“No way.”

“No way I’m Drake, Fanny.”

“Hmm . . . Donathon?”

We start thinking up ridiculous names for each other until I say, “Good night, Harietto.”

“Good night, Pippa.” He strokes a hand down my back and whispers in my ear, “I enjoyed doing a thorough search for those clusters of freckles.”

I wake up in darkness. Red neon lights a few feet away blink as the number strikes 3:28 a.m.

I’m curled against him. The memory of what we did rains down on me, soft as rose petals. I press my eyes shut, shifting closer and peering into his face. We had the hottest sex of my life, and I still want more. I want him inside me.

I’d never had an orgasm with a guy before, only on my own.

My world still feels a little off its axis.

His eyes are closed, his chest rising evenly. I’m in his arms, well, one of them at least. And it feels so nice! I could keep him as a muscular teddy bear. And a wicked sucking machine. And a free smoke, and well, I really do feel a little bit taken with him. Not that he’s in my plans. But here I am. I have never before felt more like a woman, and he’s holding me like he very much wants this particular woman to not get away. His arm is almost like a vise—but even that feels . . . so, so nice!

I touch his lips and settle deeper into his arm around me, craving the closeness. Craving all this nice.

I wake again to a ringing phone that doesn’t sound familiar.

I stir and see a very gorgeous, disheveled man getting out of the bed, gifting me a glimpse of his ass. Sunlight streams through the window and he looks so perfect, I can’t even think.

He slips into his slacks and pulls out his phone. “What time is it?” I ask groggily, sitting up in bed.

He checks his watch and zips up. “Eight. I’ve got to go.” He raises his ringing phone, then takes the chair at the corner of my room and strokes the top of his head as he answers with a crisp, “Yeah.”

My temples are throbbing from last night’s wine. But my brain is whirling because of all of last night. My hair is tangled and I run my fingers through it as I sit on the bed, watching him. He smiles mischievously at me as he listens to someone on the other end of the line.

I get the tingle. Suddenly just thinking about that sucking thing he does. Just looking at him and that chest. He has a swimmer’s body, lean and muscular but not overly so, and I find that very hot. As you can tell by the rampant hormone-fest of last night. I drop the sheet to my waist to see if I can entice him to come back to bed when he finishes his call. The idea of spending all Saturday morning with my sucking machine makes me sweat a little bit.

I drop the sheet farther down and watch his eyes start to blaze as they trail over me.

“Your sister? No, I’ve got other things on my mind. I just closed a deal that took months. I’ll check in with her this week. Get an update from Lincoln.”

His eyes suddenly watch me as he listens, and I see him spot a picture on my nightstand of my family and the realization seems to hit him the same instant that it hits ME.

He said “sister” and “Lincoln,” and the panic is suddenly so overwhelming I can’t breathe.

He looks at me, and I suddenly can’t move.

“T, something’s up.” He hangs up.

We’re both quiet.

He looks at me, all naked in my bed. All naked and thoroughly fucked by him. In my bed.

“Olivia,” he says, softly.

I swallow. “Callan.”

He drags his hand over his face.

His mouth is all red and kissed by me. Oh. My. God.

“I’m very, very late,” he says.

“Yes. Go. Please.”

So I slept with my boss. My boss’s boss. Also my brother’s friend. The guy who’d always been off-limits. The womanizer, everybody claims.

I feel like puking. I almost wish I could puke already, so I can get rid of the nausea.

The lines of concentration deepen around his eyes and mouth, and a shadow of disappointment crosses his face as he glances at the door. “I’d better go.”

“Yes. Go.”

I pull the sheet up and I want to hide from him, everything that yesterday I was too eager to show him. There’s a silence as he opens the door, a hesitation, then I hear him shut the door.

I don’t think I move from where I sit in shock on the bed for the next hour.

I refuse to think of him sucking my breasts. Filling me up. Calling me beautiful. Talking to me, listening to me. Oh god.

I take a bath and stew and feel like I swallowed a bowling ball all morning.

You could say I feel a little bit uncomfortable now that I had sex with the boss.

The boss’s boss.

Big whopping whoops!

Shit, really. Mega shit. I want to hide—better yet, die!

Well. That’s not happening again.

Sometimes you think you have it all figured out. Get hooked on a detail. Make an assumption and that is the law in your eyes. An assumption that won’t let you see anything else even when it’s staring you in the face in a red tie. And once you finally see the big picture you feel so stupid to not have known. To have written down some theory as law. You feel so stupid. I feel so stupid I have replayed every scene in my mind, focusing on all the ways I should’ve been alerted that he was Callan Carmichael.

The women at the club.

The nervousness in the elevator when he boards.

Him wearing whatever he wants, he’s the boss not the mailman! He’s like a hero and a god at Carma and we are the worshipers.

I was too blind because I liked the idea of him being a mailman or some outside consultant or something.

I preferred thinking he was just a sexy mailman because that is something I could have.

The CEO, best friend to my brother, and my boss’s boss, nope, wildly not happening and it’s a little sad because I just had the best sex, the best night, of my life with him. From the moment I met him, I’ve wondered about him endlessly—hell, I’ve almost taken up smoking just to have an excuse to talk to him! And now. God.

Okay, so the man delivers—but not the mail.

It’s been two hours since he left and I’ve changed my sheets and made my bed and am still smelling his cologne in my nostrils. Now I’m staring at my laptop but all I can think of is how the hell I’m going to bear going back to work on Monday. My brain cannot wrap itself around the fact that all this time I’ve already met the notorious Callan Carmichael. I’ve been spilling my guts out to him.

We fucked.

Well and good.

I groan, hating how much I want him to go back to being just Hot Smoker Guy.

He made me come so hard my body is still tingling, and then in the middle of the night, we had sleepy sex, and he made me come again, just as hard or even more because I was all dazed and relaxed and over-sensitized already.

Pushing him out of my mind, I grit my teeth and start reading all the investment sites, reminding myself of the reason I’m in Chicago.

I spend all morning studying companies and trying to come up with a proposal of my own to show Mr. Lincoln.

It feels like I was driving 100 miles per hour on the career front, very determined, but now, now it’s like I’m ready to go at 1,000 miles per hour, full speed ahead. The takeover king took me over last night and I am ready to show him that sex is not all I’m good at. If he even liked it like I did.

Well shit, now I wonder if he did!

Forget about it. Focus on the plan. Learn from the master. Work the next few years. Save companies: win/win.

So I work for hours nonstop, all while Bloomberg plays on TV.

I take a break to halfheartedly munch on a sandwich and stare out the window at the sunny skies. But all I’m seeing is the saliva gland-stimulating sight of Callan lying in my bed, taunting me to come get it.

Suddenly I need to get out of this apartment before I lose my mind.

I change into jeans and a long-sleeved top and am wondering where to go when I get a text from Tahoe.

What are you up to?

I’m planning to go sightseeing in a bit

With?

Me.

Where you off to?

Maybe Art Institute?

I’ll meet you there.

Really?

Really. I want to talk.

I don’t know what he wants to talk about but my stomach won’t stop twisting when I arrive at the Art Institute of Chicago to find my brother leaning by the entrance. He asks me what I want to see and we head in the direction of The New Contemporary exhibit.