“Fine. I looked at your paperwork after I hired you, because you’d mentioned it was in September.” He rolled his eyes, his head hitting my pillow. Now that he was clean-shaven, he didn’t look a day over twenty. I wondered if he knew that, and if it bothered him. I ran a hand over his jaw. Velvet and honey.

“I do like it,” I whispered. He covered his face with his inked hands, as if the whole situation was mortifying for him, and nudged my knee with his foot.

“Just open your present.”

When I shoved my hand in the bag, my fingers found wrapping paper, something round and hard swathed inside of it. I tore it apart and stared, awestruck.

A snow globe with a Labrador puppy inside, one that looked just like young Shadow. Flakes raining down on him, fat and lazy and fake and mine. This gift was all mine, and it meant something. Tears filled my eyes.

“Wow. It’s…”

“There’s more.” He cut me off, sitting up straight. His foot bounced on the bed. He cleared his throat, rubbing the tip of his chin and jerking it in my direction. “Look again. There’s more than just a snow globe.”

I pulled the second present out of the bag. A…wetsuit? I examined it with a frown. The room was dark, but I could still see the little details. The waves that adorned the cuffs, the setting sun printed across the chest. It was a full piece one that was going to cover me head-to-toe.

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into his chest, his eyes hard on mine.

“You will never not do something because of the scars they left. Never. You will surf. You will live. Why didn’t you report them? Why the fuck are they not in jail right now? They were eighteen when it happened.”

My eyes widened. This had taken a wrong turn, fast. I didn’t want to get into the story. I didn’t even want to know how Bane knew they weren’t minors, and how deep he’d dug into my case.

“The case is closed, Officer Villegas. Nothing to talk about anymore. Let’s go, Jesse.”

Pam’s words came back to haunt me. I shook my head, trying to swallow the bitter lump in my throat.

“Can we not talk about it?”

“No. We kind of have to.”

“Really, Bane? On my birthday?”

“It’s Roman. And will you talk about it tomorrow?”

No. “Maybe.”

“You let them get away with it.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I growled. The way I said that, with my eyes burning holes through his newly-shaven skin, must have told him he was in no position to talk to me about it. He narrowed his eyes, the fire in them promising the retaliation I was reluctant to seek for myself, then wiped the anger from his face completely and smiled.

“So, how did I do?”

I looked back to the wetsuit and the snow globe.

“Great,” I bit out, still angry about the sudden change of topic. “Thank you.”

“Anything else you want for your birthday?”

I smoothed a hand over the wetsuit, smiling at it absentmindedly. “It’s more than enough, really. You made my day.” My year.

He leaned forward, and we were close. Too close. Close enough for me to fantasize about what might happen. Close enough for me to get the wrong idea. I leaned back, afraid I’d kiss him and make a fool of myself.

“What?” I swallowed. His eyes were heavy in the same way they’d been in the storage room, but also different. The agony was deeper, more profound.

We’re just a helium balloon waiting to pop, every breath bringing us a step closer.

“You could ask for anything,” he enunciated, and I knew what he was shooting for. A kiss. But I was done begging. My father had once said that affection shouldn’t be asked for. It is not a reward, but a necessity.

“Anything?” I batted my eyelashes. He leaned closer still, the heat of his body seeping into mine. My chest was tight, my limbs jelly. Everything was backward and weird. Illogical, yet made perfect sense.

“Anything.” His voice was a soft snarl, his lips inches from mine. And it was tempting, but I had to do it. For my self-esteem. For the way the power was distributed between us in our relationship.

“Then I want you to show me your ass. Seems unfair that the maze got to see it, but I didn’t.”

It took him a few seconds to recover, jerk away, and stand up, but to Roman’s credit, he did it without as much as a grumble.

He lifted a warning finger in my direction before twisting to show me his back. “Is this going to turn into a case where you’ll fall so deeply in love with my ass, I will have to file a restraining order against you?”

I braced myself on my forearms, a cocky smile on my face. “I can’t commit to an answer, but I’ll try my best not to become a stalker.”

He shrugged. “Worst-case scenario—it’d be nice to have someone tell me a day before I run out of beer.”

He turned around and pulled his cargo pants down, not bothering to twist his head and see my reaction. I gulped. His tight, muscular ass had a skull dripping blood down to his thigh, three skeletons holdings surfboards and smiling, and another, third tattoo, that said “Cool Story, Bro.”

“Tell me the story,” I said. He tugged his pants up and rounded my bed, sliding in again, fitting perfectly next to me like that’s where he belonged. We were tucked next to each other.

“I lost a bet.”

“You’re kidding me.” My jaw dropped, but he just pulled one shoulder in an I-fucking-wish shrug.

I blinked, giving him a soft shove. “Who inks something like that on their ass because their friends told them to?”

“Someone who doesn’t give two shits and never misses an opportunity to do something stupid,” he quipped, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. I grabbed his hand, dragged it to my mouth and kissed his open palm. He nearly flinched, and it saddened me. He’d slept with so many women, but I wondered when the last time he’d been kissed on the knuckles, hugged in the rain, or had been loved the way everyone deserved to be loved.

“You need to respect your body more, Roman. The tattoos. The women. You can say no. You’re so screwed up over this.” This was his father. This was like The Incident. Mental scars are like Lord Voldemort. They shall not be spoken.

He pretended to flatten the collar of my oversized shirt with his hand, looking down at it when he said, “Tell you what. I’ll stop treating my body like it’s a frat house, if you promise to stop treating yours like it’s made of marshmallow and sin. Come surf with me tomorrow.”

I laughed. “And if I do?”

“Then I won’t get any more stupid-ass tattoos. Pun intended.”

“Not fair. You don’t have any more space for them, anyway.”

He stroked his chin then pointed at his smooth, shaven face. “I do now.”

I swatted his chest. “I’ll kill you.”

“Trust me, baby. You’re already halfway there.”

“What does that mean?” I purred.

He looked serious as hell. “It means I can’t stay away from you, and at this point, I know I fucking should.”

I swallowed, but didn’t reply.

I was walking the tightrope of not wanting to beg and not wanting him to leave.

Roman asked me to get back to reading, and I did. We were tucked together like sardines while I read the book aloud, finishing the chapter, then I turned off the light, twisted to my corner of the bed, and closed my eyes.

He wrapped his arm around me, and I grinned into the darkness when his cock met my ass again, grinding very slowly, torturing the both of us. My skin tingled and my sex felt achingly empty as his hard six-pack brushed along my back. He was rubbing all against me, and my mouth watered with need.

“Roman…”

He snaked his inked palm around me and muffled my voice by dipping his middle finger between my lips. I sucked hard, hungry for the sweet taste of his last hashish joint and salty manhood. His lips trailed the shell of my ear from behind. “Shhh.”

My whole body quivered as his hard length dug deeper and deeper between the clothed slit of my ass, and my knees knocked against one another. I was on the brink of the most frustrating orgasm to ever be experienced on earth.

“Fuck me,” my voice shook around his finger, the words falling from my mouth before I could stop them. It wasn’t me. Not the old Jesse, and definitely not the new one. It was a girl who seemed to have been born especially for Bane. Reckless and needy. Desperate and deprived. “Please, just…I feel so empty.” Even that wasn’t true anymore. Alone, I was empty. With Roman, I burst at the seams.

His callused palm left my mouth, tugging at my nipple through my PJ’s, and he was touching me, and I was burning like a witch, alive in the fire, my body screaming as I bit my lip to suppress a hard moan.

I reached for the waistband of my PJ’s, the need for friction tingling between my legs. Bane captured my wrist in his palm and brought it to his lips. I could feel his smile. He whispered, “Bet I can make you come without even touching you.”

I snorted. “Cocky much?”

“Evidently.” He thrust into my clothed ass.

My eyelids dropped on a heavy sigh as he traced his lips along my ear.

“Can you feel me fucking you with my words?”

I rubbed my thighs together, begging for any kind of roughness between them. It was the sweetest torture, and a part of me was enjoying his cruelty.

“I’d rather you fuck me with something else.” Was I really saying those things? I couldn’t tell if my heated face was due to embarrassment or because I was simply sweltering under his touch.

“Everybody got the something-else. You’re getting the never-seen-before version. The one where I actually try to do the right thing. Can you feel me sucking on your swollen pink clit?”

He swirled his cock between my butt cheeks, and I rocked into him, every muscle in my body spasming involuntarily. He was still rubbing against me persistently, in a rhythm I wanted to tattoo into my brain and write into a melody.