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  “What if you’re just settling for me?” she asked. “Because there is no club. I don’t want to be your…your…” She waved her hands in the air. “I don’t want to be what you have to settle for, because you’re in Baltimore.”

  “You’re not, Winter. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted this way, as both a girlfriend and a sub. Hell, if you said that you didn’t want to have anything to do with BDSM I’d still love, still want you. I’d learn to be the best damn vanilla lover in the country for you.”

  She pressed both hands over her mouth and let out a sob.

  “Princess, is that why you ran?” He stepped out into the rain, wrapping her in his arms. Water sluiced down his bare back, soaking into the PJ pants he’d pulled on. “I love you, Winter. I love you.”

  She pushed him back. “You can’t.”

  “Okay, now I’m confused. Do you love me?”

  “Oh, I do, I do, but—”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “That’s not—”

  “Do you believe me when I tell you I love you?”

  Her gaze searched his face and she nodded slowly.

  “Then be with me. Stay with me.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “You don’t understand.”

  “Damn it, Win.” He stepped back, balling his hands into fists. The urge to turn her over his knee and spank her until she stopped being so stubborn was too strong for him to risk touching her.

  “People like you don’t marry people like me,” she whispered, voice thick with tears as rain continued to pour down her face.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means I live with my mother, and occasionally my drug-addict brother. My home life is a mess. I live paycheck to paycheck and the only splurge I have is when I eat at Pat’s.”

  “You’re worried about money?” he asked. “Princess, I’ll give you money if that’s what you need.”

  “That’s the problem, don’t you see? You don’t know what it would be like to be in a relationship with me. You’d have to deal with my mother, because I would have to. My brother would show up and he’d steal from you, or try and talk you into giving him some cash.”

  Edward stared at her, shocked. Never, in the six months they’d been seeing each other, had she mentioned any of this. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the rain. “You were my escape. My chance to be free. To be happy.”

  Edward scooped her up, lifting her into his arms, and carried her into the apartment.

  “You have to let me go. I just wanted to tell you why I had to leave. I owed you the truth.”

  “You did, and thank you for telling me. Now you’re going to sit and listen.”

  He set her on her feet and with a smooth movement yanked the wet dress down and off. She shivered. “Edward, please…”

  “No, you talked. My turn.” He grabbed a throw off the back of his couch and wrapped it around her naked body, before tugging her wet hair out from under the blanket. “Sit down.”

  “Edward.”

  “Sit. Down.”

  She sat on the couch, looking tired and sad. He shucked his wet pants, ran to his bedroom and grabbed dry boxers. He found dry towels in the linen closet—god bless his housekeeper who also did the laundry—and went back to the living room.

  He sat beside her, wrapping a towel around her hair. Kneeling in front of her, he rubbed her cold, damp skin with the towel.

  “Don’t make this harder than it already is,” she pleaded. “Don’t make me love you even more than I already do.”

  “You still love me?”

  “I think I’ve loved you since the beginning, though I’ve been trying to pretend I didn’t.”

  “And I love you. None of the rest of it matters.”

  “Edward, that’s not true.”

  “We can deal with all the rest of it—your mom, your brother, the fact that you’re massively underpaid.”

  She let out a watery laugh.

  “We can deal with all of that, as long as we’re together.”

  “You don’t know what you’re agreeing to.”

  He studied her. “What would Padraig say?”

  In the months they’d been together he’d always joined her for her weekly lunch at Pat’s, and Yvonne and Padraig took turns taking credit for their relationship. She’d told Edward about Mia.

  “That’s not fair,” she said.

  “I’m not planning to fight fair. As a matter of fact, I’ll do something no good Dom would, which is tie you to my bed, and keep you just on the edge of orgasm until you agree to marry me.”

  Win’s mouth dropped open.

  “Yes, I will use sex to manipulate you until you agree to be mine.”

  Her eyes welled with tears. “You’d hate me in the end. And that would be worse, hurt more, than just walking away now.”

  “I won’t hate you. I love you. That’s what matters.”

  “What about when you move? You’re not in Baltimore forever.”

  “I could be. I’m sure there’s lots of call for professionally bossy people. Or you come with me, if my next contract is someplace you want to live.”

  “My mother—”

  “We’ll hire someone to take care of her. Or, if you don’t want to do that, which I respect, she can come with us too. We’ll buy a house with a mother-in-law suite in every city we live in.”

  Win stared at him. “You’d…you’d do that?”

  He laced his fingers with hers. “You and me, princess. You and me against the world.”

  Win pressed her lips together, tears welling in her eyes, “I want to say yes.”

  “Then say yes.”

  “Say you’ll always love me,” she begged, “no matter what.”

  “I will always love you. No matter what.”

  Win’s eyes searched his face, and he hoped she could see how serious he was. He would fight for this woman, protect her, love her, until the day he died.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

  She threw herself off the couch, into his arms. Edward held her tight.

  After a moment she let out a soft laugh.

  He kissed her forehead. “What’s making you laugh?”

  “Yvonne. Padraig. They’re going to want credit.”

  He smiled down at her. “I owe them both, for making sure you texted me that day.”

  “We might have to get married at Pat’s.”

  “I’ll marry you anywhere.”

  On the one-year anniversary of the day they met, they had the reception at Pat’s.

  About the Author

  Lila Dubois is a multi-published, bestselling author of erotic, paranormal and fantasy romance. Her books have been nominated for many awards including RT Book Reviews Erotic Novella for Undone Rebel and the Golden Flogger. Having spent extensive time in France, Egypt, Turkey, Ireland and England Lila speaks five languages, none of them (including English) fluently. Lila lives in California with her own Irish Farm Boy and loves receiving email from readers, though she is slow to respond since she recently created a tiny human. Can books featuring secret baby plots be far behind?

  Visit Lila online:

  www.liladubois.net

  [email protected]

  Also by Lila DuBois

  Masters’ Admiralty

  Treachery’s Devotion

  The Trinity Masters, Erotic Ménage Romance written with New York Times bestselling author Mari Carr

  Elemental Pleasure

  Primal Passion

  Scorching Desire

  After Burn (free short story)

  Forbidden Legacy

  Hidden Devotion

  Elegant Seduction

  Secret Scandal

  Delicate Ties

  Beloved Sacrifice

  The Trinity Masters: Volumes 1-4

  BDSM Checklist, BDSM Erotic Romance

  A is for…

  B is for…

  C
is for…

  D is for…

  E is for…

  F is for…

  Undone Lovers, BDSM Erotic Romance

  Undone Rebel

  Undone Dom

  Undone Diva

  Standalone BDSM Erotic Romance

  Betrayed by Love

  Dangerous Lust

  Red Ribbon

  The Glenncailty Ghosts, Modern Gothic Romance

  Redemption

  Lovers

  Ghosts

  Bones

  Monsters in Hollywood, Paranormal Romance

  Dial M for Monster

  My Fair Monster

  Gone with the Monster

  Have Monster, Will Travel

  A Monster and a Gentleman

  The Last of the Monsters

  Standalone Paranormal Romance

  Briar Rose

  Calling the Wild

  Kitsune

  Sealed with a Kiss

  Standalone Shifter Romance

  His Wolf Heart

  Savage Satisfaction

  Zinahs, Fantasy Romance

  Forbidden

  Savage

  Bound

  Boxsets

  The Trinity Masters: Volumes 1-4