“And will our rules apply then, Mr. Stark? I’m not sure how much tennis will get played if I’m wearing one of those outfits and no underwear.”

“I’m intrigued, Ms. Fairchild. I think you may have made up my mind for me. I’ll start interviewing construction companies in the morning.”

“Very funny,” I say.

“You laugh now,” he says. “But wait until I take you by the ball cage.”

“Now you’re just talking dirty to me.”

He laughs and grabs my hand, and I hurry to keep step beside him. My mood is light, and I’m glad we escaped the party. Whatever drama had been clinging to me has dissipated. It is just me and Damien and the wide night sky.

“What?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re smiling.”

“Maybe I’m happy.”

“Are you?” he asks, his eyes roaming over my face. “So am I.”

“Damien.” I move closer, craving a kiss, but it’s his finger that my lips find. “Ah-ah,” he says. “Start that up and we’ll never get where we’re going.”

“So we are going somewhere? I was beginning to think we were simply taking a hike to Ventura County.”

“Actually,” he says, “we’re here.” We’ve stopped in front of a vine-covered hill.

“Lovely,” I say. “But if you’re planning to ravage me in the flowers, I should say that I would have been just as happy on the stone path.”

“I’ll make a note for future reference,” he says. “But this isn’t our final destination.”

“Oh?”

He doesn’t answer my question. At least, not with words. Instead, he pulls out a key fob, presses a small red button, and a set of wooden doors—camouflaged with vines—begins to rise. Light from the interior emerges, spreading wider and wider as the door lifts higher. I feel as though there should be a soundtrack—“Ode to Joy,” perhaps—as this secret room is revealed.

At first I can see nothing because my eyes haven’t adjusted to the abrupt change in lighting. But as Damien leads me toward the now open door, I see that this is a garage. A huge garage, to be precise, and as I stand in the doorway and look up and down the long, narrow structure, I count no less than fifteen classic cars all lined up and polished.

The walls are white, as is the concrete flooring. The lights overhead are glaring white as well. For a moment, I feel like I’ve died and gone to car heaven. I turn and gape at Damien. “You have got to be kidding me. You’ve barely finished the actual house, and yet you have a fully tricked out, fifteen-car garage hidden in the hillside?”

“I didn’t want a detached garage to mar the landscape,” he says. “Although to be fair the garage has been on the property long before the house. I built this three years ago while my architect was working out the plans for the residence. And just to clarify, it’s a twenty-car garage.”

I shoot him a bored look. “All this space in the hills and only twenty? And detached from the house? Seriously, Mr. Stark, what happens if it’s raining?”

“I use the tunnel access,” he says nodding toward the far side and a metal door over which is neatly printed the word “Residence” in red block letters.

“You really are a walking cliché,” I say, but I’m laughing.

“Not at all,” he says. “I’m a driving one.” He looks giddy, like a boy playing with his favorite toys on Christmas morning, and the mood is infectious.

“What kind of car is this?” I ask, pausing by the one closest to the door. It is old-fashioned and open, and I can imagine women in flapper gowns riding with the top down, waving at boys and feeling smug in their daring.

“A Gardner touring car,” he says. “But come here, this is my real prize.” We walk down two stalls to an ancient model, so polished and shined that it seems to glow as bright as the room itself. “A Baker Electric car,” he says. “Thomas Edison actually owned this very automobile.”

“Seriously?” I am duly impressed. “That should be in a museum.”

“I offer it on loan quite often,” he says. “But not permanently. I don’t see the point of owning extraordinary toys if I can’t have them around to enjoy. Just as I don’t see the point of having money and not using it to acquire interesting things, if not for myself, then for the people I care about.”

I think about the Monet and the camera and the clothes and all the other gifts he’s showered upon me. “Fortunately for those of us who are the recipients of your magnanimity, you have excellent taste.”

“Indeed I do, Ms. Fairchild.” He holds out his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you our ride for the night.”

We move down the row of cars and stop in front of a low-slung forest-green two-seater with a hood that seems longer than the car itself.

“All right,” I say, unable to stop smiling. “Tell me all about it.”

It’s as if I’ve given him permission to sing. “Jaguar E-Type Roadster,” he begins, then starts to itemize all of the intricate details of this fine automobile that, he assures me, will transport us to our destination in luxury and style.

“I hope there won’t be a pop quiz,” I admit. “Because I didn’t catch anything but the name and the fact that I’m very impressed.”

“That’ll do,” he says.

“Did you rebuild it?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Edward told me about the Bentley. I can’t quite imagine you all covered in grease and oil.”

“That’s funny,” he says with undeniable heat in his voice. “I have no trouble at all imagining you naked and slick with oil, spread out on a bed just waiting to be fucked.”

“Oh,” I say. “Oh.”

He chuckles, then opens the door for me. The car is so low that it is almost impossible to enter and exit modestly in so short a skirt. A fact that Damien clearly picks up on, as his hand slides up the back of my thigh, then slides between my legs. My body trembles from his touch, and I moan as he slowly thrusts two fingers inside me. I grip the side of the door, my balance awkward, my entire body quaking with desire. I want to close my thighs, but I can’t. One foot is on the floorboard, the other on the concrete. Shift my position and I will fall.

But then again, I don’t really want to shift my position.

“Yes,” he says. “This is how I want you. Hot and wet and on fire for me. I want you fuckable, Nikki. Anytime, anyplace, I want you ready.”

“I’m always ready for you,” I whisper, both because he wants to hear it, and because it is true.

“I should fuck you now,” he says, moving his fingers slowly in and out of me. My sex clenches, drawing him in, wanting more and more. Wanting all of him. “I should bend you over the hood of this car and lift your skirt and spank your ass until it’s red and throbbing. Then I should thrust my cock into your sweet, wet cunt. Is that what you want, Nikki? You can tell me. Tell me all the things you want me to do to you, Nikki. Tell me how you want me to fuck you.”