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  She watched in the mirror as he tore open a condom wrapper with his teeth. He drove inside her without warning, his cock stretching her beyond what she would’ve believed possible.

  Sawyer hissed. “Fuck, it’s as though you were made for my cock. You’re perfect.”

  He filled her completely, his length hitting places she’d heard existed but had never yet experienced. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had adventurous sex. She had. She’d done things with both men and women that would shock most people.

  Yet here she was, having a man who didn’t even know her name plow into her from behind, his balls slapping against her ass, his length sliding in and out of her as wet sucking sounds filled the bathroom, and something inside of her felt happy. It was as if Sawyer had woken up a part of her that had been sleeping.

  He took her chin in his hand. “Watch us in the mirror. Watch as a stranger fucks you. Do you like this? Like not knowing my name? I could be anyone. You could be anyone. Just two people using each other to get off.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest, her breasts bouncing with each forceful thrust. His jeans rubbed her skin, reminding her he hadn’t even bothered to lower his pants. Just unzipped them and pulled his dick out before fucking her.

  It was dirty as hell, and she fucking loved every minute of it.

  “I wish I didn’t have to wear a condom,” he continued, murmuring into her neck. “I’d shoot my come in your cunt, so that when you left here, I’d still be deep inside you. Dripping out of you, down your legs because I tore your panties.”

  She whimpered. A goddamned whimper.

  Who was this man?

  He dropped his hand from her chin and curled it around her hip to cup her mound, pressing on her swollen bud. He pinched it, the pain driving up her arousal to another level. Unlike the pain she’d experienced from her father’s abuse, this pain was in her power to stop.

  He changed his angle, his hand splayed on the middle of her spine, pressing her lower, her ass higher, so that each thrust hit a place inside her that made her moan and tremble uncontrollably.

  “You gonna come for me? You getting off by being fucked by a stranger? You’ll leave here and never know if you’ll see me again. I could be anyone. Anywhere. Anytime.” He fisted her hair and yanked her head back, exposing the line of her throat in the mirror. “I want to feel that tight pussy get even tighter. I want you to come for me. Let me know what my cock does to you, my filthy stranger.”

  She wasn’t sure if it was his command or the tone of his voice, but a tightening in her lower belly radiated outward until she exploded in a rainbow of colors, dizzy from the waves of pleasure permeating like lava throughout her body.

  “That’s it,” he crooned in her ear, “come all over my cock. I can feel you spilling out. Fuck, you drenched me.” His thrusting suddenly stopped, and he groaned, long and loud, as his chest covered her back and his dick pulsed inside of her with the force of his release. His teeth sunk into the soft spot between her neck and shoulder as a rumble tore from his throat. “Never come so hard in my life.” He released the hold on her hair and slipped from her pussy, pulling off the condom and tying it before throwing it in the wastebasket.

  The moment she straightened, he spun her around, and his lips covered hers, surprising her with their gentleness. He kissed her like a lover rather than a quick fuck in the dirty bathroom of a BDSM club. Like she mattered to him. Like she wasn’t a stranger.

  She was in so much trouble.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life as he stole everything she thought she knew away from her.

  Just who was conning who?

  She had to regain control of this situation or she’d never come out of this with her heart intact. A heart she hadn’t known was possible to lose because she’d never known she had one.

  Thinking back to his file, she recalled what she knew about him. He was twenty-four years old and had recently returned to the United States after serving in the Army. The man didn’t need to serve his country, but when his parents had died in a car accident, he’d become the youngest billionaire in the world. The tabloids went wild, following him around like he was Prince Harry rather than a scared orphan and a sudden CEO of a multi-billion-dollar corporation. Before that, he’d been a regular teenager who had graduated high school as valedictorian and planned to go to Cal Tech and major in computer engineering.

  The world as he’d known it had changed in a single night. Instead of going to college as he’d planned, the man disappeared from radar. Apparently, he had run off and joined the Army to avoid the scrutiny of the American public. When he returned four years later, he quietly immersed himself in Hayes Industries, learning the business inside and out before announcing his position as CEO and growing an already large corporation into a global empire.

  From all reports, he’d never had a long-term relationship, preferring ménages and contracts with submissives. He wasn’t a sadist, but he had no problem wielding a whip or flogging a woman. He was warm and personable, extremely flirtatious, but behind the act was a man who always stayed in control.

  All too soon, his mouth left hers. She pressed her fingertips to her swollen lips and looked up at him, spellbound by the intensity reflected in his brown eyes.

  He dragged his hand through his hair and held her captive with his stare. “Sawyer Hayes. That’s my name.”

  His eyes dared her to recognize him, but she played it cool. She wouldn’t lie, because he’d never believe she didn’t know him. But she certainly wasn’t going to fawn over him like a fan girl at a Justin Bieber meet-and-greet.

  “Nice to meet you, Sawyer. Thanks for the orgasms.” She smiled, flashing her teeth, and rolled her skirt down over her hips to cover herself. Her underwear remained on, despite the gaping hole in the gusset.

  He zipped up his jeans and clenched his jaw, his arms crossing his chest. “Thanks for the orgasms? That’s all I get?”

  He pulled her away from the sink and spun her so that her back hit the door. Holding her wrists, he pinned her hands over her head and leaned into her, grinding his erection against her lower belly.

  How the hell had he gotten so hard so quickly? Didn’t he require any recovery time like normal guys?

  Then again, nothing about Sawyer Hayes was normal.

  His eyes locked with hers. “I want to see you again. I want to taste you again. I want to fuck you again.” He paused, licking his lips as his chest rose and fell. “Just tell me your name.”

  Her breathing synchronized with his, a stirring between her thighs awakening once more. His eyes weren’t an ordinary brown. They reminded her of pennies in a fountain, the sun gleaming off them. He held a world of secrets in those eyes. Secrets she’d harvest for her own gain.

  She opened up her mouth to give him the name of Lisa Smith, the one she would use for this con. But as his eyes held hers in their grasp, everything else in the world disappeared. “Annaliese Hunt,” she whispered. The danger of the words dawned on her the moment they escaped from her lips.

  She had given him her real name.

  Chapter Four

  Present Day

  SAWYER HAYES FUCKING smelled the same. There were no words to describe it. Not musky or woodsy or spicy or anything else she could compare it to. It was just him. Her Master.

  If she could’ve bottled that man’s scent, she would have. As it was, she’d taken a couple of his shirts with her when she’d left. She slept with those shirts on her pillow for months, until his scent finally disappeared. But she’d never forgotten it.

  He smelled like heaven.

  And it was hell.

  Her stomach pitched, nervous knots twisting inside of her. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to run away or run into his arms. But he was holding her hand, her small one in his large rough one, not giving her a choice.

  “Where are you taking me?” Lisa asked as Sawyer dragged her toward the mansion that housed Benediction.

  They�
�d left a speechless Logan and Rachel behind at the reception. And Rachel was never speechless. Lisa couldn’t imagine the kinds of questions her reporter friend would have for her.

  “To talk,” he said flatly.

  She tried to stop, but it was impossible in her four-inch heels. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Tough. You owe me at least a five-minute conversation. After all, you are still my wife.”

  Semantics.

  They’d been separated for four years. Not a legal separation, but one caused by her packing a single suitcase in the middle of the day when he was at work and leaving him without a trace.

  It was one of the worst days of her life, one that she didn’t like to think about because the pain of it still caused her to fall to pieces. She hadn’t wanted to leave him. But she’d had no choice.

  If she hadn’t left, he would be dead. And she would rather live her life miserably alone knowing he was safe than live with the knowledge she’d caused his death.

  “How did you find me?” she said, stumbling into the den of the home. “Or is it just a coincidence that we’ve run into each other tonight?”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize my own wife in a photograph? You should have been more careful if you didn’t want to be found.” He tugged her into a library of sorts, with books lining the walls, and he slammed the door, closing them in together. “Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps you wanted me to find you.”

  His eyes were blank, like nothing she’d ever seen on him before. He didn’t look at her as though he hated her, either. His eyes were empty. And she knew then she’d caused that. All those years ago, she’d helped heal the sorrow and emptiness that filled his life after his parents’ deaths and had replaced them with love and hope. Now, none of those emotions reflected in his dark brown irises. Gone was the light that had shone through his copper eyes.

  Without even knowing it, he’d taught her that she was worth more than being a puppet for her parents. She could be more. Do more. She didn’t need to con people to make a living. He’d broken the walls around her heart and freed it. But he didn’t know any of it. Because she could never tell him who she really was or why she’d left him without a good-bye.

  “So you found me.” She shrugged, not looking at him, but instead keeping her gaze on the books behind him, her hands clenched at her sides.

  Looking at him was painful. He was the most beautiful man in the world to her, inside and out. To see him and not be able to touch him . . . to not be able to seal her lips over his and taste him, stung like a thousand wasp bites to her heart.

  She missed the nights when, after they’d made love, they’d stayed up and talked for hours about everything and nothing. Her past had remained a secret, lies filling the void where the truth would ruin everything they’d forged between them. But with him, she’d created hopes and dreams of a future she’d never thought possible.

  “Yeah, I found you. Fucking knocked me off my ass when Logan and Rachel told me they knew you. I mean, what were the odds that you’d be in Detroit and end up helping to defend my best friend against murder charges.”

  “I hardly defended him. That was Kate’s job. I just wrangled together the press conference.” Because of her past, she’d avoided having her picture taken, but she’d slipped up when her photo recently appeared in newspapers across the country. At that time, her only thought had been of her friends. Working in public relations wasn’t the best job for a woman trying to stay out of the way of a camera, but something about the career had called to her. It was what she’d imagined doing with her life when she’d been with Sawyer.

  Unfortunately, after she left him, she’d had to lie low for a while, which was why she took the job as a secretary at a law firm and kept herself looking as nondescript as possible. Mousy is how she’d overheard a couple of female co-workers describing her in the bathroom when they hadn’t known she was already in one of the stalls.

  Settling in Detroit hadn’t been random. She had remembered him talking about an Army buddy who had gone to law school after they’d left the military. Sawyer had been envious that Logan was able to follow his dreams, while he was responsible for thousands of employees and stockholders. He hadn’t wanted to become CEO of Hayes Industries. He’d wanted to go into computer programming and create educational video games that children would enjoy so much that they wouldn’t care they were also learning.

  She hadn’t remembered Logan’s name, but a piece of her felt closer to Sawyer by living in the same city as his best friend. Who knows? Maybe a part of her had hoped she’d run into him again. But at what price?

  If Sawyer had found her, how many others had recognized her? What if her family had seen the photo?

  The panic that had held her in its grips earlier returned with a vengeance. “Were you watching me earlier?”

  He frowned and ran his hand across the blond stubble lining his jaw. “No. I didn’t get the chance to observe you in your natural habitat before running into you. Why?”

  “No reason,” she said quickly, not wanting to pull him into the mess of her life. “Just tell me what you want, so I can get back out there. I’ve got a wedding reception to run.”

  He stalked closer, bringing with him the scent of bergamot and orange. It was a scent she’d know anywhere and one she’d forever associate with Sawyer. He still used the same shampoo. It shouldn’t surprise her. After all, it was one of Hayes Industries’ most popular products.

  “I want to know what you did with the money you took from our joint bank accounts. Someone worth millions wouldn’t work as a secretary at a law firm or go into public relations. You shouldn’t need to work. You should be living in a house rather than a small condo and own a car that doesn’t have more than a hundred thousand miles on it. And you only have ten thousand in your checking account, three thousand in your savings account, and nothing else worth a dime.”

  She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “You did your homework on me, didn’t you?”

  “Didn’t do it the first time with you, but I won’t make the same mistake again.” His lips curled into a cruel grin. “Nowadays, I always make sure I know exactly who I’m taking into my bed.”

  Her heart shattered into a million pieces. It shouldn’t hurt her to hear that he had lovers. After all, she’d left him more than four years ago. She couldn’t have expected him to stay celibate for that long.

  It didn’t matter that they were still legally married.

  Or that she hadn’t taken a lover in all that time.

  “I don’t have your money. And I can’t tell you what I did with it.” She peered up at him, flinching at the indifference on his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I did what I had to do. I was a con artist.”

  He went as still as a statue, his expression as stony. Then his chest convulsed with laugher, shocking her with its force. “Hurt me? I didn’t give a shit about you leaving. Only my pride took a hit, because I hadn’t realized what a lying bitch I’d married. And when you left, I realized what we had wasn’t that great anyway. I mean, you were a great fuck, but I wasn’t cut out for monogamy. You did me a favor by leaving.” He gently pushed her up against the shelves, knocking a couple books to the carpet.

  Her stomach clenched painfully. She shouldn’t allow his words to hurt as much as they did. After all, he had a right to be angry.

  The ten months she’d spent with Sawyer were the happiest she’d ever known. From the day they’d officially met, they’d been inseparable. Within weeks, she’d moved into his home, and it hadn’t taken much longer for her to wear both his collar and his ring. It was a whirlwind romance intensified by their relationship as Master and slave.

  They never seemed to run out of things to talk about. He considered her opinions and encouraged her dream of becoming a publicist, offering her a job within the Hayes Industries organization. He’d brought her sexual fantasies to life and never judged her for them. For the first time in her life, she’d
been in love and loved in return.

  For a while, she let herself forget that their relationship had been built on a lie. But her father had been all too eager to remind her. Once she became Sawyer’s wife and he changed his will, leaving his entire estate to her in case of his death, her father had revealed his true plan: Murder Sawyer.

  Seeing no other options, she had done the one thing she could do to save Sawyer’s life.

  She’d taken all the assets of Sawyer’s she could quickly get her hands on and had given them to her father. Then she had stolen her father’s black list—a journal documenting years of her family’s cons—as an insurance policy and left her old life behind, Sawyer included. Within those pages were details about some very dangerous people. People who would kill her father slowly and painfully if they ever got the chance. Just as she had taken the black list as her insurance, it had provided the same to her father against those who wished him harm.

  Her plan hadn’t been foolproof, but she’d done what she thought was best at the time. She’d thought Sawyer would divorce her when she left him, but he hadn’t.

  As long as she had the ability to inherit Sawyer’s estate, he was in danger. Now that he was back in her life, there was one more thing she could do to ensure his safety.

  She squared her shoulders. “If I did you a favor by leaving, then you won’t mind giving me a divorce.”

  He flinched, the first crack in his armor that she’d witnessed tonight. “That’s what you want?”

  Her breath stalled in her chest. “Y-yes.”

  A divorce was the last thing she wanted, but it was what they needed. She should have done it years ago, but she couldn’t be the one to file, since she would be required by law to give her address.

  A slow grin appeared on his face. “What will you give me for the divorce?”

  She’d gotten butterflies every time he’d smiled at her in the past, but this time, a lead weight filled her belly. “Give you?”

  He toyed with the ends of her short brown hair, his fingers restless. “You took that money from me. Even though you legally had every right to it, you played me to get it. You owe me. And I’m here to collect.”