Brenna lay in his bed, eyes falling shut. He stood over her, smiling. She’d been serious about that drink knocking her out.

“Are you awake?”

“Mmm,” she murmured.

“Do you want to sleep in your clothes?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “Or do you want me to undress you?”

“Mmm-hmm, that.”

Damon much preferred undressing women who were awake and enjoying it, but having her sleep naked next to him still sounded good, and he’d undressed enough women that this wouldn’t be a challenge.

He started with her boots, unzipping and slipping them off to reveal thin black knee socks underneath, the same as a Catholic schoolgirl might wear. The contrast between the socks and the rest of her outfit brought a smile to his lips. She was no schoolgirl, but even after what they’d shared in the closet, he sensed a certain innocence about her that drew him.

Dropping the boots gently to the carpet at the foot of the king-size bed, he next moved up to her blouse, reaching for the buttons between her breasts and proceeding downward. He’d barely had a chance to notice the sexy bra underneath—he’d seen it through the animal print and caught a glimpse when he was inside her, but now he took in the scalloped edges of the low-cut cups and the way they pushed her breasts upward, creating firm, round mounds.

Shit. He wanted to kiss them, massage them.

But she was asleep, or close enough to it, so all he could do was look—and suffer the hard-on growing behind his zipper.

Removing her blouse required her help. “Come on, babe, raise up for me,” he whispered as he eased one arm beneath her. Letting out a slightly grumpy-sounding moan, she cooperated, and he soon got the blouse off. And, easing both his hands behind her back, he deftly unhooked the bra and removed it, as well.

Of course, then he had to look at her tits—because he couldn’t undress a woman and not look at her tits.

Not quite as firm-looking without the bra, but still beautiful, ample, her pink nipples taut and elongated. Damn, he wanted to suck them, like he had in the closet. But he wanted to do everything slower this time, explore all these soft curves, her smooth, pale stomach, her silky shoulders, the length of her neck. He got harder with the wanting, especially when his gaze returned to her breasts. C-cups, he’d guess—then he remembered he held her bra in his hand. He checked the tag and, sure enough, found a 34C printed there.

She wore a sexy black beaded choker and long beaded earrings, but he decided to leave those on—out of pure selfishness. He liked the way she looked, mostly undressed but still wearing jewelry.

Laying her blouse and bra over the upholstered bench at the end of the bed, he returned for the last piece of clothing she wore. She was a study in erotic beauty, lying bare but for her skirt, her arms now flung sensually up over her head, that choker circling her slender neck, but he’d have been lying to himself if he denied not wanting to see her completely nude—even if she was asleep.

Gently, he eased the side zipper down, loosening the leather around her hips. “Lift up, honey,” he urged, tugging gently downward on the fabric until her ass rose slightly.

He pulled the skirt to her knees and lower, soon dropping it on the bench, as well—all the while studying her pretty pussy. Shrouded with dark curls, he could still see her slit drawing a line down the center.

The beast in him wanted to spread her legs, watch her open, see the pink flesh where he had been not long ago.

Yet even he had his limits. He didn’t bribe singers to have sex with him, and he didn’t manipulate a woman who was asleep.

But he still thought about it—about parting her thighs, studying her cunt, about licking her, tasting her sweet juices—and had a feeling he was going to be awake for a while, fighting a raging erection.

Why the hell was he so turned on? He’d come less than an hour ago. And the sight of a naked woman in his bed wasn’t exactly unusual.

She trusts you.

The words came out of nowhere, like an answer to his question. He barely knew Brenna, yet along with her genuineness, he felt a certain trust in her openness. A feeling now that maybe she hadn’t ever fucked a guy in a closet before. After all, even suggestive billboards made her uncomfortable. So maybe what she’d been tonight, with him, she’d never been before.

And now, she’d trusted him to undress her and put her to bed. Of course, she was drunk—but still, when he’d offered to take her clothes off and she’d accepted, a sexily-content little smile had played about her lips, almost as if they had known each other for years.

Damon had never been with a woman for years, so he didn’t often feel that sort of blind, open trust.

But wait, that was wrong. Once he had been with a girl for a long while, when he was young, still living in New York, trying to find his way in life. And she’d been sweet and pretty—and trusting, too—and he’d broken her heart.

He came from a family of people who were satisfied with average lives. His father had just retired after forty years as a Brooklyn insurance salesman. His mother had been a housewife, the kind who’d worn pearls and dresses every day when he was little, a holdover from a different era. His oldest sister taught school, another sister managed a Manhattan pet shop, and the last sister was a stay-at-home mom. Nothing wrong with any of that, but he’d known early on that such a simple, settled life held little appeal for him. And two weeks before his wedding to Angie, a good Greek girl from the neighborhood whom he’d dated from high school on, he’d gotten a job offer in L.A. and flown the coop.

His guilt hadn’t outweighed the sense of freedom he’d felt stepping onto that airplane, leaving his existence in Brooklyn behind. And ever since, he’d known he just wasn’t the settling-down type. He wouldn’t have a wife, or kids—or a dog or a minivan or a picket fence. It had been hard for his parents to accept, but as years had passed, they’d finally made peace with it, come to understand that he was different from the rest of the Andros family, that he wanted a different sort of life.

And he’d always been happy with that life, where all the key elements meshed so well. Work and parties. Music and sex. He lived and breathed them.

And he was happy. Satisfied. A bone-deep satisfaction he couldn’t have found at home, married to Angie.

But it had been a damn long time since he’d been around a woman who seemed so guileless and real as Brenna did. She seemed like a contradiction. One minute begging him to fuck her, the next sheepishly confiding that she’d never gone without panties before.

And then there was that trust he’d just sensed from her, as tangible as the clothes he’d just removed from her body.

Strangely, for perhaps the first real time since he’d hit the L.A. music scene and come to understand how ruthless the entertainment business could be, it kind of made him want to trust her, too.