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“This is just for us?” I stop dead in my tracks at the sight before me. No one has ever done anything like this for me. Not even close.

Right on the beach, a gauzy awning covers a domed gazebo, its curtains swaying gently in the ocean breeze. A table is set with a white tablecloth and two chairs on a platform above the sand. Candles flicker. Behind it, the sun is setting, casting a peachy pink hue across the entire sky and the sea below.

“Just for you,” Anton says, lifting my hand to kiss the back of it.

He’s dressed casually yet impeccably, and I’m trying to keep up in a pale blue maxi dress with lace panels and a low cut. Next to Anton, I should feel too large, too unrefined, too outclassed, but I only feel… wanted. Desired. He leads me to the table and pulls out my chair for me. At this point, I actually expect this gesture, which is completely wild to think about.

Private dinners on the beach with a chivalrous, gorgeous man were not on my bingo card for the year, but here I am. He sits across from me, and I don’t even pretend not to stare, drawing a slow, crooked smirk out of him that has my skin heating.

“This is too much,” I protest, and it truly is. Like everything else he does for me, especially when I can’t even hope to match it. What can I offer him that he doesn’t already have? The man is wealthy enough to have two of everything.

He strums his fingertip over my knuckles. “Ella, when are you going to learn? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing I wouldn’t give you. You deserve the world.”

I lower my gaze to the table because what am I supposed to say to that? He pours wine for both of us from a bottle in an ice bucket, and a moment later, a waiter appears, setting down a plate of sliced, raw fish before us. Dang it, he knows how much I love sushi, and I realize that he doesn’t care for it all that much. Another thing he’s doing just for me.

“I’m feeling extremely spoiled right now,” I say bluntly, because there’s no other way to put it. I’m spoiled. He spoils me. “What’s all of this about? Are we celebrating something?”

“I hope,” he says, and I just barely keep my jaw from dropping at the realization that he’s actually nervous. The way he flips his fork over and over in his hand, picking up his wine glass and setting it down without actually drinking it? Nervous. I’ve never seen him like this.

“What is it?” I prod, filing through the worst-case scenarios with record speed to find something that could make him nervous. Did someone in his family get hurt? Is there a hit out on us?

He takes a deep breath and sets the fork down with finality before meeting my eyes, and by now, my stomach is roiling with anxiety. “Ella, will you move in with me when we get back?”

Whatever I was expecting, that was not it. This is what he was nervous about? I don’t answer right away and he leans forward, tense and searching my face.

“I understand if it’s too soon—"

“It’s not,” I blurt out before he can think that my hesitance is about him. “It’s not too soon. You just surprised me, that’s all.”

“So,” he says, a cautious smile crinkling the corners of those green eyes, “Is that a yes?”

“Hmm,” I reply, pretending to consider, “stay in my rat-infested apartment all alone or move into an immaculate penthouse with an even more immaculate man? I’m going to need some time to consider.”

I count to three in my head before finishing, “Yup, think I’ll take the immaculate man.”

His smile is all the reward I’ll ever need in my life, the way it transforms his brooding face into pure, boyish joy.

“Thank fuck,” he says, finally spearing a piece of tuna with his fork and popping it into his mouth. “Even makes the sushi worth it.”

Dinner is superb. After the sushi, we enjoy squid and pork belly skewers, fried sea bream, and a dark chocolate mousse that hits my tongue like pure ambrosia. We finish the bottle of wine, and Anton pulls our chairs together, facing the ocean, before the waiter returns with a second. Once it’s opened, he dismisses the waiter, saying that’s all we’ll need for the night, and the man departs. We’re alone on the beach.

“This was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” I tell him, twisting in my chair to face him because there’s one view better than the one over the ocean right now, and that’s the man beside me. “Did you know that you’re the sweetest man alive?”

He gives me a rueful grin and cups my cheek. “You’re the only person on this planet that would say that.”

I lean into his hand, then turn and kiss his palm. “They just don’t know you like I do.”

He slides his fingers into my hair and tugs me forward, capturing my lips with his; the heat is instant, flooding my body from head to toe. Every inch of me yearns for this man, comes alive for him.

His tongue strokes along mine, and I melt, sinking into his kiss. When his grip tightens in my hair, I moan into his mouth and hit the edge of my seat, our knees brushing as we fight to get closer. I run my hand up his leg and find him already hard and ready for me.

“Fuck, Ella,” he says when I wrap my hand around his cock over the fabric of his pants. Suddenly, there is way too much clothing between us.

Like he’s reading my mind, he pulls the top of my dress loose, exposing my breasts for a heartbeat before his mouth is there, flicking his tongue over one nipple and palming the other.

Now I twist my fingers into his hair, holding him there. “Right here?” I whimper because we’re completely exposed, even if we are the only ones on the beach.

“Right here.” His hand slips from my breast down my curves, then slides beneath my dress. “Unless you want to stop?”

He strokes along my entrance and up to my clit, drawing a gasp out of me. “No. Don’t stop, please. Definitely don’t stop.”

But I draw his hand away for a second to tug his shirt overhead, revealing the hard ridges of his stomach, the endless abs. His touch is light over my clit, but my fingernails scrape down his back, over the muscles there, digging in as he draws me closer to the edge. Teeth graze my nipple, and I arch for more.

When he sinks two fingers inside of me, I buck my hips in desperation. So close. He’s teasing me, denying me the pressure I need to come, drawing out my pleasure until it’s more than I can take.

“Anton,” I beg, panting and moaning with every thrust of his fingers, every brush of his thumb over my clit. “I need you.”

I fumble with his pants, the button taking way too long to pop open. Need is a burning, desperate thing inside of me, and when I finally free his cock, I moan at the sight of it. I’m that far gone.

“Come here.” He sounds as breathless as I do, and his eyelids flutter when I wrap my hand around his cock and stroke. “I need you wrapped around me right now.”

He lies down on the platform and tugs me over him. I bunch my dress up around my hips and close my eyes when I feel the head of his cock brush my entrance. Lowering down slowly, so slowly, I feel him stretch me to the limit.

The farther down I sink, the more of him I take, and that feeling of being full of him is incomparable. I know the hardwood beneath him isn’t comfortable, but neither of us cares. When I’m halfway down the length of him, he grabs hold of my hips and sinks the rest in, making me yelp.

But my body is slick and desperate for him, and after a moment, the only thing I feel is pleasure. At first, he lets me control the pace, and I move slowly, deeply, taking every inch of him from tip to base and back again. I bend and kiss him, our kiss frenzied, and pressure coils at the base of my spine.

His fingers roam up my hips to my breasts, flicking over my nipples until they’re achingly hard and sensitive. We break the kiss for his mouth to move, to trail down my neck, bites chased by tender kisses. When he reaches that spot along my collarbone, I shudder, clenching around him.

“Oh fuck, Ella,” he moans into the hollow of my neck, and his hands find their base, wrapping tightly around my hips to draw me down hard onto him. “You feel so fucking good.”

Speech is no longer something I’m capable of, and the sounds that come out of me are practically animal. He thrusts up to meet me, and suddenly, the pace is brutal. I grip his shoulders to hold on as he slams into me, and I arch to take him even deeper.

My knees will be bruised tomorrow, braced against the hardwood on either side of him, but right now, all I can think of is taking more of him. He’s filling every inch of me, and still, I need more. His hands on my hips pull me into every thrust.

“Come for me,” he demands, dropping one hand from my hip to rub circles around my clit, and that right there is all I need. I buck my hips up into the pressure of his touch, into the next thrust, and let go.

Bliss hits me in waves, but he’s not slowing, and all I can do is hang on. His body clenches, and he yanks me down, burying every inch, holding me in place as he comes. My thighs tremble, and when I feel the last pulse of him inside me, I collapse against his chest.

He’s as sweat-soaked as I am, and his heart races beneath my cheek. His arm coils around my waist, soft and gentle now that he’s sated. I press my lips to his salty skin.

Something other than pleasure floods my body. Something golden and warm and bone deep. Love. I love him . Oh god, I love him.

***

“Shit.” Anton hangs up and gives me a look that says more than words ever could. Something’s not right.

I sit up and put my laptop aside. It’s the day after the date on the beach, and we’ve been completely lazy all morning, lying in bed, taking breakfast on the balcony, and only just now starting to pick up the threads of work we dropped yesterday.

“What is it? What happened? Is everything okay?” In this new world I live in, things can go wrong on a level entirely beyond anything I’ve experienced before, so my heart starts to race at the thought of bad news. Is it mafia stuff? Business?

Anton’s jaw clenches, and he runs a hand over the stubble he hasn’t shaved off yet today. “Our lawyers are dead. Murdered.”

Suddenly, I’m glad I’m sitting because my legs turn to water. “Murdered?”

We had a team of lawyers drawing up permits for the new development, trying to move quickly on that undeveloped and unclaimed land. And someone murdered them for it.

He taps his fingers along his phone. “Murdered. Those bastards.” He looks more than upset. He looks furious.

I get up and go to him, wrapping my arms around his waist and pulling him into a hug. My hands are shaking. If they went after the lawyers, are we next? He pulls me in tightly.

“How did they…” I trail off before I can say ‘die’ because, really, I don’t want to know. It will only become more fuel for the nightmares that plague me most nights. Those dreams I have, the ones where Anton is hurt or worse, keep me up for hours. “I’m sorry. I know you really liked those guys.”

I did, too. Anton hangs his head, slumping against me, and I realize he’s blaming himself for this.

“Hey,” I say, rubbing my hands in circles over his back. “This wasn’t your fault. I know I’m new to this, but there was nothing you could’ve done, okay?”

He pulls back and cups my cheeks with both hands and the look in his eyes is so haunted it breaks me.