Sam groaned, giving a few jerky thrusts. We came together.

My vision was spotty, and everything shifted out of focus. I could feel myself milking the orgasm out of him, how hard he was inside me.

I let my upper body go limp against the pool table, closing my eyes, aware that my skirt was still pushed up around my waist as he carefully slid out of me from behind. Every inch of him coming out was excruciating, and I suspected there were a lot of inches of him.

With my cheek still plastered to the green fur of the pool table, I heard Sam shifting around the room, moving around. Slowly, I shimmied my skirt down my thighs so that at least my bare, bruised butt wasn’t on full display.

“Get the fuck up, ice princess. My grand vintage billiard table is not meant for sleep.”

I turned around, deliberately climbing on the table and lounging there, my forearms digging to its surface, making myself comfortable. If I was good enough to be screwed against said billiard table, I was also good enough to sit on it.

“Ask nicely,” I said, in my cold, upper-crust tone—the one I knew he hated so much. “And I might.”

“I never do anything nicely. You should know by now. Where’d you learn all your little bed tricks?” Sam sat behind his desk, buckling his belt, his reptilian air concealing any sign we’d just screwed each other’s brains out.

He lit a cigarette, puffing a swirl of smoke in my direction.

“You mean, fuck?” I hopped off the pool table, smiling as I picked up my wig and sunglasses. “Don’t forget I spent seven years among people whose sole purpose in life was studying the human body. I had some pretty good time exploring all the ways to make a person scream in pleasure … and pain. You haven’t seen the half of it.” I rearranged my skirt and wig, forcing myself to head to the door. Not because I wanted to but because I had to pretend I at least had a shred of dignity still left inside me.

It was a well-known fact that Aisling Fitzpatrick had been head over heels in love with Samuel Brennan since the day we’d met. There was no need to shower Sam with undivided attention and desperate love declarations. We had a great hookup. Now the ball was in his court.

I wanted anything he was willing to give me.

A fling, a relationship, and everything in between, just as long as he’d have me.

Pathetic? Maybe. But I wasn’t hurting anyone. No one but myself.

And Sam? As scary as he was, I knew he would never lay a hand on me in ways I didn’t want him to. He was dangerous, yes, but not to my life. Only my sanity.

“That’s more than I wanted to know about you, kid,” Sam said around his lit cigarette, frowning at the monitor on his desk as he watched what was going on at the club.

“What are you doing these days, anyway? Pediatrician, right?” He huffed.

“OB-GYN. Brigham and Women’s Hospital,” I answered, smoothing my skirt over my thighs, taking another step toward the door.

Stop me. Tell me to stay. Ask for my number.

“You really thought you could seduce me by dressing up?” he asked out of nowhere.

“I did, didn’t I?” I said haughtily then rolled my eyes. “Honestly? I dressed like this to get in, not to seduce you.”

“Why did you want to get in?” His eyes were still on the screen.

“Because Badlands is the hottest place in Boston.”

“You don’t care about the hottest places in Boston,” he pointed out.

“Of course I do,” I said stonily, internally wondering if he’d considered me, my likes and dislikes. “Sometimes even good girls want to be bad.”

“Which is why you were banned from this establishment in the first place,” he deadpanned.

“That’s unfair.”

“Fair and I don’t even share the same fucking planet. Which part of my character made you think I care about being fair?”

Between extortion, murder, and money laundering, Sam didn’t exactly have any spare time to join the League of Justice as Captain Nice Guy. Still, calling him unfair seemed … well, unfair. He did throw out a guy who had assaulted me, after all.

“I’m banned from your establishment because you know if I get too close, you’d actually have to pay attention to me, and every time we’re together, magic happens,” I countered, challenging him.

Leave, mon cheri. You are not doing yourself any favors, Ms. B’s voice urged in my head.

Sam sat back, finally ripping his gaze from the screen to look at me.

“The only magic we shared today was that I made your asshole about an inch wider for life. Regardless of that, you pulled a dirty move, Miss Fitzpatrick.”

“We monsters do what we have to do. You know that better than I do.” I shrugged.

“You’re no monster,” he hissed.

“You have no idea who or what I am.”

“What was your objective? One fuck?” he seethed.

“One? No. A few? Sure, depending on your attitude,” I replied noncommittedly, starting for the door.

He could deny me all he wanted, but when we were on that pool table, he’d looked at me like he did at the carnival. With a hunger that told me he was going to devour me and leave nothing for the man who came after him.

“Aisling,” he barked when my hand found the door handle, about to push it open and leave.

I stopped but didn’t turn around, my heart rioting in my chest.

“If we fuck—and that’s an if, not a when—that’s all we’ll be doing. Every single thing you were born and bred to achieve—a respectable husband, children, a family, a Labrador to complete your Christmas photo—I rejected before you were even born. It will be just that. Fucking. And no one could ever know about our arrangement, for obvious reasons.”

We both knew what the obvious reasons were, and neither of us dared to utter them aloud.

He was offering me something. A start. I knew the rest would be hard-earned. Sam Brennan was a broken man, but not beyond repair. I believed that with my entire heart even and maybe because of the things I’d witnessed him do over the years.

He had gotten my family out of trouble countless times, saved my older brother from losing the family company, and doted on me from afar.

He may not have known it about himself, but he did have a moral code, and rules, and hard limits.

I was going to make him see himself the way I saw him. Then maybe, just maybe, he could see me for who I was. A woman worthy of his attention.

For now, I was willing to take what he was willing to offer, even if it was just carnal, angry sex.

Oui. You officially lost your mind, mon cheri.

“What do you have in mind?” I propped a shoulder on his doorframe, exhibiting the nonchalance of aged goat cheese.

Sam rubbed at his jaw, thoroughly annoyed with the entire situation.

“Well, we can’t fuck around in your place since you still live with your parents—what the hell is that all about, anyway?—and I never let anyone into my apartment, so I guess you can meet me here tomorrow. Same time.”

“Why not there?” I shot out.

“Huh?” He looked up from his screen, already done with the conversation.

“Why don’t you let anyone into your apartment?”

“Because I hate everyone,” he said inhumanly slowly, looking at me like the answer was crystal clear and I was a perfect idiot. “Why the fuck else?”