Those capable hands reached into her hair and pulled enough to make her break off the kiss. Her reward was his lips on her neck and the grazing of his teeth on her collarbone.

“I want you.”

He filled his hand with her breast and squeezed hard. “I couldn’t tell.”

Lori filled her hand with his cock through his pants. “Liar.”

Reed turned them around, shoved her against the door, and pushed his hips into hers.

She lifted one leg until he grabbed a hold of her thigh, then she tightened every muscle she had, used the door as leverage, and wrapped her legs around his hips.

Reed repositioned himself, her skirt rode high, exposing her panties to the cool air.

Their tongues fought for dominance, her hips grinding against the bulge in his pants.

One hand around his neck to help hold her in place, Lori reached for him. “Now.”

“Here?”

She couldn’t talk, instead she tugged at the zipper of his pants.

“The cameras,” he reminded her.

“Don’t care.” And she didn’t. Only one thought ran through her head. Reed, inside her, right then, right now.

“Okay, baby. I’m setting you down.”

She held tighter.

“Just for a second.”

He placed her legs on the floor, her head buried in his neck, her teeth marking him behind his ear.

Reed kicked his pants away and lifted her skirt until it was on her hips. Instead of removing her thong, he moved it aside and buried a finger in her slick center. “Jesus, Lori.”

She bucked against him. “Please, Reed.”

He chuckled and lifted one of her legs to his hip again, his erection already teasing her. “I hope we can do this without a trip to the ER.”

With her grip on his shoulders, she wrapped her other leg around his waist, forcing his cock deep inside her. “Yes.”

“Hold on, Lori.”

She did, and he did all the work. The depth, the angle, the fact he was taking her with her clothes still on against the door. All of it hit several sexual fantasies all at once. Even the thought of someone possibly watching on the other end of those cameras all over her home added to the excitement.

Everything contracted inside her, and Reed cussed.

She pulled his lips back to hers and he thrust harder, faster, until she couldn’t breathe. So close, so very close.

“Come for me,” he breathed in her ear.

Her head fell back, her body arched. “Now, let go, Reed.”

He did, right then, and together they reached that place they fought hard to find. As they floated down, Lori’s body spasmed and took more than Reed willingly gave the first time.

Lori wilted. One leg dropped before Reed recovered enough to capture the other.

He swung her into his arms and walked her to her bedroom, followed her down as he laid her on the bed.

“I feel so much better,” she muttered.

He collapsed to her side. “I think you killed me.”

Something in her back hurt more than a little. The molding on the door probably left a mark. It didn’t matter, she’d do it again if given the chance. “That was fabulous.”

“Outside your wheelhouse?” he asked, teasing.

“So far outside I don’t recognize me.”

“I like this version of you.”

She opened her eyes to find him staring at her. “I like it, too.”

“Next time I’ll make it last longer. Maybe I’ll take you against that big glass window of yours.”

“At night, with the lights below.”

Reed shook his head. “Broad daylight, for everyone to see.”

God help her.

“Ohhh, Lori likes that.”

She ran her hand down his hip, dragged her fingernails along his thigh, felt him twitch. “You like it, too.”

“I can be convinced.”

“Convinced? And what kind of prodding am I going to have to do to achieve that?”

He turned away, lay on his back. “I’m sure you can come up with something.”

Leaning up on her forearms, she unbuttoned the rest of her shirt and tossed it away.

His eyes watched and his cock swelled as she pulled her skirt down and off . . . panties, along with her bra, were next.

One leg over his hips and she straddled him, taking the lead and doing all the work.

Three mind-numbing orgasms and they hadn’t had dinner. It was like Lori was on a sexual high and he was a vessel for her pleasure. Not that he was complaining. If this was what picking her up from work was going to result in, he’d happily play chauffeur.

Lying to his side, her arm thrown over her head, Lori was working on catching her breath.

“Good God, I needed that.”

“You might have killed me,” he teased. He looked down. “Yep, it’s dead.”

Lori started chuckling. “He died happy.”

He liked her like this, carefree and lax. After two months of dating, he’d learned that it wasn’t her normal. She carried the weight of too many people for a single woman without kids.

“Why were you so stressed?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. Everything just built up inside. Ya know?”

Reed rolled to his side and pulled the sheet over the top of them before resting his hand on her flat stomach. “Same buildup or new buildup?”

“Both. I had this new client come in. What a shit storm this is going to be.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, she’s thirty-six, stunning . . . under all the makeup and bruises.”

A muscle in his arm twitched. “Her husband is hitting her.”

Lori glanced at him, blew out another long breath. “Hitting? No, beating the crap out of her. Who does that?”

“Not a real man.”

She rolled on her side, tucked the sheet higher over her breasts. “It’s hard. I wanted to grab her hand and run her to the nearest police station.”

“She doesn’t want to press charges?”

“He’s a very powerful man. I’ve learned that powerful men have a way of getting away with everything. She’s right in being careful about who she tells what.”

“But she came to you.”

A tiny, satisfied smile crossed her lips. “I do know people. People that can protect her while she severs herself from his life.”

He couldn’t imagine.

“She doesn’t even want his money. She just wants to get out.” Lori shook her head. “How can someone be an eight-year punching bag for someone else and not want them to pay?”

“If she were my sister, I’d kill him.”

Kindness swam in Lori’s eyes. “You’re a good man.”

“Not always,” he confessed.

She took his words as nothing more than humility and patted his hand over her waist. “How did she not see it before they were married? If she’d come to us before saying I do, we would have flushed this out before the wedding.”

“What do you mean?”

She ignored his question as she finished her broken thoughts. “What am I saying? There is no guarantee. Look at Trina. None of us had a clue about Fedor’s instability.”

He knew all those thoughts linked inside her head, but he was lost. “Back up, babe. What are you saying? It’s your job to determine if someone is suicidal?”

“With Alliance, it is.”

“Am I supposed to know what Alliance is?”

“Alliance is Sam’s service. She matches eligible clients with a wife, or a husband, but those aren’t as common.”

“Like a dating service?”

Lori looked directly at him. “This stays between you and me.”

For a second he considered telling her to keep her secrets, but then he’d have to confess his. That halo she’d placed over his head was slipping way below the waist. “Of course.”

“There are men out there who need a wife . . . temporarily.”

The pictures in his home and all the lines he’d drawn between Lori’s friends and her . . . and Samantha Harrison. “Like Trina’s husband?”

“Right. Fedor wanted to reassure his mother. He knew she was dying and didn’t see the harm in marrying just to make the woman’s last days happy.”

Like snow falling in exactly the right place, everything started to come into focus. “And what did Trina get out of this?”

“A paycheck for a year of her life. The relationship is on paper. That’s understood. Nothing physical.”

“And that works?”

“Most of the time. There is the occasion where the marriage works.”

He rolled on his back. “Shannon . . .”

Lori huffed. “You didn’t hear that from me.”

“Jesus . . . Avery?”

“Everyone got out of their marriages everything they wanted.”

“Except Trina.”

Lori pushed a strand of his hair out of his eyes.

“Fedor wasn’t supposed to take himself out. And Alice certainly wasn’t expected to leave everything to her daughter-in-law. So, yeah . . . I’ve been a little more stressed than normal.”

His heart started to pound. “If Ruslan Petrov found out about this, he could really screw up everything.”

“Yeah, which is why Sam wants all this security. But I don’t think for a minute he’s on to anything. He’s a bully.”