Brent squeezed her to his side and smiled at her mother. “Mrs. Winstead.”

“Mother, do you have something you’d like to tell Brent?”

Primly, she raised her chin. “I apologized already to Hayden for going behind her back to pay your sister’s tuition. I don’t see why I have to do it twice.”

Brent flinched at her mother’s words and pulled her closer. “I’m an ass**le for assuming. Working on it,” he whispered in her ear.

“Mother,” Hayden prompted.

“Oh all right. My apologies.” She perused her nails. “I won’t pretend I’m heartbroken over losing Stuart as a son-on-law. Bit of an ass, isn’t he?”

Laughing, they both started to respond, when Daniel snagged their attention. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Where is Story?”

Hayden disengaged from Brent’s side and laid a gentle hand on Daniel’s arm. “Now I don’t want you to overreact—”

As if on cue, two security guards emerged from the office behind Daniel, flanking a handcuffed Story. Daniel froze, face losing all color. “What the hell is going on here?”

“She flashed the city clerk,” the guard explained, looking bored.

“What?”

Story winced at his tone. “You told me to stall,” she called over her shoulder as they dragged her down the hallway. “Don’t tell my dad, okay?”

After a moment of stunned disbelief, Daniel ran after them. “Hey! Uncuff her! That’s my girlfriend.”

“Fiancé, Daniel.”

They disappeared around the corner. Matt followed after them muttering something about needing to find new friends. Hayden, knowing Daniel would never let Story get taken away in a police car, finally relaxed. The minutes before Brent arrived had been spent haggling with the guards and calling her parents’ various lawyer friends on Story’s behalf.

She took Brent’s arm and pulled him aside. Her parents seemed to sense they wanted some privacy and followed in their friends’ wake. They were finally alone.

“Aren’t you going to—”

“Yes,” Brent growled, capturing Hayden’s mouth with his own. Her lips parted on a gasp and his tongue swept inside, possessing her. Reminding them both that she belonged to him. Reminding her who made her body weak and strong at the same time. She sensed that after the morning they’d had, he needed reassurance, and was only too happy to provide it. His hands cupped her elbows to drag her up against him. When he leaned in to reclaim her mouth a second time, she pulled back just a little, then took control of the kiss. A reminder that he belonged to her, too. She buried her fingers in his hair and slanted her mouth over his, again and again, until he broke away with a choked sound.

“I’m in charge every night for the next week. No exceptions.”

Hayden nipped at his chin. “I’m going to make you work for it.”

He caught her up in his arms, long strides carrying them toward the exit. “Woman, I’m counting on it.”

Epilogue

Brent looked up from the explosives and demolitions handbook he’d been studying, smiling when he heard Hayden’s keys jingle outside the front door of her town house. Knowing she expected him to be waiting on the other side filled him with a now-familiar sense of calm. The way they’d come to depend on each other, trust each other, never failed to humble him. Every night she walked through the front door, searching for him with those beautiful eyes, felt like the first time. But he wanted tonight to be special.

She walked in a second later, looking polished and professional in her black skirt and heels. Stockings, as well. Always the damn stockings. Six months earlier, she’d gone to work for her father’s firm, reinvigorating the charity branch with a determination he’d come to expect and admire in her. Turns out, his girl was a straight-up shark, bringing in donors left and right, not only for the Clear Air program, but new charities she’d initiated in the company name. Those nights, when she came over, all flushed with pleasure after landing a new sizable donation…God, he looked forward to those nights. He looked forward to every night with her, but being the recipient of all that passion humbled him. In addition to turning him on like nobody’s business.

Yes, she might dress the part of a corporate player, but he knew the girl just beneath the cool surface. The girl who made him laugh, surprised him every day…the girl who kept him awake at night thinking of ways to make her happy. They spent most evenings at his place in Queens. She’d become a permanent fixture at dinner and on the weekends. He’d started dropping hints months ago that he wanted her there permanently. First, he’d given her keys, with a mini high-heel keychain. Then he’d asked for Laurie’s help redecorating to make the house more “chick-friendly.” Not only for Hayden, but because his sister Lucy was due home in a week from graduate school. Finally, he’d asked Hayden one night as they were cooking dinner and she’d promised to think about it.

When he’d arrived at her place tonight, he’d seen the appraisal of her town house from the Realtor pinned to her refrigerator. Her simple but effective way of telling him yes. He’d been thankful to be alone in that moment. No sense in letting her know what a sap he turned into.

Until now, her town house had been mostly reserved for hot, stolen lunch hours when they could both swing it. That’s when, thanks to their new appreciation for role-play, things tended to get kinky. His pulse tripped over itself in anticipation. He’d come to her place tonight since she’d been forced to work through her lunch hour today. He was simply too impatient to wait the forty-five minutes it took her to get to Queens.

Their eyes met across the living room and he watched Hayden go soft, her body relax, as she saw him, making his heart pound even harder. True to her word, she worried about him. At first, he’d thought it unnecessary, but damn if he didn’t love the way she breathed a sigh of relief every day when she saw him. She set her briefcase down on the kitchen table and removed her jacket. When she started toward him, he shook his head.

“Uh-uh. Stay right there.”

Brent had the pleasure of watching awareness leap into her gaze, her chest rising and falling with soft breaths as she watched him approach. When he slipped the handcuffs from his pocket and let them dangle between them, she wet her lips, eyes seeming to momentarily lose focus. He loved having that effect on her. “What did I do, Officer?”

“I’ll tell you when I’m damn well ready.” The second he had her within reaching distance, he spun her around until she faced the table. Then in a move guaranteed make her damp, he reached beneath the hem of her skirt and shoved her knees wide. Without an ounce of gentleness. Slapping the cuffs onto her wrists, he savored her aroused whimper, letting it go to his head and elevate him to that incredible place only Hayden could. He leaned over her back to breathe his words against her ear. “Did you really have to work through lunch? Or did you just want to make me wait? Make me suffer?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His deep laugh coincided with her shiver. “Oh no?” Brent curled his fingers under the material of her skirt and dragged it up slowly, over her smooth ass, unable to wait a second longer to reveal her sexy backside. He pushed her upper body forward until her cheek rested on the table and he could savor the sight of her bent over in front of him. Beautiful flesh greeted him at the tops of her stockings; the swath of black material running between her thighs caused his erection to press painfully against his zipper. He held her still, looking his fill until she started to writhe, then he unzipped his pants with one hand, communicating with a tightening of his hold that she wasn’t to move. When he’d finally freed himself with a relieved groan, he ran a knuckle up the center of her panties.