussy.


    When I thrust my tongue inside her, she arches off the bed and moans my name. I slide my hands under her ass and squeeze, lifting her bottom off the mattress. She rocks her hips and strokes her hard nipples as I eat her delicious cunt, alternating betweenpping at her clit, sucking on it, and fucking that tight wet hole with my tongue.


    When she stiffens and cries out, I release my aching cock from my jeans, surge up onto the bed between her spread legs, and shove it deep inside her.


    She shudders. Her moan of pleasure is low and broken. With her dark hair spread out over the white duvet, her eyes closed and her full lips parted, her head titled back and her body arched in ecstasy, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.


    Her pussy contracts around my cock over and over again, like a fist milking me.


    She wraps her legs around my waist and grips my forearms as I thrust into her over and over, using long, smooth strokes. I lean over to suck on her rigid nipples, and she shivers and moans.


    “Is this what you need, baby?” I growl near her ear. “You need my hard cock buried inside you?”


    She answers by tilting her hips up to take me even deeper than before.


    “Oh, yes. You want me to fuck you hard, don’t you? You want me to be in charge this time, and you want me to make you take my cock however I want to give it to you.”


    She whimpers, nodding, her eyes squeezed shut. “Yes. Please.”


    My heartbeat is out of control. Every nerve feels exposed, raw and tender. I’m aware of my skin in a way I’ve never been before, of the sensation of the air on it, the mist of sweat forming on my brow and chest.


    I fuck her hard and deep until her moans are full-throated, and I know she’s about to orgasm again. Then I withdraw, roll her onto her belly, drag her up onto her knees, and push her upper body down so her chest and face are resting on the mattress.


    “Okay, baby,” I say, positioning myself at her dripping slit. “Take it.”


    I slide my throbbing cock inside her pussy, moaning at the erotic sight of her tender flesh parting to ept the thick, veined length of my dick. The little puckered rosebud of her ass quivers when I press my thumb against it.


    She’s wet here too. She’s wet all over from my mouth and her own arousal. Gripping her hip in one hand, I stroke my thumb over and around her ass until she’s panting loudly and jerking back against me, begging for it.


    I reach around and lightly p her pussy.


    She jerks and squeals, then moans against the covers, rxing and titling her hips higher. I fondle her clit, chuckling when she shudders and gasps.


    “You’re so beautiful. Look at this beautiful ass, this perfect pussy that’s taking my cock so well. Goddamn, woman. You’re a dream.”


    Grabbing the duvet, she curls her hands into fists. Her lips are parted. Her cheeks are flushed. The wet sounds of our fucking underscore her panting and moans.


    I circle my finger around and around her clitoris, every once in a while tugging on it, until it’s firm and engorged under my fingertip, herbia are swollen, and she’s crying out with the need toe again.


    Then I slowly sink my thumb past that knot of muscle in her ass.


    She’s tight, wet heat. I almost lose control of myself.


    But I inhale a breath and manage to hold back against the need pounding my body from all sides. Every inch of my cock is exquisitely sensitive. My balls ache for release. I fuck her ass with my finger and her cunt with my cock, feeling that wet hole opening around my finger, softening for me, until she’s going wild, bucking against me mindlessly.


    I slide my cock out of her pussy and press the engorged crown against her ass.


    “I want to fuck this pretty little rosebud. Yes or no.”


    She whispers, “Yes.”


    There’s a moment of resistance, then she opens for me. I carefully flex my hips and take her ass, sliding my cock in until it can’t go any further.


    Our moans are equally loud and broken.


    Bending over her back, I brace a hand against the mattress, then reach around again to fondle her clit. I give her a moment to adjust to me, then start to slowly fuck into her, rocking my hips and stroking her pussy.


    She climaxes with a sudden cry, her entire body convulsing.


    Exhaling, I give it to her harder, fucking her through her orgasm until my own crests over me and Ie, gripping her hips and cursing at the ceiling, all the muscles in my body clenched.


    I empty myself inside her body, my heart fracturing into pieces, my body awash in pulse after pulse of pleasure that leaves me gasping for air.


    Beads of sweat fly off my forehead when I shake my head to clear it. After several moments, when I’ve caught my breath, I run my hand slowly up her spine, learning every precious bump, then ease us down to the mattress.


    Lying on top of her, I nuzzle my nose into her hair and sigh in contentment.


    Herugh is soft and sweet. “Are you nning on ever taking that hard dick of yours out of me?”


    “God no. We’re stuck like this permanently.”


    “It’s going to make grocery shopping pretty awkward.”


    “Going to the movies too.” Smiling, I kiss her all over her neck and shoulders, inhaling the delicious smell of her skin deep inside my lungs.


    Somebody should bottle her scent. They’d make a fortune.


    Against her neck, I whisper, “Ready?”


    “Mmm.”


    I ease of out of her slowly, push up to my knees, then bend down to kiss the small of her back. She rolls over and looks up at me with hazy, happy eyes.


    “You good?”


    “So good.”


    “You want to use the bathroom before or after me?”


    “Before,” she says, stirring. “I’ll only be a minute.”


    Rising, she kisses me in passing, then heads toward the bathroom. I hear the toilet flush, then water running, then she’s back again, reclining on the bed with her arms flung over her head like one of Modigliani’s famous nudes.


    Looking at her, I say quietly, “You’re stunning, Sophia. I could look at you every day for the rest of my life.”


    Her throat works, but she says nothing. All the emotion she doesn’t give voice to is reflected in her eyes.


    I put my hand over my heart in a silent pledge and stare at her for a moment, our gazes locked. Then I blow out a hard breath before I do something ridiculous like get teary-eyed and go into the bathroom.


    I take a piss. I wash my dick in the sink, dripping soapy water on the marble floor. I dry off with a plush white hand towel and go back into the other room where Sophia waits in the same position on the bed, watching me with those dark, magical eyes.


    Beckoning me, she holds out her arms. I fall into them with a grateful sigh and nestle against her plush body, resting my cheek against her neck. Threading her fingers into my hair, she kisses my forehead and slips her foot between my calves.


    We stay entwined like that for a long time. Lying together infortable silence. Listening to the sound of our mingled breath and the world outside the windows, distant car horns and voices, the asional harsh squawk of a seagull winging by.


    “I’d like to ask you something,” she says quietly. “It’s important. Please tell me the truth. Not what you might think I want to hear, but the honest truth.”


    My pulse ticks up. I don’t move except to open my eyes. “Okay. What is it?”


    Her chest rises as she slowly inhales. There’s a pause that feels significant, then: “Do you want children?”


    I freeze. An rm bell starts ringing in my head, faint at first, but growing louder with each beat of my heart. She senses my distress.


    “There isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s a simple yes or no.”


    “Then why do I feel like one of those answers will result in me never seeing you again?”


    “Please, just tell me the truth.”


    I raise my head and look at her. She won’t meet my gaze, looking instead at my chin.


    “Why are you asking me that?”


    When she mutely shakes her head, I roll us over so she’s on her back and I’m gazing down into her pinched face. “What’s going on?”


    “It’s a simple question. Yes or no.”


    “It’s not a simple fucking question, it’s a loaded question.” When she doesn’t respond to that, I say, “Do you want kids? More, I mean?”


    Her eyes sh with anger when she looks up at me. But she responds in that same calm, exasperating voice. “I’ll tell you the truth about that as soon as you answer my question.”


    I stare at her, trying not to panic. “What brought this on?”


    “Carter, please.”


    “Does this have something to do with your ex? Your mother?”


    She tries to roll out from under me, but I won’t let her go. Holding her chin, I demand, “At least tell me why you’re asking me this.”


    “I can’t. It might sway your answer.”


    I search her face for any clue as to what’s going on, but I find only a kind of resolute misery in her expression. It scares me more than anything else so far.


    “Please,” she whispers, her eyes welling. “Just be honest with me. It’s all I’ve ever asked of you.”


    I say hoarsely, “You’re fucking killing me right now. You’re killing me, Sophia. What the hell is wrong?”


    She shakes her head and presses her lips together, stubborn as a cat.


    I can tell I’m not going to win this. There’s also no dodging it either, that’s clear. So, because I gave her my word, I surrender to the inevitable.


    It was a beautiful dream while itsted.


    Feeling nauseated, I roll to my back and close my eyes. “I’ll answer your question. But first, I have to tell you a story. Then my answer will make sense.”


    After a moment, she stretches out beside me. I know she’s looking at me, but I can’t bear to meet her eyes.


    “My father…”


    Fuck. Just tell her! Just say it out loud.


    “When I was ten years old, I was kidnapped.”


    I hear her sharp intake of breath, feel the sudden tension in her body, but keep going because if I don’t get this out now, I never will.


    “We were living in Bel Air at the time. The same house my parents still live in because my father refused to ‘let them win’ and move anywhere else. I don’t remember much about the actual abduction. I was asleep. The extraction team who rescued me assumed the kidnappers used some kind of drug. Chloroform on a rag maybe, nobody knows for sure. They didn’t leave any traces. They broke into the house in the middle of the night, bypassing the security systems somehow. However they did it, they knew what they were doing. I woke up inside a metal cage somewhere cold and dark. I couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t hear a sound. I thought I’d been buried alive.”


    I have to stop to suck in a breath. The old, familiar ustrophobia is closing in on me, squeezing icy fingers around my throat, cutting off my air.


    Sophia rests her hand on my arm. Just that simple contact helps the steel bands around my chest loosen. I exhale a hard breath and continue.


    “I was in captivity in a cage for six weeks because my father refused to pay the ransom.”


    She’s horrified, whispering, “Oh my God.”


    Myugh is bitter. “Yeah. He said if he did, that would just encourage other people toe after his family too. But I think if it were Callum who’d been taken, he’d have coughed up the money within hours. He had his heir and a spare, and another left over who didn’t matter as much. Me.”


    I hear the rage in my voice, though I’m trying to keep it together. Sophia gently presses her lips to my shoulder and squeezes my arm.


    Her tone deadly soft, she says, “If I ever meet your father, that bastard better run.”


    This is the moment I know I’m truly in love with her. Not infatuated, not obsessed with a fantasy, but really in love.


    Which makes this conversation so much more painful because I think I already know how it will end. I take a breath and continue.


    “So I was terrified, but I wasn’t physically harmed. I think the only reason for that was that one of the kidnappers…there was a woman with them. The rest were men, different men who woulde and go and were always fighting and screaming at each other, but there was one woman who was there almost all the time. She was the one who brought me food and water. Changed the shit bucket. Sang to me when I cried. As time wore on and it started to be clear they were never going to get their ransom money, I think the only thing that saved me from being killed outright or sent back to my father piece by piece was her.”


    I never learned her name. But I’ve never forgotten her face. It’s burned into my memory. She was in her mid-twenties, a pretty brte with big dark eyes.


    The Marine who rescued me put a bullet in her head.


    It was mercifulpared to what he did to the others.


    I drag more air into my lungs, then moisten my dry lips and tell her the rest.


    “The details don’t matter, but I was found and brought home. Of course, it was kept out of the papers. My parents never even went to the police. The extractionpanies that do this sort of work have very wealthy, high-profile clients. Politicians. Entertainers. Royalty. They’re extremely good at what they do. So they found me, they took me out of that cage and brought me home, one very fucked-up ten-year-old boy whose father told him he was a good little soldier, gave him a hug, then went into his study and closed the door. We never spoke of it again. I’m not sure if they even told my brothers. Everyone acted as if I’d been away visiting rtives.


    “That’s how I learned not to talk about the hard things, to act like life was great no matter how shitty it is, to pretend in a thousand different ways while inside I was dying. And expecting that, at any moment, it could happen again. Only next time, I wouldn’t have someone to keep the wolves at bay. I spent a decade terrified but with a big smile on my face until I finally went into therapy. If I hadn’t, I doubt I’d be here today.”


    I turn my head and look at Sophia. She’s staring at me with tears silently leaking from the corners of her eyes. I wipe my thumb under her cheekbone, smiling sadly.


    “So to answer your question…no. I don’t want children. I can’t take on the huge responsibility of raising another person to be a good adult. I’m not qualified. I won’t project all my mental shit onto a kid.” My throat tightens, but I force myself to keep going. “That’s how generational trauma starts. I mean, I think I’m a decent person. I function. I survive. But I’ll never be solid enough to be a good father.”


    I tear my gaze away from the pain in her eyes that cuts deeper than I can stand. Staring at the ceiling, I fight the war in my guts: the knots, the nausea, the weight of this confession pressing like cement blocks on my chest. My voice is thick when I finally push the words out.


    “Knowing that, I had a vasectomy a few years ago.”


    She’s silent. I can’t bear to look at her and see her disappointment, so I close my eyes.


    “I’m sorry.”


    Her voice choked, she says, “Oh, Carter, I’m sorry. For that scared little boy, and for how hard you’ve had to pretend for so long. But I’m so grateful you told me the truth.”


    She rolls on top of me, takes my face in her hands, and stares down into my eyes.


    “I don’t want children, either. More of them, I mean.”


    My breath catches. My heart skips a beat before starting to hammer.


    That’s not what I was expecting. Every woman I’ve dated has told me she wants kids, sometimes on the first damn date.


    “You don’t?”


    “No. Which is convenient, since I no longer have a uterus. I had a hysterectomy.”


    When she smiles, something inside mees undone. My heart crashes under my ribs. Burning hope spreads like wildfire through my body.


    “And you’re not—” My voice cracks. I swallow hard. “You’re not turned off by that story I just told you? You don’t think I have too much baggage?”


    She leans down, pressing the gentlest kiss to my lips. One that says she sees me, the way nobody else ever has.


    “Here’s the thing about baggage, Carter…everybody’s got it. You, me, whatever person either of us could date. Nobody’s perfect.” Her fingers stroke my jaw, her touch gentle and reverent. “But I think you’re as close to perfection as it gets.”


    A strangled sound escapes my throat. I can’t speak. I can’t breathe past the emotion clogging my chest. So I do the only thing I can. I pull her down against me and hide my face in her neck so she won’t see my eyes fill with tears.


    She hugs me hard and doesn’t let go. And for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.


    I feel like I’m finally home.