Chapter Twenty-Seven

October 18

New York City

O nce, Clara had broken into the vault of a Russian oligarch to retrieve a stolen Seurat and stepped on a newly installed pressure plate. She had ten seconds to disable the backup alarm. Now, lying on her comforter, she felt the same cocktail of adrenaline and apprehension—this time with another element: arousal.

His body could have been cut from marble. The afternoon sun cast his body in a soft light, and despite her nerves, Clara couldn’t help but admire Miles’s lean, muscular frame.

He wants me to use his real name.

She would never admit it, even to herself, but Miles had been the star of Clara’s late-night fantasies for years. In this very bedroom, she had slipped a determined hand into her panties and imagined Miles coming over her, entering her. Sometimes, he was gentle and loving, other times, reckless and rough.

She had neither the experience nor the creativity to picture him like this.

Still fully clothed except for the T-shirt in his fist, Miles stepped to the side of the bed and secured her wrists with the garment. Then he lifted her arms over her head and guided her fingers to the base of the headboard. “Hold on to this. Don’t let go.”

Clara wanted to stop time, to spend hours, days living in this moment. The way Miles was looking at her, the barely leashed restraint in his eyes, it was intoxicating.

He sat beside her on the bed and pulled a lock of her hair between his fingers. “Clara, this is a transaction. Nothing more. I’m repaying a debt. It won’t happen again. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Miles.”

His eyes flared at her obedience.

“I’ll make it as pleasurable as possible, but the first time rarely lives up to the hype. There will be no intimacy. You won’t touch me, and I won’t kiss you.”

“Yes, Miles.”

“Well, on the mouth.” He leaned forward, biting her earlobe before whispering, “Do you still hate me?”

“Yes, Miles.”

“Good.”

In one swift motion, Miles yanked her cutoffs and panties down her legs and discarded them. Then he bent her knees and spread her legs as if she were a doll. A darkness deep inside her loved the image of lying there as his toy.

When she was in the position he wanted, Miles rubbed his fingertips with his thumb. With his eyes lasered to the apex of her thighs, he toed off his sneakers. The thud of the shoes as he kicked them away, her own staccato breaths, every sound was amplified.

Miles pulled a condom from his wallet and dropped it on the bed. Then his sweatpants hit the floor. He was commando—of course, he was. She had stolen his underwear. Clara grinned, and Miles shook his head.

“Let’s wipe that smile off your face, shall we?’

His journey up her legs was like a lesson in erogenous zones. He bit the arch of her foot, sending shock waves through her. Then he kissed his way up her calf, caressing the back of one ankle while he nipped the inside of the opposite thigh. Gripping the headboard and awash in desire, Clara couldn’t help but think he was learning her. Miles paused at the nook of her knee when she shivered and repeated biting at the flesh of her thigh at her soft moan. It was an overload of sensation, and Miles hadn’t even reached her drenched center. Clara fell back, squirmed, and whimpered.

Miles lifted his head at her wordless protests.

“Please, Miles,” she begged.

With a growl, Miles threw her legs over his shoulders and dove at her core. No man had ever touched her there, much less put his mouth on her. The sensation was otherworldly. Miles was devouring her, body and soul. He was feasting on her sanity. Disobeying his directive, Clara’s tethered hands flew down to his thick, dark hair, urging him on. When he pushed two long fingers inside her and wrapped his tongue around her delicate bud, Clara felt as though all the molecules in the room had rushed into her, then burst in a flash of light and color. Her body wasn’t her own; it was his.

Before she’d had a chance to recover, Miles flipped her over and pushed her knees beneath her. Clara’s cheek rested against the comforter. Her bound hands were jammed awkwardly beneath her body. She couldn’t process what was happening. She’d barely recovered from the earth-shattering orgasm he’d just delivered.

Miles sheathed himself and gripped her hips. She felt his probing erection.

Suddenly, everything felt wrong.

“Miles, wait. No.”

He retreated immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“Not like this. I don’t want this position.”

Miles released a frustrated grunt. “This isn’t… We aren’t…”

“ I know . But, please, not like this.”

With his hands still cradling her hips, Miles spun Clara to her back. He hooked a finger in the T-shirt binding her wrists and returned her hands to the headboard. “Keep them there this time, or you’ll have my palm print on your ass.”

Clara knew Miles detected the spark of interest at his threat. The thought of a firm swat sent a spike of arousal through her. He smirked, then moved between her legs, aligning their bodies.

“The first spring swim you take at the lake on the estate, do you wade in from the shore or dive right into the cold water?”

She stared up at his beautiful face, his chocolate gaze fixed on the landscape painting hanging on the wall above her head. “You know the answer to that.”

Without another word, Miles drove forward, filling her completely. Clara gasped as his girth stretched her. Her legs flew up and locked around Miles’s hips. Whether to prevent further intrusion or keep him connected to her, she wasn’t sure.

Yes, she was.

As the pain faded, the ache inside her was replaced by a different sensation—a feeling of need, of want . She tilted her hips experimentally. When Clara glanced up at Miles, his face was squeezed as if in pain, his head turned toward the window.

She moved beneath him again, and Miles groaned. Whatever internal battle he was fighting ended with a growled, “Fuck it.”

With a surge of his hips, Miles pushed deeper. Oh my God. Clara didn’t think there was any room left inside her as he continued to fill her body. Still looking to the side, he bit out, “Ready?”

“Yes, Miles.”

He withdrew to the tip, then surged again. Clara had never experienced such a sense of bliss. She had never felt so complete, as if this long-awaited missing piece of her had finally slotted into place. She joined him in perfect rhythm, meeting his thrusts with her welcoming body.

Her hands slipped off the headboard of their own accord, and she lassoed his neck with her bound wrists. Miles looked at her then. His eyes were unguarded, his expression raw and vulnerable. Clara surged up and kissed his sternum, then fell back to drown in euphoria.

He looked away. “Clara.”

“Miles.”

The tension was building again. Miles played her body like an instrument. Reaching behind him, he unclasped her ankles and hooked one leg over his shoulder, sending him impossibly deeper.

“Say it again.”

“ Miles .”

He unleashed—slamming into her as if he could stop the world from spinning. Propping himself on one bulging arm, he reached beneath their bodies and squeezed the globe of her ass in a vice grip.

“Give me what I want, Clara.”

His words ripped the orgasm from her body, and she screamed his name, her release triggering his. Clara writhed and gasped as Miles throbbed within her. Still in the throes, Miles used his grip on her ass to pull them over until Clara sat astride his taut form. His body was a work of art.

Miles unhooked her tied wrists from his neck, tugged the knot free with his teeth, and pulled Clara to his chest. She lifted herself from his thick erection and settled beside him. Resting her head on his broad chest, she sighed contentedly.

She knew the moment wouldn’t last, knew one word from MiIes would shatter this dream state. In exhausted bliss, she drifted, imagining the man beside her whole and at peace. She had given him her virginity, and he had returned the gift ten thousand times with unimaginable pleasure. But as she surrendered to sleep, her thoughts were not of her own happiness but his.

I t was dusk when Clara woke to an empty bed, her body deliciously sore. She lifted her head, taking in her bedroom. It was the same cozy nest it had always been, but different. The painting she had done years ago of the row of little houses lining the river near her home looked cheerier. The lavender comforter covering her naked body was brighter. The honks and grumbles of the Harlem traffic outside sounded harmonious.

Clara didn’t care that Miles was gone; she’d expected it. Whenever a situation got… emotional , Miles either vanished into one of his alter egos or disappeared altogether. His absence merely confirmed that what they shared had mattered. It more than mattered to Clara. The sex had been mind-blowing. And while admittedly, she had nothing to compare it to, instinctually, she knew what had passed between them had changed everything.

And while Miles’s disappearing act was to be expected, she had to admit, some acknowledgment of the event, some small act of kindness would have meant the world. Clara scanned the spot where Miles had collapsed beside her, checked the nightstand, and ran her hand beneath the pillow, hoping to find a note, but there was nothing.

Disheartened, Clara slipped on her white terrycloth robe and padded into the main room. The only indication Miles had ever been in her apartment was the half-drunk mug of tea she had left on the end table was now upside down in her dish rack.

With a resigned sigh, Clara returned to her bedroom, shed the robe, and entered the bathroom. She started the shower, but before she stepped in, Clara caught the image of her naked body in the full-length mirror mounted on the door.

Their encounter had been no dream. Her body bore the wonderful, filthy evidence. A hickey seared her neck; her nipples were red from his torture, and when she turned, she spotted the five fingerprint bruises dotting her ass cheek. God, Clara wanted to tattoo the small circles onto her body, a permanent reminder of what she and Miles had shared.

Standing under the warm spray, Clara replayed every moment of their lovemaking— fucking , she corrected herself—in a photo burst of images: his muscled torso and eight-pack abs, the vee of his hips and… lower . Her usual ten-minute shower took half an hour as she fantasized and explored her awakened body.

Back in the bedroom, wrapped in a fluffy towel, Clara couldn’t help but glance once more at the nightstand and the floor beside it. Miles could have at least left one of his quippy, condescending notes. He had warned her, but still. There was romance, and there was kindness. She had hoped he would at least be kind.

Enough. Clara had things to do. She was late to deliver a new section of her dissertation to her advisor, and she desperately needed to do laundry and get groceries. Resolved to shake the image of Miles from her mind, Clara dropped the towel and pulled open the top drawer of her dresser.

A second of confusion passed as she stared at the meager contents. A tidal wave of joy obliterated her frustration.

Miles had stolen all of her bras.