“Quentin,” she cried out.

His shorts were down, the condom was on, he was inside her. Then deeper inside her, then deeper inside than she was prepared for. She gasped as he slid as deep as possible and stopped, like a dead bolt sliding home in a lock.

Her sweat cooled on her skin. Shivering, she slicked her hands down the sweat on his back. She whispered, “Your eyes turn dark when you’re angry.”

He moved a little inside her, making her jump.

She began to be afraid. “Smile,” she said.

“Can’t.”

“Have you gone over to the Dark Side?”

“Maybe.”

Sarah thought she knew what was going on. He wasn’t jealous about Harold. He felt guilty again for cheating, so to speak, on Erin. “Well, you done done it now,” she said, imitating the hick line from “Come to Find Out.” Anything to bring back his laugh. “You might as well enjoy it.”

He put his hand to her cheek. His callused fingers still trembled. He whispered, “When I saw that guy, I just . . . It was this animal thing. I had to have you. Mine.”

She decided to believe him, for now, because it was so good.

He moved again, long and hard inside her, and kissed her while he made slow love to her. The chill of cooled sweat on her skin turned hot once more. The late afternoon sun filtered through the curtains and bathed them both in its orange glow. She listened to cars passing and people laughing in the street as his tongue caressed her mouth. His c**k rocked her gently, yet pushed her beyond where she’d thought her limits had been, deep into her. He held her hand with his big hand.

She thought it was her moan each time he pressed far into her that changed the tone. The languid afternoon honed a sharp edge as his mouth grew more insistent on her mouth and his c**k massaged her harder and faster. She felt herself rising. She turned her head so his tongue played in her ear and she could talk. She wasn’t sure what she said, but it involved Quentin and it was dirty.

She came just at the moment he began to climb. Her orgasm went on and on and folded over on itself as he thrust into her. Finally he squeezed her hand, and she watched the hard muscles of his stomach tense as he came.

He collapsed onto her and kissed her gently, so slowly. Kissed eyelids. Cheek. Neck. Breast. A pause to suck her nipple. Kissed her shoulder. Inside of elbow. Wrist. Each finger of the hand he held. Then back to her mouth again, a sexy grind of his tongue inside her mouth. Still holding her hand, he propped his chin in his other hand and gazed at her.

“The dark look remains,” she said. “This happened after the hand job, too. Coming makes you vacant. The porch light’s on, but no one’s home.”

“No,” he said. “It makes me think, which is a real scary thing for me to be doing.” His hand played with her hand, tracing up and down her fingers and circling in her palm. “I want you to know something. That first night, and the next morning, I never forgot your name.”

She laughed. “So you’re full of shit. Which I knew.”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Can’t a man be serious for once?”

Natsuko said, “No,” while Sarah whimpered.

He dropped her hand and smoothed his hand across the flat of her belly. Her sex began to ache for him again.

But instead of moving his hand lower and rubbing there, abruptly he rolled away and stood. “Back in a few.”

“Mm. ’Kay,” she managed. She had hoped he would take her again. Harder, if possible. Surely that wasn’t all? No, of course that wasn’t all. He’d said he would be back.

Staring at the ceiling, she breathed deeply and let out long sighs of satisfaction. She ought to be worried about what they’d done, what this meant for his relationship with Erin and her job with Stargazer. Her mind kept hitting this problem and skipping over it like a song on a scratched CD. The lyrics that played in her head, strong and loud, were that she’d had sex with Quentin Cox the country singer. It had been excellent. And on some level, she had known all along this would happen.

A noise in the hallway brought her attention back to the reality of her apartment. Bags rustled and cans clanked together as he picked up the groceries he’d dropped at the front door. The sounds came again as he set the groceries down on the kitchen counter. Then, in her bathroom, the shower and the fan turned on.

She rubbed her thighs lightly with her fingertips, thinking of her last shower with him. Maybe this was an invitation for an encore.

Or he just wanted to take a shower. And if she went in after him, she would be the groupie slut that she’d pretended to be at the lake.

As she moved her fingertips up to caress her nipples, she decided that she could not possibly be a groupie slut when he was in her apartment. So she slipped from the tangled sheets and padded into the bathroom after him.

Through the steam, she saw that a single condom packet sat waiting on the bathroom counter. That was her answer.

She’d passed through this bathroom plenty of times while Harold was taking a shower. She paused with her hand on the shower door, taking in the dark blur of Quentin’s body behind the wet glass, so much taller and more powerful than Harold’s body. She opened the door.

Quentin was watching her already, green eyes intent, as he worked a bar of soap in his hands. As soon as she clicked the door shut behind her, he reached for her, smoothing the suds across her chest. He circled her ni**les with his thumbs. Every part of her body responded, wanting him close to her, on top of her, inside her. His hands traveled down her h*ps and kneaded her thighs, and she opened her legs for him. His fingers found her curls and rubbed them clean, then pulled her into the hot shower stream to rinse her. She pressed her face into his rock-hard biceps and tried her best to hold on as he massaged her.

Remembering that she owed him one, she moved her mouth to his nipple, circled it with her tongue, bit gently. He made a noise, something between a grunt and a laugh. She licked her way down his sternum. But with a quick glance up at his face, she saw that he followed her movements with his green eyes hard and his strong jaw locked. He was waiting patiently for one thing.

He held her by the elbows as she eased down to her knees on the tile. She reached for his erection.

She opened her mouth wide to slip the thick ridge of his head past her lips. There she paused, both hands gripping his solid thighs, and thought about what she was doing: giving the front man of the Cheatin’ Hearts a bl*w j*b. Then she rose up on her knees and took as much of him into her mouth as she could, feeling his head bump against the back of her throat.

Even over the sounds of the fan and streaming water, she heard him gasp and try to keep control with hard, short breaths through his nose. One of his hands fisted her hair and the other supported her chin, guiding her where he wanted her to go. She loved that he knew what he desired, and he took it from her. That made her want to pleasure him even more. She opened wider but pressed him with her lips. As she pictured what she must look like to him, she felt her ni**les beading in the hot water, and her sex was slick and ready.

Stroking into her mouth and out, holding her head steady, he growled, “Remember what I told you would happen if you tried to get me off in the shower?”

She did remember, and her body flashed hot at the threat.

He released her and pulled away from her. Then he grabbed her up from the floor and kicked the shower door open so hard that it banged against the wall. He hauled her out of the hot spray into the cool bathroom. Throwing a towel down on the edge of the counter, he forced her down onto it and held her there with one heavy hand. She was able to see his blurry reflection in the mirror as he picked up the condom packet with the other hand and tore it open with his teeth. He watched himself unroll the sheath. And then he watched himself guide his dick inside her.

She let out a cry as his head stretched her. His green eyes flicked up to meet her gaze in the steamy mirror, then back down. With a long, quiet groan of pleasure, he eased the ridge of his head through her opening and buried himself inside her.

In this position, the feeling was so intense that she tried to wiggle away from him, down, forward, anywhere. He slapped his hands to her buttocks and held her still as he began to pump rhythmically into her. His dick pressed along the front wall of her va**na and found her G-spot, she knew, because now she felt her face flush hotter and the hair on her arms stand up. A few more strokes and she fell into a black abyss.

She spasmed around his solid member, aching for him to pull out, and still he pumped into her. Bending over her to whisper closer to her ear, he said, “You look so sweet when you come, Sarah. I’ll bet you can come again for me.”

She wasn’t so sure. Trying to work past her discomfort, she raised herself on her tiptoes to give him a slightly more open angle, and she squeezed herself around him.

He gasped sharply, slapped both hands to her ass, gripped her h*ps hard as he impaled her. Her discomfort vanished, replaced by a desire for him to get as far as he could inside her, empty himself into her. Every thought centered around one spot, the place where he joined with her.

“Quentin,” she cried as she felt herself rising again. This time they came together, his hardest thrusts timing perfectly with her loss of control.

And then, as her orgasm trailed away but he still pumped himself hard inside her, the tiniest sense of panic grew in her belly. She watched his reflection making love to her, taking up a huge part of her mirror. This was a famous singer, one of the spoiled stars she’d been sent to whip into shape, and he had f**ked her.

He placed one hot hand on her lower back, where her tramp stamp would be if she really were a tramp—which she was beginning to have some second thoughts about. “My God, Sarah,” he said, “could you get any hotter?” He took a long, steadying breath that ended in a small laugh. “I need to lie down for a minute. How about you?”

“Uh.” She was speechless.

He helped her up from the counter, then rubbed her dry with the towel that had cushioned her. He dried himself while she dialed the shower off. Then he led her by the hand through the apartment, back to her bed. The afternoon light filtering through the window had tired and softened as they slid into the sheets, facing each other.

He put his hand on her hip and closed his eyes.

She put her hand on his chest and closed her eyes.

She rested. Blanked. It felt like a long time, but glancing at the beside clock, she saw only a quarter hour had passed when she woke and saw he was watching her.

His hand stroked her hip. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You won’t be able to wear that bikini for a few days. This is going to bruise.”

“It was worth it.” The panic rose inside her again, but she knew her words were true. Whatever the consequences of this day with him, she would cherish the memory.

“You don’t want me to get too close,” he whispered. “You still don’t want me to tell you.”

Tell me what? cried Sarah, but she knew. She said, “No.”

“But we done done it, like you said,” he protested, “and we might as well enjoy it for the rest of the day.” Now his hand trailed from her belly up to her face, and his fingers traced her hairline. “You are so beautiful.” He seemed to be staring at her, studying her genuinely. “Have I ever told you that I really like your hair?”

She smiled.

“See,” he said, running his fingers down the damp strands, “like that, when it falls around your face. It could be a brown strand. It could be blond. It could be pink. It’s different, unpredictable.” He chuckled. “You think I sound like an idiot, like every other man . . . ”

He was about to say in love. She helped him. “Making love,” she suggested, and laughed lightly. “Declarations of a woman’s beauty never sound idiotic. They always sound good.”

He gazed at her seriously for a moment. Then he seemed to realize that it was no use. He laughed again. “Speaking of good,” he said, and she thought he would make a comment about the excellent sex. “How about some na**d Indian food?”

At sunset, they sat outside on her balcony, watching the lights of traffic. Quentin wore his boxers, Sarah a tank top and pajama pants. They looked like two people who’d just had long, hot sex over and over, and she loved it. She wished they could have hot sex and then flaunt the fact to her neighbors every evening, not just this one.

They swayed slowly on the porch swing. When Harold had lived here with her, he’d told her the swing couldn’t be hung here. She had showed him how it could be hung. He had still refused to help her, saying it was stupid to hang a Southern-style porch swing on a New York City balcony. She’d called Tom to help her.

She was glad she had. And she was glad this part of her apartment wasn’t tainted by the hand of Harold, so she could enjoy it with Quentin. Though she had to say that the hand of Harold was quickly fading. It had vanished from her kitchen. And her bathroom. And her bed.

She settled her head back against Quentin’s solid chest. “That was so good,” she said.

“The food or the sex?” he asked. The low notes of his voice vibrated through her body and gave her chills.

“Both,” she said.

“What was your favorite?”

“The aloo gobi,” she said. “And that time between the chutney and the murg saagwala, when you had me turned around backward—”

“Oh yeah,” he said knowingly. “That was good aloo gobi.”

She hit his chest playfully, realizing as she did that this was exactly the move Erin was accustomed to executing on Owen. Shut up, Erin. Sarah asked, “What was your favorite?”

“This is my favorite. Sitting here with you, feeling like you’re mine, like I’ve marked you as mine. I don’t know where this caveman thing is coming from.” He bent toward her and ran his hand along his eyebrow. “Is my brow ridge growing?”