The one thing I’d learned about North Wainright was that she could only be pushed so far. And I’d been doing some serious pushing. She’d fallen asleep in my arms, naked and sated. What we’d done… fuck, what she’d done, given over her control like she had, should have made me strut and preen like a prized bull in a field full of cows in heat.

It only made me lie awake beside her, stare up at the ceiling and listen to the weather roll in.

The things I’d pulled out of her made me want to kill her father with my bare hands. Too bad the fucker was already dead. He’d gotten off easy with a heart attack. Then there was the Texas oilman who’d been ready and willing to fuck his crony’s daughter as part of a deal. I was going to find out who it was and finish him.

Everyone thought Billionaire Ranch was the place to live. Like royalty or some shit. The house was enormous. It had a fucking telephone room. The Wainrights lived in luxury. People to take care of every whim. I had to wonder if North even knew where the grocery store was or how to use a washing machine. She rode in a fucking helicopter to work.

But I’d bet my left nut she’d give it all up, every penny, for a normal and happy childhood. Her mother to have stayed alive. A father who protected and cherished his little girl instead of pimping her out. Money didn’t buy happiness.

Even as I slipped from her bed and put on my clothes, I knew North was mine. After what she’d shared with me, how she’d gotten on her knees for me… there was no going back.

But like a skittish mare, I’d break her in slowly.

And while I was patient, I’d make Marshall happy and the FBI director satisfied that North had no involvement in her father’s shady dealings. That the investigation into Wainright Holdings and North herself were finished.

That I was no longer undercover. That I was the man who held her while she slept. Who kept her safe from her past, and anything that happened for the rest of her life.

I drove home in the dark, showered and was about to call in to the office in DC, two hours ahead, when my cell rang. I saw the name and I smiled.

North was going to either rip a strip of hide off my ass for sneaking out or ask me to come back and fuck her some more.

My dick got hard for both, because I loved that sharp tongue of hers. She was learning how I took care of her sass. She liked it… eventually.

“Princess, I was just thinking—”

“Jed.”