Without disturbing Sloane, I glanced at the alarm clock on her nightstand. Just after nine, meaning she’d been out roughly five hours. That was after she’d burrowed her face into my neck, wrapped her arm around my stomach, hitched her leg over my thigh, and sobbed. Her body shook so violently I’d be shocked if every muscle wasn’t sore from the trembling.

So last night we didn’t talk. Instead, I did the only thing I could do and held on while tears soaked my skin. After what Sloane had been through, she needed it, and I wondered if at any time in the last six-going-on-seven months since her friend’s disappearance if she’d taken any time to look out for herself. Knowing what I knew about Sloane, I doubted it.

Last night when I left the club, I had five texts from Wilson and two from Rhode to call in immediately. After Wilson briefed me about Elise Keller everything fell into place. I’d been right, Sloane wasn’t working at the club because she had some burning desire to organize sex parties. She wasn’t there because she got off on the kink and was using her employment to get a membership instead of paying the expensive fee.

She was there to get answers, playing armchair sleuth in a world she knew nothing about. And she’d been damn lucky the club—save Lorenzo Kelly—seemed to be clean or she would’ve been fucked. And if Marco Kelly found out Sloane had been reporting what she saw and heard at the club to the police, violating her NDA, he’d sue the fuck out of her. If Lorenzo found out, the least of her worries would be shit credit and a judgment against her.

Which brought us to Sloane’s about-face. She’d thought I was her in to get deeper into the club. The woman had been so desperate she was willing to fuck me to get what she needed. The confirmation I’d been right about that, too, burned my chest. But the part that pierced my soul was that she thought I was one of them—a sick, twisted, motherfucker who would order up a woman then hurt her. Yet, that was what my job had been, to convince her and everyone else I was that man.

The hypocrisy wasn’t lost on me.

She had no reason to trust me, yet she’d wrapped herself around me and given me her grief. She’d taken my word I was who I said I was. She hadn’t asked for proof or called the police to verify—not that they’d have any information on Takeback or our operation but that still would’ve been the smart thing to do. She hadn’t asked questions or drilled me for specifics, she’d simply trusted me. And with the game she’d been playing with the people involved, that wasn’t only naïve, that was dangerous as fuck.

The woman was in over her head. It was a miracle she’d pulled off what she had without getting caught.

Sloane stirred and rolled deeper onto my chest. Instead of doing what I should’ve done, which was wake her up, get her to the beach house so she could be debriefed, I curled my arm around her and enjoyed the feel of her body pressed close. I breathed her in. I memorized the weight of her, the way she felt tucked close, how good she felt there. When I was done committing that to memory, I let my mind wander to the last time I was in her bed. A weird mixture of regret and gratification settled over me. I’d held off and hadn’t taken something from Sloane she couldn’t get back. I’d held off doing more than what we’d done, knowing I wouldn’t be able to look at her or myself the same. It had been the right thing to do, for her and for me, yet I regretted not taking us there. It might’ve made me a sick and twisted dick but there it was. And as wrong as it was, having her pinning me to the bed, fully clothed, knowing she’d had an emotional night, I was still fighting my dick from getting hard.