Gannon went over to the car and pulled out our water bottles and hand towels and gave me one of each. I dried the sweat and downed the bottle before feeling ready to move again.

We left there and went to the place where he’d first taken me for breakfast in old Vegas. I loved the healthy options and enjoyed the meal, while he asked me more questions about my life. I had given up asking him things and decided he’d tell me when he was ready.

Somehow, we had gotten to this loser I had dated for a while in Paris last spring, named Franco something—I couldn’t remember. He had annoyed me, but he’d been pretty and had a lot of money to throw around. Not to mention his connections. I liked his connections and the places he was able to get us into. But in the end, the man had given me the creeps, and I’d figured out some things about him that were major warnings signs, so I’d left him there and gone back home.

When I was done talking about that episode in Loserville, I glanced up from my egg whites with toast to see that I had Gannon’s complete attention. I wasn’t sure why he looked so serious. As if he was trying to read more into my words than was there. I was just answering his questions and making small talk.

“Are you judging me for ditching him? You’ve never decided a woman was a waste of your time and bolted?” I asked him with a grin that I hoped would soften him up. “Don’t go feeling bad for Franco. He wasn’t in love or anything. It was a short fling. That’s it. A mistake on my part, because I think the man was into some seedy stuff. When I started getting that vibe, I hightailed it home.”

Gannon took the napkin from his lap and put it on the table and laid a one-hundred-dollar bill on the table.

“Let’s go,” he said with a commanding do not argue tone.

So I went.

The door to my suite slammed shut the moment I stepped through it, and I spun around, startled.

“Get that sorry excuse for clothing off. Now!” Gannon said as he ripped off his shirt and began working on the laces in his athletic shorts.

I liked the angry sex face, and I was getting it now. His pupils were enlarged, and the blackness in his eyes was overwhelming. I bent down to untie my shoes, and before I could get the first one done, he grabbed me and shoved me up against the wall.

“You wear fucking slut clothes and drive me crazy with it. Men look at you and want you, when I’m the only one who gets to take you back to your room and fuck you. But you made me wait for it. I don’t like waiting, damn you.”

The fierceness in his tone had me panting like a dog in heat. His mouth came over mine, and I wrapped my arms around his neck while inhaling his scent and devouring his taste. I loved everything about him. The way he treated me, the way he looked at me, the way he made me laugh, the way he cared what I said, the way he made me feel safe.

He tore his mouth from mine, and jerked my sports bra off over my head, and tossed it aside before lowering his mouth to suck on my breast. I loved his hair and burying my hands in it. I enjoyed the heat and wetness encircling my nipples, along with the bites he took of my tender flesh. I had several marks on my chest and stomach from his teeth already, but I wanted them there. It made me feel I was really his.

He pulled my shorts and panties down to my ankles and spun me around. “Hands on the wall,” he snarled.

I did as I was told, and he was inside me. Filling me up until I screamed from the intrusion.

“Take it, Nan. Take it like a good girl.” He growled in my ear, then took me to heaven and dropped me off.

I would take whatever he was giving. When he was like this, it drove me to the insanity that I craved. I’d never have believed that a man could make me hot for him by acting the way he did. There was an instability to him that wasn’t safe. Yet I had never felt as safe as I did when I was in his arms. Even when he was hurting me, he was loving me all the same. Nothing would compare to this. Ever.

“You flaunt your body because you want this,” he said, pulling my hair so that my neck arched back. “This is what you’re wanting, what you need.”

“Yes,” I agreed, because he was right. This was definitely what I needed. What I was wanting.

“Only me,” he groaned in my ear. “Only fucking me. No one else can give this to you.”

Again, he was completely right. I only wanted this from him.

“Say it!” he yelled, jerking my head back hard. “Tell me.”

I let him jerk hard enough that the sting made my eyes water, and then I smiled. “Only you!” I cried out just before I came.

It’s those moments right before you wake up when you know something is off. That things aren’t quite right. The deep slumber you’ve enjoyed lifts, and the uneasiness around you settles in. You want to burrow back under the covers and let the safety of sleep claim you some more, but you have to open your eyes and face the truth. Whatever the truth is, you have to accept it.

I hated those moments. They were all too real in my life, but I knew that this time, I wouldn’t be the same again. It would alter me. Alter my life, and I’d never be able to get back to the way it was. So I lay there with my eyes closed, feeling the coldness surround me. Letting reality seep through my skin and prepare me for what was to come.

Because when I opened my eyes, I knew, I just knew, he would be gone. I could feel it. I had known it deep down when he had gone from fucking me to actually making love to me like he couldn’t get inside me enough. As if he wanted to live under my skin. I’d known this was different. The strength I’d seen in him had failed, and he was showing a weakness.