The marble floor of the penthouse terrace was cold and slick under Robin’s bare feet, the city’s lights a blurry, indifferent galaxy below. Inside, through the wall of glass, April was a silhouette against his rumpled sheets, sleeping. The divorce papers were in his study, signed, finalized, a done thing. Paula’s signature was a sharp, angry slash. Julian’s custody schedule was a color-coded spreadsheet. Robin gripped the railing, the metal biting into his palms, and tried to feel something other than this hollow, howling quiet.

He’d spent weeks like a ghost in his own life—recording studios where the music felt like noise, press conferences where his famous smile was a physical ache. The party at his friend’s Malibu house was just another echo chamber, full of laughter that didn’t reach him, bodies that seemed to move through a different atmosphere. He’d stood by the infinity pool, a drink sweating in his hand, and watched a group of girls dance. Their youth was a language he’d forgotten.

Then he saw her.

A emerald green dress, all straps and daring cutouts, hugging a form he knew in the dark. April. Her laugh cut through the bass, bright and unselfconscious. She turned, a glass of champagne in hand, and her eyes—wide, expressive—found his across the crowded deck. The recognition was instant, a shared electric current. She didn’t look away. She smiled.

He was beside her before he decided to move. “Miami,” he said, the word a rough exhale.

“California,” she replied, her voice softer than he remembered. She looked up at him, studying his face. “You look… less drunk.”

“I am.”

They talked. He didn’t know how it happened, but the words started spilling out—not the polished press-release version, but the ugly, raw truth. Paula’s cold finality. The restraining order. The way his son’s small voice on the phone now had a scheduled end time. April listened. She didn’t offer platitudes. She just listened, her head tilted, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass. Her maturity in the quiet attention she gave him was a seduction more potent than any dress.

And she was so undeniably, breathtakingly sexy. The dress revealed the smooth plane of her back, the curve of her hip. When she laughed, her whole body moved with it. A heat, different from the whiskey, began to uncoil in his gut. A decision, clear and sharp, cut through the fog of his self-pity. He wanted to feel something else. He wanted to feel her.

“Get out of here with me,” he heard himself say, his performer’s charm returning, but laced with a genuine, desperate want.

Her answer was in her eyes before she spoke. “Yes.”

His penthouse was too quiet, too perfect. He poured them bourbon, his fingers brushing hers as he handed her the glass. They didn’t drink much. They stood in the vast living room, the city sprawling beneath them, and the space between their bodies hummed.

April set her glass down. The click of crystal on marble was the only sound. She stepped into him, her hands coming up to frame his jaw. Her gaze held his, questioning, sure. Then she kissed him.

It wasn’t like Miami. This was slow. Deliberate. Her lips were soft, parting under his, and her tongue tasted of mint and expensive champagne. A low groan vibrated in his chest. His hands found her waist, the slick material of her dress hot under his palms. She worked on the buttons of his shirt, her movements deft, until it hung open. Her palms slid over his chest, feeling the beat of his heart, the tension in his muscles.

He turned them, walking her backward until her shoulders met the cool glass of the window. The city lights haloed her hair. He kissed her throat, her collarbone, his mouth leaving a hot, damp trail on her skin. His hands slid down from her waist, over the incredible, lush curve of her hips. He filled his palms with her, his fingers digging into the firm, perfect swell of her ass through the thin fabric.

A jolt of pure, animal hunger shot through him. His cock, already hard, throbbed painfully against the fly of his trousers. He was achingly, viscerally aware of her body—the sheer abundance of her, the youth and firmness he was holding. He ground himself against her, letting her feel the rigid length of him, and she gasped into his mouth, her hips arching to meet the pressure.

“Robin,” she breathed, her voice a whisper against his lips.

Hearing his name in that tone, here, now, undid him. It wasn’t the scream of a fan. It was intimate. Real. He fumbled for the zipper at the side of her dress, yanking it down. The green fabric pooled at her feet. She stood before him in just a pair of tiny black lace panties, her skin glowing in the ambient light, her breasts full, her nipples tight peaks. His breath caught.

He dropped to his knees. His hands slid up the backs of her thighs, over the incredible roundness of her ass, gripping her. He pressed his face against the lace covering her, inhaling the warm, musky scent of her arousal. She was already wet; the fabric was damp. He hooked his fingers into the sides of her panties and pulled them down, slowly, revealing her to him. She stepped out of them, her fingers tangling in his hair.

He didn’t hesitate. He put his mouth on her. His tongue found her center, licking a slow, firm stripe through her slick folds. She cried out, her knees buckling. He held her up, his hands gripping her ass, pulling her closer against his mouth. The taste of her was intoxicating—salty, sweet, uniquely her. He feasted on her, his tongue circling her clit, then plunging deep inside her, again and again, learning the rhythm that made her thighs tremble, and her moans turn into broken sobs.

Her climax hit her suddenly. Her body went rigid, a sharp, choked gasp escaping her as she pulsed against his tongue. He gentled his mouth, lapping at her softly as she came down, her grip on his hair turning from desperate to tender. He looked up at her. Her head was thrown back against the glass, her eyes closed, her lips parted. She was utterly beautiful.

He stood, his own need a frantic drumbeat in his veins. He shoved his trousers and boxers down, his cock springing free, thick and leaking. He was desperate. He guided himself to her entrance, the head of his cock nudging against her soaked, swollen flesh. He looked into her eyes, seeking permission, confirmation.

April’s eyes opened. They were dark, heavy-lidded. She reached between them, her hand wrapping around his shaft, guiding him. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice raw. “I want to feel you.”

He pushed inside.

The sensation was blinding. The tight, hot, velvet clutch of her. The slow, inexorable stretch as he filled her. He buried his face in her neck, groaning, his entire body shuddering with the relief of it. He was fully sheathed, buried to the hilt, their bodies fused. He didn’t move. He just stayed there, feeling her heartbeat against his chest, feeling her inner muscles flutter around him, acclimating to his size.

Then he began to move. Slow, at first. Withdrawing almost all the way, then sliding back in, a deep, dragging stroke that made her whimper. He set a relentless, deep rhythm, each thrust punctuated by the soft slap of skin and their mingled, ragged breaths fogging the glass. He was everywhere—his mouth on hers, his hands gripping her ass, spreading her, holding her open for him as he drove into her again and again. The world narrowed to this: the heat, the friction, the wet, sucking sounds of their joining, the scent of sex and sweat thick in the air.

Her second orgasm built faster. Her cries grew higher, tighter. She chanted his name, a broken prayer. He felt her tighten around him, a vice-like grip that milked his cock, and it shattered his control. With a raw, guttural shout, he plunged deep and came, his release pumping into her in hot, pulsing waves, his vision whiting out at the edges. He collapsed against her, his weight pinning her to the window, both of them spent and slick with sweat.

Later, tangled in the sheets of his bed, the first grey light of dawn seeping into the room, Robin traced the line of her spine. Her skin was warm, her breathing even. The hollow quiet was gone, replaced by a profound, physical satiation and a startling clarity. He hadn’t been drunk. He’d chosen this. He’d chosen her.

“Stay,” he said, the word leaving his lips before he could cage it. It wasn’t a question about the morning. It was an offer. A lifeline thrown into his own turbulent sea.

April turned in his arms. Her big eyes searched his face, looking for the ghost of regret, finding none. A slow, radiant smile touched her lips. She leaned in and kissed him, soft and sweet. “Okay,” she whispered against his mouth. “I’ll stay.”