And that’s when I lose it completely. I shove her bra down, not even bothering to take it off as I pull her nipple back into my mouth and suck. She tastes sweet here, too, and I can’t get enough of her.

I bite softly, relishing the way her hands tighten in my hair as she whimpers my name. Her hips are moving wildly as she sits on the counter, and I know a touch from me will send her spinning right over the edge. I start to give it to her, to press the heel of my hand where she needs it most, but for the first time in my life I’m not in a rush for the prize.

Yes, I want to slip inside her. Yes, I want to feel her come around me. Yes, I want to lose myself in the sweet oblivion that comes only with sex. But at the same time, there’s so much I want to do to her, with her, that I’m not ready to jump to the money shot. Not yet, anyway.

So instead of rubbing her to orgasm, I pull back. Take a second to breathe, to calm down. As I do, I reach around behind her to unfasten her bra, then slide it slowly down her arms.

She moans a little, jerks against me, and I run my hands up and down her back, trying to soothe her frantic movements. It’s hard because there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to fall on her sweetness and take and take and take.

“Z?” She raises her head, looks at me questioningly.

“Wrap your legs around my hips.” I press a soft kiss to her mouth when she complies, then slide my hands under her hips and carry her to the bed.

“I want to see you,” I say, reaching for the lamp next to the bed after I deposit her on the bed. The small light she switched on when we entered doesn’t provide nearly enough light to satisfy the need I have to explore every inch of her.

“No,” she says, her voice suddenly devoid of the huskiness I’d heard in it just moments before. She puts a hand over mine and stops me from turning on the lamp.

I freeze at the urgency in her voice, then turn back to face her. “What do you mean?

What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She unfastens her jeans, then pulls them down her legs. “Can’t we just do it like this?”

Red flags are popping up all over the place, but at the same time, Ophelia’s fingers have delved beneath the waistband of my boarding pants and she’s got my cock in her soft little hand. I know I need to think, know I’m missing something important here, but it’s damn hard to focus when she’s pumping me off.

“Ophelia. Wait.” It takes Herculean effort, but I put my hand over hers, try to get her to stop, just for a moment. Just so I can figure out what’s happening.

She wants no part of waiting, though. Instead, she yanks my pants and underwear down to my calves, then watches impatiently while I kick them off after my boots. I reach for her, try to pull her against me so I can kiss and stroke and touch all the places I’m dying to explore, but she slides right through my hands and onto her knees—right between my legs.

My eyes nearly cross when she rubs her thumb across the tip of my cock and then, before I can even begin to recover from that, she’s leaning forward and pulling me into her mouth.

“Fuck!” Once again my hands tangle in her hair, but this time it’s as much about finding something to hang on to as it is about angling her mouth where I want it. Because, if I’m honest, Ophelia doesn’t need any help. She knows exactly what she’s doing as she slides her tongue along the underside of my cock. As she hums deep in her throat. As she polishes the head of my dick with the very tip of her tongue.

“Ophelia, baby.” I can’t believe how close I am, or how fast she’s gotten me here. I tug at her hair, try to get her to listen so I can warn her that—

For one second her eyes meet mine, and I freeze at the control in them. Gone is the dark forest green of her arousal, and in its place is a hard malachite that is all calculation, all cool reason and determination.

It doesn’t make sense. When we were in the kitchen, she was into it. I know she was into it. I could feel it in the way her body moved against mine, hear it in the desperate little sounds she made deep in her throat. Hell, I could see it in the frantic beat of the pulse at the base of her neck.

So what the hell happened? How did she go from completely turned on to just going through the motions? And, more important, why?

She’s still going down on me, and while it feels good—obviously—the desperate heat of my own arousal has died as quickly as hers did. I know some guys don’t give a shit about whether the girls they fuck get off, but I’ve never been one of them. I may do a lot of girls, and I may not call afterward, but I always, always make sure they get something out of it, too. Otherwise, I might as well just use my hand.

“Ophelia, stop.”

She doesn’t listen. She sucks me deep into her throat, circles my dick with her tongue. Despite my best intentions, I flex my hips and drive my cock deeper into her mouth as an electric current of sensation shoots down my spine.

She makes an encouraging sound in the back of her throat and the vibrations set every one of my nerve endings on fire. My vision gets blurry and the driving need for release is a powerful drumbeat inside me. She’s good at this—really good—and part of me wants to just say fuck it and go with it. She obviously doesn’t have a problem with it happening.

Except, when I force myself to focus—when I shove the mind-numbing, knee-weakening pleasure back and just look at her—I can see the way her hands are shaking. I can see how tense she is. And before she looks down, I can see the glassy sheen of tears in her eyes.

That does it. I’m finished. “Ophelia, stop.”

Once again, she doesn’t listen, but this time I tug at her hair until she gets the message and slowly slides me out of her mouth.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice hoarse and raspy from how deep she’d just taken me. “Don’t you want to finish?”

“What I want,” I say as I sink to the ground beside her, “is to know what the fuck is going on here.”

I freeze at the demand, which sounds incredibly compelling when spoken in that sexy, yes-I-sold-my-soul-to-the-devil voice of Z’s. I don’t want to answer him, don’t want to say anything to him at all, but he’s not exactly in the mood to take no for an answer.

His hand comes to rest on the bottom of my chin and then he’s pressing up, forcing me to meet his eyes whether I want to or not.

“What’s going on, Ophelia? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” It’s a knee-jerk reaction, the answer I always give to that question even when it isn’t true.

Like now. I’ve rarely been less fine in my life, and the truth is, I don’t even know why. It was just a blow job, after all. Just sex. It had to happen again sometime, with someone. Why not now? Why not with Z? It’s not like he matters. It’s not like any of it matters.

“Really?” He cocks a brow. “Because you don’t look fine and I just don’t get it. You were into it. I know you were into it. And then … then you just weren’t anymore.”

I was into it. I wasn’t expecting to be, but it was hard not to get turned on with the way Z was touching me and kissing me, the way he paid attention to every single freaking thing my body did. Like he was looking for a road map to make sure I enjoyed it as much as he did. And I was enjoying it—a lot. At least until I remembered Remi. And the bet. And all the reasons I wasn’t supposed to like what was going on.

“What do you care?” The words slip out before I have a clue I’m going to say them. “As long as you get laid, as long as you win that stupid bet, why the hell do you care what’s going on in my head anyway?”

He stumbles back on his heels, his face blank with shock—and something else I just can’t place. “You know about the bet?”

“Damn right I do.”