“I’m clean. I get tested often, and since I was last tested, I haven’t been with a woman.”

We had gotten carried away last night, and the condom had broken. Neither of us had seemed to care and had continued on after he ripped it off and tossed it. This morning, I hadn’t even been worried about it. I trusted Gannon. It was probably stupid, but I couldn’t help it. I just did.

“Me, too,” I told him. “I’ve never had unprotected sex, though. Until now.”

His arm tightened around me. “Good. I don’t want to have anything between us again.”

My heart did a silly flip, and I wrapped my arms around his and smiled. I was happy. Completely and totally blissful. Never in my life had I felt like this. I knew he wanted me. I knew he would protect me. And I had fallen in love with this insane, brilliant, sexy man. I hadn’t meant to. I never let my heart actually love, but I had this time. I’d let it love him because it trusted him.

I wasn’t sure he could love in return, but I’d enjoy what he did give me. Until he left. Closing my eyes tightly, I tried to keep the sadness of that thought away. I was happy, and I would enjoy it. Every moment I got.

“Do you want to run after breakfast?” he asked close to my ear, and I shivered from the warm tickle of his breath.

“Yes,” I replied. If he was going, I wanted to be there.

“I know a good place. It’s where I run when I’m in town.”

Smiling, I snuggled closer to him.

“You keep wiggling that hot ass on me, and we’ll fuck before breakfast. I was going to give that tight little pussy a break this morning, but you’re asking to be fucked.”

The naughty way he talked about sex made me want more of it. He was right, I was sore, but when he talked to me like that, I didn’t care. I wanted more. So I did what any woman in my position would do. I wiggled my ass.

He had me pressed on my stomach, jerking my bottom up with his tight grip on my waist, before I could draw another breath. Two pillows were shoved under my stomach, and then his hand came down hard on my left butt cheek. “You want fucked. I’ll fuck you.”

He was rough but not as much as he had been last night. The fact that he put pillows under my stomach trying to make me more comfortable and the way he eased into me instead of slamming into me made my heart swell. He cared. He was taking care of me. Even with his dirty mouth and threatening attitude, he wasn’t willing to hurt me.

That in itself was enough to make me reach my first climax quickly. The gentle way he ran his hands over my back and grabbed my bottom was all it took to send me to my second one. I was going to die from too many orgasms and too much sex with this man, but I just didn’t care. It was a good way to go.

Red Rock Canyon was breathtaking. I enjoyed my run along the beach every morning at home, but this was different. It was a trail of canyons, peaks, and ledges. I wanted to take it all in, but I also wanted to take in the way Gannon’s body looked when he ran. Especially his muscular legs in those shorts. It was very distracting from nature’s beauty.

We didn’t talk much during the run, which was good. I didn’t want to run and talk. My mind wandered when I ran, and it was almost as if I was out here alone with my thoughts. I wasn’t, of course, because Gannon’s presence was always there tempting me to look his way.

Frustratingly, he hadn’t even glanced my way once, and I’d worn the tight short and sports bra he had mentioned in my dream. It seemed that real-life Gannon wasn’t driven to angry sex by the sight of me in this outfit. Damn fantasy.

Hikers passed us as we turned our run into a jog near the end. I was used to a flat landscape, even if it was sand, and that was easier than this terrain. My breathing was hard, and sweat was running down the middle of my bare back. I reached up and wiped away the sweat on my forehead with my arm and breathed a sigh of relief when we arrived back where we had started.

Gannon went over to the car and pulled out our water bottles and hand towels and gave me one of each. I dried the sweat and downed the bottle before feeling ready to move again.

We left there and went to the place where he’d first taken me for breakfast in old Vegas. I loved the healthy options and enjoyed the meal, while he asked me more questions about my life. I had given up asking him things and decided he’d tell me when he was ready.

Somehow, we had gotten to this loser I had dated for a while in Paris last spring, named Franco something—I couldn’t remember. He had annoyed me, but he’d been pretty and had a lot of money to throw around. Not to mention his connections. I liked his connections and the places he was able to get us into. But in the end, the man had given me the creeps, and I’d figured out some things about him that were major warnings signs, so I’d left him there and gone back home.

When I was done talking about that episode in Loserville, I glanced up from my egg whites with toast to see that I had Gannon’s complete attention. I wasn’t sure why he looked so serious. As if he was trying to read more into my words than was there. I was just answering his questions and making small talk.

“Are you judging me for ditching him? You’ve never decided a woman was a waste of your time and bolted?” I asked him with a grin that I hoped would soften him up. “Don’t go feeling bad for Franco. He wasn’t in love or anything. It was a short fling. That’s it. A mistake on my part, because I think the man was into some seedy stuff. When I started getting that vibe, I hightailed it home.”