Time for your gut check, Courtney.

“I’m not trying to be difficult,” he said softly. “I can leave if you’re not comfortable.” Because he was a gentleman and she’d obviously been brought here under false pretenses. “Once you’ve given me your answer, of course.” Okay, so maybe not that much of a gentleman. “Yes or no, cupcake.”

“Why do you keep calling me cupcake?” She wet her lip and shifted from foot to foot.

Stall tactics. He considered her question and shrugged. There was no harm in answering. “Well, first off, cupcakes can be vanilla, like you. But they’re also sweet—” He stepped closer and let his gaze trail over her from head to heel. “Pretty to look at, and I can’t be within ten feet of one without wanting to taste it.”

She looked around the room as if searching for an escape route, but when she met his gaze again, she seemed calmer. More at ease. This was it. She was going to say no and walk away. The tiny part of him that felt like he was fooling himself, that all the planning in the world wouldn’t stop this woman from somehow wreaking havoc on his life, felt relieved, while the rest of him ached.

But she threw him for a loop yet again. “You said it had to be the next time I saw you.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, and the wariness was gone from her eyes. “I’m still seeing you. You’re right in front of me. I should get until the end of the night.” She tipped her chin in challenge and waited.

He admired her spunk so much he almost let her get away with it. Instead, he pressed, running on instinct.

“Four separate occasions, at my discretion, chosen from a previously agreed-upon list of possibilities, with the understanding that full-on intercourse is at your discretion. I can’t promise it will change your mind,” he said softly, leaning in close to make sure only she could hear, “but I promise to make you come so hard, you can’t see straight. Over and over. And you can take that to the bank. Last chance, Courtney. Going once.” Her lashes fluttered rapidly and she bit her lip. “Going twice…”

“Okay,” she shouted before glancing around the room and lowering her voice. “Okay. I’m in.”

Elation rushed through him, and he fought the basest of instincts, compelling him to scoop her up and carry her out of the place. They still had a lot to work out, and he needed time to plan. He hadn’t been overselling it when he’d told her that he wanted to help her, too. Teaching her to embrace the inner submissive she’d already given him a glimpse of was going to empower her in a way she couldn’t fathom right now.

He had to make it perfect.

And when that niggling little part of him reared its head again, he smashed it down one last time. The details would be worked out beforehand, and there would be no i’s undotted, no t’s uncrossed.

It would be foolproof.

Chapter Five

The next day after work, Courtney found herself staring at Cat, still in semi-shock as her friend shoveled a forkful of Cobb salad into her mouth. She swiped a napkin over her lips and tapped the pen against her knuckle as she glanced down at her smartphone.

“Okay, we decided that double penetration is a hard no, right?”

Courtney didn’t answer, the gravity of her circumstances becoming more apparent by the second. What the hell had she been thinking? With the dare in Rafe’s eyes and the fear of letting an opportunity slip through her hands, combined with her own false bravado courtesy of Sam Adams, it had felt so right.

Terrifying, but right.

But in the light of day, sitting across from her friend with a sheaf of paper between them now riddled with salad dressing and words like “spanking” and “anal,” she wondered if she’d lost her fucking mind.

“Courtney?”

“What?” she snapped back.

“You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?” Cat asked, leaning forward in her seat, the regret plain on her face. “If I’d known he’d given you an ultimatum or why you were avoiding him, I would never have told Shane and him it was okay to meet us. And once you told me…”

“It was too late. I know. I should’ve told you sooner, and I already said I wasn’t mad. I’m just having buyer’s remorse, is all.”

“Come on, it’s going to be fine. This is a generic list, something to give him a guideline. He probably isn’t even into most of this stuff,” Cat reassured her.

“Says you,” she muttered miserably.

“This is exciting, remember? That’s why you called me. You couldn’t wait until tonight to start filling it out. Now buck up and let’s have fun with it.”

She hadn’t been able to wait because of crippling anxiety seeping in once she’d received Rafe’s e-mail that morning. Once she’d seen the kind of stuff on the survey he sent her, she’d needed Cat for moral support. But fun? No.

Fun was finding a twenty-dollar bill in a pair of jeans you hadn’t worn in months. Fun was strawberry picking on a warm summer day and sneaking a few as you went. Sitting at a diner looking at a BDSM checklist online, sussing out the things she would or would not be okay doing with her new sex-on-the-edge instructor, and assigning them each a rating utilizing the world’s most complex system that ranged from 1-5 but also included question marks, backslashes, and a capital X? That was the opposite of fun.

Cat sighed and set down her pen. “Look, let’s finish the task at hand, okay? Rafe wants this scanned and e-mailed back to him tomorrow afternoon. If you decide you want to change something, you can do it in the morning after you sleep on it. And if you decide you want to back out altogether? You can still do that too. Just don’t send him the list. No biggie, but at least let’s get it all together so that if you do decide to go through with it, you’re prepared, okay?” Her green eyes dimmed and she set her fork down. “Are you scared? If you’re scared and want to change your mind already, fuck it, we don’t need to—”

“Nope.” Courtney shook her head and ran a finger around the rim of her water glass. “I’m not scared. Not of Rafe, at least. I’m scared of letting myself trust someone, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. And I’ve never done anything like this.” Maybe it was time to come clean with the rest of it… “Rafe was my first.”

Cat sat back against her chair so hard it tipped, almost flipping her onto her back. “Shut the front door!”

She shook her head furiously, “Wait, no, not my first first.” She took a long pull from her glass and set it down before meeting her friend’s curious gaze. “Before the other night, I’d never been able to…finish.” The last was a whisper that seemed to hang in the air like a thundercloud.

“With a guy?” Cat asked, her brow wrinkled in confusion.

“At all,” Courtney corrected sheepishly.

“Wowww…” She opened her mouth, seeming to gear up for a speech, but finally shook her head and repeated, “Wowww.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“I know, but it deserved an echo. How did—” Cat held up both hands and started again. “Like, why didn’t you—” She stopped again and shrugged helplessly. “Some guys suck, and some women are hard nuts to crack, so I guess that part’s not that unusual, but did you not give it the old college try solo?”

“I gave it many, many tries. College tries. High school tries. Middle school tries. Summer camp tries.” She toyed with the saltshaker absently. “It just seemed like the harder I chased it, the faster it ran.”

Cat smiled then and patted her hand lightly. “And now Rafe…Jesus, I’m surprised you didn’t knock him over the head and lock him in your basement.”

That broke the tension as they busted out in giggles at the visual. “Believe me, I considered it.”

“I bet. And this makes me more excited for you. You like him, right?”

Like was such a mild word for all the things she felt toward him. He pissed her off, and thrilled her and annoyed her and set her on fire all at the same time. But he was also a great guy. More than once, she’d seen him drop everything to help Shane or Galen move a sofa or build a deck. He was the kind of guy who wound up standing a lot when they all went out because he was the first to give up his chair. Not to mention the fact that he was a bona fide hero. When he’d gotten his commendation for his part in saving that little girl, he’d given all the credit to the rest of the team. And she hadn’t missed the shine in his eyes when the Abbott family, four-year-old daughter included, had rushed in to hug him afterward.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. Did she like him?

“Yeah. I like him.”

“And you’re obviously attracted to him. You’re both unattached and mentally sound. This was an easy sell from the beginning but now? Adding the fact that A: You know he can get you off, and B: No one else has ever been able to, including you?” She swung an imaginary bat and made a clucking sound with her mouth as if she’d knocked it out of the park. “It’s a home run.”

Cat’s sunshine-and-rainbows view of the situation was rubbing off on her, and she managed a grin. “I guess it seems that way, huh?”

“It does. And I’m really proud of you for getting back out there. But don’t forget what I said.” Her tone grew serious and she waited until Courtney met her gaze. “A steamy fling should be on everyone’s bucket list, so I’m behind you one hundred percent here. But don’t fall in love with him, Courtney. He wasn’t lying when he told you about the four-scene rule. I’ve never seen him with the same woman twice, besides Monica.”

Courtney shoved her barely eaten bowl of salad away, her appetite completely gone. “I’ve heard that name twice in the past couple weeks, but never before that. What’s the deal?”

Cat sighed and shook her head. “She and Rafe met in college. He was studying to be an engineer, and she wanted to teach kindergarten. It got serious fast. They dated for three years and planned to move in together after graduation.”

Tears filled her friend’s eyes as she paused to collect herself, and Courtney’s heart plummeted to her feet. This wasn’t just a bad breakup. This was something so much worse.

“She’d made a fancy dinner for Rafe on Valentine’s Day and decided to run out to the liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine. There was a holdup in progress, and when she walked in and the bell jingled, the robber panicked and fired his gun. Monica took a bullet to the chest and died before the ambulance got there.”

“Oh my God,” Courtney whispered, her own eyes going hot. “Poor Rafe. He must have been crushed.”

Cat nodded. “He dropped out of school a week later, and joined the police academy to spend his life pursuing violent criminals. His whole career is a tribute to Monica. They went to school out in Texas, so I only got to meet her a few times, but she was a sweet girl. He’s never been the same. He keeps to himself a lot, and has told Shane and Galen more than once that he’ll never allow himself to feel that way about another woman again.” She wiped her eyes on her napkin and sucked in a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s the story. I do think you can help each other in ways neither of you has even considered, but you need to be careful. I love you both, and I don’t want either of you getting hurt. Promise me?”

Courtney nodded. “I promise.”

“Okay.” Seemingly satisfied with her answer, Cat snatched up her phone and peered down, all business again. “Now back to the survey. Is there anything you think he should know about your sexual history?”

It took Courtney longer to switch gears, and she was silent for a long moment, still thinking about Rafe and his college sweetheart. How terrible that must have been for him. No wonder he was so adamant about not getting close to anyone. She thought she had a good reason for being guarded. What she’d gone through with Wes had been a walk in the park compared to the pain Rafe had suffered.