“But—” I look around. There doesn’t seem to be anyone paying attention, and in the dark it’s not obvious where his hand is hidden.

His fingers curve inside me, and whatever protests I might have raised die right then. His thumb presses against my pubic bone as if my body is a handle, and I gasp as he roughly pulls me closer. “Now,” he repeats. “I want you coming in my arms.”

“Yes,” I say, because I am too wrecked, too wanton, to say anything else. Right then I think I’d let him lay me out on the dance floor and fuck me with the crowd cheering us on. He wouldn’t, though, and deep inside, under this haze of passion and lust, I know that. We’re still in our bubble, hidden in the dark, buried in the corner.

But Damien needs this. This man who once told me he doesn’t do public sex. Because that’s not what this is about. Instead, he needs proof that I am really here. That I didn’t leave after talking with Maynard. That the demons of his childhood haven’t pushed me away.

He needs me to get lost in his arms as much as I need to lose myself to him. To know that he is back—and that he is still mine.

“Yes,” I repeat, because it is the only word I can manage through my jumble of thoughts and emotions. “Oh, God, Damien, please, yes.”

“Good girl,” he says, sliding his hand off my back. I’m vaguely aware that he has thrust it into his pocket, but that is not the hand that interests me. Instead, all of my thoughts are centered on the fingers that are teasing me under my skirt, playing with my clit, making me bite my lip so that I don’t rock back and forth with these building sensations. I’m just a girl sitting in her boyfriend’s lap, after all. Not like a woman about to come like she has never come before from the intimate way that said boyfriend is fingerfucking her.

Just a girl sneaking a brief kiss. Just a girl—

“Oh, God!” I cry, but my shout is swallowed by Damien’s hard mouth over mine. The orgasm rips through me—not just because Damien’s expert fingers have played me so well, but because of the surprising, shocking, totally mind-rocking vibration of the plug with which Damien has filled me. I want to scream with delight, to writhe and make the sparks build again and again. I want this whirlwind of pleasure to keep pulling me up and up, and the fact that I can’t—the fact that I need to stay quiet and still—only increases the fever that is burning through me.

All too soon—or possibly hours later—rationality returns to me. My heart is pounding against my rib cage. I feel as though I have sprinted a mile. And when I lick my lips, I taste blood.

I rub my mouth, but it’s not mine, and it takes me a second to realize that I bit down on Damien’s lower lip. “Are you okay?”

“Baby, you can bite me anytime.”

“Oh my God,” I say. “Oh my God.” And then, “You didn’t tell me it did that.”

He pulls his hand out of my pocket to reveal the remote control for the plug. “A man has to keep a few surprises.”

I sigh contentedly, then slide off him. I curl up next to him on the love seat, discreetly adjusting my clothes. “Wow,” I say. “That was kind of kinky.”

His grin is as playful as my words. “And is kinky good?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Kinky is very good.”

His arm is around me, his hand resting on my hip. After a moment, his lips brush over my ear, and I shiver from the butterfly-soft touch, then immediately laugh when I hear his words—“Your ass is vibrating.”

I lift my brows. “Is that a euphemism for what you just did to me, Mr. Stark?”

“Complaining?”

“Hell, no,” I say.

“Good. But no, it’s not a euphemism. It’s your phone.”

Shit. I realize that he’s right. I’d charged it in the room, then left everything except it and my passport in the hotel. Damien has my passport tucked into the interior pocket of his jacket, but I have my phone in my back pocket, right under Damien’s hand. He plucks it out and hands it to me, but when I answer it, there’s no one there.

“Must have kicked over to voice mail,” I say with a frown. As I wait for the little icon to show a waiting message, I look back at the call information, but I don’t recognize the number. Since the voice mail still isn’t pinging, I assume it was a wrong number and slide the phone back into my pocket. “That reminds me,” I tell Damien. “You got a call earlier. Right before I went to see Maynard. I thought it might be one of the German attorneys, so I answered it, but there was no one there. Did they call back?”

He shakes his head. “Probably not important,” he adds, even as he pulls out his phone and begins to scroll through his call information. I see the instant his face changes. It is subtle and quick, and if I didn’t know his features in such excruciating detail I might not have even noticed. And when he meets my eyes again, there’s no hint that he was surprised or disturbed.

I wrap my arms around myself, fighting an unexpected chill. Once again, Damien is locking his secrets away.

“Who was it?” I say, keeping my voice light but resolute. “Does it have anything to do with the trial or with those pictures?”

“No.” The word is both too fast and too firm. And there is a distance in his voice that bothers me. I tell myself it is only the distortion from this thrumming club, but I don’t believe myself.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, which is really the stupidest question in the world, since if he did want to, he wouldn’t be speaking in monosyllables.

“I don’t.” He must see something in my face, though, because a moment later he sighs, then lightly strokes my cheek. “I promise you. It’s nothing.”

A shudder runs through me, desire, yes, but it’s mixed with something else. Something darker. I had thought that after everything we’d been through there would be no more secrets. But now there are the photos. And this call. And I realize that I was foolish to have even entertained the possibility that Damien’s walls had truly come tumbling down. Damien Stark has many layers, and while I am enjoying the process of slowly revealing the deliciousness at the center of the man, I cannot deny the frustration that goes along with the territory.

Damien squeezes my hand. “Don’t look so worried.”

I manage a teasing smile. “I can’t help it,” I say. “I may not be the jealous type, but if you’re getting calls from old girlfriends looking to pull you back into their web . . . ” I am joking, of course, and I expect him to laugh and pull me close as the tension slides off him. I am not prepared for his answer.