“You’re a big boy. You can manage it.” She twists, trying to pull away from me.

I have no choice. I scoop her up by the armpits and carry her with ease to the adjoining bathroom.

“Don’t fucking manhandle me!” she snaps, shoving against my stomach the second I put her down. When I don’t even budge, she settles on shooting daggers at me with her eyes.

I say nothing as I span my arms across the width of the crammed space to slide both pocket doors closed. I reach over my head to yank my T-shirt off, then unbuckle my belt and jeans, and push them down an inch or two lower than I need to for the purposes of my tattoo.

Her eyes immediately drop to my chest and slip down, before she catches herself and averts her gaze.

But I don’t miss the hitch in her breath.

“Fine,” she snaps, spinning around to the sink to wash her hands. There’s really only standing room for one in here, giving me every excuse to be in her personal space. “I didn’t work on your body for seven hours so you can fuck up that piece of art. You can’t forget. Three times a day, especially with it being so fresh.”

I stare at her face in the mirror’s reflection as she lectures me, resting my hands on top of my head as I tower over her. I like it when she scolds me.

With the tap running, she turns around and begins gently—more gently than anyone might believe her capable of—rubbing the soap over the entire area, peeling back the elastic band of my briefs to get at the bottom without a word. This is her MO—cool and calm, indifferent. Unfazed.

But I feel the way her hands linger a little longer than necessary against my skin.

I see the way her gaze keeps flickering toward my briefs, where I’m already hard.

When she has coated the area with moisturizer, rubbing it in so carefully, not uttering a word, she softly says, “I’m finished.” She lifts her head to meet my gaze for a brief moment before shifting for the door, as if she’s going to leave.

I’m much too fast for her, and my hand on her stomach, pulling her back against me, stops her. “No, I don’t think you are.” Only a small part of me, deep inside where my motives collide with human need, feels guilty for what I’m about to do.

I wait five long seconds for her to say something. To tell me to fuck off, to tell me no. But she says nothing, and she doesn’t pull away, turning to stare at me through the mirror with a look that I can’t begin to read but makes me hesitate all the same.

Maybe it’s that the stakes are somehow higher now than they were yesterday.

Maybe it’s that she’s starting to care.

Maybe it’s that I’m starting to care.

But I have to get that videotape out of here before she even knows that it exists.

And . . . I’m dying to have her.

I slip my free hand around her soft, slender neck, feeling her blood pulse beneath my fingertips as I pull her tiny body flush against mine, barely noticing the discomfort in my side. My other hand tugs at her oversize shirt, curling and lifting the material until it’s above her waistline. She has such narrow hips, such slender thighs, all the more evident by these skintight elastic pants she wears. I can’t even imagine her legs stretching wide enough to accommodate my body, but I guess I’ll find out soon.

She watches me in the reflection with fire in her eyes as I slide my hand down the front of her pants, into her panties.

Into her.

I smile at how primed she is, and she matches it with a small, knowing smirk of her own, allowing me to explore her with my hand, much like I watched her do to herself only days ago. It’s been so long since a woman has let me touch her like this purely because she wanted me to, not because I’ve bought her body for a few hours. Bentley’s right—being with a whore isn’t the same as being with someone like Ivy. Someone I chose for her beauty, her intelligence, her wit. Someone I care to please.

When she closes her eyes and sighs, I dip down to grab the edge of her earlobe with my teeth, wondering how long she’ll take to come, and if I have it in me to wait patiently.

She doesn’t let me find out.

Her talented little hands push her pants down her hips to her knees, wriggling out of them until they’re in a pile on the floor beside us. Her shirt and bra come off next, all while my hand is still inside her, and now I have that perfect tight naked body in front of me.

“I hope you weren’t looking for romance when you planned this maneuver of yours,” she says with a pant, turning around and hoisting herself up onto the sink counter, her legs spread and back arched, staring at me with an intensity I’ve never seen before from her. She holds a condom up between two fingers—where she plucked that from, I didn’t notice—waiting.

And my dick starts to throb. Fuck, this girl is something else. “Romance isn’t really my thing,” I murmur. I have my jeans and briefs down in two seconds, the condom slipped on in another five, my mouth on hers in eight.

And I’m inside her with one hard thrust.

She’s so small and tight, and yet she takes me with flexibility I hadn’t expected, her body flush with mine as she clings to me, one hand hooked around my neck and squeezing tight, the other between her legs, working away on herself with small strokes that nearly make me lose it.

Fucking on a bathroom counter has never been my first pick, but I’m not about to complain now, keeping my hand at her back to block the tap from slamming into her tailbone. She’s let me hook her left leg beneath the knee and hike it up, both to get deeper and to keep her leg from rubbing against my tattoo. She matches each thrust, her breathing growing more ragged, her nails digging into flesh.

I loved watching her come the other night.

But actually bringing her to the brink?

It takes every ounce of control in me not to go with her when she does, her moans loud and unfiltered. Sounds I already want to hear again. The second I’m sure I feel the last muscle spasm inside her, I pull out and tear the condom off. Without having to say a word, she reaches out and pumps me until I let loose all over her smooth stomach and tits, a muffled “fuck” slipping out through my groans.

She sighs, lying languidly against the mirror and sink, her body limp and used and covered in sweat and cum. “Yeah.”

I never stick around after. With whores, there’s no point anyway. It just costs more. But with Ivy, I don’t want to leave. I’d do this all night with her.

But I have a job to do first.

I reach for a facecloth from a shelf above and hand it to her. “I’ll let you clean up,” I offer, laying one last kiss on her swollen lips before ducking out of the bathroom, sliding the door shut.

I listen for it.

As soon as I hear the door lock latch, I dive for the case, keeping one ear on her movements inside. I made one hell of a mess on her intentionally. Now that I know where the tape is, I make quick work of the duct tape, peeling it all the way off to remove the video. I slide the video under the bed and focus on tucking the foam back into the kit exactly how it was to avoid any questions.

I finally get it right, just as the toilet flushes.

When Ivy steps out a few minutes later, fully dressed, I’m doing up my belt.

“So . . . Dakota’s tat will probably take me about an hour and a half. You can watch if you want. But you don’t have to. You can do whatever you want. Stay or go . . .”