Page 79 of A Lethal Game of Trust

She really tried to hide her smile. “Okay.”

Slowly, she pulled up and my cock fell out of her. The sensation had us both moaning.

“You’rehurryingback,” I corrected.

There was no hiding her smile now. I watched her perky ass right out the door.

Her room smelt like her. Vanilla and honey. When I’d been hiding in her wardrobe that morning, it was almost too much. It was the most nostalgic of scents. The same perfume her mother wore. Or, used to. She had clung to it when the services deemed living with her mum no longer suitable.

I’d bought her and her mum a bottle of it every year. Subtly, at Christmas, when we all exchanged gifts. I pretended it was all I would buy Leo because I didn’t know her, because I didn’t care. But the fragrance had been discontinued four years ago and I’d hired a French perfumer to recreate it perfectly.

I was whipped.

Damn, I’d been whipped for some time.

Even back when she hated me.

Maybe she still did.

Really, I knew it was more than that, too. I loved her. I knew it, but it had been years since I had allowed it to be a conscious thought.

Fuck, I was in deep. Loving her was precisely the reason I had to step back.

She couldn’t ever love me. Not truly. Not until she knew.

And she could never know.

She came back in, dressed in those silky pyjamas she’d taken with her. How long I’d let her wear them was up for debate.

She climbed into bed with me and placed her head back on my chest. “I probably can’t stay for long, though.”

“You can stay all night,” I said, stroking her shoulder. I should have said yes, but it was getting harder to deny her. “We’ll just have another mission impossible in the morning.”

She shook her head with a little breathy laugh.

“This is our last night together,” she said again.

There was something in her tone I couldn’t quite place. Was it regret, sorrow?

I lifted her chin to look at me. “It’s not. Rose petals, remember? I’ll leave my spare fob for you.”

She blinked hard. “What? That sounds awfully serious.”

Damn, it did.

Nevertheless, my hand was already rooting through my rucksack at Leonie’s bedside. “I mean, this is strictly for sex. Don’t go letting yourself in to raid my fridge.”

Leonie nodded, watching me as I carefully placed the fob on her bedside table.

“We won’t be dating,” I said softly, still rubbing her arm, conscious that I needed to keep the exact same rhythm despite how my heartbeat picked up. Of course I wanted her on my arm. But if I got any closer to her, I’d tell her the secrets embedded in my soul and she would never want to see me again. Keeping her afar was better than losing her close. “I’d break you, Leo.”

She moved an inch and I wasn’t quite sure if it was a flinch.

“In a romantic sense, I would break you.”

“I didn’t say anything about romance—”

“Good,” I said and hated myself, avoiding looking at her as I stared at the ceiling. “This isn’t a long-term thing. It’s just until we get bored.”