“She’s smart,” Abe said to Fox. “You should try not to fuck it up with her.”

Fox narrowed his eyes. “Just for that, you get to sit in the back. All three of you. Molly gets the front passenger seat.”

Much whining and complaining later, the three men somehow folded themselves into the back of the SUV. Then it began. The one-liners, the zingers back and forth, the insults, the jokes. Molly laughed until she protested that her stomach hurt, and Fox had to forgive the others then, didn’t he?

“Christ,” Abe groaned when Fox brought the car to a stop at the wildlife park. “I think my joints are permanently frozen in place.” Stepping out, he began to stretch his heavily muscled body.

Fox turned to Molly after they got out, held out his credit card. When her lips parted, he dropped his tone. “Don’t argue with me. I might’ve agreed to let you play assistant, but you’re not paying for anything today.”

Those clear brown eyes, so beautifully expressive, told him the instant she decided to listen. “Does it have a PIN code so you don’t have to sign for it?”

“Yeah.” He gave it to her, eyes on her lips. One day soon, he was going to have the right to kiss her anytime he pleased, in daylight and in darkness. “You look so pretty, Molly. Like sunshine.”

Her blood alight in joy, Molly began to walk toward the ticket booth, aware of Fox falling in behind her with the other men.

It was a fun, lighthearted afternoon.

The men had more privacy than they’d expected—the park was spread out, and with the majority of the clientele being families, even when people recognized them, they only requested an autograph and a photo, then let the band be. Molly took many of those photos, and each time she did, she marveled at the men’s patience. Clearly, this was an unusual day, an unusual circumstance, but they were in a great mood and didn’t turn anyone down.

She could understand, however, why Abe had punched out a reporter during his divorce, and why Noah had once infamously smashed a photographer’s camera. It must get wearing to be constantly under scrutiny, never able to let down your guard.

“We have to remember most people aren’t out to tear us to pieces,” Fox said when she shared her thoughts with him. “Fans like this,” he continued, “they don’t have a hidden agenda. No comparison to the tabloid reporters who want to make money off our backs by manufacturing gossip.”

They reached the koalas a few minutes later, and Molly watched as all four of the big, hardcore rockers fell in love with the shy animals. She took more photos, this time with her personal camera and those belonging to the men. Her favorite was of the four of them, arms around one another in front of a eucalyptus tree on which sat two koalas nonchalantly snacking on the leaves.

Fox was at one end, Noah on the other. They had their faces turned toward each other, laughing at something that had both David and Abe grinning.

“Hey!” Fox called out when Molly would’ve put away the cameras. “Our lovely assistant needs to be in this shot.”

“I’ll do it if you like,” said the middle-aged woman next to Molly who’d stood by indulgently while her teenage son and daughter snapped pictures of the group.

“Thank you.” Molly stepped into the space Abe and David had made for her between their bodies and was immediately enclosed in a heated wall of male flesh. Laughing as David whispered the word “memo” to her, she caught Fox’s dimpled grin, and then the camera clicked.

The resulting photo, Molly thought when she looked at it, would live forever on her bookshelf.

A number of the amateur shots from the park were already online by the time they took their seats in the Chinese restaurant they’d ducked into for dinner, several of the photos part of an article that had made the front page of a local news website.

“It says,” David read out for the other men after Molly pulled it up on her phone, “we were ‘refreshingly devoid of bodyguards and shepherded only by a cheerful local guide.’”

“And”—Noah’s golden hair glittered under the restaurant lights as he scrolled through several other sites on his own phone—“Molly’s face isn’t in any of the shots posted online.”

Relieved, Molly was able to enjoy the delicious dishes served by waitstaff too harried to worry about who was famous and who was not. Sitting sandwiched between Fox and David, she felt very much a part of the group as they talked and hassled one another in the way only good friends can do. Fox kept his hand on her thigh throughout the meal, and it wasn’t sexual. No, it felt as if he was touching her because she was his.

Such a dangerous thought. Such a wonderful thought.

Returning home the next afternoon was a harsh reality check after the fantasy of the weekend, a fantasy that had lasted to the final minute she’d spent with Fox.

She’d woken beside him for the second day in a row, snuggled and warm, then hot and gasping, could still feel the blunt power of him inside her as she got into the shuttle for the ride to her apartment. Their morning loving had been slow, achingly tender, but he’d taken her again against the door just before she’d left for the airport, and that time it had been hard, rough, deep.

Her fingers brushed her emerald-green cardigan, over the mark he’d left on the upper curve of her right breast. “I’ll be back as soon as possible,” he’d all but growled, pinning her to the door with his strength, her legs around his hips and the thickness of his cock buried to the hilt inside her. “Think of me.”

As if she could do anything else.

Her apartment felt lonely and too quiet when she walked back into it, Fox’s scent missing from the air. He hadn’t been happy about the separation, but Justin had asked David to stick around while he sorted out some unexpected issues resulting from the bar fight. Fox, Noah, and Abe had decided to stay behind in support until David was cleared to leave the country.

Stomach knotted and ribcage crushing her lungs at the strange emptiness of her surroundings, she checked her answering machine just to hear the sound of another voice. Nothing, as she’d expected. Everyone close to her had her cell number, and it was the cell that rang twenty minutes later.

“Hey!” Charlotte’s voice was ebullient in welcome. “I was wondering if you were back. Want to have dinner together? I need to hear everything.”

“Come over.” Molly didn’t want to be alone. “I feel like staying in. We can get takeout.”

“No, I’ll bring my special pasta sauce and we’ll have spaghetti.”

It was so good to have Charlotte there, to sigh with her over Molly’s memories of the amazing live show, smile at the photos from the wildlife park. But for the first time since their friendship began all those years ago, Molly didn’t tell her best friend everything. Especially not about how the night of the concert had ended—in angry passion and a terrifying tenderness that had smashed her defenses. Her vulnerable, scarred heart was now brutally exposed.

At work the next morning, she smiled when her colleagues asked her how her long weekend had gone but didn’t elaborate beyond a few words. Nothing could come close to describing the intensity of the past few days. She’d never been as happy, as angry, as scared, or as pleasured.

When Fox had messaged her last night to say he was out with the guys to celebrate Abe’s birthday but that he missed her, she could’ve taken the chance to protect herself, backed away. Instead, she’d drawn in a trembling breath and told him what was in her heart: I miss you, too.

The resulting exchange of sweet, sexy messages had left her with a goofy smile on her face, especially when he ended with: Abe just called me pussy-whipped. I told him he was a jealous fucker and he agreed. He wants a Molly now, too.