I let loose a blood-red smile.

“You’re right. He wasn’t my type. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t come here to get some action.”

“Is that so?” he asked, disinterested.

“Yes.” My voice barely shook when those words I found at the carnival on the restroom wall came to mind.

Lust lingers, love stays.

Lust is impatient, love waits.

Lust burns, love warms.

Lust destroys, but love? Love kills.

S.A.B.

Samuel Austin Brennan.

Was I an idiot to think it was him? That these words were once upon a time directed at me?

“Better get out there and try your luck, then.” His voice was like a freezing cold shower dousing my advances.

“Or maybe we could help each other.” I played with a tendril of bleached hair, careful not to tug too hard on the wig and blow my own cover.

Sam’s smile was wry and skeptic. “Who said I’m on the prowl?”

“Your blood type.”

“You know my blood type?”

“Hot-blooded,” I explained.

“Hot or cold, you can’t handle me, sweetheart.”

“Try me.”

His gaze glided down my body slowly, as if trying to decide if I was worth unzipping his pants. I trembled, aware he could find out who I was any second.

The more we spoke, the more my voice became unsteady. Shrill. Aisling-like. He seemed to be considering this, stroking his chin.

“Turn around,” he instructed.

I did, painfully aware he was checking out my ass. It was a good ass. Four yoga classes a week with Mother, despite my busy schedule as a first-year resident. But that was the thing with unrequited love: you always deemed yourself unworthy of the subject of your admiration.

“Lift your skirt for me.” His steel voice cut through the air behind me. I did as he asked, even though I knew he would find something unexpected.

My white cotton underwear, sensible and a size too big. Practical for a woman who wore scrubs all day and completely out of character.

I heard him chuckle. My heart sank.

“Get out of here.”

I spun my head around, my skirt still bunched up my waist, my ass in his direction.

“I know men like you,” I hissed seductively.

“There are no men like me.”

“I can make it good for you,” I insisted.

“Doubt that.” He tilted his head sideways, laughing quietly. “Out.”

Brazenly, I pushed my panties aside, to show him most of my behind, while playing with myself. The sound of my arousal meeting my fingers filled the air, making it known that I was very much ready to be taken.

“Please …” I let my head fall sideways, biting down on my lower lip as I provided him a good angle to watch me masturbate.

He said nothing.

Small mercies. He is giving you another chance. Don’t blow it.

I turned around before he changed his mind, swaggering toward him on my thigh-high, high-heeled leather boots, knowing it was now or never. Sam Brennan would never give Aisling Fitzpatrick a chance, but to this stranger he still might. When I was close enough to touch him, I sank down to my knees, looking up at him through my big, dark sunglasses.

“May I?” I asked, placing a hand over his groin.

He looked down at me, his thunderstorm eyes twinkling playfully.

“Make it fucking good, Roberts. I don’t fuck rookies.”

I lowered the zipper of his slacks. In the decade since the carnival, Sam Brennan had successfully graduated from a guy to a man. He’d ditched the ripped dark jeans and soft tees in favor of Armani slacks and black dress shirts, and now smelled like the decillionaires I knew and brushed shoulders with, wearing a cologne I was pretty sure both my brothers favored, and cost a grand a pop. The only thing to remain of his younger self was the St. Anthony charm engraved with his initials S.A.B. hanging around his neck and those taunting eyes that could look into people’s souls.

I lowered his black designer briefs, my fingers brushing through the trimmed dark hair of his groin. His cock sprang out. Hard as a rock. Thick and long—frighteningly big—with a purple vein running along the shaft.

As far as cocks went, it was beautiful. My mouth watered and I licked my lips.

Instead of going straight to business, I tilted my head carefully, keeping my wig intact, and gathered his balls into my mouth, sucking on them gently.

He hissed, dropping his head back, not expecting the move. I ran one finger around his shaft, teasing him as I pumped and sucked on his testicles, inhaling the musky, earthy scent of his privates.

“Motherfucker,” he groaned. “That’s some move.”

Stifling a smile, I sucked, teased, and licked, almost entirely ignoring his cock that kept jerking and growing more swollen and big, demanding my attention. After a few minutes, Sam grabbed the back of my wig, jerking me to the main event—the star of the show. I gasped, slapping his hand away immediately in a bid to keep my wig on.

He frowned down at me, momentarily taken aback.

“Got anything against dicks?”

“Not at all.” My voice was breathless, pathetic. “Sorry. It’s just that my hair is a mess under the wig, and I don’t want you to see it.”

A raven, blue-black mess you will recognize immediately.

“Are you under the impression we’re about to have our fucking wedding photos taken?” Pleasure twirled in his grey-hued eyes. “Who the fuck cares?”

“No, you’re right, of course not.”

Silly girl, Ms. B’s song tutted in my head. So submissive and easy.

“While we’re at it, why don’t you take off the sunglasses?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Makes me feel like I’m getting head from Stevie Wonder.”

Because you’ll see my eyes and recognize them, too.

My eyes were the kind of blue you didn’t see every day. Father said they were only matched by the ocean in their blueness.

I grabbed his shaft and deep-throated him, making him nearly roar with pleasure.

“Nice diversion, Roberts. Faster.”

I began pumping in and out, still amazed that Sam Brennan’s cock was in my mouth.

My fascination—no, obsession—with him knew no bounds, something even I couldn’t deny. But it was harmless, too. We were both single, of age, and constantly in the same vicinity. He changed my life in ways and shaped it into something different and deeper. Giving him good head was the least I could do to pay him back for putting me on the path I was today.

“All right, let’s see what your cunt or ass is made of. On your feet, Pretty Woman.”

I rose to my full height, euphoria swirling through me like a storm. He grabbed the back of my head and kissed me. A lazy, horny kiss. Full of tongue and teeth and intent. Nothing like the kiss we’d shared on that haunted ride all those years ago. It didn’t unfold slowly like a well-crafted book.

Sam pulled away from me suddenly, frowning at me.

“What?” I asked, panting hard, my underwear already soaked. I clutched the collar of his dress shirt, rubbing my covered tits against his chest shamelessly, already on the brink of orgasm. “What, what?”

“Ginger,” he hissed coolly. “And honey.”

“Ginger?” I blinked frantically behind my shades. “What do you mean?”