I pulled into the parking lot tucked behind the rows of old buildings that ran the length of Macaber Street.

An anxious shiver ran my spine.

Nervously, I glanced between the address Kale had texted and the copper-hewn letters affixed to the back entrance of the building.

This was it.

Opening the door to my Suburban, I hopped out, doing my best not to shake like some kind of giddy fool as I rounded to the back and opened the hatch.

But that was what I felt.

Giddy.

Jenna was right.

Someone was excited.

And it was me.

He lived in a building that had to be more than a hundred years old.

Gorgeous.

Stoic.

Proud.

It was five stories high, the red bricks aged to a roughened, blackened patina. It was obviously one of the old, historic buildings that lined this street that had been reclaimed and repurposed into trendy, downtown living spaces.

Trees grew up all around its perimeter, thick trunks and spindly branches stretched wide as they lifted toward that blue Alabama sky, the everlasting scent of wild honeysuckle wafting through the warm, heated air.

I felt flushed beneath it, but I was sure it didn’t have a thing to do with the sun.

I grabbed the big box, which held five hundred lollipops, balanced it against my stomach, and pressed the fob to lower the hatch.

My heels clicked against the pavement as I walked toward the building.

Yep.

I was wearing heels.

After I’d dropped Evan at Josiah’s, I told myself I was just hopping into the shower to freshen up since I’d gotten a little hot and sweaty. Of course, since I was in there anyway, I shaved just about every inch of my body. Then I spent way too much time on my hair and another hour standing in front of the mirror deciding what to wear.

God, I really was in deep. Getting reckless and eager and hopeful in a way I wasn’t sure I should be.

But it was there. Spinning around me. The need compelling me to step forward and take a chance. Urging me in a direction that might be foolish.

I knew I had to be careful.

But I refused to live my life walking on eggshells. A prisoner to Dane’s will. I was living for Evan. I was living for myself. I was living for us.

At the security door, I situated the box onto my left hip and punched in the code he’d given me. There was a buzz and the metal lock gave. The door popped open an inch. I pulled it the rest of the way open with the toe of my shoe and angled through.

Inside, the bricks remained exposed, and a bunch of leather couches were set up in a common area that took up a good amount of the bottom floor.

An old-style elevator with a half-moon dial waited behind the sitting area in the middle and an open-well staircase zigzagged back and forth against the right wall.

Elevator.

Definitely the elevator.

When the door slid open, I stepped in and hit the button for the fifth floor with my elbow. The elevator lifted, bouncing and jerking as it climbed, grinding on its cogs, winding me tighter and tighter the higher it went.

By the time the opposite side of it opened at the top floor, I was a shaking mess.

I didn’t know why.

But coming there felt like taking a leap.

Stepping out on a limb.

On faith.

Landing on this shimmery, fluttery feeling that promised Kale was intended to be something special to me.

Even if it might be dangerous.

I advanced into the quiet, dimly lit hall. Choking on my nerves, I turned right, passing the first apartment and heading to the second and only other one on the floor.

I paused, gathered my wits, and shifted the box to my hip before gently rapping on his door.

Two seconds later, it flew open. The sight of Kale standing there made me take a stumbling step back.

The man so beautiful.

So tall and commanding.

Jeans snug and his T-shirt tight.

Arrogant.

And somehow so fundamentally sweet.

It was written all over him when his confused gaze bounced around me, searching the hall for my son. “Where’s Evan?” he asked when his attention landed back on me.

“He’s spending the night at a friend’s,” I answered, the words rough as they pulled from my throbbing throat.

Kale’s expression transformed, disappointment melting to something severe when he realized I was alone.

Seductive.

“Ah, my princess has made it to the tower. All by herself. Awfully brave.”

A shy, affected smile tweaked the edge of my lips, and I peeked up at him. This man.

He made me feel . . . different.

More beautiful than I had in a long, long time.

Wanted in a way that was right and not filled with cruel intentions.

I did my best to play along with his ribbing, widened my eyes. “Um . . . I think you might have this backward. Isn’t it the knight who’s supposed to save the princess who’s locked in the tower?”

He grinned that grin that made me weak in the knees. “Who said I’m not about to lock her up and keep her here forever?”

My tummy tightened, affection pulsing from within while I tried to maintain the playfulness this boy exuded. “Should I be scared? Here you promised you weren’t stalking me. And I thought you claimed to be the one who wanted to save me? I’m confused.”

“Yet, here you are, standing at my door, searching for a way to break into my castle and looking like that while you do it.”

His gaze swept me from head to toe.

It elicited a rush of heat that climbed into the thrumming air. Awareness spun like an exotic dance, twisting through the motes that floated in the rays of sunlight that speared through his door and lit him up from behind.

A spotlight.

Undoubtedly, that was where he belonged.

Everything about him was distracting. That body and those eyes and his giving, beautiful heart.

That was the part that had me snared. Happy to get caught up in his trap.

“Touché.” It played from my mouth on a flimsy, shuddered breath.

He edged forward, voice growing darker. “And don’t you worry yourself, Princess, I’m all about the saving. Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll show you exactly what that’s like? I think you might have been misinformed.”

That well of desire in my belly sloshed, threatening to overflow. A few fat droplets splashed out like a drenching tease, fuel for the ache that begged for more at the juncture between my thighs.

Because he was right. All these years, I had been brutally misinformed. He’d showed me just how much so that first night out on the balcony. Again, last night. And I had no idea how much more of that education I could take before I completely belonged to him.

Before he owned me in every way.

He felt so much bigger than my tiny world. As if he were expanding it. Filling it with possibility.

So obscenely tall. Overpowering in his casual, confident way. Lean muscle that bristled when he worked with those big, big hands.

Lips full and soft and lush.

So lush my mouth watered standing there looking up at his provocative face.

I’d been right at the beginning.

The man was discord.

Chaos with an easy, arrogant smile.

A perfect, controlled disorder.

I could almost feel that broken heart already making its first, tiny crack.

A splinter that creaked through me like a warning.

Because I could resist a pretty face.

But it was the tenderness and care lined beneath his gorgeous exterior that made him truly dangerous. What had drawn me to him all along.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think you already showed me plenty last night.”

Kale pressed his hands to either side of the doorjamb, leaned in close, and whispered, “Oh, Shortcake, that was me barely getting started.”

Tingles spread. A flash fire of need that raced through my veins.

That was the thing about Kale Bryant. He knew exactly how to get to me.

I pushed the box his direction. “Here are the lollipops. Thank you so much for helping with them. I wish I could express just how much that means to me.”

I wished, too, that I could express to him how I was feeling more. How I felt desperate to explore and test and tease him the way he’d been teasing me.

He took the box and set it on the floor just inside his door, one of those smoldering smirks lighting at the edge of his alluring mouth when he straightened to his full, towering height.

Oh, he was dangerous to me when he got that way. Steadily winning me over. Second by second. Grin by grin. The heart beneath that chipped all the brash away.

“I can’t believe I left you standing there holding that. I’m really slacking on my knightly duties, aren’t I? Letting you stand there with that heavy box. The atrocity. Have to admit, I was a little distracted by the very stimulating conversation I was having. Let me make it up to you.”

It was all mischief and mayhem from between those flirty lips, because he knew as well as I did that box didn’t weigh all that much.

His eyes glinted in playfulness while his pupils dilated in a distinct kind of wickedness.

His expression alone invited me to partake in a thousand scandalous acts.

I wavered, rocking back on my heels. “I think I should go.”

Before I fell.

It was instant, the way his hand darted out to cup my face, his voice gruff. “I think you should stay.”

I watched the plea play out in his eyes.

Let me touch you.

Let me take care of you.

Let me be your hero.

Just for a little while.

A tremble ripped through my body. His touch gasoline.

Instant.

The inferno raging inside me.

My tongue darted out to wet my suddenly dry lips. “If I sleep with you, there won’t be any going back for me, Kale Bryant. Don’t make me fall in love with you. I don’t think either of us are ready for that.”

There was zero provocation in the words, no hint of a tease, just my stark vulnerability. I wrung my fingers in front of me, waiting for his reaction. The air thick. So thick I couldn’t breathe while Kale stood there staring at me as something flashed across his gorgeous face.

Both vivid and obscure.

And I couldn’t stop myself from letting the words tumble free. “I know what I deserve, Kale. I know who I am, even though it’s only been the last couple years that I’ve finally stood up and demanded it.”

I inhaled a harsh breath, my eyes darting across his face to make sure he understood. “What I’m afraid of is you leading me down a path I’m not sure I can travel. Because maybe I am the fool who loves too easily. The one who sees the best in people. The one who sees what they deserve. Evan’s dad didn’t leave me jaded. He left me knowing exactly what it is I want. And what scares me most is I see so much of what I want in you, and I’m not sure you see the same in me.”

My heart clenched, and I felt another piece of my world shatter when he stepped forward and pushed his fingers into my hair. His hand weaved all the way around to hold me by the back of the head, angling me back as he pulled me closer.

Holding me up. As if he’d never let me fall.

“God damn it, Hope. You really think I don’t see that in you? I have no idea how to make sense of this. How to understand what it is you make me feel. What you make me want. But it’s there. Haunting me. Chasing me. Demanding more.”

He gathered me closer, his nose brushing mine, his words quiet and rough. “I don’t know how to stop thinking about you. About Evan.”

A tremor rolled through him, and his hold tightened. “I want you in a way I’ve never wanted anyone. Not ever. But I’m afraid I’m not capable of being the man you see because there isn’t a whole lot of that guy left. I lost him a long time ago. I live for the people around me. For my job. My friends. Their families. My patients. I’ve walked that line for a long, long time. The straight. The narrow. Never veering from my path. But as hard as I try to stop it, colliding with you feels unavoidable.”

God. This incredible man.

So beautiful and giving, radiating a selfless kind of devotion behind that stunning, devastating exterior. Haunted by something he wouldn’t allow me to see.

Staring up at him, I let my fingertips trail across the sharp curve of his jaw. “What about living for you?”

The chuckle that rumbled in his chest was almost dark, words back to flirting with a tease, skirting that subject that hovered around him like a dark, condemning halo. “How about I just keep showing you what you’ve been missing out on?”

“That hardly seems fair,” I whispered, the words wisps and tendrils that got hung up on his seduction that spun around us.

He gently plucked the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip. “Just getting to touch you feels like the best thing in the world.”

My heart shivered.

In affection.

In want.

In something that almost felt like despair.

“Kale.” It was a murmur.

Praise.

A spark.

Because his mouth crashed against mine.

His arms wound around my waist, and he pulled me into his apartment.

He kicked the door shut behind us without breaking the kiss.

Hot hands explored. Gliding down my back. Palming my bottom. Roaming up my sides.

A moan rippled up my throat, and his tongue swept into my mouth, tangling with mine.

Needy and desperate.

Overpowering.

Overwhelming.

My head spun, and I was suddenly in his arms.

My legs wrapped around his narrow waist.

Second nature.

Exactly where I belonged.

“Hope,” he mumbled at my mouth as he carried me through his massive, open loft.

The floors echoed with his heavy footsteps as they thudded across the worn, dark planks and toward the massive leather couch set up in the middle of the living space.

Pure masculine style and impeccable taste with the need for comfort at the root of it all.

Just like the man.

Setting me down on the dark cushions, he dropped to his knees on the plush white rug.

Expression predatory.

No doubt, he was preparing to devour and destroy.

He palmed my knees. The simple contact made me arch and gasp.

“It’s getting harder and harder to resist you,” he murmured, voice scraping and raw.

“Then why are you trying?”

Because I was already so far beyond that point. The second I stepped through his door, I knew it was over. That there was no longer any resisting.

I was tumbling.

Plunging.

Falling.

He groaned, as if my statement caused him physical pain, his blond hair striking in the late afternoon light, the curves and lines and definition of his striking face bold.

His expression enough to tear through me.

Flames licked across my skin, and just the sight of him had need coiling inside me so tightly I could barely see.

“Fuck, Hope. I want to give. You make me want to fucking give.” He blinked, sucking in a breath. “Let me make you feel good. Please. I want to make you feel good.”

I arched. “Nothing feels better than you.”

That smirk resurfaced, whatever reservations that had lingered in his eyes eradicated, that brazen confidence riding back.

Taking hold.

“This dress. What are you wearing, baby?” He ran his hands up the outside of my thighs, under my flimsy, beige dress, the material loose but the skirt short. “God, you are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. What do you think you’re trying to do to me?”

He dipped down and ran his lips along the inside of my thigh as he whispered the words. “Showing up at my house looking like this?”

I whimpered, threaded my fingers through his hair while I sank back into his couch, head rocking on the cushions as he made a delirium-inducing path upward.

Kissing up my bare thigh.

Shivers.

His mouth continued its assault, traipsing over the top of the material while his hands moved under it. He grabbed me by the outside of the thighs and dragged my bottom to the edge of the couch as he edged up, kissing higher and higher.

Over my belly that shuddered and shook.

Nose running across the top of one of my breasts.

Dipping between.

He kissed a path over my heart, which thundered and roared, until he buried his face in my neck and carved out a spot for himself between my knees at the same time.

I could feel his heat where he pressed eagerly at me.

The outline of his cock where he nestled between my legs.

Desire tumbled.

A violent twist.

Because I had never wanted a man the way I wanted him. I wanted to beg him to put me out of my misery. To release the ache. Wholly trusting in him that he would.

He leaned back down on his knees, taking me by surprise when he kissed across my belly.

Something about it so erotic that desire flooded, the feel of his mouth moving over the material driving me wild.

Both of my hands were in his hair, tugging lightly and caressing gently.

A whimper tumbled from my mouth.

“I don’t know what this is, Hope.” His mouth kept moving higher, whispering into the thin fabric.

My heart kicked. Bucked against its confines.

“What’s happening between us. All I know is that you’re making me feel things I haven’t felt in a long, long time, and it terrifies me.”

He pulled back and looked at me. His expression grim.

As if saying it brought him some kind of physical torment.

I wanted to ask him to show me what was hidden in his eyes. Trust me with it. Why this flirty, easygoing guy would suddenly lose himself to a place where it was dark and dismal.

I traced my fingers along the prominent curve of his powerful jaw. “Take me, Kale. Show me.”

A tremor rolled in his throat, and he shook his head, dipped his face away so I couldn’t see his expression.

As if he were pulling himself together. Getting himself back on that line he walked. When he looked back at me, his eyes glimmered.

Lust and need.

“You know that isn’t what you really want, Harley Hope. I refuse to become your regret. But I am going to set you free. Make you scream.”

He burrowed his face up under my jaw. He nipped and kissed at my pulse point, his body pressing deeper between my legs as he edged up higher.

My head rocked back, and my fingers sank into his shoulders.

A dark chuckle rumbled from his throat. “Look at you. Barely takes a brush of my body and you’re already about to go off.”

My arm curled around the top of his head. “That’s because you make me feel something, too.”

He inched back and set his hand over the thunder that beat at my chest, the intensity of his gaze meeting with mine. “Hope.”

I gulped around the emotion that suddenly felt prominent at the base of my throat. “When did you lose yours?”

Because that was what came in flashes.

From the depths of this man.

Grief.

I wanted to hold it, the way he was holding me.

He groaned almost painfully before he was back to kissing between my breasts, giving me no answer, hands riding back up the outside of my thighs.

He tucked me close. Rocked against me.

Sparks and shimmers lit up behind my eyes.

He kissed across the V neckline of my dress, inching it lower with each pass. Licking across the top swell of my breast. His fingers adept as he undid the three little buttons. He showed no hesitation when he pulled the fabric down, exposing me.

Cool air hit my sensitive flesh.

I gasped.

Kale glanced up at me with a smirk, running his thumb around a nipple that pebbled with his touch. “Perfect, Hope. Fucking perfect.”

“Kale.”

He was going to ruin me. Save me. I didn’t know. The only thing I knew was he held me in the palm of his hands.

To crush or protect.

“Hmm?” he hummed as he bent down and blew across the delicate flesh before he bit down lightly, tugging it between his teeth.

“Oh,” I whimpered, arching toward him. He must have taken that as an invitation because the next second had him sucking and lapping, and both my arms were curled around his head, hugging him to me, begging him for more.

For the kind of more I’d had no idea I needed until Kale swaggered into my life.

He was right.

That was exactly what this felt like.

Like I was colliding with what had been missing all along.

He released my nipple with a pop, his thumb back to circling the tight bud before he eased back and set both hands on my knees.

I sat there panting toward the ceiling, eyes cut down so I could take him in.

Blue eyes gleamed as he slowly ran his hands up the tops of my thighs. This time, they disappeared beneath the fabric.

Like a warning.

A promise.

Because the dress gathered on his forearms the higher he went before he hooked his fingers at the sides of my underwear.

Deliberately slow, he dragged them down.

“Shit,” he hissed.

His thick throat bobbed, lust radiating from him as he watched himself peel them off.

Lace grazed my legs, tingles sprinting across my flesh as he pulled them down.

Shivers skated my skin, and my breaths turned ragged as he unwound the fabric from my ankles and heels.

He peered up at my face when he did. “You are perfect, Hope. Sweet, sublime perfection. The first time I saw you, I knew it. Had this feeling like I’d been struck. Like maybe I wouldn’t ever be the same. Know now that I never will.”

Then there was that grin. That wicked grin as his tongue swept across his bottom lip. “Not sure I really want to be.”

Then he spread me. Pressing my knees apart the way he’d done that night at the bar. But this time, there was no barrier.

My body completely exposed.

And he was diving in without further warning, his hot, hot tongue sweeping into my folds.

I yelped and desire tumbled.

Pleasure spiked on all sides.

Magnified.

Compounded as he licked through my sensitive, engorged lips, dragging up and circling around that achy spot that throbbed and glowed.

“Kale.” A whimper.

“I know, Hope,” he rumbled. “I told you I know what you need.”

But that was where he was wrong. Because I needed all of him. Every inch and every word and every smile.

A flicker of a warning rose up in my consciousness, telling me I was spiraling too fast, tripping into a free fall while Kale continued to drive me higher.

Higher and higher and higher.

His kiss so intimate I would have blushed if my skin weren’t already covered in a flush of heat.

Red from the flames that licked up inside me. Flames that spiked and flared and grew hotter with each decadent stroke of his mouth.

Igniting into a full-body blaze.

Blistering.

He tucked me closer, his hands on my bottom as he lifted me from the couch, his thumb doing magical things to the most private part of me.

Circling.

Teasing.

Easing into my ass.

“Oh, God. Kale . . . what—” The words were thready. Thin with the rasp. My fingers slipped frantically across the leather of the couch, searching for something to hang on to.

“Relax, I’ve got you,” he murmured. His low command reverberated through me. “I’ve got you. Trust me. I’ve got you. Want to make you feel good. Let me give you this.”

“I trust you.”

I did.

I trusted him with every part of me.

With the recognition, the acceptance, my heart clattered in my chest, and I whispered, “Please.”

Though I knew he didn’t know I was begging for so many things.

I gulped for the nonexistent air when he dipped his head back down and burrowed back between my thighs. With his other hand, he pressed two fingers into the well of my body. He moved in perfect sync with his thumb.

My walls clenched around him.

With his tongue, he laved at my clit, suckled and licked and tempted me into a boiling frenzy that gathered to a pinpoint.

It was unlike anything I’d ever felt.

An avalanche of sensation riding on every nerve.

Filling every crevice.

My head swished back and forth on the back of the couch, pleasure gathering fast.

Flashing of bliss. Flickers of ecstasy.

Then everything split.

Breaking wide open.

Streaking and spinning and spiraling.

Euphoria.

I wanted to stay there for all of forever, and I couldn’t help but whimper as I tumbled back down.

A weightless dive through limbless bliss.

When I landed, Kale was right there, placing gentle kisses along the inside of my thigh, holding me steady as my body twitched and jerked with the most powerful kind of aftershocks.

There was nothing I could do, my hands were on his face, pulling him up to me.

His jeans ground against my bare center, and I almost went off again.

I kissed him. Kissed him frantically. Maniacally. A frenzy that had taken hold. “Kale. Take me. I’m yours. I want to feel you. I need to feel you. Please.”

He groaned a sound of pain as he kissed me deeper, and his eyes squeezed shut before he palmed the side of my face and pried himself back. “You know you don’t want that.”

“I do.”

“No, Hope, you don’t. You told me you couldn’t afford another complication. And you know that’s exactly what I’d be.”

But he already was the most intricately exquisite complication.

I kissed across his jaw and up to his ear. “What if I want to take care of you, too? Make you feel good?”

Another groan, but it was one of those belly-flipping smirks that hitched up at the corner of his sexy mouth when he pulled back. “What exactly did you have in mind, Shortcake?”

This time, I did blush. Heat rushed to my cheeks. But I tried to remain bold, confident as I nudged him back. He eased onto his knees.

Fumbling beneath the hem of his shirt, I pressed my hands up under the soft material, inching it up.

My palms gliding over carved, defined muscle as I went. “I want to see you,” I confessed.

He shuddered and shook, but he was grinning when he lifted his arms over his head and let me draw his shirt from his body.

I blinked when I dragged it free.

Stunned.

Struck dumb.

Left in staggered awe.

Holy crap.

Jenna may let a ton of nonsense roll out of her mouth, but she’d had one thing right.

This man was delicious.

I let my fingertips run up his chiseled abdomen, fluttering across his huge, bulging pecs, running over both of his shoulders and down his arms, watching the path I made the whole time.

Sucking on my bottom lip, I peeked up at him. “And you said I was perfect.”

“You are, baby. So goddamned perfect. Just looking at you makes my guts hurt. Nothing should be that beautiful. But you are.”

My blush deepened, my hands shaking, unsure of where to go from there.

But Kale, he knew when he needed to take control.

When I wanted him to.

He slowly pushed to his feet, straightening to that towering height of security where he stood right in front of me.

Potent.

Powerful.

Persuasive.

While I still sat on his couch, nothing but a fumbling mess of need.

“You want to touch me?” he grated.

I could barely get out a spastic nod.

Staring down at me, he started flicking through the buttons of his jeans. “You sure?”

He almost grinned, but it was weighted with his own desire, held back by the tight clench of his jaw as he freed the last button.

Oh goodness.

My insides trembled.

A tiny earthquake.

“Yes,” I whispered.

He pushed his jeans and underwear down over his hips, and the little air I had left in my lungs jetted out on a panted heave when his cock sprang free.

Massive, thickened, and throbbing with his need.

Pointing toward the sky, it bobbed in front of my face, swaying just to the right, just as arrogantly confident as the rest of this mesmerizing man.

“This is what you do to me, Hope. This. Every time I see you. Every time I think of you. This.”

A shiver rocked me to the core.

My core, which had been sated to a simmer, was stoked into an all-out blaze again.

My tongue darted out to wet my dried lips, my fingers shaking and shaking when I reached out and tentatively traced them down the velvet skin.

His hips bucked, and his stomach clenched.

“Hope, baby, are you trying to embarrass me?”

I peeked up to find him gazing down at me, as if he were riveted by the feel of my hands on him. Touching him.

“I don’t think that’s possible, Kale Bryant. I don’t even know what to do with you.” It came on the huff of a breathy laugh, a tease and the utmost truth.

The truth was, my stomach was twisted in a million intricate knots when I took him in my trembling hands, circling him at the base. The crash in my heart an uncontrolled bang, bang, bang.

A groan jutted from his mouth. “I think you’re doing just fine starting right there.”

“This is okay?”

“Yes.” It was a long moan when I ran my hands up and back down before I picked up a slow pace, letting one hand glide over his dripping head each time.

“Just like that,” he said.

Leaning forward, my tongue darted out, flattening across the tip.

Tasting him.

“Or that. Yes, that. Fuck, Princess. I think it’s me who doesn’t know what to do with you.”

But he did.

Because his hands landed on either side of my face, and I held him while I looked up at him.

The man lit up in the blaze of the sun.

A conqueror.

A champion.

“Suck me, baby.” It was a grunt, his tip nudging at my lips. “Let me have that sweet mouth.”

I wanted to tell him I would give him anything, but he was already tugging me forward, begging his own plea.

My lips parted, and I drew him into my mouth.

My insides clenched.

Why did I love the feel of his flesh on my tongue? Why did I ache with the impact of his soft grunt?

He drove his fingers into my hair. They dug in deep, spreading out, all the way over the back of my head until his fingertips were brushing the back of my neck.

“I’m going to fuck your mouth, Hope. Hold on, baby.” His hips surged forward, my hands and mouth and heart full of him.

Overflowing and somehow wanting more.

More.

I whined around him, trying not to gag as my trembling hands spread out to clutch his hips.

He drove deeper and deeper with each of his slow thrusts. As if he were carefully claiming me while I felt frantic to demand all of him.

“Fuck . . . so good, baby. Just like that. Your mouth is perfect. So perfect. Just like the rest of you.” It was a muddled jumble of pleasure that tripped from his tongue.

His wicked, delicious tongue.

More.

My spirit sang, and those hidden places that Dane had beaten down danced.

Freed.

There was some kind of magic in touching Kale this way. Power in making him moan. Power in hearing his pleas rumble from somewhere in the depths of him.

Both of us unchained and unbound.

His stomach tightened just the same as his fingers tightened in my hair. He gave a little yank, and I tipped my gaze toward his magnificent face.

I was literally brought to my knees by the magnitude of what I saw there, my body slipping from the edge of the couch to kneel on the floor.

Held by the raw, unbridled possession.

The passion and the need.

Hunger.

Never before had it been so fiercely directed at me.

“I’m getting close. Can you take it?” It was a warning that pressed between his lips, grit and lust and desire. Every inch of him trembled in restraint, muscle rippling and twitching as his own pleasure gathered.

My hands moved to his chiseled ass, gripping him, my eyes wide, begging him to let me be the one to give him what he needed.

To be the one who believed in him. To hold all his secrets and hidden desires. To be the one to cherish him in the highs. To stand beside him on the lows.

Because I wanted him to be a part of all of mine.

“Sweet girl,” he murmured. So softly. As soft as his gaze that traced over my face.

Riddled with affection.

Lined with fear.

One second later, Kale let go.

I let him possess me as his hips began to snap, desperate in their play.

His thrusts wild.

Unhinged and uncontrolled.

And maybe I was a fool, thinking I could have stopped it. Kept it away. The chaos that rose and lifted and shivered in the bright, blinding light that poured in behind him.

But I should have known better.

Because I was already lost.

The room spun and the ground shook and lights flashed where I knelt before him on my knees.

An offering.

His.

Kale gripped me as if he were determined to never let me go. His beautiful, glorious body stretched taut. Muscle keening, twisting, covered in a light sheen of sweat.

“Hope, baby, oh . . . fuck . . . yes.”

His hips surged forward, and I took him as deeply as I could. Tears pricked my eyes as he pressed all the way into my throat.

He throbbed and jerked and poured in my mouth.

And that spinning room canted, my axis knocked.

I felt almost frantic as I swallowed around him.

Because all I could see was hope spread out in front of me.