“It would have been a start.”

She needed more, and she knew it. And he should know it.

He pulled her closer, his steps leading them deeper onto the dance floor and pressing his erection more firmly against her stomach.

Kia felt her knees weaken at the feel of his arousal, at the sight of it in his brooding gaze. Chase was hungry, very hungry. She knew that look, had seen it on his face as he took her, felt it in his touch as he held her.

And it was just the hunger.

“I need more than a few phone calls, Kia,” he finally told her. “I’m a man, not a teenager.”

“Are we going to argue the rules of a relationship, Chase?” She shook her head at the thought. “You’re making excuses, and we’ve gone far past that stage. If you want to walk away, then I won’t try to hold you. But if you want more from me, then there are things I need as well.”

She couldn’t afford to let him break her, to allow herself to be broken. She had spent two years attempting to atone for something she hadn’t been the cause of, fearing herself and society because she had lost the confidence she needed to make friends, or to keep them.

Realizing how far she had allowed herself to sink was frightening. Even more frightening was the knowledge that Chase could destroy her as Drew had never imagined destroying her.

“Why isn’t the pleasure enough, Kia?” he asked her then, staring down at her, watching her so closely that she wondered if he could see clear to her soul. Or if he even wanted to.

“Pleasure alone lasts for such a very short time, Chase,” she said. “When the pleasure’s gone, what’s there left to hold on to?”

His expression hardened. “I thought you had already learned, Kia, what you’re holding on to is an illusion to begin with. You want love, don’t you? You want to turn this into an emotional roller coaster that could destroy both of us.”

She shook her head slowly. “It’s only a roller coaster if you want it to be,” she said softly. “But I want more, Chase. I want more, or I want none of it at all. Because when the pleasure is gone, all I have left is a cold bed and the same life I had when you walked into it. Plus the knowledge that something is missing. And I’m tired of that something missing.”

She paused as the music drew to a close and moved from his arms before the orchestra swung into another slow tune.

“It’s 'not enough for you either,” she told him then, knowing it, feeling it so deep inside her that the knowledge was a part of her. “You want it to be. You wish it were. But both of us know it’s not. And that has the potential to destroy us. Not the emotion itself.”

“I wish you wouldn’t walk away, Kia.” His voice was stony, his gaze cool, those light green eyes becoming icy.

She smiled sadly. “I wish I didn’t have to walk away.”

And she did. She turned and moved toward her parents, to where they stood with her aunt.

She had made her appearance, she had mingled, she had danced, and she’d had her single glass of wine. And she’d had enough.

It was far better than she had done in the past two years, she told herself. She wasn’t hiding, she wasn’t afraid of the social niceties, and she did not fear the whispers that followed her.

Turning back, she watched as Chase moved onto the dance floor again, this time with a debutante who was no doubt cooing and simpering at the honor of dancing with one of the princes of society.

Kia sighed with the saddened realization that that girl could have been her six years before Believing she was so poised, so strong, and so impossible to hurt. And she had learned different.

“Kia, sweetheart, your aunt and uncle are coming to the house after the ball.” Her father drew her attention back to him. “You should join us.”

“I think I’ve had enough for the night already, Daddy.” She gripped his arm and reached up to kiss his cheek. “Gould you have the limo brought around for me? I’m heading home.”

“Are you certain?” He frowned and looked over her shoulder to the dance floor, to Chase, no doubt.

“I’m positive.” She nodded decisively. “I need the rest.”

She hugged her parents and her aunt and uncle before moving through the room, keeping her eyes averted from Chase. It was nearly impossible. If she looked at him, she just might weep.

Her fingers ached to caress him, her body tingled with the need for him. Beneath her dress, her juices spilled into the fine lace of her black panties, new panties, bought with Chase in mind.

As the doorman helped her on with her cape and returned her purse to her, Kia turned back and looked.

He wasn’t dancing. He was leaning against the wall as he chatted with Ian Sinclair. His eyes were on her, though. His look called to her, urging her to come back, to take the pleasure he was offering her.

A few hours in his arms, and no more.

Was it worth walking away? Letting go of what she could have in exchange for the loneliness awaiting her at home. She could take him and Khalid, hold on to Chase, and pretend they were alone.

No, she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t. As much as she had enjoyed those stolen encounters, she didn’t want to revisit them.

She turned slowly and moved from the ballroom into the hotel lobby and to the doors that another doorman held open for her.

The limo waited outside beneath the portico, and the snow was falling once again. Huge fat flakes that promised to pile high and once again cover the city with the magic of winter.

She stepped into the limo and settled into the seat with a heavy heart. She could watch the snow from the couch tonight. By herself with the gas logs lit to keep her company. She would push Chase from her heart eventually, and then it wouldn’t hurt anymore. And when it didn’t hurt anymore, perhaps then it would be time to reprioritize her life.

She was spending too much time alone, and a girl could only go shopping so many times. She needed a hobby, perhaps a job. Her father had offered her a job several times and she had refused. Perhaps it was time to take him up on it. Almost anything would beat the loneliness. Working as a consultant only didn’t take up nearly enough time.

Chase stepped out of the hotel entrance as the limo pulled away and the valet pulled in with his car. He slid behind the wheel and accelerated, following the Rutherford limo.

He should have stayed at the party, he told himself. He was a fool to follow her like this, to do what he knew he was going to do.

But he needed her, one last time. Alone.

Just the two of them.

The thought of it had tormented him since the moment she told him not to return to her unless he was alone. That thought, and the permission she had given him to come inside her.

He had never come inside a woman until Kia. From his first sexual experience, to Kia, Chase had always worn protection.

He rubbed at his jaw absently. With Kia, the thought of anything between them made him insane. He wanted to bury himself inside her, bare, feel her clenching and tightening around his cock with each ripple of pleasure that went through her.

Following the limo he let the warnings against a relationship with Kia flow through his mind. He had a lifetime of habit behind him, and it was disintegrating at the thought of Kia’s wet, snug flesh surrounding him.

That should be a warning in itself.

The Rutherford limo pulled up at the sidewalk in front of Kia’s apartment, and the chauffeur jumped out to open the door for her.

“Thank you, David.” She let him help her out, then turned and looked to her side as a familiar form moved into her peripheral vision.

She stared back at him silently as he leaned against the hood of his car, uncaring of the snow that drifted and flew around him.

Kia pulled her cloak tighter around her as she stared at him.