As I was learning with Nick, I shouldn’t have wasted the effort. If I dropped a bomb like that, he’d not let it go and make it so I couldn’t either.

So it was not a surprise I found myself on my back, more tangled in the sheets, now hopelessly so, and if that wasn’t enough, a good deal of his weight was bearing down on me.

“You okay?” he asked.

I looked up at him and I did it hard, searching, trying to find anything, absolutely anything that would tell me where he was at, really at, with me.

But all I could see was marginal concern, the rest he held hidden.

Which told me where he was at with me.

Which was precisely where I was at with him.

And lastly, it was exactly where we’d always be.

I was never okay but that wasn’t for then or ever, for him or anyone. It was just what it was and it was all for me.

So I weighed my words and gave him what I thought was safe.

“It’s just that I learned some interesting things today which could lead to good or it could…” I shrugged, “not.”

“Let me guess, Olivia Shade is not an optimist,” he remarked.

I almost smiled.

Instead I confirmed, “My glass has always been half empty. That is, when there was anything in the damned thing at all.”

I watched his features at war again, definite concern and also curiosity, those along with what appeared to be a hint of unease.

But he settled into the concern.

“Wanna make a deal?” he asked quietly.

I felt my neck muscles tense as I felt us shift to dangerous ground.

“Sebring,” was all I said.

“Half an hour, you let it all hang out, you give me what you got, lay it all on me. You’re worried, you let it out. You want advice, I’ll give it to you honestly. Cone of silence. It goes no further than this bed. It’s just you and me. And after that half an hour, it’s forgotten. We’ll never speak of it again and you can trust it’s buried with me. And you can trust that, Olivia. Swear to fuck. You got half an hour where you are not you and I am not me. We’re other people, something else to each other and you can know down to your soul during that time that you’ve got what you need from me and you got it safely.”

I stared into his beautiful blue eyes set in his handsome face before my gaze drifted. To his spiky dark hair. His corded neck. Even his well-formed ears. Taking him all in, wanting that. Wanting it, and really having it, even if only for half an hour. Wanting it like you wouldn’t believe.

I could taste that want in my mouth.

I even fancied I could live forever feeding on just those thirty short minutes with him being everything I needed him to be, naked, his weight warming me, his cum still inside me, tangled up in his sheets, safe in his bed, safe, safe, safe to unload on somebody even a hint of the shit that buried me.

And the tingling in my throat hurt so bad, it felt like it would strangle me, knowing how bad I wanted that, and using his words—knowing how down deep in my soul I could never risk it.

Which meant I could never have it.

Not with him.

Not with anybody.

But that pain wasn’t about anybody.

That pain was about not ever having it with Nick.

“Olivia,” he whispered and the way he said my name I knew at least some of what I was feeling was leaking out of me.

“I have to go,” I whispered back.

“Spend the night,” he urged gently.

God, I wanted that too. To again sleep beside Nick. To wake up next to him. I fought that want every night. Every single night, I fought a want I wanted badly.

To have it just one more time.

One more.

I shook my head and swallowed against the pain.

He dropped closer, his hand coming up to stroke the side my neck.

“Change the deal. Take the whole night. We got until morning to be what you need us to be,” he pushed. “Swear to Christ, you’re safe right here. I can give you that, Olivia. I can give you the night. I promise you that.”

The night.

Heaven.

Bliss.

For me, an eternity.

I shook my head again.

“Whatever it is, you don’t give it to me, what’ll you do with it?” he asked.

I shook my head again.

“Give it to me,” he whispered.

“I have to go, Sebring.”

“Give it to me, Olivia.”

“Please get off me.”

We stared at each other.

He stroked my neck.

I battled the burn in my throat.

Finally, he dipped his head, his nose gliding along my cheek until he touched his mouth to the skin just in front of my ear.

And then he shattered my world.

“You didn’t take that deal and I get that, Olivia. It’s smart. I know, I’d do the same thing,” he said there, his lips skimming against my skin. “You didn’t take what I was offering but in this moment, I gotta say something. I’m gonna say it once and it’s what you need know.”

With that introduction, he pressed closer and gave it to me.

“If you let whatever you got inside you loose, you’d make a man incredibly happy. You’d be a dream he couldn’t build. You’d be everything. You should not be fuckin’ a man who can give you nothing. You should find one you can trust who knows nothing for certain in the world except you’re his everything. I want you to come back to me tomorrow night. And the next. And the next. But I hope like fuck one day you disappear and I never hear from you again, no one ever hears from you again. And I hope that because I’ll know that’ll be the day you get what you deserve. Bein’ able to let loose with a man you trust who thinks you’re his everything.”