Please, baby. Don’t assume anything.”

I don’t have to assume—not when there’s a woman who clearly knows him intimately enough to have access to his home standing a few feet from us.

Six

I can’t lie na**d on the loor like this one more second. “Let me up, Chris,” I hiss.

“Not until you promise me not to jump to conclusions.”

He shifts slightly. I try to push against him but he holds on to me. I growl low in my throat. “We are na**d in front of her, Chris. You are na**d in front of her.”

He hesitates but lets me go. I twist around to my hands and knees to get up, and freeze. Standing at the top of the stairs is a striking, Barbie-doll-looking blonde wearing skintight black jeans and a tank top, with long, silky hair, a body to kill for, and tattoos on both bare arms. Her red “fuck me” heels are outra-geously high, which on me would ensure a certain stumble, and a wave of nausea overcomes me. Why am I here? She is everything I’m not and can never be.

“What the f**k are you doing here, Amber?” Chris demands, then drops his shirt by my hands. “Here, baby.”

I can’t seem to move. Amber. An American name, and pretty.

And Chris is walking around na**d in front of her. I lean back on my heels to snatch the shirt and pull it on. When I try to stand I stumble, and Chris catches me, his hand closing on my arm. All I see is his bare foot and na**d calf.

“Let go,” I hiss again, and I manage to look directly at Amber, who glances from Chris to me with a gloating amusement in her eyes. I’m hurt. I’m embarrassed. I feel completely sideswiped and betrayed. There’s so much more to this woman than Chris has told me.

“Sara.” Chris has stepped close to me, his hip pressed to mine. His na**d damn hip.

“Let go.” I barely recognize the deep timbre of my own voice. “Now.”

His hand slips away and I launch myself forward. Since forward is directly toward Amber, I regret my path, but I’ll be damned if I’m backing down. I lift my chin and walk straight for her, and she smirks with her pretty pink lips and steps aside.

Of course she does. I’m leaving her with Chris. Who is na**d. That fact keeps replaying in my head like a stuck record.

She has a key. He doesn’t care if she walks in when he’s na**d. She’s already seen him na**d long before now.

This doesn’t compute with what I know of myself and Chris, but I won’t be able to think straight until I’m alone. I’m not a confrontational person. I’m a “leave and never look back”

person, and the possibility that I might have to leave forever twists me in knots.

I nearly run up the stairs and storm into Chris’s bedroom.

At this moment I can’t call it mine, for fear that it, like him, will be stripped away from me. A gnawing worry that he never was mine in the irst place begins to form, and I can’t seem to move forward.

Stopping in the entryway, I fall against the wall and just stand there, breathing hard, the sound of my heart drumming in my ears. I expect some sort of outburst. I expect to cry, but I don’t. Based on my earlier blackout, I’m fairly certain that not only am I on emotional overload, but that my mind and body are protecting me from complete collapse. It is almost as if I’m standing outside myself looking in, and seeing nothing but a gaping, empty hole. All I feel is a fear of what will soon be inside it.

“Sara.”

I whirl around to face Chris. My gaze sweeps him from head to toe, as I’m sure Amber’s did plenty of times. He’s in jeans that aren’t buttoned, bare feet and no shirt, and his half-dressed state is enough to make me combust. “I didn’t come here to play with you and your tattoo-artist girlfriend, Chris.”

“She’s nothing more than a friend, Sara. A friend with piss-poor timing.”

My ingers curl, my nails digging into my palms. “With beneits and a key? Is this how you deine the trust you and I just talked about? Having another woman on the side, when you said there was no one? Or maybe I didn’t ask if you had friends with beneits—so you didn’t tell me about her.”

I suck in hard-earned air and exhale painfully. “Damn you, Chris. I opened myself up to you. I gave you everything that I am, when I swore I’d never do that with anyone. I let you spank me.” Pain nearly doubles me over, but somehow I hold myself upright. “I’m going home.” I turn away, seeking escape.

Chris shackles my arm. I whirl on him again and tug against his grip, not about to let him pull me close and cloud my judgment. Judgment that’s apparently impaired where he’s concerned, or I would have seen this coming. “I want to go home, Chris.”

“Home is with me, Sara.”

“Seems that Amber thinks so, too.”

He motions to the bed with his head. “Let’s sit down and I’ll explain.”

His lack of denial carves an extra piece of my heart out. I shake my head, vehemently rejecting that idea. “No. I’ll want to believe whatever you tell me, when that’s obviously a bad idea.”

My gaze rakes his shoulder, and the brightly colored tattoo she created, and anger burns in my belly. “Do you have any idea how much I hate that you were na**d while you were down there with her? Which is crazy, since I know you’ve probably been na**d with her more than with me.”

His eyes lash, and it’s all the warning I get. “That’s it,” he snaps. “You’re going to listen to what I have to say.” A second later I’m wrapped in his embrace and his long, muscular frame melds to mine, doing exactly what I’d feared. Distracting me.

Working me over. Making me forget.

Big and strong, he easily maneuvers me to the bed, forces me to sit down, and bends over, his hands at my sides, efectively trapping me. His eyes meet mine and it doesn’t seem to matter how hurt and betrayed I feel. I can’t escape the familiar punch of awareness he creates in me.

“You are the only woman in my life,” Chris declares, and the rough emotion in his voice creates hope in me. “You know that, Sara. I know you know that. You’re reacting to the events of the past twenty-four hours, and even the past few weeks of hell we’ve gone through together.”

Maybe.

Probably.

Partially—but I don’t give him the hope he’s given me.

Selish as it might be, I need it too much myself.

“And yes,” he concedes, “I used to f**k Amber, but it’s been years since I even thought about touching her. And a lot longer than that, since it mattered when I did.”

“So at some point she was special to you.”

“You took that out of context. We met in college and she pulled me into the BDSM lifestyle.”

I’m shaken by his matter-of-fact announcement. She looks closer to my twenty-eight than Chris’s thirty-four. I’ve never even thought about him going to college, let alone having it be when he’d discovered BDSM. He started painting before that, and I just assumed he’d gone straight from high school to art. I wonder what else I’ve assumed that I shouldn’t have.

“Baby.” Chris strokes my cheek and I feel the touch all over.

Clearly my body is without the boundries of my mind. “Anything I had beyond friendship with Amber was a long time ago.”

“But it’s part of what deined who you are now, and she’s still a part of your life.”

“Yes. But where we’ve been is what brings us to the place you and I are now.”

He’s right. He’s completely right. So why is this still such an issue to me? I bury my face in my hands. “I’m confused.”

Chris pries my hands away from my face. “You are my present—and, I hope, my future.”

“Then why does she have a key and feel free to just barge in?”

“I have her keep an eye on the place when I’m gone,” he explains. “The security company told her I arrived and, since I came home without warning, she was afraid something was wrong. She’s only a friend, Sara.” His hands move to my legs.

“Nothing more.”

He’s staring at me, willing me to see the truth in his eyes, and I do. I trust Chris. Even when I was downstairs in the midst of that hell, deep down, I trusted him. I reacted to the situation.

And to Amber. “She still wants you, Chris. I felt it in the air.”

“I know.”

His directness stuns me, when it shouldn’t. It drives home why I trust him, but the answer is hard to swallow. “And you don’t see that as being a problem?”

He laughs. “All I am to her is a potential f**k who happens to be a friend. And she has no family. I’m it. I’m more a big brother to her than anything else.”

My brows dip at that odd description. “Let me get this straight. You’re a big brother and a potential fuck?”

“Yeah, well, she’s fucked-up, and I know how to deal with all the cobwebs in her head.” He pulls me to my feet. “Let’s go make sure she knows you are the lady of the house.” He starts leading me toward the door.

My eyes go wide and I tug on his hand. “Wait. No, Chris. It isn’t necessary, and we have no clothes on.”

He turns to stare down at me, his blond hair a rumpled, alluring mess. “It’s not only necessary, it’s mandatory. I want you both to be clear that this is your home, and you are the woman in my life.”

I suck in a breath, touched deeply. “I know I am,” I reply softly. “And you know I am. We’re all that matters.”

He encloses me in his arms. “You’ll know even better, after we go down there and I introduce you to Amber.”

I’d rather meet Amber later, when I’m on more even footing. “But I’m in your shirt and you’re only wearing pants.”

His lips curve. “If that doesn’t make a statement, then I don’t know what does.” He motions to the door. “Let’s get rid of her, then shower and go to bed.”

The determined look in his eyes says it all. We’re going to do this. “I’m not going to like this,” I warn.

He smiles and kisses my nose. “It’ll be a lot less painful than being na**d on all fours in the middle of a rug while you stare at her.”

I cringe and press my head to his chest before giving him a sheepish look. “I really did that, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, baby.” He grins. “And you looked good doing it.”

I might have blushed at that comment, but the memory of why I’d frozen in that position hits me hard. I’d been stunned by the contrast of my dark hair and Amber’s light blond hair, my untouched skin, her tattoos. “We’re very diferent.”

He runs his hands down my hair and captures my gaze with his. “That’s a good thing, Sara.” In his usual elusive style, he says nothing more. He simply laces his ingers with mine and pulls me toward the door.

Anxiety ripples through me as he all but drags me down the stairs toward the living room, but he pauses at the bottom of the stairs and we stare at the rug. My mind goes to the moment that I kneeled down in the center, na**d and vulnerable, and completely willing because it was with Chris. Heat rushes up my neck and my cheeks lush.

Chris cuts me a sideways look, his eyes twinkling with the mischief I’ve come to expect from him. “Like I said. I’ll never look at that rug the same way again.”

His mood is contagious and I smile back. “It’s a very comfortable rug.”

His lips curve into a sensual smile. “It is with you on it.”

I lush, and the gleam in his eyes says he notices. He leans in and brushes his lips over mine, his voice low and thick. “We have many rooms to explore together,” he promises, and then motions me to our right.

The lightness in the air vanishes and my stomach knots, but I manage an agreeable nod. Reluctantly, and only because he is so adamant this is important, I let Chris lead me to the stairwell heading to the kitchen. Trying to remain composed on no sleep and a heck of a lot of emotional overload, I focus on everything but the potential Amber disaster before me, like how much I love the way the kitchen sits above the living area like a loft. I can’t wait to explore the entire house.

I’ve taken only one step up when a whif of the familiar scent of Chris’s favorite French cofee hits me. Tension settles hard in my belly. Obviously Amber feels right at home here.

I force down the negative feelings, reminding myself that this is not the day to make assessments. It’s a day to go to bed and rest.

Chris and I reach the top of the stairs and my attention is riveted on Amber, sitting at a gorgeous stone island, her silky blond hair draped over her slender shoulders. She’s the center-piece of a gray and black modern kitchen, with stainless-steel appliances and a long line of gray-wash cabinets above the counters that have a splattered-paint look. She looks gorgeous, her pale skin pure perfection, and I’m excruciatingly aware of my day-old smudged makeup, and the heaviness of my dark brown hair that says I need a shower.

“I picked up freshly ground Malongo,” she says of the cof-fee brand Chris loves enough to bring to the States with him, and lifts a white mug with steam rising from the top. “I’ll pour you a cup.”

She’s looking at Chris and talking to Chris. This is not starting out well.

“We’ll get our own,” Chris says, pulling me around the island toward the cofeemaker and stopping by the counter. “I want to show Sara her new kitchen.”

“Her kitchen?” she queries.

Chris turns toward her and pulls me under his arm, beside him. Her legs are crossed, her toes painted bright red to match her shoes. “That’s right,” he conirms. “Sara lives with me now.