"Good."

"No! It's terrible," she said jokingly. But she wasn't entirely joking when she added, softly, "No one will compare to you."

"Again, that is good."

She laced her fingers through his hair, watching him as relaxed into the softness of her touch, and the sweet unwinding from the intensity of their coming together. "You were really good with the whole jealous lover act," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "I was?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I believed it."

"You did?" He furrowed his brow at first, then understanding dawned and he slowly nodded.

"You seemed so jealous," she said, trying her best to make it self-evident in her tone that they were talking around the truth without having to fully admit anything. She hoped he understood all that she meant.

"What if I really was that jealous?"

"I like that too. I liked that you felt that way."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I felt that way too. Last night I was convinced you were in a club in Miami and some beautiful woman was all over you."

He laughed and threw his head back. "Nope. Nope. And nope. But I love that you hated the image."

"I hated it so much," she said like a hiss.

"Maybe then," he said slowly, and seemed to be taking his time forming an idea.

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe it can be just us for now?"

"It better be just us," she said pointedly and swatted his arm.

He pretended it hurt. "Ouch."

"I mean it. I don't want you with anyone else while we're doing this. I suppose we should have set the ground rules already, but this is all new to me. There's no way I'd sleep with anyone else. And you better not either."

"I'm not. I wouldn't. I swear."

She held up her hand, her palm facing him. "Swear."

He clasped her hand, threading his fingers through hers. "I swear, Casey, you're the only one."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

New York, night . . .

As they rode home from the ballpark in his town car, she softly ran her fingers through his hair over and over, as if she regularly stroked his hair as they talked in the back of the cushy car. He loved every second of the contact from her, and especially loved that she felt comfortable enough to do it without thinking twice.

Whether she was touching him as friends or as lovers didn't matter. He didn't have the brain cells working at full-speed to decipher it. They'd all been put to pasture for the night in the wake of finally coming together with her.

As they rolled through Manhattan, the neon lights of Broadway guiding them on their way downtown, he said, "So, um, how was the game?"

She laughed. "The good guys won. And the crowd went wild."

"Too bad I missed it," he joked.

"I'd say you made it just in time for an epic finale. You're like a closer."

He laughed. "I'll happily play that position."

"Hey," she said, as she now trailed her fingertip along his neck. He raised his eyes to look at her. "I told you I'm going to London soon, right? To meet with Sofia's, one of our retailer partners. "

"You mentioned it. You're going to an auction too."

Her eyes lit up, sparkling like a starry sky. "Good memory," she said.

"To buy a kiss. From Miller Valentina," he added, hoping to impress her with the real estate he'd reserved in his brain for remembering details of her.

"Now, you're just showing off," she said playfully. "So I was wondering-is there any chance you have a hotel in London?" There was a look of mischief now in her eyes.

He laughed. "You know I do. You angling for a free room, Miss Casey?"

"Maybe," she said, taking her time with that word, lingering on it suggestively. "But I was also thinking a roommate might be nice. Do you happen to have any business in London you need to do?"

His heart sped up. "Are you inviting yourself to my hotel?"

She nodded. "I am inviting myself. I told you I was known for being direct. It bothers some men. But right now, I don't care. I'm going to be direct and say what I want."

He held up a hand like a stop sign. "I told you I'm not most men. I like your direct side and I like your . . . how shall we say, newly submissive one too."

She flashed him a sweet, innocent smile that nailed him in the heart. He ran his finger across her lips, watching her draw a quick breath.

"What would you think about going with me? Because now that I've had you, I want more of you, and we still have a lot of ground to cover. You haven't tied me up yet or spanked me for that matter," she said, counting off his omissions on her fingers. "Or used handcuffs."

"Damn," he said, with a low whistle. "I'm falling down on the job."

"I'll let you make it up to me across the pond."

"Though, let the record reflect, I have not engaged in any orgasm denial either. Per your request."

"And I thank you very much for that."

"Do you want me to have a spreader bar specially installed in one of the rooms for your trip?" he asked in as matter-of-fact a tone as he could muster.

Her eyes widened in shock and she shook her head vigorously. "No," she said, forming an O with her lips to emphasize her complete lack of interest in that particular BDSM activity. Then she raised her fingers to his face, tracing a line down his jaw. "You're very sexy when you don't shave," she whispered, and heat pulsed in his veins from the out-of-the-blue, unexpected compliment. It gave him hope that this thing between them was more than simply a means to an end for her.

But then, he shouldn't feel any sort of hope. Hope was risky, and led to things he didn't believe in. He didn't possess any hope himself, so it made no sense why he'd want her to think in bigger terms that went beyond the here and now.

"Thank you," he said, trying to ignore the way his heart beat more furiously as she continued to trace soft lines along his jaw.

"And Nate?"

"Yes?"

"Because you don't mind it when I speak my mind, I want you to know that I'm really enjoying our lessons. In and of themselves. Sometimes, I don't think about where they might lead. Actually, most of the time I don't think about where they'll lead. I just think about how amazing it all feels with you," she said, finishing her sweet ode with an even sweeter kiss on his lips that sent his heart racing and his mind galloping. This was supposed to be neat and clean, a tidy little deal that was mutually beneficial below the belt for the both of them.

But now, it had become something that turned those clear-cut lines into a wild chaos of zigs and zags. He couldn't sort any of this out. All he knew with any kind of certainty was that he was going to London with her in a week, and somehow his goal had changed. When she'd first proposed their unconventional arrangement, he gave a yes borne from years of lust and desire for her.

Now he was saying yes for other reasons. Reasons that weren't entirely clear in his head-reasons that came from a different place inside him.

A place he tried hard to deny even existed.

Nate had once thought that his job was pretty damn exhausting, but running a multinational hotel conglomerate was nothing compared to entertaining two newly walking, hardly talking, very busy one-year-old twin girls. Thank the Lord, Casey had handled the diaper changes. The woman needed a medal for that. The rest of the time though, they had been a team, and hell, did his nieces require a team.

After their evening bath, which resulted in his T-shirt becoming completely soaked when they splashed virtually the entire contents of the tub onto him, Casey and Nate dressed the girls in their pajamas.

"So let me get this straight. You yanked Bryan out of the luxury suite and that's why we're babysitting your nieces a few hours on a Sunday night before we fly to London?" Casey asked him for probably the twentieth time as she nudged him with an elbow.

"Hey, I had very important business to attend to at Yankee Stadium and I don't regret it whatsoever."

"Nor do I," she said with a wink as she tugged a short-sleeved shirt on Cara. "And I certainly don't regret spending time with these adorable little chunks of love," she said, cooing at the baby.

He froze momentarily. Her eyes nearly popped out when she saw his expression.

"Oh my God, did you just prematurely freak out about the prospect of a woman wanting children?" she said calling him out on the deer-in-headlights stare he must have been sporting.

He held Chloe tighter. "I love my nieces. That's all I'm going to say. And thank you again for helping me out here."

"There's no way I would let you do this on your own. I'm just as responsible as you are, and I also feel horribly guilty that you took them out of the stadium. Though, not too guilty," she said with a laugh, as they made their way to the girls' bedroom and tucked them into their cribs for the night.

But twenty minutes later, Chloe and Cara were crying up a storm, and neither Nate nor Casey had a very good idea of how to handle them. They had fed, bathed, and played with them, so the only recourse was to hold them. They retreated to the living room, each with a baby in their arms.

Nate made a pit stop in the kitchen, grabbing a carton of salted caramel gelato from the freezer and two small spoons. He joined Casey on the couch.

She held a finger to her lips. "Shhh . . ." She gestured with her eyes to Chloe, who was sound asleep already on her chest. Casey whispered, "Looks like she just wanted to be snuggled."

"Let's hope I can work the same magic on Cara," Nate said, gently patting her on the back. After a minute, Cara settled in, letting out a soft exhale as she rested her head against his wet T-shirt.

"Do you want me to get one of Bryan's T-shirts for you?" Casey asked him.

He shook his head. "Guys don't borrow other guys' T-shirts. Especially not guys who are married to their sisters. The only guy who I would ever borrow a shirt from would be my brother. And I don't have a brother, so as you can see, I'm never going to borrow another man's T-shirt."

"On the other hand, I do not have this issue whatsoever. I would happily go take one of Kat's T-shirts right now if I needed it, no questions asked, and I guarantee she wouldn't have a problem with it."

"Another beautiful difference between men and women. Anyway, I'll grab a new one at home before we head to the airport. I need to swing by my house anyway. I forgot to bring my suitcase." Nate popped open the top of the ice cream container and dug in. He brought the spoon to his mouth and was about to take a bite when he stopped and handed a utensil to Casey. "Ladies first."

She took a spoonful of the ice cream then she froze, holding the spoon in midair. "I just had an idea," she said, unfreezing as she snapped her head to look at him, her eyes practically glittering with excitement.

"No, Casey," he chided. "We are not going to do it on my sister's kitchen counter. You're insatiable, woman."

Admittedly there was a bit of truth to that. They'd been together a few times since the ballpark, but then they'd had to take a break mid-week when he travelled to Vegas where he met with Brent Nichols, a wildly successful late-night comedian who was also prepping to open a new nightclub in the city of sin. The club was on the outskirts of town, and Nate had been talking to him about the prospect of relocating it inside The Luxe on the Strip. That trip had cut into his time with Casey, but in the few nights he'd seen her before, they'd made the most of the shortened hours, and she'd passed his spanking course with flying colors. She'd also discovered that she was particularly fond of having her hair pulled when he took her from behind, with her bent over the bathroom sink. He'd told her to look in the mirror as he gripped her hair tight in his fist. My God, the sight of her wild abandon reflected back at him was branded on his brain forever. In fact, the image had proven quite useful one late night alone in Las Vegas when he'd taken matters into his own hands.

"No. That's not what I mean," she said, talking quickly. He recognized the tone instantly-she had entered the idea zone. "I was just thinking back to the night in New Orleans, when we shared the cake."

"The night it all began," he said, wiggling his eyebrows as she finally ate the ice cream on the spoon she was holding, then set the spoon on the table.

"No, seriously. What was I doing beforehand?"

"Do we really need to go there?" he muttered, as he took a bite. "Grant, obviously." He didn't want to admit that there was a Grant. In his world, Grant had ceased to exist. It seemed that way for her too. She hadn't brought him up once in the last week. She hadn't brought up anyone else, come to think of it. She had barely breathed the word lessons.

"I meant, why I was even meeting with Grant in the first place? A partnership," she said, answering her own question.

"The deal for the LolaRing. You practiced the pitch in the car, and that toy sounded pretty fucking awesome if you ask me," he said, covering Cara's ears, even though the baby was sound asleep.

"Yeah, it is pretty awesome," she said. "And why should Joy Delivered limit itself to only striking partnerships with lingerie companies and retail boutiques?"

He arched an eyebrow. "Go on."

She sat up straighter, her arms still wrapped around the baby as he took another spoonful of gelato. "What if the LolaRing was carried in a classy, unmarked black box with our silvery J on the top? Or perhaps a silvery L for The Luxe?"

"And why would it say The Luxe?" He knew what she was getting at. His business instincts had kicked in too, but he wanted to hear the proposal from her.

"Let's be honest here. Your hotel is very high-end. And while you serve a lot of business clients, you also serve lovers. The top floor has fully-stocked bars, the walls have mirrors, and there's mood lighting in each room because your hotels are absolutely designed for making love," she said, locking eyes with him as she spoke.

He shifted the baby higher on his chest, away from his lap. He couldn't help it-hearing those words fall from her lips turned him on. "I'll admit that many hotels, especially mine, are known for being a great backdrop for great sex."

"They are," she said enthusiastically. "That's why I could see The Luxe offering a very discreet pleasure box in some rooms. Imagine walking into the room you reserve for your lover and finding an inviting box on the bed. A velvet lined box, perhaps. If you use it, you pay for it. If you don't open it, you don't pay. It's no different than a bottle of champagne chilling in the mini bar. Think of this as the minibar for sexual pleasure. Inside, you would find the classier toys. A blindfold, a red feather tickler, perhaps even a small silver bullet vibrator. But maybe in certain locations, perhaps the hotel that catered to the newly married in Vegas or in the Maldives, you would carry The LolaRing."

"Tell me, why would we want to carry the LolaRing?"

"Because it is the ultimate couple's pleasure device. Nothing even comes close to it. I even have the perfect slogan for it. You've given her a diamond ring, now give her the LolaRing," Casey said, layering suggestiveness into her tone. My God, this woman couldn't be anything but the CEO of a sex toy company.

He had to be careful, though. He had to think with his brain, not with his dick. Because his dick had a very specific agenda when it came to Casey: get inside her. He put on his business brain and ignored all that he was feeling below the belt. Because the reality was, her idea rocked. "I have one question for you, Casey."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"