Gannon took the napkin from his lap and put it on the table and laid a one-hundred-dollar bill on the table.

“Let’s go,” he said with a commanding do not argue tone.

So I went.

The door to my suite slammed shut the moment I stepped through it, and I spun around, startled.

“Get that sorry excuse for clothing off. Now!” Gannon said as he ripped off his shirt and began working on the laces in his athletic shorts.

I liked the angry sex face, and I was getting it now. His pupils were enlarged, and the blackness in his eyes was overwhelming. I bent down to untie my shoes, and before I could get the first one done, he grabbed me and shoved me up against the wall.

“You wear fucking slut clothes and drive me crazy with it. Men look at you and want you, when I’m the only one who gets to take you back to your room and fuck you. But you made me wait for it. I don’t like waiting, damn you.”

The fierceness in his tone had me panting like a dog in heat. His mouth came over mine, and I wrapped my arms around his neck while inhaling his scent and devouring his taste. I loved everything about him. The way he treated me, the way he looked at me, the way he made me laugh, the way he cared what I said, the way he made me feel safe.

He tore his mouth from mine, and jerked my sports bra off over my head, and tossed it aside before lowering his mouth to suck on my breast. I loved his hair and burying my hands in it. I enjoyed the heat and wetness encircling my nipples, along with the bites he took of my tender flesh. I had several marks on my chest and stomach from his teeth already, but I wanted them there. It made me feel I was really his.

He pulled my shorts and panties down to my ankles and spun me around. “Hands on the wall,” he snarled.

I did as I was told, and he was inside me. Filling me up until I screamed from the intrusion.

“Take it, Nan. Take it like a good girl.” He growled in my ear, then took me to heaven and dropped me off.

I would take whatever he was giving. When he was like this, it drove me to the insanity that I craved. I’d never have believed that a man could make me hot for him by acting the way he did. There was an instability to him that wasn’t safe. Yet I had never felt as safe as I did when I was in his arms. Even when he was hurting me, he was loving me all the same. Nothing would compare to this. Ever.

“You flaunt your body because you want this,” he said, pulling my hair so that my neck arched back. “This is what you’re wanting, what you need.”

“Yes,” I agreed, because he was right. This was definitely what I needed. What I was wanting.

“Only me,” he groaned in my ear. “Only fucking me. No one else can give this to you.”

Again, he was completely right. I only wanted this from him.

“Say it!” he yelled, jerking my head back hard. “Tell me.”

I let him jerk hard enough that the sting made my eyes water, and then I smiled. “Only you!” I cried out just before I came.

It’s those moments right before you wake up when you know something is off. That things aren’t quite right. The deep slumber you’ve enjoyed lifts, and the uneasiness around you settles in. You want to burrow back under the covers and let the safety of sleep claim you some more, but you have to open your eyes and face the truth. Whatever the truth is, you have to accept it.

I hated those moments. They were all too real in my life, but I knew that this time, I wouldn’t be the same again. It would alter me. Alter my life, and I’d never be able to get back to the way it was. So I lay there with my eyes closed, feeling the coldness surround me. Letting reality seep through my skin and prepare me for what was to come.

Because when I opened my eyes, I knew, I just knew, he would be gone. I could feel it. I had known it deep down when he had gone from fucking me to actually making love to me like he couldn’t get inside me enough. As if he wanted to live under my skin. I’d known this was different. The strength I’d seen in him had failed, and he was showing a weakness.

I shouldn’t have given in to the exhaustion and fallen asleep in his arms. I should have stayed awake and faced him. Confronted him. But I had foolishly hoped that my gut was wrong. That he hadn’t been telling me good-bye.

Slowly, I opened my eyes to the room now lit with late-afternoon sun, and it was empty except for me. I could jump up and frantically search for a note or wait for him to return, but neither would happen. He was gone, and he’d left no note.

That wasn’t like him. He wasn’t a keeper. He ran when the time came. For him, that time had come today. I’d seen it in his eyes and in the way he’d tried to memorize my every feature. My heart had tried to prepare me, and I had ignored it. I would face the consequences of that now.

The truth was, I loved a man who would never love me. I wasn’t enough for him, or he would have stayed. Chasing him was futile. He didn’t want to be found. He’d given me what I had come here for: closure.

I had my closure, and he had his.

Finding a way to move on from him would be hard. I might never accomplish it. I wouldn’t chase him, but I would mourn him. As if he were dead, my heart would weaken, and I’d embrace the pain and sadness. Until Gannon, I’d never been truly happy. No one had made me feel complete or like I belonged.

In his arms, I had found a home that I couldn’t have, because it was never really mine.

I sat up in bed and stared out the window at the fountains, remembering how they had looked while he’d brought me to an orgasm last night. It was an image I would lock away in my memory and keep there. It was my reassurance that he had been real and that he had been mine all too briefly.