Me: I told you to stay put.

Elle: I’ve been here for months. It’s safe.

She had a point. As long as I didn’t go there and she wasn’t seen with me, she was safe—for now. My fingers hovered over my screen. I wanted to say something to her to let her know I was thinking about her. My feelings confused even me. I’d known her what, four days, and I wanted to know more of her. I’d told her about the darkest part of me, and she didn’t think I was a monster. Something was happening between us, but I wasn’t sure either of us knew what it was.

Me: Looking forward to seeing you.

Elle: J

A smiley face? What the hell did that mean? I shoved my phone into my pocket before I sent her back a matching one or worse yet, a wink, or who the hell knew, maybe an xoxo. If I didn’t get my thoughts under control, I might just be texting her a heart before I even realized it. My groan was loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear. I wanted to plug my own ears.

Pulling out, I focused on the traffic, the cloudy day, the people on the street. Anything to take my mind off the girl I was becoming way too attached to.

I spent the afternoon at the waterfront. What I thought I’d find there, I had no idea. I roamed Seaport Boulevard. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. I ventured into the hotel lobbies. I found shit. Wandered the waterfront. The only things there were boats and seafood.

By five o’clock, I’d had enough.

It was time to get back to the hotel.

And I wanted to see Elle.

ELLE

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the couch.

My laptop was on my knees, my inventory pad beside me, and my cell close at hand. I felt drained and done with work. The crackle of the logs caused me to open my eyes. Setting my things aside, I looked around.

Logan’s suite was swanky. That was the best word to describe it. Modern black sofas, crystal chandeliers, fine abstract art, and beautiful side pieces to accompany it all.

The vanilla curtains blew in the breeze and the fireplace warmed me. I’d decided on opening the terrace door and turning on the gas fireplace. My nerves had my temperature fluctuating. One minute I was hot, the next I was cold.

Peyton had said she was absolutely fine, but I forbade her from coming to work until Saturday. She needed to take a few days off. If what Logan said was true, and I was certain it was, I wanted her far away from anything until after Friday passed.

Friday.

D-day.

I hoped Michael knew what he was doing.

He’d stopped by the boutique with Clementine and Sarah, the nanny, at lunch. Peyton had me seeing things that weren’t there, I was sure, but Michael did look pretty at ease with the nanny. He also seemed to be back to normal. He acted like nothing out of the ordinary was taking place in our life. He also acted like his wife hadn’t been missing for three months. I think he’d convinced himself that she really was in rehab. Both behaviors bothered me.

Cracking open a bottle of water, I checked the time—five fifteen. My stomach was growling, so I reached over to the pile of snacks I had brought from my stash at the boutique. The coffee table was littered with fruit roll-ups, granola bars, pretzel bags, and a few Snickers.

My fingers glided over each one before I decided on pretzels. They were the flat kind with salt-and-pepper flavoring. My favorite.

I pulled my laptop back onto my lap and in the search bar, feeling oddly curious, I typed in two words: sex addict. Not that I thought I was one. It’s just that for so long I’d thought of myself as almost asexual and now, after meeting Logan, that clearly was not the case. Still, naturally, I had to wonder if it was possible to move to the other side of the spectrum.

An article in Psychology Today magazine caught my attention. It was titled, “How to Tell If You Are a Sex Addict.” The article contained many stories of people who had thought they might be. I read them all but couldn’t relate to any of them. Still, I read on. I stopped when I came to a quiz with a series of questions:

Do you find yourself unable to concentrate because you’re thinking about sex?

Do you pay for sex? (Porn or prostitution.)

Has your sexual activity ever caused problems for your family?

Even when you’re in a relationship, do you still masturbate two or three times a day?

There were dozens and dozens more questions, but I stopped there. I was confident that I was most definitely not a sex addict. Who knows? Maybe I was just a normal woman with healthy sexual urges.

Munching on my pretzels, I liked that thought. Curiosity drove me to keep searching, and this time I Googled sex drive. The first article I read stated that the majority of Americans in their late twenties and early thirties have sex with their partner two to three times per week. There were tons more articles, all stating the same thing. Interesting. I was pretty sure Logan and I might have sex two to three times per day if we could.

That put a huge smile on my face.

I was biting down on another pretzel in fascination when I heard the lock. The sound caused my heartbeat to step up.

Slowly, the door opened.

My eyes were glued to it and then glued to him the minute he stepped through it. He paused in the doorway. Right away the air felt thick—just the way I seemed to like it as of late.

I licked the salt off my lips and stared at him. When he flew out of the bedroom this morning, he left so fast, all I saw was a flash of gray. Now, I could see him, really see him, and he looked edible in the designer suit he had on. And the tie loose around his neck with the first few buttons of his white shirt open only made him look even sexier.

I was becoming obsessed with this man.

Was obsession one of the questions in any of the quizzes I’d looked at, I wondered?

If so, I didn’t care. I wanted this man. And that had to be a normal, healthy, and happy reaction.

Logan looked over at me—his eyes on me like they had never been. “Hey.” His voice was smooth like honey.

Something fluttered in my belly—butterflies? No. I was a grown woman. I didn’t get butterflies. Yet they felt an awful lot like them. “Hi,” I said back. “How was work?”

“I spent the day at the waterfront,” he said, striding toward me, tugging his tie off as he walked.

My pulse raced. “Why were you at the waterfront?”

I breathed him in. I hadn’t realized it, but I think I might have missed him.

Logan moved my computer aside and bent to brush his lips against mine. “I’ll tell you later.”

I accepted his answer—for now.

His mouth felt warm above mine, and I closed my eyes, reminding myself this was only supposed to be about the fucking. And it was normal.

He pulled away and smiled at me. The way he was looking at me made my skin tingle.

That was when I knew I was lying to myself—this was about more than just the fucking.

I was falling for him.

“What are you reading?” He nodded his head toward my computer.

I quickly moved to slam the screen down, but he was faster. He grabbed it and sat beside me. With a wiggle of his brows he read the name of the article I had been reading: “Sex Drive: How Do Men and Women Compare?”

“Give me that,” I said, reaching for the laptop.

With a boyish grin that melted me, he shook his head. “You’re looking at porn.”

“Please,” I said rather haughtily. “I am not looking at porn. I’m doing research.”

“Number one,” he said. “Men think about sex more. Number two,” he went on. “Two-thirds of men admit to masturbating three to four times a week.” He chuckled at that.

The thought of watching him do it seemed highly erotic. “Do you?”