I want to get out of here.

I want to drop naked onto the floor and not care who sees.

“With me,” Damien says brusquely, tugging me with him as he hurries past the desk and into the foundation’s main hall. We reach the end of the corridor, then enter his private office. It’s rarely occupied—he tends to work from here only when he’s holding a foundation-related meeting or courting donations—but it has a desk and a couch.

Best of all, the door locks.

He closes it, then flips the latch, then presses me against the wall, his hand cupping the back of my neck. “Nikki,” he murmurs, before his mouth closes hard over mine.

His other hand slides down my body, cupping my breast, tracing my waist. His fingers move as he hitches up my skirt, then slides his hand up my thigh as I gasp against his mouth, then cry out when he cups my sex.

I whimper, craving a more intimate touch, and he doesn’t disappoint. His fingers slide under my soaked panties, and he thrusts them inside me, then finger fucks me in time with his tongue teasing my mouth.

My fingers dig into his shoulders as I moan with need. I want more—so much more. Wilder, more intense. And when he picks me up and carries me to the couch, I anticipate a savage build, a violent claiming.

I know how much the drama with Sofia has weighed on him. Then there’s the miscarriage, the arrest, my mother—with all of that, he must be about to burst. But instead of coming to me, he’s been boxing in the gym, pounding out his frustrations.

I know that he’s been trying to let me heal. But physically, I’m fine now, and I need that intensity. That desperate, primal wildness that has always been our strength.

I need it, and because I know he does, too, I expect him to take me brutally. To use me as an antidote against all his fears and frustration.

And yet he doesn’t.

Instead he pulls my panties off and settles me on the couch. He kisses me, strokes me, teases. Every touch is a treasure. Every stroke ignites my senses, making me crazy with need. And with every touch, I expect him to ratchet it higher.

I’m so damn wet, my thighs slick with need. And when I spread my legs, he thrusts inside me, kissing me as he makes love to me, fingering me to take me closer to the edge, pushing me higher and higher until an unexpected orgasm rocks through me, and I shatter into a million pieces, then sigh beneath him, warm and sated, as he murmurs that he loves me.

He’s made love to me beautifully, with a gentle sweetness that fills me with a tender love and a glowing happiness—and a hint of dissatisfaction.

I curl against him, frustrated with myself, because I know that I should feel nothing but joy that we are healing. But I can’t quite get there. Because underneath the happiness, I can’t deny the tiny niggle of fear that he’s ignoring what he needs because he sees me as something fragile and breakable.

Most of all, I can’t escape the fear that we’ll never truly get past this tragedy if we can’t take from each other exactly what we need.

23

I spend the next three days using the third-floor kitchen as an office. The table is my desk, and while my laptop is the centerpiece, all of my documentation for the Greystone-Branch project is spread over the polished wood.

I sit for so long, my ass goes numb, and I drink what must be several times my weight in coffee. I sleep only when I have to, and my food is all delivery.

Damien has said he’ll cook for me—which is tempting as he has surprising skill in that area—but I’ve told him that if I’m getting back to work, then he must, too. And I’m not going to accept food charity if it keeps him away from his empire.

I’m not entirely sure that he’s getting much work done, but he does spend a few hours at his desk on the mezzanine level every day, and longer than that juggling conference calls.

By the fourth day, though, he stands behind me with his hands on my shoulders. “You need to slow down,” he says. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

I think of what Sofia said. About how she worked hard and clawed her way back. If she could salvage her sanity, then I can damn well save my business. “I’ve lost too much already,” I tell Damien. “I’m not losing this contract, too.”

He pulls up the chair beside me and sits down, then presses his hand over mine so that I’m forced to stop typing. I look up, irritated. Because, frankly, I really am screwed here, and if I don’t hit my next marker, I’m going to have to pull out of the project. Wait any longer, and it would be unprofessional; I’d be leaving Greystone-Branch in a terrible mess because there’d be no way for me to finish on time.

“You can’t push yourself like this for the next three months.”

“I made a commitment. More than that, I worked my ass off to get this job in the first place. I’m not letting it slip away.” I know I’m bordering on unreasonable, but I can’t stand the thought of losing the job after the baby. It’s too much—just too damn much.

He nods a little sadly, then presses a kiss to my forehead. “I know. But you’re pushing the limit.”

“Dammit, I don’t have a choice.” I lean back and hold up my hands. “Sorry. I don’t mean to snap, but I’m under the gun, and I need to concentrate. I’m working on a tricky section and the coding is complicated.”

He sits for a minute studying my face, then he nods. “All right. What can I do to help?”

I cock my head. “In case you’ve forgotten, you have a universe to run.”

“Nikki—”

“If you really want to help, let me do this. I just need time. Please, Damien. That’s all I really need.”

For a moment, I think he’s going to argue some more, then he stands up and walks away with my coffee cup. He returns a few moments later with a coffee refill and a frozen Milky Way.

I force myself not to laugh. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

“Any time, Ms. Fairchild.”

He heads for the elevator that is the quickest route to the mezzanine, and I turn back to my coding. A few moments later, I hear the murmur of his voice as he starts to make phone calls. I tune him out and dive back in because there is more code to be written than there are hours in the day.

I’m deep in the thick of it when I hear the doorbell, which is odd because guests can’t actually get to the door without going through the security gate. But I assume that I was so deep in concentration that I didn’t hear the intercom, and that Damien took care of it.