“Let’s just calm down here. Because this was good, and we barely even took the time to make it everything it could be. Everything it should be, Summer Grace. I’ll admit I’ve been dense. I’ve been a damn idiot. But I’m here now.”

“Yes, now. And you think we can do this—be together in my bed—as if we’d just met? Had no history? We have a damn complicated history, Jamie.”

His chest was going tight. “You wanted this as much as I did,” he said, his tone low.

“Yes. I did. More, maybe. But now . . .”

“Now what?”

“Yes, exactly. Now what? Where do we go from here?” She sounded so vulnerable it made him ache.

Focus on this—on the reason you came here.

He drew in a long breath. “Okay. This is what I know. I want to see you again. I want us to have those negotiations. I want to play you. Here, at the club, however you want it to be. Can you tell me you don’t want those things?”

Her tight shoulders slumped. She sniffed again. “No. I’d be lying if I did. But Jamie, I feel like this whole situation is too . . . loaded. Do you know what I mean?”

Her eyes were so big. He saw fear there and it made his chest go tight. He stroked a few strands of her silky blonde hair away from her flushed cheek. “I do know. I don’t think anyone but you and I could possibly have any idea how deep this goes, how complicated it is, not even the people who know us best. There’s always been a connection that belongs to just the two of us. It’s taken me a long time to realize it, and feeling that punch to the gut seeing you at the club—I’ll admit that. But I know it’s there.”

She bit her lip and blinked a few times, her features softening. “Jamie? Will you kiss me? Because when you’re kissing me I sort of stop thinking and I’m pretty sure that’s what I need to do right now.”

He smiled. “Anytime, sweetheart.”

He bent and pressed his lips to hers, and she opened up to him, her tongue warm and seeking. And together they lost themselves in each other, letting the worries of their strange and unique situation fall away.

*   *   *

SUMMER DRIFTED, HALF asleep, half dreaming. Brandon. Why was she thinking of her brother now, with his best friend lying next to her, his breathing shallow with sleep? Sleep that invaded her body, her mind, forcing her into its depths.

Brandon came into the kitchen, slamming the back door behind him like he always did. Mom hated that, but he did it anyway. It was a guy thing, she knew.

He ruffled her hair as she sat at the table with her history book opened in front of her. “Hey, little sis. I brought you some of that saltwater taffy you like.” He tossed a white bag down on the table. “Strawberry, right?”

“Thanks, Bran.” She reached eagerly for the bag as he sat down across from her.

“What are you doing, Summer Grace?”

“Studying. World War One. Ugh!” She bit into the taffy and it melted on her tongue.

“No, I mean what are you doing with Jamie? Seriously, what the hell?”

Her heart sank, the taffy suddenly like chalk in her mouth.

“Brandon,” she tried to say, but the taffy seemed to expand, and she couldn’t swallow enough to talk.

His blond brows drew together. “Tell me, sis. Tell me why you’re doing this to me,” he demanded, his features full of pain. “Tell me why you’re doing this to Mom and Dad.”

Shaking her head, her chest flooded with panic. She had to explain. She tried to spit the candy out into her hand, then tried to pull it out, but it was stuck. She was stuck. With her mouth full of candy. With what she’d done.

Her big brother shook his head. “I can’t believe you, Summer Grace. I can’t believe you’d do this to us—I can’t believe you’d do this to your family. It’s all your fault. Everything is.”

No!

If only she could tell him . . . Tell him something. Explain herself. But all she could do was choke on the sugar hardening in her mouth—choke on her own actions while her brother stormed out the back door. She knew he’d never come back.

Summer woke in a cold sweat, clutching the sheets to her chest.

Just a dream.

Brandon would never talk to her like that. He would never judge her so harshly. Would he? He used to tease her about her crush on Jamie, but he was her brother, and he’d never thought in a million years that Jamie would feel the same. Maybe. Why had he said that about their parents? They wouldn’t even care that she was with Jamie. That was crazy. Wasn’t it?

Fuck.

She threw the covers back and threw on a tank top and a pair of shorts and quietly crept from the room, leaving Jamie asleep in her bed.

She went outside and sat in one of the white wicker chairs on her small brick patio, her arms wrapped around herself, trying to shake off the nightmare. The sun was high in the brilliant blue sky and it was far too hot to be outside in New Orleans in July, but she felt like she had to breathe.

It was just a bad dream. It wasn’t real.

No, only her time with Jamie was real—that and the apparent emotional repercussions.

They’d stayed in bed for hours, exploring each other’s bodies in a way she’d never done with any other man—and she’d had her share. But this was different. Maybe too different. Especially when it came to her dreams turning into some kind of crazy reality she still couldn’t quite believe. And because she’d realized when she came out of her pleasure-soaked stupor that he was only there because he’d seen her at The Bastille and felt jealous when he’d seen her playing with someone else. She’d laid there for a good half hour but the knot in her stomach hadn’t gone away. It had been a relief to finally drift into sleep.

She was sure the possibility that maybe next time she’d be bottoming for one of the male Doms at the club had crossed his mind. And she was equally certain he hadn’t liked it. He’d let her know he felt possessive when it came to her. She’d reveled in the idea when they were naked together, but after the second time they’d had sex—mind-blowing sex, damn it!—he’d dozed off, leaving her to stare at the ceiling and come back down to earth. And the truth.

Jamie felt some ownership over her. Always had. She understood it, to some extent anyway—to the small extent she could accept anyone feeling that way toward her. Her big brother had asked Jamie to take care of her when he lay dying in the hospital, and Jamie took the promise he’d made seriously. She knew that. She also knew he desired her, but that didn’t necessarily equal anything more. She’d been a fool to simply fall into his arms without really fully considering their history. All she knew about him. All she knew about herself.

Madame came strolling out from behind a bush and rubbed against her bare legs, her white fur soft on her skin. She leaned down and petted the cat, who put up with it for several moments before sinuously slipping away and settling on the bricks a foot or two from Summer, blinking in the sunlight.

“There was good reason why I gave up on him last year,” she told the cat. “I’d finally come to my senses. And now where has all my sense gone? Blown to pieces beneath the force of the irresistible Jamie Stewart-Greer. It’s those damn dimples.” She sighed, blew out a breath, coiling her long hair into a knot on top of her head and holding it there, baring her neck to the tiny breeze blowing through her garden. “I bet you never had to deal with dimples, Madame. Being a cat must be so much easier than being . . . me.”

“Hey, sugar.”

She turned to find Jamie standing in the doorway, wearing nothing but his jeans. They weren’t zipped up all the way. She did her best to ignore it as she got to her feet, wondering how long he’d been there.