I’m still reeling from the fact that she knows about the BDSM. She also knows I’m hiding things from her, and yet she’s still here, snuggled into my arms, about to share part of herself with me. It’s all I can do to keep breathing while I wait to hear what she’ll say.

“I met Rex the summer after I graduated from college. I was at the Jersey Shore with my college friends for a week, and he came to a party we had at the house we rented. We hit it off immediately. He was charming and sweet and sincere. I was used to guys who talked a big game but didn’t deliver. That wasn’t him. He called when he said he would, showed up when he said he would, he had a good job in the finance sector, came from a nice family. He checked all my boxes, and I fell deeply in love with him over the next few months.”

I hold her hand as she speaks, needing the connection, even as the thought of her in love with another man makes me seethe. What can I say? I’m hardly rational where she’s concerned.

“We got pregnant with Logan by accident. I wasn’t ready to be a mom. I’d only just graduated from college and was focused on trying to start my career in marketing. I cried for days, but Rex… He was rock solid and so excited to be a father. Eventually, his excitement led to mine, and I began to accept that my plans had changed.

“Looking back now, I can’t believe I was ever anything less than thrilled to be a mom, because my kids are the best thing to ever happen to me. We talked about getting married, but we never got around to it between work and taking care of Logan. Rex was a good father to Logan, but during that first year, he began to go missing for hours at a time, and when I’d ask where he’d been, he never had a good explanation. I was afraid he was cheating on me. We weren’t married. We had a new baby. I was tired all the time. Our sex life had become almost nonexistent by that point. It was frightening to me because he made most of the money we lived on, and I couldn’t conceive of how we’d get by if he left us.”

It kills me to hear her talk about being afraid or lonely. I gather her in closer to me. “Hold on to me.”

She puts her arms around my neck, and I stand to carry her inside, sliding the screen door closed behind me. I debate between the sofa and her room and choose her room, putting her down on the bed and crawling in next to her.

She snuggles into my arms. “Much better.”

Stroking a hand over her short hair, I say, “Tell me the rest.”

“I finally confronted him about his absences, and he assured me there was no one else, that he loved me and Logan and wanted our life together. For a few years, things were good, and then, when I was pregnant with Maddie, he began to disappear again, once for two days. I heard from the wife of one of his colleagues that he’d lost his job, and I panicked. I had no idea what to do or who to call. When he finally turned up, he’d been badly beaten. His face was so swollen, I barely recognized him. I wanted to take him to the hospital, but he refused. I tended to him until he recovered, and then I demanded he tell me where he’d been. He broke down. I’d never seen him cry before. He told me he’d been hooked on cocaine since before he met me, and he couldn’t lead the double life anymore.”

I gasp because I didn’t see that coming. I’m not sure where I thought this was leading, but it wasn’t there. “God, Aileen.”

“There I was with a four-year-old, a baby due in two months, a part-time job, a three-thousand-dollar-a-month apartment and a drug addict boyfriend. And how, I asked myself, had I not known? With hindsight, though, I could see the signs were all there. I just didn’t put them together. I asked him to go to rehab, and he refused. I told him he had to leave, even though I was terrified of being alone with two kids. I helped him pack his bags. He kissed Logan good night, hugged me, said he was sorry he couldn’t be what we needed, and he left. I’ve never seen him again.”

“Jesus. I don’t even know what to say.”

“I had Maddie by myself while a lady in our building watched Logan for me. The next day, I brought her home from the hospital, and the three of us have been a family ever since.”

I hold her tight against me, my heart beating hard and fast. I’ve never wanted to protect anyone from further hurt more than I do her and her kids.

“What about your family?”

“My mom died from ALS when I was fifteen.”

“That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

“It was awful. I wouldn’t wish that disease on my worst enemy. My dad remarried a couple of years after she died and had a second family with his new wife. They live in Louisiana, and my three half-siblings are in high school now. We don’t see much of them.”

“No other siblings?”

“Just me.”

“We have that in common. I always wanted brothers. Flynn, Jasper and the others at Quantum are the siblings I never had.”

“Do you understand why I told you about Rex?”

“I think so.”

“I don’t do secrets, Kristian. That’s my line in the sand.”

I have so many secrets, things I’ve never told anyone, that it would take a lifetime to share them all with her. This would be a really good time to tell her I can’t do this. I can’t be what she wants or needs, because my secrets would horrify her. I should get up and leave. I should walk out her door and never look back. But I can’t bring myself to move, to do what I know I should. I don’t know how to share that part of myself with her, because I’ve never shared it with anyone.

We all have our secrets, as we found out recently when we learned that Henry Kingsley is Jasper’s father, and Jasper is a British marquess in line to inherit a dukedom. I come from the opposite end of the social spectrum, the side that people tend to overlook and forget about.

“Kristian?”

When she says my name, I realize I’ve zoned out and left her hanging. I take her hand, linking our fingers, unable to be this close to her without wanting to touch her. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“To do what?”

“This. A real relationship. I’ve never done it before.”

“Ever?”

I shake my head, feeling the old bite of shame at having to admit such a thing. How does a man get to almost thirty-seven years old without ever having a girlfriend? I’ll tell you how, and it’ll give you nightmares. “I keep telling myself that I should go, that I should walk away while I still can, but it’s already too late for that. I can’t make myself go when I know it would be the best thing for you and your kids.”

“Why do you say that, Kristian? I want to understand what you think is so wrong with you.”

“Everything is wrong with me.”

She sighs with exasperation as I tell her nothing and everything at the same time. “I don’t know what that means.”

I keep my gaze fixed on our joined hands, needing that connection in more ways than one. “You and your kids, you’re a family. Until I became part of Quantum, I’d never been part of a family before.”

Her eyes fill with sympathy that makes me mad. I don’t want her to feel sorry for me. But I don’t let her see the anger. As always, I bury it deep inside with a lifetime’s worth of rage. “What about your parents?”

“I never knew my father, and my mother was murdered when I was three.”

She gasps. “Oh my God, Kristian…”

“I’ve never told anyone that. Even my closest friends don’t know.”

I expect her to ask me why I haven’t told them, but she doesn’t. Rather, she releases my hand, moves closer and puts her arms around me, her fingers sliding into my hair. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

She doesn’t know the half of what happened to me.

“Do you… Do you remember her?”

“Vividly. I also remember hiding in the closet when she was killed. He never knew I was there.”

She tightens her hold on me, and in her arms, I’m the little boy who watched the life leave his mother, who was left alone with her body for four endless days until someone heard me crying and called the cops. Every minute of those four days is seared into my memory, never to be forgotten no matter how much I wish it could be.

“What happened to you? Afterward?”

“I survived.”

My heart breaks for the three-year-old who lost his mother to murder.

He raises his head, his gaze fierce. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. That’s not why I told you.”

“I can still be sorry that such a thing happened to you, can’t I?”

“I’ve worked long and hard not to be defined by the things that happened to me before I had control of my life. I don’t tell people about it because I don’t want to be pitied.”

That word… Control… It stands out to me after what Natalie told me about his sexual preferences. I’m filled with desire and curiosity. I want to know everything there is to know about him.

“I understand,” I tell him, even if the lump in my throat makes a liar out of me.

“I heard you when you said you don’t do secrets, and I respect that, but there are things I just don’t talk about because it’s shit I’d rather forget than resurrect.”

I have so many questions, but I can’t ask. Not now anyway.

“You should tell me to go.”

“Why?”

“Because you deserve someone who can be tender and sweet with you and your kids. That’s not me.”

“How can you say that after the way you took care of Maddie and me last night? Or how you made sure we had everything we needed when we moved? How can you say that when you kiss me the way you do and touch me with such reverence?”

He stares at me, seeming stunned by the revelations.

“I want you to do something for me,” I say, summoning the courage I’ll need to take the next step with this complicated, sexy man.

“I’d do anything for you.”

Does he hear himself? He’s saying everything I’ve ever wanted to hear from a man—and he means every word he says to me. That alone is such a priceless gift after what I went through with Rex. “I want you to stop warning me off you. I’m a big girl, and I can make my own decisions for myself and my children. I want you in our lives, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“You don’t know everything you should to make that decision.”

“I should be warning you off me.”

“What? Why?”

“In case you haven’t heard, I’ve been diagnosed with a sometimes-fatal illness that is currently under control but leaves a huge question mark hanging over the rest of my life. You’d be crazy to get involved with me. Not to mention I have two little kids who’ll always be in the way of whatever is happening between us.”

For the first time in a while, a smile tugs at his lips. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you?”

“I’m not being clever. I’m simply stating that I’m not the best risk either.”

His big hand cups my face as he stares down at me. “Please don’t talk about you dying. That’s not going to happen.”

“It will someday.”

“But not any time soon.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“I know it,” he says as he brings his lips down on mine, kissing me with a fierceness he hasn’t shown me before now.

I slide my arms around his neck and fall into the kiss that sets my body on fire for more of him.

Apparently, it does the same to him, because he ends up on top of me, the hard ridge of his erection pressed against my core. I raise my hips, needing more, and he groans into my mouth.

“You make me so crazy, Aileen. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

His confession makes me feel light-headed and empowered—a heady combination.

I lay my hand on his chest and begin to unbutton his shirt, wanting to feel his skin next to mine. I’m immediately hit with fears that he’ll find my body unattractive. I have scars and stretch marks and sharp hip bones. The thought has me stopping halfway through the job of unbuttoning his shirt.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not really back to where I was before I got sick. You might think—”

“I think you’re beautiful, sexy and desirable.” His lips skim over the sensitive skin on my neck. “If you knew how much time I spend thinking about you, you’d have another reason to run away from me.”

My fingers dig into his muscular bicep. I don’t remember desire feeling like this, or maybe it’s just that nothing has ever felt quite like this. I’m on the verge of forgetting my kids are asleep right across the hall. “I think about you just as much.”

His hand is on my leg, sliding up under my skirt. “We need to talk about some things before this goes any further.”

“What things?” I ask, barely able to string together two words while I wait to see what he’ll do.

“Things like limits and safe words and what it really means to submit.”

I swallow hard and realize I’m trembling.

“Does that frighten you?”

I shake my head. “It excites me.”

Exhaling, he drops his head to my chest. “Aileen…”

I run my fingers through his hair because I’ve wanted to for so long, and now I can any time I want. “What’s wrong?”

He raises his head to meet my gaze. “I’m trying to figure out how I’ll survive until I can have you to myself on Saturday.”

I finish unbuttoning his shirt and push it open as I raise my hips, hoping he’ll take the hint to keep going.

“The kids…”

“Are asleep. Nothing wakes them after they’re asleep. It’s okay.”

Groaning, he cups my pussy over my underwear. “So hot and wet.”

“That’s all for you.”

He withdraws his hand and lies back on the bed, arm over his face, leaving me to wonder what’s wrong. “Sorry,” he says after a long silence. “I… If I touch you the way I want to, I won’t be able to stop, and we can’t do what I want to do with your kids across the hall.”

My heart—and the rest of me—goes haywire as I imagine the things he wants to do. I have a feeling my imagination is no match for the reality of him. I let my gaze travel down his chest to the huge bulge in his pants that has me reaching out, before I even consciously decide to, and placing my hand on that rigid flesh.

His groan is quickly becoming one of my favorite sounds. “Aileen…”

“Let me.”

When his hands fall to his sides, I recognize his surrender and get up on wobbly legs to shut and lock my bedroom door. Returning to the bed, I unbuckle his belt and free him from his pants, gasping at the size of him. Dear God. For the longest time, all I can do is stare.

“Sweetheart, you’re killing me here.”

“I haven’t done… anything… in a long time. That’s not going to fit.”

He cracks up laughing. “Wait till you see all the places it’ll fit.”

My face is on fire with desire as an array of salacious images flashes through my mind like a raunchy movie starring the sexiest man I’ve ever met. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

Smiling, he covers my hand with his and shows me how he likes to be touched. “Yes,” he says, “just like that.” He closes his eyes and sinks back into a pillow.

Leaning over him, I draw the broad head into my mouth and apply gentle suction.

“Oh fuck… Aileen… Oh my God. Don’t stop, baby. Please don’t stop.” The words are like a chant. He guides me with a hand on the back of my head as I take as much of him as I can—which isn’t much, but that doesn’t seem to matter to him. “Aileen, honey…” He gives my hair a gentle tug to dislodge me. Grasping his cock, he directs it away from my face and comes all over his chest.

Watching him lose control is the sexiest freaking thing I’ve ever seen. I get up to grab a towel out of the bathroom and use it to clean him up. He watches me intently, and when I’m done, he takes my hand and gives a gentle tug to bring me down on top of him.

Wrapping his arms around me, he says, “Tell me to go.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want you to go.” I drop my gaze to his lips, and the next thing I know, he’s turned us so I’m under him and he’s kissing me again like his life depends on it. My dress is raised up and over my head, leaving me in a skimpy pair of panties and a bra that fortunately match. He releases the front clasp of my bra and pushes the cups aside, bringing my chest into contact with his.

At that moment, I can’t be bothered worrying about scars or bones or stretch marks, not when his heat is all around me and his big body is anchoring me to the bed.

“Wait,” he says when I begin to squirm, looking for more. “I want to remember what this feels like.” He drops his head to my shoulder.

I wrap my arms around him, and we stay like that for a long while.

“I think this might be the single most perfect moment of my entire life,” he says after a long silence.

The emotion I hear in his voice makes my heart flutter in response to him. “The first of many.”