Sadie Francé has known nothing but pain all her life. Good things just didn't happen to people like her.

Once, she let herself believe the opposite. She believed the lies of the mysterious rich boy who was hell-bent on making her his girl.

He gave her a taste... A taste of happiness. A taste of love. A taste of life.

But the moment Sadie began to let her guard down, believing life wasn't so much of a bitch after all, that taste, that sweet nectar, turned bitter on her tongue.

Heartbreak.

When yet another of life's unfortunate circumstances worked in her favor this time around, ridding her of her painful memories, Sadie trusted that she was safe. Free.

Until seven years later...

Into Sadie's miserable life barged the most mysterious oddity of a man. He made a fearless Sadie fear, a careless Sadie care, a hopeless Sadie hope.

Against her better judgment, against her own intuition, she wanted this man, body and soul.

But when she began having strange dreams, dreams that were her forbidden memories, memories that doctors told her were irretrievable, Sadie soon realized that Mr. Mysterious in Black wasn't so mysterious after all.

Excerpt:

He was tired.

Dog-tired.

His heartbeat was just beginning to recover from a sweaty engagement of breath-ragged, hair-pulling, nail-scraping pleasure mere minutes ago, evening out and lulling him onward into the soothing darkness of sleep.

Unfortunately, he was yanked back from the calling darkness by the feel of soft feminine hands accompanied by flutters of kisses sliding along his chest. He reluctantly opened his eyes to the annoying realization that the treat of the night was still in his bed.

Yeah, he really was tired, because he usually saw to it that the source of his fleeting pleasure got lost the moment he found his release.

His eyes skidded over the olive-skinned, platinum blonde making a meal of his chest, and his brain struggled to remember her name.

She was a bank investor. That’s all he could remember about her, because he hadn’t been interested in what she had to say when she’d blabbered on (and on) earlier at the Gala. He’d merely paid attention to her curvy figure and the long, toned legs accentuated by six-inch heels that compelled him to spend a few hours in exploration.

He tried again to recall her name…Lacy…Lucy…Lisa... Ah hell, he didn’t know and he didn’t care.

Nameless Blond pressed her plum lips against the middle of his chest and murmured in a sultry voice that caressed him in places he really preferred to remain inert at the moment, “I want more.”

A sigh flowed from him as he mentally kicked himself for almost falling asleep with a woman in his bed. “I’m done. Get dressed. Moore will take you home.”

The covers flipped back with a simple flex of his muscular arm, and he swung his feet to the red carpeted floor. With the heels of his hands, he rubbed the weight of sleep from his eyes. “Oh, you were great, by the way. Thanks.”

The protesting muscles of his limbs told him just how exhausted he was. And as he wrestled with sleep, he detected no movement from Nameless Blond. Turning, he directed his stare at the blond-haired creature whose green eyes shone with tears as she clutched the black silk sheet over her bosom.

In a controlled voice, one straining against anger, he asked, “You don’t understand English?”

“Thanks?” she asked, voice breaking. “That’s it?”

Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Telling a woman to leave more than once had never happened before, because he wasn’t normally this tired. And when he wasn’t tired, he was everything akin to a whirling dervish. So, when he gave a command, women usually sensed the peril of questioning him and elected not to argue. “Pretty much. Thought you understood what this was.”

When she just sat there still, staring at him, he full on glared. “Listen, girl, whatever the hell your name is, you need to get your *** up, and go.”

Recognizing his seriousness, Nameless Blond hopped up from the bed and scrambled around on the carpeted floor, retrieving her clothes.

Appeased, he got up and strolled over to the floor-to-ceiling glass window of the hotel room, staring out at the bright city lights of Chicago. The weak shade of light from the corner lamp silhouetted his tall, muscular frame in the darkness as he stood stark ***** and pensive before the window.

One by one, he cracked his knuckles, trying his damnedest not to think of her.

He stopped as the elevator came to a sudden, grinding halt. The lights went out, plunging them into darkness, and she was thrown against him. Her cell phone flew out of her hand and hit the elevator wall with a crunching noise that made her wince.

She shrank against him, her heart thudding in her chest. With a low buzz, the emergency lights came on and bathed the elevator in a dim red light. She was still pressed against him with panicked intimacy. He was holding her with his large hands clamped around her full hips, and she flushed and shoved at his hard chest.

“Let go of me.”

“Just wait a minute, I think - ”

She gasped as the elevator made another groaning lurch and dropped a few more feet. Her stomach dropped with it, and her fear made her clutch to his broad shoulders.

“What the hell?” She whispered.

He frowned. “The elevator seems to be broken.”

She pushed again at his chest. “Let me go, please.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered there. His stare, combined with the warmth of his hands on her hips, was making her skin tingle and she licked her lips nervously. His gaze darkened and his nostrils flared, and she stared mesmerized at the dark stubble that covered his lower face. She was struck by the urge to kiss the dark shadow, to lick it with her tongue and feel it prickle against her lips. She was actually leaning forward when he gently pushed her away.

She turned away, utterly mortified by her behavior, and wondered briefly if she could pry the doors open and climb down the elevator shaft to get away from him. Instead, she walked gingerly across the elevator to rescue her cell phone. He opened the control panel door and picked up the black telephone receiver that was attached to it. He held the receiver to his ear, waiting patiently.

Lucy stared at her cell phone and muttered a curse. The screen was shattered but she pushed a few buttons, knowing it was pointless but trying anyway.

“S***,” she muttered.

He scowled at her and made a shushing gesture with his hand. “Yes, hello? This is Jason Young from the twenty-seventh floor. It seems our elevator has broken down.”

She shoved her phone into her purse and tried not to think about the fact that there was no way out. Already her chest was tightening and the air in the elevator seemed too warm. She wasn’t exactly claustrophobic, but it was useless to deny that tight spaces made her uncomfortable.

She fanned herself with the top of her blouse before unbuttoning her suit jacket and removing it. She placed it neatly on the floor of the elevator as he hung up the phone.

“Are they sending someone to fix it?” She asked.

He shrugged out of his own suit jacket, and she ignored the way his white dress shirt clung to his powerful shoulders and accentuated his wide chest.

“Apparently the power is out to the entire block - some kind of power surge. Until they can get the power back on, we’re stuck in here.”

“S***,” she muttered for a second time.

She looked up at the ceiling panels. “Can’t they send in, I don’t know, firemen or someone to open up the ceiling and let us out that way?”

He gave her a wry look. “I doubt that two people stuck in an elevator is a top priority for them right now, Ms. Reid.”

She flushed at his condescending tone and fanned herself with her shirt again. Sweat was starting to trickle between her breasts and she unbuttoned the top two buttons and stuck her head down her top, blowing lightly to try and cool herself.