I don’t recall making a noise, but I must have, because Damien looks up from his phone, his expression somehow both angry and sad, both cold determination and tender vulnerability.

“No,” I say. “This isn’t your fault.”

“The hell it isn’t.”

“We’re married,” I say. “What the hell do we care if it’s on Facebook?”

“It’s everywhere,” he says. “Sylvia says it’s gone viral. They’ll be dragging out the story about the painting soon, too,” he says, referring to the way the press vilified me for accepting a million dollars in exchange for a nude portrait of myself.

My stomach twists, but I tell myself it will be okay. “All that picture shows is that I love you and I want you. That you turn me on desperately. All it will do is make every other woman in the world jealous that I’m the woman in your bed. I can live with that,” I add with a sharp thrust of my chin.

“I don’t like seeing you exposed,” he says. “Especially when I’m the one who exposed you.”

“I can deal with it,” I say. I don’t mention that can deal and want to deal are two entirely different things.

“Doesn’t mean you want to,” Damien says, effectively reading my mind as always.

We’re in the elevator now, and it slides to a stop at our floor. I take Damien’s hand and squeeze it lightly. “We’ll be fine,” I say. “We’re together. How can we be anything else?”

His answering smile warms me. Yes, I think as the doors open inside our suite. This will be okay.

And then I see the room.

“Back in the elevator.” Damien’s voice is hard and dangerous, and he is in front of me in less than a second. I have barely registered the state of the room—all I know is that it is in shambles. Our luggage wide open, our clothes scattered everywhere. We hadn’t taken the time to unpack. Apparently someone decided to do it for us.

“Damien—”

“In,” he says, backing me in, then jamming his finger on the button to close the elevator door before pressing the button to ring security.

“I think they’re gone,” I say. “Whoever did that to our room, I think they’re gone.”

“I’m not taking chances with you. Come here. You’re shaking.”

I fall into his outstretched arms and burrow close as he wraps me tight against him.

When the elevator doors open on the ground floor, we are met by hotel security. A team has gone up in the main elevator already, we are told. We wait, and I can see from the tightness in his cheek and the stiffness of his body that waiting is not sitting well with Damien. He wants to be up there. He wants to know what is happening. He wants action. And the only reason that he is not already in full motion is because of me.

Static bursts from a walkie-talkie, followed by a string of French much too fast for me to catch even a single word. The guard responds, looks at Damien, then at me. “The perpetrator is no longer in your room,” he says in clear but formal English. “We cannot at this time determine what is missing other than the … intimates.”

“Intimates?” I repeat.

He clears his throat. “It appears that whoever broke into your suite took intimate apparel. Underwear, bras.” His nose goes a bit pink and he makes a point not to look at me. “There may be more, of course, but …”

Damien stands beside me, rigid with fury. As for me, I don’t know if I’m going to laugh or cry. I think the laughing will win, but I’m not sure if that’s humor or hysterics.

No one speaks as we return to the room. When we arrive, we see that our things have been stacked neatly. The order doesn’t lessen the feeling of having been violated.

“How did this happen?” Damien says, his words sharp and clipped. I know what he means, and it is clear that both the guard and the hotel manager who have joined us also understand the unspoken part of Damien’s question—how the hell did someone get into our room in a hotel of this caliber with the kind of security that Damien demands when he travels.

“I assure you, Mr. Stark, we will be interviewing staff throughout the night, and will have answers for you by morning.”

By morning, I am certain, our underwear will be all over eBay. I catch Damien’s eye and see that his expression mirrors my own. Fuck.

“In the meantime, if there is anything that you require—”

“Privacy,” Damien says, and the manager is astute enough to know that now is the time to stop with the platitudes and just get the hell out of there.

Damien’s facade remains intact until the manager and his staff leave. The perfect embodiment of a wealthy man who is very put out. Only I see the volcano boiling beneath, and as soon as the elevator doors have closed behind them, Damien picks up a decorative metal bowl and hurls it across the room to shatter the huge mirror that hangs behind the dining table.

As it breaks apart, I release a breath I have been holding. I do not begrudge him his anger. On the contrary, I want to toss a bowl myself. Except I don’t. Not really. What I want is to fall to the ground. What I want is to grasp one of those shards. What I imagine is the sting of glass against flesh—and dammit, I don’t want to feel that or imagine that or be that girl. And yet there it is, laid cold and harsh all because the paparazzi are fucking with us and Sofia is a stone-cold bitch.

“No.”

Damien’s voice seems to reach me through a tunnel. It starts far away and then it is right beside me. The voice and the man. I am standing still, a bit shell-shocked, and suddenly his hands are on my arms. He spins us around until my back is against the wall and his mouth is on mine.

One hand slides between my legs, cupping my sex through the material of my skirt. Not sensual, but hard. Demanding.

Wild.

And I am just as wild as Damien.

I yank my skirt up, and he never once breaks our kiss. As his fingers thrust deep inside me, his mouth bruises mine and his other hand closes tight on my breast. So tight that it is not just trails of pleasure that shoot from my breast all the way down to my clit, but pain, white-hot and familiar.

Damn me, I want more. I want it hard. I want to spin off into an away place—and I want Damien as the tether to bring me back.

Damien, I know, needs that, too. He needs to dominate, to regain control.

And I need—god help me—I need the pain to get centered.

“Yes,” I say, and that one word is like a trigger. I feel his muscles tense, his body tighten, both with need and with trepidation.