Her skin brushing against mine sends a charge of heat through me. Stunned all over again by my unprecedented reaction to her, I pull my hand back, though that’s the last thing I want to do. “Aileen…”

“Did I do something wrong, Kristian?”

The question shocks me. “What? Why would you ask that?”

She takes a deep drink of her wine, as if seeking liquid courage. “I can’t help but notice that you are, or you were before Maddie got hurt… different.” She swallows hard. “Toward me. So I wondered if maybe I did something—”

“No.” That she could think such a thing is unbearable to me. “No,” I say again, more emphatically this time. “It’s not you. It’s me.”

“Nothing good ever comes of that statement,” she says with an ironic laugh that’s followed by a sigh.

I’m making a goddamn mess of this, so I decide to level with her. “You could do so much better than me, Aileen.”

She stares at me, her eyes big with shock. “Why would you say such a thing?”

I could give her so many reasons, but I decide to go with the most important one. “You deserve better.”

“Do you know why I wanted to move here?”

Thrown off by the change in direction, I say, “Because Nat and the others talked you into it?”

She shakes her head. “It was primarily because you live here.”

Closing my eyes, I rest my head back against the chair. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t deserve her sweetness, her honesty or her blatant desire. But God, I want it. I want it all so badly, I burn with the need for more of her.

“Should I not have said that?” she asks in a small voice.

I keep my eyes closed as I shake my head.

“Did I read this wrong?”

“Aileen…”

“I’m sorry. I’ll get your shirt into the dryer so you can go.” The rustling sound of her getting up has me opening my eyes and reacting.

Like before, when Maddie fell, I’m moving before I decide I should. I grasp Aileen’s arm, catch her off balance and bring her down to my lap, my lips landing on hers before either of us can take the time to ponder the massive implications. I cup her face in my hand and try to remember to be gentle with her. My inner Dominant needs to stand the fuck down. There’s no place for him here.

When I use my tongue to coax her lips apart, she whimpers, another sound that goes directly to my cock, which has been hard since she moaned about the time. I kiss her with months’ worth of pent-up desire that’s made all other women pale in comparison to her since the day I met her. I don’t want anyone but her, and now that she’s warm and soft in my arms, I want to show her what she’s come to mean to me.

My heart is pounding and my palms are sweaty. I’m light-headed, off balance and out of whack. Everything about this is new to me, as is the craving desire that swamps me when her tongue brushes against mine for the first time. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I’m so screwed. One taste of her has me addicted. It’s never going to be enough. In the scope of two seconds, everything I want to do with her and to her runs through my mind like the dirtiest movie I’ve ever seen.

That has me pulling back from her, gentling the kiss, putting a stop to this before it gets even more out of control. I stare at her swollen lips and the stunned expression on her face. “Does that answer your question?”

“I seem to have forgotten the question.”

Smiling at her witty reply, I say, “You asked if you read this wrong.” I kiss her again, tipping my head to better the angle. “You didn’t. You read it exactly right.” I force myself to keep my hands still when they would love to wander. I want to touch her everywhere, but her little girl is sleeping inside, and this is not the time for that. However, in the last five minutes, I’ve begun to accept that this, whatever it is, is going to happen, whether I think it should or not.

“Something is different, though,” she says, her lips hovering near mine, her hand caressing my face as she gazes into my eyes. “You are different.”

It is both upsetting and exhilarating to realize she already knows me well enough to see that I’m troubled. “I don’t mean to be.” Nuzzling her neck, I breathe in the fresh, clean scent of her. It’s not perfume or anything other than her. “I couldn’t wait to see you again.”

“Then where were you yesterday?”

“I was…” I start to tell her I was sick, but I can’t. I can’t lie to her. “I had myself convinced that this couldn’t happen. I still don’t think it should.”

“Why?” she asks imploringly. “Is it because I have kids? I wouldn’t expect you to take them on or—”

And then I’m kissing her again, because I can’t bear to hear any more about her being afraid I don’t want her because of her kids. I kiss her voraciously, forgetting that I’m supposed to be gentle and soft with her. She makes me so fucking crazy. “Your kids are adorable, well-behaved and beautiful, like their mother.”

She snorts with disdain. “I’m not beautiful. I’m scrawny and pale, and my hair is growing back curly, and I have no idea what to do with it.”

Her description of herself enrages me. “You are beautiful.”

“So are you,” she says, her voice husky and sexy. “If you knew how much time I’ve spent thinking about you since the day we met, you’d run away from here and never look back.”

“Aileen…” Filled with despair, I drop my head and try to find my resolve. “Sweetheart…”

“What is it? Please tell me what’s wrong. I don’t understand.”

“I want you too much, and I’m all wrong for you—and your kids.”

“Shouldn’t that be up to me to decide?”

Before I can reply, a soft cry comes from the baby monitor.

Aileen is up and off my lap, gone in a flash to tend to her child.

I take deep breaths of the cool air, trying to find my balance after kissing and holding her. I never should’ve done that, but I can’t wait to do it again. I hear her through the monitor and wallow in the sweet words of comfort she gives her daughter.

I never had that. I don’t know how to be soft or sweet or any of the things they’d need me to be. I’m selfish and arrogant and focused on my career. I need dominant, kinky sex the way some people need caffeine to jump-start their day. It’s not just what I like. It’s who I am.

Listening to Aileen softly sing to her baby, I’m stunned when tears sting my eyes. Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t cry. I haven’t cried since the foster family I’d started to love kicked me out to make room for one of their sons who was coming home from college.

I should get up, tell her I’m leaving and get the hell out of there while I still can. But I don’t move. I remain riveted by the sound of her voice and the sweet way in which she loves her child. For the little boy in me who never knew softness, sweetness or love from his mother, my emotions are all over the place, listening to her give everything she has to her baby.

I take a deep breath, as if that could slow the wild beat of my heart. Once again, I’m moving before I consciously decide to, drawn to her so powerfully, I can’t stay away. I stand in the doorway to the bedroom, watching over them as Aileen soothes Maddie back to sleep.

She sees me there, bends to kiss Maddie and gets up to come to me, her arms sliding around my waist and her head returning to my bare chest. I’m powerless to do anything other than wrap my arms around her and hold her as close to me as I can get her. I don’t care that she can feel the obvious proof of my arousal pressing against her.

“I should go.” Even my voice sounds different—gruffer, thicker.

“Stay.” She holds me tighter and looks up at me with her heart in her eyes. In that one instant, I get why Flynn married Natalie without a prenup. If he feels even a fraction of what I do gazing down at Aileen, I get it. I’d give her everything I have with no questions asked if it meant she would look at me, just like that, every day for the rest of my life.

Without breaking the intense eye contact, I lower my lips to hers, which are swollen from our earlier kisses.

Her hands slide up my chest to link around my neck, trapping me.

I’ve never let any woman trap me. I do the trapping, not the other way around, but in this case, I can’t be bothered to care about details that would’ve mattered with anyone else. Here with her, the only thing that matters is more—of everything. All the reasons why I’d planned to stay away are long gone as I lift her into my arms, carry her to the sofa and come down on top of her, losing my fucking mind in a kiss.

A fucking kiss. When was the last time a kiss alone was enough to take me to the brink of release? A million years ago when I was new to such things. But this… This is new to me, the feeling that comes from kissing her, the desperation, the craving. I’ve never experienced anything remotely like it, and I can’t get enough.

It’s like the highest of highs with no drugs required. That thought is yet another reminder of the many reasons I should not be making out with Aileen on her sofa. But when I pull back from her, she whimpers, her fingers grasping my hair to keep me from getting away. I have zero ability to do what I know I should. Losing the power that saved my life ought to terrify me, but I can’t spare the brain cells to think it through, to ponder the implications of what I’m giving up to her.

How can I think of anything but her when she’s wrapped around me, the heat of her pussy pressed tight against my cock, which is so hard, it aches?

The one thing I know for certain is I can’t let this continue toward its inevitable conclusion, not with her little girl injured and sleeping in the next room. If—or I probably should concede to when—this happens, I want to be completely alone with her so I don’t have to hold anything back.

“Aileen,” I whisper against her lips. “Sweetheart…”

She looks up at me, seeming as dazed as I feel. Her lips are puffy and swollen, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes are wide with wonder that makes me want to say fuck it to propriety and anything else that doesn’t have me inside her right fucking now. I’m shaking from the effort it takes to hold back. I can’t remember the last time I held back like this. It’s far more common for me to take what I want than it is to show restraint.

“What’s wrong?”

“Absolutely nothing.” Other than the fact that I’ve lost my mind, my heart and everything else to her, I’m fine. Better than fine. Being with her like this is amazing.

“Why did you stop?”

“I didn’t stop because I wanted to.” I caress her face, my fingertips gliding over her soft skin. She’s so incredibly responsive that even a light touch has her hips rising, seeking me out. I bite back a groan of frustration.

“Then why?”

A very good question. “Because when we do this, I want to be completely alone with you so we don’t have to be quiet.” I nuzzle her neck, and she arches into me. “And I want to take my time.”

She trembles, and I feel it everywhere, especially in my cock.

“I should go.”

“No.” She tightens her hold on me, and I love that. I love that she wants me so much. No one has ever wanted me the way she does. Women want me for what I can do for their careers and the things I can buy for them. They don’t want me for me the way Aileen seems to. “Don’t go. Not yet.”

I sag into her, my painfully aroused body molding to hers.

“It feels so good to be held by you. It’s been such a long time since anyone held me, and it’s never felt as good as it does with you.”

And she’s so refreshingly honest. If she thinks it, she says it. When she asked me earlier if she’d done something wrong, she nearly broke my heart. I’m not used to refreshing honesty from women. I’m far more accustomed to games, intrigue, cat-and-mouse and hidden agendas. With Aileen, what you see is what you get, and I have a feeling I ain’t seen nothing yet.

I’m so relieved he didn’t leave. He’s obviously conflicted about what’s happening between us, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. The attraction between us runs hotter than anything I’ve felt for any man, even the one who fathered my children. He’s easy to talk to and so sexy, I can barely breathe from wanting him.

I snuggle into his warm embrace, breathing in the arousing scent of his cologne or shampoo or something that drives me crazy wanting to imprint it on my senses so I’ll never forget it.

“What did you mean before when you said I can do better than you?”

His body goes tense, and I feel it because we’re pressed together so tightly that I feel everything, especially the hard length of his arousal against my belly. I want to rub shamelessly against him, but he’s right. We can’t lose control with Maddie in the next room. I’m slightly appalled that he was the one who thought of her. Don’t judge me. When you’ve gone as long as I have without sex, and you’re underneath the hottest guy you’ve ever met, stopping isn’t the first thing on your mind.

“I’m not the right guy for you—or your kids.”

My hands are all over his muscular back, learning the feel of him.

He shivers under my touch, which fills me with a sense of my own power and a desire to figure out what’s standing in our way. “I want to understand why you think that. You were so great with Maddie—and with me—tonight. You were everything we needed, and the way you reacted when you saw her trip…”

I fell even harder for him in that moment, not that I can tell him that. I’m afraid to scare him off by letting him know just how crazy I am about him. I already said too much, telling him I moved here in large part because he’s here.

“I reacted the way anyone would.”

“No, you reacted the way someone who cares about her would.”

He releases a tortured-sounding sigh. “You don’t know me, Aileen. Not really.”

“I want to know you. Doesn’t this feel good to you?”

“It feels too good.”

“How is that possible? How can something feel too good?”

His fingers slide over my face. “You’re so sweet and beautiful. Your kids are amazing. You’ve done such a great job with them.”

“Thank you.” Why do I feel a huge ‘but’ coming here?

“It’s just that I’m not really… I’m not capable of…”

All at once, I figure it out. My body, which was on fire for him a few minutes ago, goes cold with realization. “It’s because I had cancer, isn’t it? Don’t worry. If you get involved with me, I won’t saddle you with my kids if I die.”

He startles the same way he would if I’d hit him with a Taser. “What?”

“It’s okay. I get it. You’re a single guy with a big life and career. The last thing you need is two kids who aren’t yours. I’d never do that to you. I plan to ask Flynn and Nat to be their guardians if anything should happen to me, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to them—”

He kisses me. “Stop.” He kisses me again, thrusting his tongue into my mouth, igniting the flame that’s been on low burn since he slowed things down a few minutes ago. Leaning his forehead against mine, he says, “My reluctance has nothing at all to do with you, your kids, the cancer, or any of the things you just said. I swear to God, it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“There’re things… about me… If you knew me, really knew me, you wouldn’t want me.”

He sounds so sad and defeated, both of which are in stark contrast to the man I’ve come to know over the last few months, that I barely recognize this Kristian. He’s usually so confident and almost cocky in his self-assurance, which I find wildly attractive in him when those qualities would be a turnoff in any other man. He and his Quantum partners have more than earned the right to a little swagger.

“You can’t possibly know that for certain.”

“I do. I know it for certain.”

“I’m not going to beg for a chance to prove you wrong. I’m only going to say that I like you and I like this.” I tighten my hold on him. “I like being with you and kissing you, and I liked leaning on you earlier when Maddie was hurt. I probably liked that a little too much.”

“I liked it, too. I like it all.”

“Then maybe…” I summon the courage to go for what I want. Having cancer has left me less afraid than I used to be. I’m painfully aware that life is short and we’ve got to seize the moment, especially when the moment is lying in my arms, hard and hot and sexy and so tormented. “Maybe we could spend some time together and see what happens. It doesn’t have to be serious or committed or anything like that.”

“So you’d be okay if I did this with someone else?” he asks, sliding his lips over mine.

“I’d rather you not do that with anyone else ever again, but I don’t get to decide that for you.”

His eyes flare with potent desire. “You’re so brave and honest.”

“I’ve learned the hard way that time wasted is time we never get back. I don’t believe in playing games or mincing words.” I guide his head to my chest and run my fingers through his thick, wavy hair. I’ve wanted to do that for so long that I take full advantage while I can. “I’m not asking for anything you don’t have to give me, Kristian. I just want to spend time with you and have the chance to get to know you.”

“I want that, too. I want it more than I should.”

I don’t understand. Maybe I never will. But what I already feel for him is more than I’ve felt for any man, and if this is all he’s capable of, I’ll take it. A little of him is better than nothing.

It’s well after three o’clock when I pull a blanket over Aileen and leave her sleeping on the sofa. I need to go before Maddie wakes up and catches me still here. I have no idea what she’d have to say about me sleeping over, and I don’t want to make anything difficult for Aileen, even if she’s made everything difficult for me.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’d made my decision, and I’m not known for waffling. Usually, I decide, and I never look back. But with her… She has me questioning everything.

I’m too keyed up to go home, so I drive back to town and head for the office. It’s not unusual for me to work all night while the place is quiet. When I pull into the Quantum parking lot, I see that Sebastian’s truck is still parked outside. Instead of going upstairs to the office, I head down to the club, where I find Sebastian cleaning the bar area.

Hip-hop thumps through the speakers, loud enough to wake the dead. Drake, if I’m not mistaken. We saw him in concert with Future last summer. Flynn got us backstage, all-access passes. That was a great night, one of many I’ve had with my Quantum family. I wave a hand to get Seb’s attention so I won’t scare the shit out of him.

He sees me and turns the music down to a dull roar. “What’s up?”

“Not much. Good night?”

“Busy as hell. Best thing you guys ever did was open this place up to new people. We’re raking it in.”

“Glad to hear it.” He’s Hayden’s closest friend from childhood. The two of them grew up together, albeit on opposite sides of the Hollywood tracks. Seb’s mom was Hayden’s family housekeeper.

“Drink?”

“Please.”

He pours me a Grey Goose and soda with a twist of lime. I’ve been a vodka fan for as long as I can remember—which is far longer than it should be. I had my first drink at twelve, when other kids my age were in sixth grade. I was never a kid. Childhood was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

“How’s Maddie?”

“Better now. Watching her get stitches was brutal.”

“The poor baby. I’ve never seen so much blood. Scared the crap out of everyone.”

“Yeah, poor Aileen. Hell of a thing to have happen on day two in a new city.”

“I’m sure she appreciated having you with her at the hospital.”

“Uh-huh.” I take a sip of my drink, letting the vodka burn through me, offering the sweet relief I can only get from alcohol and kinky sex. The combination of the two is my favorite thing. Or it was until a certain woman came into my life, making me question everything—including my favorite things.

“You all right?”

“Yep.”

“You sure?”

I look up at him. “I’m sure.”

“Glad to hear it.”

I’m about to ask for another drink when Melody Gorman, a woman we all know well, slides onto the barstool next to me. She’s a teenage boy’s wet dream with curves on top of curves, thick, shiny auburn hair that falls almost to her waist and the face of an angel. “Hi, Kris,” she says, smiling at Sebastian, who puts a glass of white wine in front of her.

I glance at Sebastian, who raises a swarthy brow and grins. I should’ve known he wasn’t here alone.

“Mel. Where’d you come from?”

“Long day on set today. Seb was good enough to loan me your sauna and shower. Hope you don’t mind.”

“My sauna and shower are yours. You know that.” She’s Aileen’s polar opposite in every possible way. She’s lush where Aileen is sparse. She’s Hollywood glamour while Aileen’s idea of style is “mom chic,” if that’s even a thing. Whatever it is, it works for me.

Staring down at pure, stunning beauty, I feel nothing for Melody. She’s an old friend, someone I’ve played with many times in the club, but she may as well be a stranger rather than a woman I’ve been inside of too many times to count.

“You’re looking a little tense, Kris,” she says, resting her hand on my arm.

It takes everything I have not to recoil from her touch, to pull back my arm and tell her she has no right to touch me. Not anymore. But I don’t do that, if for no other reason than I don’t want to deal with the questions or the speculation it would generate. A tiger like me doesn’t change his stripes practically overnight without people noticing, and I want to be left alone with my changes until I figure out how the hell I’m going to deal with them.

“You want to work it off?” she asks, glancing at Sebastian, who raises his brows.

“Nah, I’m good, but thanks for asking.” The thought of touching another woman after being with Aileen generates the same sick feeling I had when I contemplated playing with Evie last night. That queasiness is another thing that’s all new to me.

Other than my Quantum partners and our close friends, I’ve never felt loyal to a woman before. It’s another emotion that I have no idea what to do with. My insides are churning, and the vodka doesn’t have its usual calming effect. All the things I rely on to keep me sane are letting me down tonight, and I feel a spark of anger toward Aileen. How dare she do this to me? I was minding my own business at my friend’s wedding when she showed up and ruined me.

She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that.

I no sooner have that thought than I’m flooded with guilt. It’s not her fault that I’ve lost my fucking mind over her. It’s my fault. I know better than to indulge myself with the kind of thoughts I’ve been having about her and her kids and white picket fences and puppies and happily ever after. Shit doesn’t work that way in my world, and it would do me good to remember that.

“Ready for a refill?” Seb asks as he wipes down the bar until the mahogany shines, his pride in the club always apparent.

“I’m gonna head out.” I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to be home. The only place I want to be is on a sofa in Venice Beach.

Fucking hell.

“Have a good night, Mel.”

“You do the same.”

Seb walks me to the elevator and puts a hand on my shoulder. I hate that my first impulse is still to flinch and defend, even when there’s no need for that with him. “I know you said you’re fine, but you don’t look fine, brother. If there’s anything I can do…”

“Thanks, man.” I give him a bro hug. He’s one of the good guys, and I’m lucky to have him as a friend. I want to tell him there’s nothing he or anyone can do about the dilemma that has me by the balls. I’m going to have to work it out for myself, and because my sanity is at stake, I’m going to do that by staying the fuck away from her.