I switch off the TV. I don’t need to hear anymore.

“You see?” Heidi says, gesturing towards the blank screen. “Bits and pieces are falling into place. And now they have the Carrs involved? This is bad, Justice. Even you have to admit that.”

“I know.” My head is in my hands, rubbing my temples.

“Let them go. You can start over somewhere else, get a new alias, new staff. It’s best to get out now before you’re forced to.”

I look at Heidi, but all I can see is Ally. All I can see are those sad eyes smiling at me for the last time. She’d go to her corner of the world, and I’d stay safely tucked away in mine.

“I can’t,” I whisper, and I know in that moment, that I will. I can’t keep her. The mirage is just that—something so beautiful and desired, it can’t possibly be real.

Light knocking at the door lifts my heavy head and has me sprinting for the door. I open it without checking who’s there.

“Ally.” It’s like I’ve just breathed after being underwater for hours.

“I’m sorry to interrupt...” She peers around my frame, and when her eyes grow wide, I know what she sees: A tall, leggy blonde with a killer body, heels and a pencil skirt that looks like it was painted on. “Um, uh, I can come back.”

I grab her arm before she can even escape me an inch. “No. Stay.” Stay.If she only she could feel the weight of that tiny, miniscule word. “Heidi was just leaving.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the sex-on-legs publicist mumbles behind me. She makes her way to the door, stopping to press her red, glossed lips to my cheek. “You’ve got 24 hours, Drake. Make a decision,” she whispers before turning her icy grey gaze on Ally with a tip of her head. “Mrs.Carr.”

We watch as Heidi struts away, hips swaying to the rhythm of her spiked heels. When Ally turns back to me, she looks pensive.

“What?” I ask her, pulling her into my home and into my arms.

“She’s…”

“Tall? Cold? A little scary?”

“Gorgeous.And yes, a little scary. She’s like the female version of you.”

I shake my head. “You think I’m scary?”

“You were.” She wipes the glossy imprint of Heidi’s lips from my cheek and replaces it with her own. “But I believe in facing your fears. Now you’re about as frightening as a kitten. Who was that, anyway?”

“Publicist.”

“Everything ok?” she frowns with concern.

“Of course. Just some paperwork that needed to be signed in person,” I lie seamlessly.

“Oh, I hope I didn’t interrupt.” She looks back at the door and frowns. “She doesn’t suspect anything with us, does she?”

“Would it bother you if she did?”

Ally shrugs and turns back to me, her gaze unfocused. “I don’t know. I mean, I know, but I’m not really sure how I feel about it.”

“You don’t know how you feel about us.” It’s not a question.

Her eyes touch mine, searching. “No. Yes. I do—of course I do—but I feel like it’s wrong to feel this way. Like I’m a horrible, disgusting person to harbor these feelings because of my situation. And if I acknowledge them, they’ll take over. They’ll consume me. You’llconsume me.”

I step in as close as humanly possible. Close enough to feel her heartbeat stutter against my ribcage. “I want to consume you, Ally. I want to devour every bit of you until there’s no you and there’s no me. Until we’re nothing but sensation and exhaustion. Until you see music and hear colors.” My lips are just a breath away from hers, longing for a taste. “You don’t have to define your feelings for me, Ally. Let me do it for you.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but I smother her words in a searing kiss. Her response isn’t necessary. What we have, what I feel for her, goes far beyond rational explanation. When I pull away, there are sad stars in her eyes.

“Why did that feel like a kiss goodbye?”

I kiss her again just to keep my mouth from admitting that it was. The beginning of the end. The very start of the saddest goodbye in history. Because after tonight, she’ll walk away from me and go back to him, holding a piece of me in the palm of her hand. And whenever I look up at the sky at night, wondering where she is, if she’s happy, if Evan laughs at her corny jokes or smiles whenever she does, that empty space left behind within me will ache with remembrance. Because her light once filled it. She filled mein a way that nobody on this Earth could. And I’ll never feel whole again.

We don’t speak as I lead her into the bedroom. Our eyes stay transfixed on each other as we slowly undress. When I touch her, she shivers, yet her skin is burning under my fingertips. I wrap her in my arms, wishing I could cover her in a way that would make her disappear in me. They can’t take away what they can’t find.

“You’re so small,” I whisper in her hair.

“You’re just so big. But I like it.”

I hold her until the pain of my erection becomes too great to ignore any longer. She slips a hand between us and squeezes it, hearing my thoughts and making me groan without a shred of dignity.

“So big,” she repeats with a satisfied grin. “But I like it.”

“It likes you too.”

Then there are no more words, all signs of jest erased as I lay her down and cover her body with mine. I kiss her mouth, her neck, each of her pert breasts, the dip of her navel. When my tongue finds the apex of her thighs, she opens for me automatically. I drag a thumb through her folds before pressing her clit. She shudders, and I repeat the motion, slowly trailing my thumb down through her pink flesh, tracing her sex with precision before bringing it back up to apply pressure on her sensitive bud. By the time I give her my tongue, she nearly breaks apart.

“What are you doing to me?” she pants, teetering on the edge of orgasm.

“Exactly what I taught you,” I reply. Then I send her flying into oblivion, giving her my mouth and fingers. Sucking her until her release trickles down my chin. Until she pulls me up by my shoulders, begging me to stop.

“Oh God,” she sobs. “I can’t take anymore. Too much.”

I kiss her so she can taste herself, my tongue snaking with hers as we share her arousal. I’m perfectly aligned with her entrance, still slick and hot, so I slowly push until the head of my cock is nestled inside her. Ally gasps at the intrusion, and I trace her lips with my fingers before hooking two inside her mouth. I delve in some more and watch the emotions play out on her face, all varying shades of carnal insanity. When I’m completely submersed to the hilt, I pull out so suddenly that she whimpers, and I flip her onto her stomach.

“Up you go,” I say, elevating her ass and hips, and bending her legs in a way that causes the soles of her feet to touch. I admire the way her sex contracts, begging for me to fill her once more.

One hand on her hip, the other on her shoulder, I enter her from behind, slowly at first. I’m so deep at this angle, that I can feel her heartbeat in her stomach. The sheets rumple under her tight grip, and Ally grits out a curse.

“Is this ok?” I ask. I don’t even know why I’m asking. I’ve never asked for anything I’ve wanted, and I damn sure didn’t care enough to do it during sex.

Ally nods into the pillow, eyes closed tight. “Yes. Better than ok.”

I pull out to the tip and plunge back in, pulling her back into me by her shoulder. We both moan in unison, and her knees tremble.

“Good?” I don’t know why I’m asking again. I know it’s good. I can feelit’s good to her.

“Yeah,” she rasps between whimpers.

All restraint is diminished, and I let go, thrusting into her with ravenous intensity. I lean forward and kiss her back, smothering my groans of pleasure in her skin and hair. She turns her head, and my lips instantly find hers.

If this was a different time, and I was a different man deep inside of a different woman, I’d look into her eyes as my body dipped and rolled into hers. She’d stare at me lovingly and caress my jaw, a look of pure ecstasy on her face. I’d sweep her hair to one side over her shoulder and drag my tongue across her neck to her ear. And when her back begins to arch, as the first tingles of orgasm seize her body, I would whisper “I love you,” because I’d want those words to be the only thing she hears when she comes for me. Only for me.