In no time, the driver turned off the highway, and I expected to feel the gravel I remembered from years ago when I came out here, but there was no crunch of rock underneath the car. It was paved now, and I imagined they’d also manicured the land around the church. Italian cypresses lining the driveway, maybe. A fountain or statue or maybe flowery display in front of the house.

He stopped and put the car in Park, and I grabbed the door handle, ready to get out, since the ride had already been charged to my card on file.

“Would you mind guiding me to the front door?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

He got out of his side, and I climbed out of the car, meeting him as he came around. I didn’t know him, but it wasn’t a big town. He probably knew I was blind.

I took his arm and he led me across the driveway and up to the house.

“There’s stairs,” he warned.

“Gotcha,” I replied, finding the first step. “And the door is directly at the top?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, I got it from here,” I told him.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, thank you.”

Rika told me to come over today to hang out, so I knew she’d be home. It was early, though.

The driver left me and walked back to his car, and I wanted him to wait for me, but they didn’t work like a taxi. I would just have to order another ride later.

I reached the top of the stairs and searched for a doorbell but didn’t find one. Locating a knocker, though, I rapped it twice and waited.

Please be home. Please be awake.

Damon’s friends—former friends, I’d learned—were the only people he could threaten all day and never hurt. They were just as powerful, if not more. He could be stopped.

I rapped the knocker again, three times this time, and waited, the rain growing a little heavier now as thunder cracked overhead.

“Hello?” I called, knowing it was useless. If they hadn’t heard the massive piece of iron hitting the door…

I grabbed the door handle, a heavy metal ring in keeping with the medieval style I knew the cathedral sported, and twisted, the door magically giving way and opening.

That meant they were up, at least.

“Hello, anybody home?” I called. “It’s Winter Ashby.”

I stepped inside and closed the door, inhaling the most amazing scent. A mixture of coffee, vanilla, and stone. I could feel the air above me and knew the ceiling was sky high. It smelled spacious with lots of fresh air. This place would be a nightmare to heat, though.

“Hello?” I said.

Still no answer. I dug out my phone.

“Dial Erika Fane,” I said.

My phone chimed, and after a moment I heard my line start to ring, and then I heard her phone receive the call somewhere in the house. Her ringtone played “Fire Breather” by LAUREL above me, and I smiled, following the sound. I didn’t want to invade her home, but I really didn’t have time to lose.

“Hello?” I sing-songed again.

They had to be here. I got closer to the ring, my foot hitting a step, and I climbed it, finding her phone a few stairs up. I picked it up just as it stopped ringing and went to voicemail. I ended my call.

I took another step, but this time, it brushed something, and I bent down, picking up a long and full mess of fabric. A dress.

“Keep the necklace on,” I heard Michael say. “Just the necklace.”

Huh?

I took another step but heard a moan and halted.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said, his breathing labored. “You were always the sweetest little thing.”

“Michael,” Rika gasped.

Oh, shit. I dropped the dress and shot my hand to my mouth, scared they would hear my breathing. They must’ve just gotten home. Wonder what they did last night after the party.

I took a slow and careful step back down the stairs.

“But you are keeping things from me,” he told her.

And I stopped.

“I like it when you have your secrets,” he went on, his voice hot and threatening. “It drives me insane in all the best ways. And maybe I have secrets, too.”

“You want me to be suspicious of you?” she challenged.

But then she let out a breathy groan, and I took another step down, the wooden stair whining under my weight.

Fuck! I stopped, my face etched in pain. They hadn’t heard that, had they? Please, please, please… Did they even have wooden stairs in the original cathedral? Wouldn’t they have been stone? Stone doesn’t make noise.

“You’re not suspicious?” he asked. “I spend a lot of time out of town, Rika. I can get whatever I want from anyone I want.”

She whimpered. “Yeah, you can, but you don’t.”

“How do you know?”

The bed creaked, moans and breathing followed, and I shook my head, wishing I was deaf instead.

They were fighting.

While they were having sex.

It was weird.

“Because you’re not stupid,” she threw back at him. “No one will feel like me on your body.”

The headboard banged into the wall faster and faster, and my head filled with their grunts and moaning, their panting picking up pace.

“Rika,” he breathed out.

“You would never risk losing this,” she taunted.

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t want anything but this. Fuck, baby.”

“I love you, Michael,” she whispered loudly as they got caught up in what they were doing. “I’ve always loved you.”

And I stood there, no longer wincing or dreading my invasion of their privacy but feeling everything they were feeling and wanting more.

The skin touching skin. My body on fire and alive with him. His breath. His tongue. His mouth and hands. His teeth nipping at my stomach and thighs.

That feeling of wanting nothing else, and I would rather never eat again than not have him.

I don’t want to…make you dirty.

“I will find out what you’re keeping from me,” Michael growled as the bed rocked.

“You can try.”

“I should pull out right now and fucking leave you like this.”

“No, please,” she whimpered.

“Or maybe I’ll just have lots of fun getting the answer out of you. Flip over.”

Weight shifted, her body turning over maybe, and I knew the position they were in. I hadn’t done that yet, but I wanted to. Someday.

You won’t make me dirty. There is no you. There is no me. This is us. Us.

My eyes burned, and my chin trembled. I didn’t want to do those things with just anyone, though.

A body pressed into my back and I blinked, swallowing the tears in my throat.

“I was supposed to come to you for our next appointment,” Will teased, resting his head on my shoulder.

Upstairs, Rika and Michael went at it, growing louder and harder.

“Don’t worry,” he said, and I could hear the smirk in his voice. “I won’t tell them you were eavesdropping.”

I turned around, but he wouldn’t let me leave. I smelled liquor on his breath. Had he not been to bed yet, either?

“You have this look on your face,” he told me, keeping his voice low and intimate. “Are you wishing someone would do that to you or are you remembering when someone did that to you?”

That. Meaning Michael and Rika’s fucking.

I pushed past him and descended the stairs, finding my way through the great room and to the front door again.

“Need a ride home?” he asked.

“You’re drunk.” I pulled the door open. “I’ll call someone.”

I slammed the door, not caring if Michael and Rika heard me at that point, and walked down the stairs, rain pummeling my hat and shoulders.

The door behind me opened again, and before I knew it, I was swung around, engulfed in strong arms, with a mouth on mine and tongue inside me.

I grunted, trying to push him away as I tasted the faint remnants of whiskey, his tongue brushing mine and playing with me. Forced up on my toes, Will devoured me, gripping the back of my neck, his breath and heat filtering through my body like syrup, down to my toes. Every inch of me suddenly starving.

He pulled away from my mouth, but kept me in his arms. “You need to get fucked and bad,” he told me. “If you don’t want him to do it, I will.” Then he leaned in, whispering over my mouth. “And I would make that offer sober.”

He let me go, and I inhaled shallow breaths, the cool rain welcome on my hot skin.

“See you soon, Winter,” he taunted and went back into the house.

I stood there for a moment, waiting to get my shaking under control before I ordered another ride.

He might be right. I was twenty-one, plenty old enough to have a healthy, active sex life, but when it did happen again, I wanted it to be like it was for Erika and Michael. They seemed to like to play games, but it was passionate, and it was love.

The love was what felt good. Unfortunately, it had been one-sided in my past experience. I could be tempted to take Will up on his offer to let off some steam, but he wouldn’t be more than that. I wanted him as a friend.

The real question was, was he on Damon’s side or mine?

I pulled the leash out of my pocket, letting the heavy, metal clip at the end dangle at my side.

Where the hell was my dog?

“I’m not sure what you heard, Miss Ashby,” Crane told me, as he walked back into the foyer from the rear of the house. “But no one was home except you this morning. Damon left for the city before you were even awake, I was taking care of some errands, and there was no one else here.”

I stood just inside the open door to my house, the rain pouring in fat drops on the driveway behind me.

“And my family?”

“They left last night after the party.” I heard him open a drawer on one of the tables and pull out keys. “I took them to the airport myself.”

“Left?” I blurted out. “What do you mean?”