“Don’t push me, Anna,” I warn, grasping for control. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nobody has ever made me feel this way. I can see she’s worked up, too, her face pink and her eyes intense. I have to leave. As I turn to go, she shouts, “You can make it one night without sex!”

Rage blinds me like a white flash, and my body reacts. Her next words are drowned out as a need to destroy something bears down on me, and I swing at the nearest lamp, sending it flying. It smashes against the wall with a satisfying crash, leaving my ears ringing. I point hard at Anna, who needs to get a bloody clue and stop pushing my buttons.

“You. Don’t. Understand!” I am panting with an overflow of emotion. She appears ashen, staring at me like I’ve kicked a kitten, and it’s all too much. I drop my arm. I’m out of here. “Don’t wait up this time.”

I nearly steamroll an ancient couple when I burst into the hallway. I leave them tottering there as I take the stairs down to the first floor. The hotel has a bar and it’s hopping with a dance area.

Ah, bloody hell. They’re square dancing to country music.

My eyes dart to a bored-looking woman at the end of the packed bar, nursing a margarita. Early thirties. Gray business suit. Black hair waving to her shoulders. No time to waste. I sidle up next to her, waiting to catch the bartender’s attention. I feel the woman watching me, so I glance over. She quickly looks away, a fizz of orange excitement in her aura. My eyes drift to the cleft of cleavage exposed at the top of her blouse. I check out her ring finger. Bare. Possibly divorced? Her nails are manicured and she takes good care of herself.

I give a nonchalant nod. “Hallo.”

She smiles and confidently brushes her hair from her shoulder. “London?”

I nod, sweep my eyes over her. She looks away again, and her body language says she’s not interested, but her aura says otherwise. I hope she’ll not play hard to get.

“I’m Kaidan.”

“Celeste. And I’m way too old for you,” she says, as if that will put an end to my interest. I laugh at her openness and stick out my hand. She eyes it a moment before shaking it, and turns her attention back to her drink.

The bartender finally comes over. I hand him my fake ID and say, “Jack on the rocks.”

I feel her perk next to me as she takes in the exchange; hopefully she believes I’m twenty-one now.

“Celeste. Mind if I sit?” I motion to the stool next to her.

“Free country. Do as you like.” She absently stirs her margarita as I sit. Methinks Celeste is a tad jaded. But I can work with that. I can work with anything.

“Staying at the hotel?” I ask.

“Real estate conference. You?”

“I’m here for the night. Headed to L.A.” A blast of pain in my gut urges me on. Keep her talking.

She takes a long drink. “What’s in L.A.?”

“My band,” I lie.

“Let me guess,” she says sarcastically. “Lead singer.”

I laugh and throw back half my drink, relishing the burn, before setting it down and looking at her again. “Drums.”

“Mmm.” A flash of red trots into her aura. She finishes off the margarita. I order her another.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says.

“I know.”

She sips her margarita, licking a touch of salt from the rim. I watch her tongue, the beast growling inside me.

“How old are you, Kaidan?”

I’ll never understand why women are so obsessed with age. I level her with my gaze, getting serious. “Old enough to bring you more pleasure than you ever thought imaginable.”

Celeste’s eyes widen a fraction, her aura blazing red before returning to a gray of distrust. “Those are big words,” she says.

I chuckle. “Good thing I can back them up.” I throw back the rest of my drink and set the glass down hard.

“Look, you’re wasting your time here. There’s a girl over there with her eye on you,” Celeste says, nodding across the dance floor. “Maybe you should go talk to her.”

I don’t even glance where she’s pointing, because I’m invested now. I love a challenge.

Without looking at Celeste, I say, “I prefer women to girls,” signaling to the bartender. He pours a new drink and slides it in front of me.

The music gets louder, and if possible twangier, making people cheer. I send my hearing up to our room and find only silence, then a rustle as Anna turns over in the bed. Her breathing is even, slow. Is she asleep already? She’s not upset about my show of temper? Isn’t she at all curious what I’m up to?

Beside me, Celeste lets out a small laugh, shaking her head.

“Do you know how long it’s been for me?”

The margaritas are catching up with her.

“No idea, but I’d be happy to remedy that for you.”

She shakes her head like I’m full of shite and asks, “Why?”

“Because you’re sexy.”

She narrows her eyes. “Like I said, you’re wasting your time.”

“I don’t think I am, actually.”

We nurse our drinks in silence. After a few minutes of this, she sighs. “You’re not giving up, are you?”

“No, Celeste. I’m not.” I turn to her.

She thrums the bar top, staring at her hand. “I don’t have condoms.”

My insides jump, but my face stays passive and confident. “I do.”

Her face turns up to me and we stare. The beast claws at the ground in anticipation.

“Fine.” Celeste tries to look bored, unaffected, but her aura is a dazzling display of the opposite. “We can go to my room. . . .”

I nearly close my eyes and sigh with relief. That was the longest forty minutes of my life. I praise the forwardness of older women who know exactly what they want. I throw money on the bar and lean forward, my face inches from hers.

“Brilliant, Celeste. You’re an angel.”

The word angel catches on my tongue. The relief I’d been feeling suddenly wavers and I curse Anna as guilt shoves its way back into my consciousness. For a fleeting moment I imagine telling this woman I’ve changed my mind. I imagine what it would be like to ignore the throb of pain and go back up to my room to be near Anna.

It’s a completely pointless and idiotic thing for me to ponder. There is absolutely no reason not to do this. I place my hand on the small of Celeste’s back and lead her out of the bar. I want what I want, and I’m going to get it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sold

“I’m starting to want you, more than I want to . . .

I just want to make you go away, but you taste like sugar.”

—“Like Sugar” by Matchbox Twenty

Anna doesn’t stir when I slip back into the room in the dead of night and take another shower. Her heavy sleeping is a sign of her overly trusting nature. She is never on guard, never listening, completely unaware of her surroundings. It’s infuriating. I don’t want to have to worry about her safety once this trip is over. I don’t want to have to think about her at all.

And yet, as I fall asleep she fills my dreams.

We begin to square dance together to that horrid badonkadonk song, and we’re both quite good. But it’s one of those dreams that’s so fucking weird you wish you couldn’t remember it. In my dream, Celeste cuts in on our dance. This angers Anna, who slides over to the bartender, snogging him to make me jealous. I wake early, flustered and frustrated, and I realize I’ve been going about this all wrong.

I’ve been trying to have my cake and eat it, too. I’m not doing myself any favors by letting Anna know I’m sleeping with other chicks. Jealousy often helps get girls right where you want them, but not Anna. She’s not going to offer herself up just to keep me from going to another. I vow to be nicer for the rest of the trip. And when I leave to work at night, I will pretend I’m doing something else. What a bloody knobhead I’ve been.