He comes in behind me and closes the door. I cover myself as I turn, not expecting him to be right next to me.

“Why?” he hisses. “Why the hell do you let him do this shit to you? You’re better than this. Better than him.”

“If I do things like this for him, let him watch, he keeps his hands off me. It’s a deal we made a long time ago. He can keep his whores or he can have me. Not both.”

“H-he doesn’t touch you? You don’t…”

“No. I don’t think I could live with myself. Besides, it’s not his hands that I want touching me.”

He watches me, chest heaving, for two long seconds and then his mouth is on mine, hot and urgent. His fingers thread into my braid and fist, pulling my head to the side as he slips his tongue between my lips. I taste the dark hint of whiskey combined with a sweetness that seems to be just Sig, and I realize that I’m thirsty. So thirsty. For this. For him.

He kisses me with a wildness that awakens an abandon in me, a desire to throw caution to the wind and dive into this. And for a few moments, I do.

I dig my nails into his straining biceps and I open for him, I let him into a place that few people have ever seen. It’s a place where I hide, I hide the real me with all her emotions and hurts and wants.

Sig winds his arms around me, the fingers of one hand squeezing my butt while the other skates up and down my naked side. When his lips leave mine and trail along my jaw, I arch for him, my only thought to feel his kiss on every needy surface of my body.

“When you go back out there, you think of me,” he growls lustily, his teeth biting into my chin as he passes on his way to my neck. “My hands, my lips, my tongue.”

I feel breathless and hot. On fire, from the inside out. When his mouth latches onto my nipple, I gasp my response to him as quietly as I can. “I was. I was already thinking of you.”

“Now you’ll know,” he says around my flesh, his tongue and teeth and lips, licking and nipping and sucking. “You’ll know what it feels like. And what it’ll be like when I have you naked, underneath me.”

I’m panting, dizzy when his hand slides down my belly and into my panties, one long finger finding my core, driving inside me and bringing me up on my tiptoes.

“Oh god!” I whisper, my muscles tightening as I spiral up and up and up.

Sig pumps his finger in and out of me, rough and fast then slow and deep, pausing every few seconds for his thumb to massage my clit. “Feel me. Just me.”

It’s too much–his mouth, his hands, his heat. When he thrusts another finger into me, I shiver once before the spasms of an orgasm start, the only orgasm I’ve ever experienced at the hands of someone else. Oh, I’ve gotten off before, a few times even in front of someone else. And I’ve faked them, too. Hundreds of times, probably. But never has someone else brought me here. And never, never has it felt like this.

My whole body burns and tingles, but in the most delicious way. I feel like I’m floating, high above the floor on which my feet are planted. I’m conscious only of feeling more satisfied than I’ve ever felt and of Sig’s sweet kisses as they draw ever closer to my mouth.

His fingers are still inside me, moving slowly, languorously, urging the waves to keep pouring over me. But for the pursing of my lips to stifle the noises that are poised at the back of my throat, I’m paralyzed, at his mercy. And happily so.

Until I remember where I am. And who waits just outside this small room.

When I can breathe again, I cup Sig’s face and bring his eyes level with mine. They’re as dark as I’ve ever seen them. Raw. Passionate. Possessive.

“You can’t be here. With me,” I huff. “Lance’ll kill you if he finds out.”

“I’d like to see him try.”

“Sig, you don’t know him. You can’t take risks like this.”

“I know the risk. And I can handle it. Besides, you’re worth it.”

“But what if he hurts you?”

Sig shrugs.

“So I’m worth it? Even if it hurts?”

“Especially if it hurts.”

I can see by his expression that my words do nothing to deter him. It’s written all over his face that he wants to rescue me. Which is why I have to rescue him. “Please, Sig. You have to go.”

His eyebrows draw into a frown. “I’m not worried about Lance and I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I can take care of myself.”

“It sure doesn’t look like it to me. What the hell are you doing with him?”

There’s angry judgment in his eyes. He just doesn’t understand. No one does.

I shut down. I can feel it. Withdraw into the only safety I know–solitude. “I have my reasons.” I look down at the floor, avoiding his eyes.

“And they are?”

“None of your business.”

“Don’t do that,” he says softly, smoothing my hair away from neck and laying his palm against my pulse.

“Do what?”

“Shut me out. I want to help you.”

“You can’t.”

“Maybe I can. And there’s only one way to find out.”

At that, I glance back up into his face, into his warm cocoa eyes. “Trust you, right?”

“Yes. Why is that so hard?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I might if you’d let me in.”

“I’m sorry, Sig. I just…I just…I can’t.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“Is there a difference?”

“There’s a big difference.”

“Then take your pick. Neither one changes the facts.” I take a deep breath and press my hand to the center of his chest, gently pushing back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back. Before I get you hurt.”

“You won’t get me hurt. You didn’t ask me to come here. You didn’t make me seek you out.”

I pause, the warmth of his body heating the skin of my hand, all the way through to my bones, it seems. “Why did you? Seek me out, I mean.”

“It’s my job, isn’t it?” His words feel like a slap to the face, after what just happened between us. My solitary shell, the dark, safe place in which I hide, holds even more appeal now. Until he speaks again. “That’s what I should say, but it would be a lie.”