“Let me get this straight. You’re saying you’ll wear some of these clothes? Hey, look at me.” She looked up with calculated slowness so he didn’t think she was giving in on every little thing. “If you must know, you’ve exhausted me into capitulation.”

“I like that word, capitulation,” he said with a twitch of his lips.

“Don’t get used to it,” she muttered.

He quickly put up his hands in surrender. “Understood.”

She gave him a faint smile. “You really are on your best behavior.”

“Yeah, well”—a teasing grin—“I have plans.”

“I think we both do.” She was like ten times, maybe a thousand times, more susceptible to Dominic’s magnetism, to his charisma and allure in this bedroom, where so much of his childhood and youth were on display: in the photos on the walls, the trophies on the shelves, the collection of tin soldiers in the glass cabinet, the shelves of well-read books. He’d allowed her into his life, into his home, casually offered up his sister’s friendship. Not that he wasn’t staking ownership as well, she understood—but with a slightly pained expression and a polite smile that only made him more lovable. She wasn’t sure her independence would survive against the full onslaught of his willfulness.

But she loved him—anyway and every way.

Dominic wasn’t the only one who subscribed to a what the fuck philosophy.

Looking up, she took in Dominic’s raised eyebrows. He must have asked her something.

“I’m done. Is that what you wanted to know? I’ll wear whatever you want.”

“That’s not sarcasm?”

She shook her head.

“Good. So first—thank you. I really like to buy you things. I like to show you off. I can’t help it.” He smiled. “Really, thanks.”

She felt weirdly pleased when she shouldn’t, when the phrase show you off was seriously retro and against all her feminist convictions. “I understand feeling helpless.” She half-lifted her hand, searching for the right words. “I tell myself not to get involved. Yet here I am—involved. I’m letting you talk me into these clothes too. How’s that for helpless?”

With Kate in an accommodating mood, Dominic decided to push his luck. “Could we put that in our exclusivity contract—that I can buy you stuff when we’re together?”

Her green-eyed gaze turned guarded. “What stuff?”

“Just gifts.”

“This argument’s never going away, is it?”

“It’s a stupid argument,” he said quietly.

“Oh hell.” A sigh, a little bunny twitch of her nose, a grimace. “No jewelry, though.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too expensive.”

“We’ll toss a coin.”

She gave him a jaundiced look.

“You don’t trust me?”

“Not exactly. I’ve got a pile of luggage full of clothes and jewelry in my living room in Boston as we speak.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Ohmygod!” she exclaimed, sitting up and jabbing a finger at him. “You already bought me jewelry!”

“Nothing grand.”

“Anything that’s not from Walmart is grand to me.”

“You have to broaden your horizons, baby. No shit.” Then he changed the subject because he was willing to settle for one victory at a time. He’d talk her into the jewelry later. When they were having sex.

She was a pushover after a few orgasms.

And some of the jewelry was for sex games.

He smiled a few moments later when she answered his question with categorical, left-brain indifference. “You decide what you want me to wear. I don’t care.”

“Now you’re talking. And by the way, it’s a real turn-on dressing you.”

“Ditto.” If his spending vast sums of money on her could be ignored, the hands-on activity of him dressing her was flagrantly arousing.

Her smile was really hot and sexy. He almost gave in to temptation, until he glanced at the clock. “Are you going to get out of bed or should I come get you?”

She patted the bed. “Why don’t you come here.”

He reluctantly shook his head. “No can do. We don’t have that kind of time.”

“When do we have to be there?”

“In fifteen minutes.”

“You mean we could have been making ourselves happy in bed instead of arguing? Why didn’t you say something?”

“It’s hard to read you sometimes, baby. I’m doing my best.”

“Hmmph.”

“We’ll be back in a couple hours. Or if you get hard up we can go into one of Melanie’s bathrooms and lock the door.”

A wide-eyed look. “I don’t think so.”

“Just saying.”

“I hope you’re not saying you’ve done that before at your sister’s.”

His face was impassive. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”

“It might be more helpful if you put on some clothes. You look too damn scrumptious standing there.”

He dressed in under three minutes like he always did, pulling on boxers and black jeans, shrugging into a black cashmere V-neck sweater, then jerking on socks and black suede lace-up boots, smoothly tying them with a few economical twists of his fingers.