“If Stewart’s already asleep,” Brody began, “give me two hours. I’ll search the contract tomorrow and text you. We’ll work out another time and place to discuss it. Just, please, give me two hours tonight.”

My lips quirked to a one-sided grin. “Why, Mr. Phillips? What could we possibly do in two hours?”

Lifting my hand, Brody stood. “Come with me, Victoria, let me show you.”

My gaze fluttered toward the floor. “I-I don’t…”

“Please,” he implored. “No sex. Let me hold you. Just the two of us, in the light.”

The anxious twisting in my stomach told me what I already knew: I should leave. I shouldn’t allow my darkness to pollute his light. However, before I could argue, Brody had arranged the bed pillows and pulled me toward his broad chest. The beating of his heart echoed in my emptiness. It resonated with an ache more painful than the shame I used to feel from the warehouse or Stewart’s comments.

That humiliation was no longer present. It had been, but I’d learned to shut myself off. It was like this afternoon. My body engaged in the activities instructed by the voice through the headphones, but my mind and my heart were shielded. As Brody continued to whisper loving things, the pain within me grew. Shouldn’t I like this? Maybe my heart wasn’t shielded; maybe it was dead? Then again, can an organ ache if it no longer existed?

I lifted my face to his and ran my fingers through his soft, short hair. In the natural light from the open windows, the hint of strawberry that graced his blonde was difficult to distinguish. Lifting my chin, I kissed his lips. The innocent connection deepened as our tongues united.

“Whoa,” he protested, pulling away. “I’m being a gentleman here. What are you doing?”

Sitting back on my heels, I reached for the hem of my sundress and pulled it over my head. In one dramatic gesture, I threw it to the floor in a pile of silk. Wearing nothing but my panties, I palmed my heavy breasts, exposing and twisting my taut nipples. “Mr. Phillips,” I began breathily, “you now have less than two hours to make me forget everything. I want you to fuck me so good that everything else in the world goes away. I want my only thoughts to be of you deep inside me.” I lifted my brow, as I reached for his hand and placed it over my breast. When our eyes met, I asked, “Do you accept the challenge?”

From the look of his slacks, the tenting growing higher by the moment, and the sultry expression emerging from where moments ago I’d seen compassion and concern, I knew he did.

“Vik, I want you to know that I think of you as more than a fuck—”

I put one finger on his lips. “Brody, right now, I want to be fucked. I want to be fucked by someone who I can see and hear. I want to be the person in control of my movements and responses. I want you to fuck me. Fuck me like no one else has ever fucked me.” My thumbs found the waistband of my panties. “Will you please do that for me?”

Unfastening his belt, he smiled my direction and said, “All but one thing. Just for the record, I’m in control of your responses.” Before I could refute, he continued, “I’m not going to tell you what they are, but you’ll know it was me who brought them on. I’m not stopping until I get what I want. Fuck the damn two-hour time limit.” With my panties gone, Brody pushed me back against the large mattress and climbed my body, raining kisses from my breasts to my lips. “That is the challenge I accept.”

I could do this. I could spread my legs and disappear. It was my specialty, my survival technique.

“One more thing,” he said, grasping my chin and moving my eyes to his. “You’re going to stay with me. I want to watch you come.”

I needed to leave to escape. This connection wasn’t what I wanted. “I-I don’t…”

“Vik, right here.” He calmly demanded as he pointed to his eyes. “Look right here.”

When I did, his hand slid down my stomach. The path he’d traveled tingled from the warmth of his touch and ignited my skin. I reached for his shoulders as one then two fingers slid inside of me. In and out. With my gaze set on him and my hands holding him tight, my hips moved to his rhythm.

“That’s it. Stay with me. Oh, baby, you’re getting so wet for me…”

Lifting my hands toward the headboard, I refused to listen as Brody continued to talk. I hadn’t gotten wet for anyone, not even Stewart, in years. That was what lubricant was for. Most of the friends were too stupid or too self-centered to know. Most probably gave themselves kudos for how easily their puny, condom-wrapped dicks slid inside. Little did they realize that the mere thought of their presence turned my body to dust. Sometimes I imagined that dust blowing away…

The way his aquamarine gaze penetrated, I knew this was different. I’d cleaned myself well at the warehouse. I was truly aroused.

“Vik, I’m going to use a condom.”

Refocusing on his words, I nodded. It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t get pregnant. Stewart required monthly birth control injections as one of the clauses of the contract. I’d recently learned they weren’t necessary, at least not where he was concerned. At one of his doctor’s appointments, I’d accidentally found out that, years before our marriage, he’d undergone a vasectomy. Apparently, it wasn’t something he felt the need to share. I presumed that the shots were added protection against accidents that could occur during his little shows.