Erin stood on the threshold of his compartment. She thought of Shane. He’d seen her naked, watched her masturbate, sat next to her as Dominic took her. He was a known quantity. But this man she would never have to see again. He wouldn’t surprise her in coffeehouses, wouldn’t pop up in other areas of her life. He was safe. He was attractive. And this was what Dominic wanted.

So, with her husband in the aisle behind her, she adjusted her limits, and stepped fully into the sleeper. Fuck everything else. She was going to have fun no matter how it ended.

“Wow, this is pretty cool. Thank you.” She took the wine Craig offered—it tasted expensive, too—and gazed around the compact room. On the left, the lower bunk was neatly made up, the head of the bed by the door, indicated by the pillow. Above, the closed upper bunk slanted out slightly from the wall, the release handle in the center.

“The bed can be folded up into seats, but since I’m alone and there’s another chair over there”—Craig pointed to a single seat in the corner—“I just left the bed down.”

“You’re in the lap of luxury.” She dropped her carryall down by the window seat and did a one-eighty, noting the sink and mirror and a door that read TOILET and SHOWER in small lettering.

Dominic remained just inside the compartment’s opening. “We should have gotten one of these, sweetie,” she told him.

“It’s only a seven-hour trip to Reno.” He took the wine Craig had poured. “Thanks.”

Erin slid onto the corner of the bed by the window, pushing the curtain back to gaze out. “Look, there’s a ski lift.” The chairs were full despite the snow flurries, the riders bundled up, skis dangling in the air. “I wonder which resort that is.”

Before either of them could answer, if they even knew, an announcer came over the PA to say they were about to enter the oldest, longest tunnel still existing over the mountain pass. Suddenly plunged into darkness, the compartment door closed with a discernible click over the whoosh of the train. She was alone with them.

It gave her the oddest sense of power.

Like the letter in her desk at DKG. She could say yes. Or she could say no. Thumbs up or thumbs down. The power of the emperor in the gladiator ring. She was in charge, and these two men would do what she said. There was awesome control in that. Just as there was a weird sense of power in knowing she could dial the number in that letter and tell the CEO of WEU that he could take her company off her hands, lock, stock, and barrel.

She didn’t think Dominic would even object. And he wouldn’t object to anything she did in this cabin.

Her eyes adjusted to the light from a row of thimble-size bulbs running along the outer edges of the ceiling. Dominic was a tall shadow by the door. A sentinel. A protector. A symbol of her freedom from restraint.

She fluttered her eyelashes at Craig and patted the bed beside her. “Sit.”

Craig shoved the half-empty wine bottle into an ice bucket beside the sink and sat. She hadn’t given him a choice of which seat to take.

She hadn’t given Dominic a choice either. He took the single seat across from her.

The train burst into light, and they were once again surrounded by the overcast sky and evergreens laced with snow. She started to tuck her feet beneath her. “Do you mind if I take off my boots so I can put my feet on your bed?”

Craig shook his head. She pulled off her jacket, tossed it at Dominic as if she were doing a striptease, then toed off her boots. “So,” she said, “how far are you traveling?” She’d assumed when Craig said he was going a little farther than Reno that he’d meant within the next couple of stops like Elko or Winnemucca, but obviously he was riding the train overnight.

“Denver. I have a book signing.”

She gaped. “That’s three days of travel time.”

“It’s part of a conference, then I’m doing some local signings.” He shrugged. “And I don’t fly.”

“Why not?”

“Remember that flight into SFO that dropped ten thousand feet?”

“Yeah. Everyone was okay except for bumps and bruises.”

“I was on it.”

She puffed out an amazed breath. “You’re kidding.”

“It lasted about ninety seconds. Do you know how long ninety seconds is?” He paused, letting her imagine. “I’ve never gotten on another a plane.”

Ninety seconds that could alter a life. How quickly things could change. How utterly. She looked at Dominic. He was staring at her, waiting, not a muscle moving, not even a breath. Ninety seconds could lead you to a stranger’s room while your husband waited with bated breath for you to do something kinky and taboo.

She knew then that she was going to do it.

“I don’t share my shower.” Craig grinned. The guy had a wickedly hot grin Dominic knew had Erin’s panties wet and warm. “At least not with unknown people in there before me.” Then he swept a hand out. “I can write in here undisturbed.” He stuck a thumb over his shoulder. “You close the door on one of those two-person cabins and it’s claustrophobic.”

“Yet you were up in the panoramic car.”

He gazed at her a long moment, then smiled. “I liked the view better up there.”

She blushed, realizing Craig was talking about her, and Dominic knew she was pleased.

“In here,” Craig went on, “I’ve got room to entertain.”

Christ, this was better than anything Dominic could have dreamed up. A good-looking man ten years younger, curtains open, the white world rushing by outside, and Erin. She was chatty, asking and answering questions. It wasn’t like her, not the usual nervous chatter she made in crowds and with strangers, but comfortable, easy, probing. She’d once told him that her mother said it was rude to be nosy; you should let people volunteer what they wanted instead of prying. He didn’t agree, but it had been standard operating procedure for Erin. Yet now, she pestered Craig about his writing, how he’d started, where he was from, how big his family was, if he had a girlfriend.

It was fascinating, like a fly on the wall, watching a woman he didn’t know. He let them talk, said nothing beyond the occasional murmur when she turned to him. Sometimes it was with shock in her eyes, as if she’d forgotten he was there.

“Tell me about your research?” The kid wasn’t even trying to be sly. He was opening the door to sex, and they all knew it.

This time when Erin looked at him, there was complete awareness. Dominic gave her an imperceptible nod, the hairs on his arms suddenly on alert. What would she say now? How much would she reveal? His breath became shallow with anticipation, as if he’d miss something essential if he breathed too loudly.

“My last story took place at a nudist colony.”

Craig laughed. “So you had to find out if nudist colonies really exist.”

She nodded, then flashed a sexy smile that wormed inside Dominic. A flush zipped across his skin.

“Of course.” She dropped her voice to that seductive note he was getting used to. “And they’re very real.”

“What did your characters do in this nudist colony?”

“A foursome. I wanted to explore the whole foursome dynamic,” she said as if she were a real writer.

“That must be an interesting story.” Craig raised a brow. “You really have to tell me your pseudonym.”

He’d somehow moved closer, shifting, one knee pulled up carelessly next to hers, within a hairsbreadth of touching, an electric current arcing between them as she told him different scenarios she’d written about; flirting with men in a bar with her husband by her side, watching people at sex parties, masturbation, threesomes with two men. His skin a ruddier shade, breath faster, she commanded Craig’s attention. The man couldn’t tear his gaze away from her. Dominic felt the same sizzle of electricity along his own skin.

He experienced an uncanny sense of being outside himself, as if he were sitting in a bar observing a hot chick he’d never seen before, watching her work her wiles, picking up the most desirable guy in the place. It was sexy, fascinating, as erotic as the stories she spun for Craig.

For the first time, Craig spared a single glance for Dominic before turning back to Erin. Then he rested his hand on his knee, his fingertip brushing hers. The first touch in front of the husband, no table obscuring the view. “So what’s the premise for your WIP?” he asked as if he didn’t have his hand in plain sight on Dominic’s wife.

Jesus, the anticipation was combustible.

Erin tipped her head, a tiny flash of confusion creasing her brow. “WIP?”

WIP was an inventory term to her, an unfinished gauge sitting on her tech’s workbench, not a writer’s incomplete manuscript. That wasn’t how she thought.

“I choose the premise,” Dominic said.

Craig gave him a long look. “That’s an interesting way of doing it.”

“On old writer’s trick for stepping outside yourself,” he improvised.

“And what did you pick for Erin this time?”

Dominic stared him down. “A voyeur watching another man take his wife.”

Even the train seemed to hold its breath for a long moment, silent as if it were coasting on air, then the sounds returned.

Craig cocked his head, his eyes a dark brown fastened on Erin. “And I’m the research material?”

Dominic leveled a steady look on Erin. If she wanted to stop it, all she had to do was speak for herself. She didn’t. So he said everything for her. “You most certainly are.”

Craig’s gaze flickered between them. “Are you two really married?”

Dominic smiled, pinning Craig with a look. “Yeah.”

“Have you done this before?” Craig had no illusions now. This was real, not a premise.

“You’re the first.”

Craig’s eyes bore the keen interest of a writer, a journalist, a scientist needing to figure out the cosmos. “How can you actually want to watch your wife with some other guy?”

Dominic felt Erin’s scrutiny, the air suddenly crackling with intensity. He couldn’t remember if she’d asked as directly as Craig. He thought of all the reasons Craig couldn’t possibly know, about Jay, about forcing Erin to see him again as a man, as her husband, about sex being their only connection, and the odd logic of this whole thing being about them, not the man who was fucking her. All the things he wasn’t sure he could explain even to himself.

He could say his brain was wired differently, which he believed was true, but it was also the flippant answer one man would give another. While that was good enough for Craig, it wasn’t good enough for Erin.

“Because she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known and I want to see her pleasure. There’s the excitement of the first sex session with someone new, someone attractive and desirable. It’s like reliving something we had years ago. And it’s something we can share together later.”

Erin shifted on the edge of the bunk, pulled her legs closer to herself, and he knew he could lose her this way, that even as he pushed her to see him, to connect with him, to share with him, he risked pushing her further away rather than dragging her closer. Yet he wanted this with her, no one else. With another woman, it would be like watching porn. He wanted to feel it with her, share it, come back to it again in those dark hours past midnight when she usually shut him out with silence.

“That’s all very nice,” Craig said, “but man is inherently territorial. He doesn’t share what’s his.” The guy was a writer, all right, looking for the motivation in everything.

“I’m not territorial.”

Craig snorted. “Everyone’s territorial. What if I’m better than you? What if I make her hotter, make her come harder, longer, make her scream my name instead of yours? What then?”

Craig really was a boy. He had no clue how utterly fucking hot it was for Dominic that his wife was another man’s fantasy. Craig’s younger-man definition of marriage and love and sex had nothing to do with fifteen years together, tragedy tearing you apart, loss, real life, growing up together, living in each other’s pockets, at work, at home, things that couldn’t be found in a chance meeting on a train.

But did Erin know? Or did she see only the tragedy that had destroyed them, feel only the pain? Would he lose her to something that was merely physical?

He willed her to meet his eyes. When she did, he spoke only to her. “It’s about Erin’s pleasure, not your prowess or mine.”

“But wouldn’t it make you totally crazy?” Craig pushed.

“Yes, it’ll make me crazy,” he agreed. “That’s part of the emotion, making it hotter, making me feel deeper. And that’s why I’d love it.” He stopped short of saying he loved her. He needed her to feel the emotion without the words, to know it was there, unspoken and waiting for her.

“Excuse me,” Erin broke in, turning both their heads at the same time, “but maybe you should both shut up and let me be the judge.” Then she curled her fingers in the open collar of Craig’s shirt and yanked him close. “Put your money where your mouth is.” Then she smiled, as sexy siren as they come. “Or maybe you should put your mouth where it’ll prove your point.”

Holy shit. They were in for a hell of a ride.