I gasp, clutching the case as a flurry of electric sparks seem to concentrate inside me, tighter and tighter, until they threaten to explode. And then I’m close, so very close and—

I start to cry out, then feel his hand close tight over my mouth. I tilt my head back and swallow the scream of pleasure, my muscles throbbing around him, pulling him in tighter and harder as he thrusts into me again and again.

I open my eyes, and see that he is looking at me, his eyes searching my face with an expression of such unabashed passion that I think I will come again merely from the look in his eyes.

“Damien,” I whisper, and it is as if his name is a trigger. I see the rapture cut through his body, I feel him tighten against me, his body going tenser and then the warm release as he comes inside me.

He exhales, then sags against me.

“Nikki,” he says.

“I know,” I whisper.

His lips brush softly over mine, a tender kiss that contrasts the wildness of our coupling, and is just as perfect.

He is soft now and slips out of me. My thighs are sticky, and though I know I have to, I don’t want to wipe away the feel of him on my skin.

“Here,” he says. He has a handkerchief in his hand, and he gently cleans me up, then adjusts my dress. “Good as new,” he says.

“Better,” I say.

He strokes my hair, then traces the line of my ear, then brushes his thumb over my lip. It is as if he is trying to prove to himself that I am real. “I didn’t like the way I felt today,” he finally says. “Seeing you like that. Knowing you were angry with me.”

“I didn’t like it, either,” I admit.

“I suppose there’s something to be said for makeup sex.”

“Definitely.”

He takes my hand. “I meant what I said, Nikki. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want us to be over.”

I look at his face, at the chiseled expression and the firm, demanding eyes, and I am confused. “I know,” I say. “I don’t, either.”

He strokes my cheek, then curls a strand of hair around my finger. “No,” he says. “I need to be clear. I don’t want our arrangement to end. You’re mine, and there are rules. And I want our game to continue.”

15

Our game.

The force of these unexpected words crashes over me, and I take a step backward. He reaches out, and though I take his hand without hesitation, I find that I am shaking my head. Not necessarily in protest, but in confusion.

“I—I don’t understand.”

“I think you do. And I think you want it, too. Tell me, Nikki, did you leave your panties at home because you like the way it feels, or because you like knowing that you’re open to me? That I can touch you—that I can fuck you—whenever and wherever I want?”

I swallow, because he is right. More than that, I understand now the melancholy I saw in his eyes Thursday night, followed by the possessiveness when he claimed me after midnight.

He is right—I am his. How can it be otherwise when he is inside my heart now?

But this?

He is watching me closely, examining me with the same implacable analysis that he uses to vet a business transaction or a financial report. But I am a woman, and my emotions don’t follow the line of a ticker tape. He knows that, too, of course, and beneath the hard, logical intellect, I see the soul-deep vulnerability.

He wants this. Maybe he even needs it. And he has handed all of the power of this moment to me.

My heart twists, because the truth of it is that I want it, too. Isn’t that why I’ve felt lost all night? I discovered a new side to myself when we played our game, and despite being “his,” I felt more liberated than I ever had. More in control of myself and my emotions. More centered, I think, as I brush my thumb over the finger that I had so tightly bound only moments before.

I am still holding tight to the side of the glass case. As I glance down and see the two Bradbury books, I cannot help but shiver as I think of the story Damien told me. I picture him, young and strong, riding his bike to escape his father. Riding to meet his hero, a man who crafted worlds out of ink and imagination. Insubstantial, but real enough to a boy who needed to escape.

Is that what he’s doing now? Crafting a false reality out of smoke and mirrors and tempting me into the fantasy with him? But it’s not fantasy that I want with Damien. I want the reality. The moments, like the Bradbury story, when Damien lets me in enough to see a bit of his past and a piece of his heart.

My chest tightens as I shift my gaze from the glass case to Damien’s equally transparent eyes. He is awaiting my answer, and I want to melt against him and whisper yes, yes, of course, yes. But I stand still, frozen by the fear that if I do, I will be letting myself get pulled into something that isn’t and never can be real.

“Why?” I ask. “Before, you said that you wanted me. But you have me now, with or without the game.” I lift my leg and point toward the emerald ankle bracelet. “I’m still wearing it, Damien. You know I’ll always wear it. So why? What difference does it make?”

He tilts his head toward the glass case. “You say you want me to open up more,” he says, and I marvel at the way he always knows what I am thinking. “I want that, too. I don’t want secrets between us, Nikki.”

“You told me about the tennis center,” I say.

“Not everything,” he replies.

I stay perfectly still, because I know that is true.

“I need parameters, Nikki. Especially now. I need to know—” He cuts himself off and looks away, his jaw clenching as he wrestles with the words. “I need to know that you will be here, with me, no matter what.”

He looks so vulnerable, and I am humbled that I have so much power over a man with strength such as Damien.

“Don’t you already know that? I do.”

There is something dark in the eyes that look back at me. “How can you, when there are still so many things you don’t know?”

He is not saying anything I haven’t thought of, but for a moment, I am afraid. What dark secrets does Damien have that still remain buried?

The thing is, I understand better than anyone why he wants the facade of the game in place if he’s going to try to open up to me. I cut myself in order to cope with the horrors of my childhood, but what did Damien do? Nothing except conquer the world and learn to bury his secrets deep.

I glance down at the books in the glass case, and can’t help the smile that touches my lips. Even the little things are a big step for Damien. But the shit in his past—the things like Sara Padgett and the guilt he felt over that poor girl’s suicide—those are the kinds of things that Damien needs to say with a net.