I was falling in love…with Erik Stevens.

  It was fast. It was unexpected. And it was the best feeling in the world.

  Until I crossed the threshold and my world was turned to absolute chaos. Bodies pressed in close to me and bright lights flashed in my eyes, sending the world around me into darkness.

  Voices shouted, mingled, converged until it sounded like a screaming pack of seagulls surrounding me on every side.

  I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe and didn’t know what the hell to do.

  “Mr. Lincke, are you dating Erik Stevens?”

  “Do you have inside information about the soon-to-be-announced sixth movie in the series?”

  “What can you tell us about the feud between Erik and Stefan?”

  A few of the louder voices stood out, but their questions, their insinuations, left me at a total loss. I was a nobody. Why the hell are they questioning and taking pictures of me? I fought to draw air into my lungs, but I managed just short gasps that only served to increase my heart rate and send me headlong into hyperventilation.

  Half a second before I was certain I would pass out from the people and the noise and the overload on every single one of my senses, an airport security guard pulled me from the fray and dragged me back inside. He quickly led me to a small room off the lobby and I all but collapsed into one of the uncomfortable vinyl chairs.

  “Aren’t you celebrities supposed to have bodyguards to do this job?”

  Every part of me shook as I tried to deny his assertion. “I-I-I’m not a celebrity. I’m a builder.”

  Understatement, half-truth, whatever… In this moment, it didn’t matter. I tried and failed to keep my teeth from chattering together and I desperately fought against the nausea gripping my stomach in an iron grasp.

  The older man rested against a desk—his desk?—a few feet away. His hair was a light silver, nearly completely white, but his body was solidly built. Thankfully, he was strong enough to save me from the mob of cameras and questions.

  “Then how did that paparazzi attack happen?”

  Because the first boy I ever cared for has turned into the first man I’ve loved or wanted in nearly two years and he just so happens to be one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood and starring in a multi-billion dollar action movie franchise.

  The words formed in my brain but refused to leave my mouth. “My boyfriend is famous,” I finally uttered lamely.

  A few muttered words in a walkie-talkie later, the guard moved to stand in front of me, holding out one hand. “Come on, son. Let me take you to your car so you can get the hell out of here.”

  I clasped my palm against his and welcomed the help in standing. Another sickening wave hit me and I swayed on my feet. I just want to go home.

  He led me through a series of back hallways that I was certain I really wasn’t supposed to be in and finally out of a door that exited at the rear of the airport. I gave him my parking space information and he helped me into a golf cart that shot off at a surprising speed for the size of the vehicle.

  Within a few minutes, he had me safely delivered to my truck and I clicked the unlock button on my fob with a still-shaking thumb.

  “You gonna be all right to drive home?”

  Was I? Hell if I knew. The only certainty in my life right now was that I needed the solitude and tranquility that my slice of wilderness offered. “Y-yes. I’ll be fine once I get out on the open road.”

  Three miles from my house I finally admitted that it had been a lie, as the tears I had been holding back finally broke through the minimal dam I’d erected. Rivers poured from my eyes and down my cheeks, blurring my vision to the point where I should have pulled over. But my desperation was stronger so I pressed on the gas a little harder.

  I ran from the truck into my house, locked and deadbolted the door, took the stairs to my bedroom two at a time and locked that door as well before collapsing onto the bed.

  The admission came some time later, once the soul-crushing sobs had ceased.

  I wasn’t built for this. Sure, in high school I’d managed to run for class president and win, but I had been a different person. Some of what I’d become had been created by Marcus and the scars he’d left behind. Other quirks had been by my own design. Locking myself in my home away from everyone had been both a blessing and a curse. I’d gotten used to the silence and solitude.

  And Erik Stevens came packaged with insanity, chaos and drama. No matter how much I wanted him, I wasn’t right for that life.

  With the realization came a decision. Like the coward I was, I called Erik’s phone, fairly confident he wouldn’t be able to answer. I’d grown accustomed to his schedule, and once he hit LA, he was in perpetual motion without a spare minute until late in the evening, when we would video chat.

  With each ring I swallowed, hoping my voice would be calm and measured enough to make sense.

  The beep at the end of his voicemail greeting was my last chance to take a deep breath. “Erik, I realize I’m an asshole for doing this over the phone, over a message, but I don’t think we should see each other anymore. I-I know we shouldn’t. I think it’s best we end things here. Thanks for the last few weeks. I’ll always remember them, but there can’t be anything more.”

  At the last syllable, I clicked off and threw the fucking phone across the room.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Erik

  It was cliché and ridiculous, but as I hopped off the plane, I was certain it was still thirty thousand feet up because I would have sworn I was walking on air.

  Life was fucking good.

  The career-making franchise that I was so damn proud of was finally going into its final film with the erasure of all the drama and stress that had plagued me for the past eight years. I was days away from a long overdue vacation on a sunny, secluded beach.

  And I had Kyle.

  That last one was really the only one that mattered. Aruba wouldn’t be half as enticing without Kyle in the picture. It would just simply be another sandy seaside. The addition of my man, my boyfriend… That was what made it paradise.

  “Ah, hell.” I held down the power button on my phone, willing it to come to life to no avail.

  I’d known when I’d taken off that the low battery wouldn’t last the flight and I couldn’t manage to find the portable power station anywhere in my carry-on, so I’d shut it off, hoping it would have enough juice to let me send Kyle a text, letting him know I’d landed safely. Fucking technology was a blessing and a curse.

  My assistant met me in the baggage claim with her usual punctual perfection. I kissed each of her cheeks as we waited for the duffel bag I’d checked to appear on the carousel.

  “Hey, Megs, can you do me a favor?”

  She paused in between rattling off information from the ever-present notebook she held in her arms. “Sure, what’s up?”

  He may not recognize the number but… “Can I borrow your phone for a second? Mine is dead and I just want to shoot Kyle a quick message to let him know I landed.” I nodded to the list in her hand. “Based on all that, I doubt I’m going to have a free moment until close to midnight to be able to call him, and I don’t want him to worry.”

  Responsibility. Having him as mine was not just my ultimate pleasure but was also my responsibility. I never wanted him to spend a moment longer than necessary buried under the weight of fear, just because I was overwhelmed and overworked.

  Hey, baby, I landed and my phone’s dead, so this is coming from my PA’s phone. Save the number in case you ever need her for anything. I’ll call tonight as soon as I get home, but it’ll be late.

  I hesitated before hitting the Send button. I wanted… Hell, I needed to say it, but I’d sworn to myself that I’d wait until we were together and had at least a fixed period of time together, something longer than the fly-by weekend visits.

  Just then I spotted my bag coming toward me. I sent the message and handed Meg back her phone so I could grab it and be swept off to a day crammed with interviews, network executive schmoozing and all kinds of other BS that I’d never realized came attached to fame.

  As predicted, it was two minutes past midnight when I finally collapsed onto my sofa with my freshly charged phone and queued up Kyle’s contact information. My call went straight to voicemail.

  I shook my head and dialed again. Something must be wrong—a bad connection or some other shit.

  Voicemail—after the first ring.

  I held the phone back from my ear and ended the call. That was the first moment I noticed the red number one beside my own voicemail box. When I saw the message was from Kyle, the tight band of worry that had wrapped around my chest eased slightly. He’d probably gone to bed early and wanted to let me know he wouldn’t be—

  With the first word, the first syllable, the first breath, I knew it wasn’t that simple.

  An avalanche of cold dread washed over me, consuming me from head to toe as I listened to his message.

  He was breaking up with me.

  The phone fell from my fingers and hit the floor with a resounding thud. He was fucking breaking up with me over a voicemail. I dropped my head into my hands and gripped the ends of my hair tight.

  I tried to force my brain into action, detailing every nanosecond of our last moments together, searching for some hint that this was on the horizon. I snatched the phone back from the floor with a trembling hand and checked the time of the voicemail. It had come only two hours after I left.

  What in the blue hell could have happened in a hundred and twenty minutes to make the man who was pouting over my departure suddenly decide that he didn’t want me anymore?

  The angry, panicked, frustrated energy coursing through my body propelled me to my feet and I paced the length of my living room, suddenly feeling like a caged animal.

  Was it the distance? Had it finally become too much?

  Another thought turned my stomach and shot my temperature up at least ten degrees. Was it someone else?

  I immediately dismissed that thought. I trusted Kyle too much. Hell, he trusted me.

  Trust.

  Within seconds, the airline’s website was blazing across the screen of my phone and I was selecting the next flight to Sea-Tac, leaving at four a.m. I rubbed a hand across my gritty, tired eyes. I could take an hour’s nap before I fought—

  I held my finger over the ‘Buy Now’ button.

  Trust.

  As we explored the Dom/sub dynamic of our relationship, I’d told Kyle the biggest truth, the one I was seconds from violating myself.

  Submissives are not weak and powerless. The truth is that they hold the bulk of the control in the relationship. When they are done, we are done. Of course, I held that same authority because neither of us completely surrenders our autonomy, but he would never have to stay in a relationship where he wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable, not for a second longer than he wanted.

  And I have to respect that.

  The realization zapped the strength from my legs and dropped me to the couch again. A bitter battle raged inside me that kept me awake well into the morning, despite my exhaustion. The need to fight for him—for us—was nearly all-consuming. But the Dom who preached the virtues of respect, no matter what my own will was, warred back that Kyle needed space—and to make that decision himself.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kyle

  Two days or two hundred, it didn’t matter. They’d blended and drug and pulled me into a vacant hole without Erik. It hadn’t merely been the six weeks of hot, kinky sex he’d brought into my life. It had been the rekindling of my adolescent love, the connection and the utter serenity that embodied me when it seemed like we’d reached the full circle completion from teenagers who adored each other from afar to adults who loved intimately.

  It had been fast. I’d known it the first night. The consuming passion that had engulfed us had overridden my sense of reason and I had ignored my common sense. That…and the fact that I was certain it couldn’t extend beyond a one-night stand.

  But it had. And we had. We’d become so much more. We were beautiful and special and he’d managed to fix all the parts of me that had been broken.

  And he deserved a hell of a lot better than me.

  The echoes of Marcus’ voice haunted me as I walked aimlessly from room to room in my house, desperate for something, anything, to distract me from the deep, devouring ache inside.

  I fell onto the bed and stared at the beams in the ceiling, seeing only Erik’s face. Never once had he made me feel like Marcus had, but I knew what I was—completely unworthy of being in Erik Stevens’ sphere. All the childish fantasies had to be locked away.

  And the adult actualization of them put in a treasured box in my memory bank—something I could lovingly remember on cold nights, but nothing more.

  I tried to force myself to be proud of the decision I’d made, the one that put Erik and everything that was best for him ahead of my own selfish desires. He deserved every ounce of the limelight he glowed under—the very same one I’d realized I could never handle, thanks to the pack of screaming reporters. He shouldn’t have to be saddled to someone who could never attend an awards ceremony with him—hell, couldn’t even go to the grocery store with him. The very thought of a repeat of the event outside the airport made me nauseated.

  But it was too soon to feel anything other than shame and hurt—shame because I’d crumbled so easily and I was so weak that a few photographers and questions had managed to send me into a nearly debilitating panic attack.

  Shame because that was what I’d allowed myself to become, thanks to the berating attacks from Marcus and the self-induced sequestering as far from the world as I’d dared go while still requiring creature comforts of hot running water, cable and Wi-Fi. A full-on mountain man recluse I was not, but I was as close as my first-world pampered ass would let me go.

  I was feeling hurt so deep, so acute and so real that I was certain it would never end. And I really didn’t deserve to be free from it anyway. I’d handled my ending with Erik with the same cowardice that I’d faced the paparazzi with.

  Yeah, he sure as hell deserved better.

  The soft, but insistent doorbell broke through the avalanche of self-deprecating thoughts that kept me in the very darkness that I deserved. I wanted nothing more than to ignore the ringing, but it grew in frequency with every passing second that I remained motionless.

  With a loud groan that no one but myself could appreciate, I hauled my ass off the bed and down the stairs. There were exactly two options for the person on the other side of the door—my best friend Liza or my little sister. Neither was especially appealing at this moment, but I also knew them both well enough to know that neither would just simply go away.

  I swung the beveled oak door open without even glancing at the body on the other side of the etched glass rectangle at the top. “Listen… I am really not in the mood for—”

  “You look even better in person there, gorgeous.”

  My gaze snapped up to collide with his sparkling gray one and my jaw hit the floor. Two years had done nothing to change his appearance—or his arrogant attitude. “Marcus?”

  A dazzling white, toothpaste-ad-worthy smile answered. He hooked a finger beneath my chin and closed my mouth. “I forgot just how cute you are when you’re surprised.”

  With that, he sauntered through my front door, stepping around me, just as though it was his place, which couldn’t have been further from the truth, since he’d berated the very notion of building this when we had been together.

  “Your dream home is…” His voice trailed off as he circled my living room. “Rather cozy.”

  ‘Words, baby. I need to hear your words.’

  From the recesses of my mind, I heard Erik’s voice and it somehow gave me the strength to find my own. “What are you doing here, Marcus?”

  He paused his self-created tour in front of my fireplace and turned on one designer wingtip to face me. “I saw you on TV, gorgeous. I had no idea that you were dating anyone, much less a celebrity. How did that happen?”

  “It’s none of your business.” The words stunned me and, based on his widened eyes staring at me from across the room, they’d shocked Marcus too. “What are you doing here?” I repeated the question and enunciated every word.

  In a second, his expressions ran the gamut from surprise to a fleeting moment of anger before settling on chagrined. How had I never before seen that this man I’d spent our entire relationship creating my world around was an actor of nearly Erik’s caliber?

  Nearly. Because Erik kept his amazing talents confined to his work where they belonged. He’d never brought that into our relationship. No, with Erik, everything was real. So, so real.

  The all-too-familiar sharp stab of pain that had become like my new BFF over the past forty-eight hours since I’d left Erik that fucking voicemail chose that moment to slice through me afresh.

  “Kyle, honey, this may sound crazy, but I didn’t realize just how much I loved you and loved what we had together until I saw you with him and…” His dramatic pause was so perfectly timed that I wondered if he had scripted this entire performance. “I want you back. I want us back.”

  A year ago—hell, even six months ago—I would have given nearly anything to hear those exact words. Today, they left me cold and desolate. For the first time since I’d met Marcus, I could see through the façade to the deceitful snake lying beneath the beautiful veneer.

  Even still, I struggled to find the words and strength. Being with Marcus had made me into a weak, voiceless stranger and his presence in the sanctuary of my house only served to turn me right back into that person, the skin I had just been beginning to shed while I had been with Erik.

  ‘You aren’t allowed to drown yourself in needless worries or self-conscious thoughts without addressing them to me.’

 

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