“How did you know that you’d be good at...what you used to do?” she asked.
The look Stefan shot at her was amused. “I did not know. I did it and did not die. Again and again. This is how I decided it was good.” The corner of his mouth kicked up, and she knew by now that it was his real smile. She could see the way it made his eyes gleam. “Also I made money. This was also good.”
“Some people have a calling, you know.” Indy sighed. “Is something wrong with us that we don’t?”
“If you want there to be.” He reached over and tapped her on the nose. “Yes, some people have a calling. But everybody has a life. You are not required to choose your path once, long ago, and never deviate from it again. Maybe those who live that way are lucky. But then again, maybe not. Maybe it is better to try many things, so that when you choose, you know you chose well.”
“Says the gangster who’s made himself an art dealer.”
His smile sharpened. “All art dealers are gangsters, Indiana. Ask any artist.”
That night, everything seemed hotter. Brighter.
She knew by now that the kind of intensity she’d been so afraid of was both better and worse than she’d feared. Better, because it didn’t wreck her and it made everything sing, in and out of bed. But it did ask more of her than she’d ever given before. It was the intimacy of this month together. It was staying put and more than that, letting herself enjoy what that was like. To relax into the time. To do it without daydreaming where she’d go next.
It was the conversations they had, rambling and endless, picking up and carrying on from one hour to the next. From one night into the next afternoon, making her think things like forever.
It was Stefan himself. This wild thing they’d built between them.
And it was worse, too, because it had an expiration date.
But Indy didn’t like to think about that.
It was a long night. Stefan woke her again and again, taking her in every way he could, almost as if he was marking her. Imprinting himself on her and inside her, making her body his so that there would be nothing left of her that wasn’t his.
A thought that made her come all around him, screaming out his name.
The next morning he was there when she woke, looking down at her with a stark expression on that beautiful face of his.
She blinked, then moved closer, searching his gaze as she fit her palms to his jaw. His beard had come in and scraped at her skin, but she loved it. She loved the heat. She loved—
Careful, she warned herself. Be very careful.
“What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“Today is a naked day, foolish girl,” he said, darkly. And she remembered, vaguely, that she’d once complained about that endearment. When now it was like a song inside her, sweet and long. “And it will be intense.”
“Isn’t it always?”
But she had hardly recognized the smile he gave her then. It didn’t make it to his eyes.
“This will be different,” Stefan told her. “Because this will be the last.”
CHAPTER TEN
“STEFAN...” INDY BEGAN.
But he didn’t want to hear it.
Because their month was up tomorrow and the only thing she seemed to want to talk about was how to find her passion.
Meaning, clearly, it wasn’t him.
He was going to have to find a way to be okay with that.
Tomorrow.
“Quiet,” he said now, his voice low. “Today will be a day of silent reflection.”
Indy laughed, and not in the genuine way he loved. “I don’t think that it will.”
“If you are not quiet,” he continued in the same tone, feeling the anticipation in him surge, “I will find a way to encourage you. You do like it when I spank you, don’t you?”
“You can do whatever you want,” she said. “But first—”
“No,” he said, cutting her off. “No first. On your knees, foolish girl. There’s much to do today.”
Indy looked a little surly, but she obeyed him. Because she knew by now that when it came to naked days and power exchanges, he meant what he said.
And she loved that he did. She told him so, but even if she hadn’t, the way she melted in his hands would have done the trick.
“You might want to do something about the insolence in that gaze of yours,” he murmured as she sucked him in deep. “Or you can be sure I will.”
She lowered her lashes immediately, but he knew full well that he would have the opportunity to express himself as the day wore on.
Because Indy loved to play sex games, but she was only submissive when she thought it was hot. It wasn’t a lifestyle.
Too bad, he thought, because if it were, he would simply order her to stay with him and that would be the end of it.
But that wasn’t who he was, either.
He came with a roar, his hands deep in her hair. And he watched, feeling himself heat up all over again as she swallowed him down, then smiled as if she was the one in control.
Sometimes he couldn’t tell either.
And this was the last day, so he knew this was going to go, didn’t he? The only mystery was how she would leave. He didn’t think she would creep away in the night. He thought she would put on one of her performances. A lot of laughter, probably some sweetness, and then she would dance away into what was left of the summer, leaving him here with whatever was left of him.
He would have to find a way to accept that.
Because this was the tyranny of wanting things he couldn’t simply take. This was the problem with the intensity he demanded from her. For
