Silently, I followed behind her. Our footsteps subdued as we waded through the tension that climbed into the atmosphere, amplifying the closer we got to her room.

Energy lapped, mounting and building in the dense, dense air.

Severe.

Intense.

That storm I’d felt coming for weeks was suddenly overhead. Battering at the walls and howling at the windows.

Hope didn’t look back at me as she led me through the living room, her head bowed, her motions somehow deliberate. Like she was moving through honey.

The minutes set to slow. Like we didn’t have to rush.

But there was no doubt, no hesitation in her decision.

I could feel it galloping ahead of us. This girl already riding toward a divine destination.

Inviting me to join her.

Part of me screamed and raged, tearing at my insides, shouting at me to go. To tell her this was a horrible idea. It was four in the morning and our walls were down.

I needed to leave because I had no idea where this path was going to lead us, and if I hurt her, I wasn’t sure I’d make it through this time.

Because she brought every old feeling back. Ones I’d never thought I’d feel again. Then she multiplied it by something that was brand new. Bigger than anything I’d felt. Not once. Not ever.

Only her.

Blips of the day flashed through my mind. The girl blowing my mind. Confessing to her that I’d lost the first and only girl I’d ever loved. The sheer terror I’d felt over Evan. The fact I hadn’t been able to walk away when I’d brought them back here.

And I knew.

I knew.

I wanted to try.

God. I wanted to try. Hope’s breaths turned shallow when she guided me through the threshold of her doorway and into the dimmed, shadowy glow that clung to her bedroom.

Golden shadows and a lusty haze.

Just inside, she dropped my hand. Slowly, she swiveled around to face me, her chin lifting on a lurching breath. I saw the offering just as clearly as I heard the plea.

Her legs were bare beneath that tiny slip of a gown.

Every damned inch of me grew hard at the sight, my chest tightening and my dick thickening, begging at my jeans.

I shifted to quietly latch the door shut and flicked the lock.

The promise of it hit the room like a sonic boom.

I stepped forward, erasing the distance between us, my fingertips reaching out to flutter along the delicate column of her neck.

Her pulse thrummed an erratic, reckless beat. I trailed them back up, over the divot in her chin, and ran them across the pout of those lush, full lips. “You are so beautiful, Hope. So beautiful that I think I have to be dreaming right now.”

“I need you, Kale,” she whispered across my fingertips.

It sent a spiral of need curling through me.

Lust.

Greed.

Possession.

“I need you,” she whispered again.

Every muscle in my stomach clenched when she stepped back and gathered the hem of her nightgown in her hands. Slowly, she peeled it over her body.

Exposing herself. Inch by delicious inch.

After tugging it over her head, she dropped it to the floor.

That mass of hair fell around her bare shoulders, caressing over her collarbones. Kissing her tits.

Pink, pert, pebbled nipples peeked through the long strands like the most brutal kind of tease.

Her belly flat and her waist narrow, hips flared and wide, thighs full.

Pussy covered by the same scrap of underwear that had earlier been on my floor.

That felt like a lifetime ago.

Like everything had changed. Like time had shifted and I no longer knew where I was.

A shudder took to my spine, lighting up my insides.

I ran the back of my knuckles across one peaked nipple.

She emitted a tiny moan.

“Is this what you need? You need me to touch you?”

She looked up at me. Baring herself. “I just need you. The only thing I need is you.”

“Hope,” I murmured, knowing exactly what this girl was saying.

Her heart and spirit soaring through the room.

Spinning around me.

Sucking me in.

I gripped her by the back of the head, my fingers splaying wide, drawing her to me.

I kissed her slowly. Deeply. Because right then, I got that this girl needed to be treated delicately.

Carefully.

That in her amazing strength, she was fragile and vulnerable, and she needed someone to hold her up. Treat her like a queen.

And I wanted to be him. That guy she said she saw when she looked at me. The guy who might make her better rather than destroy her a little more in the end.

“I need you,” she muttered again, a sigh against my lips.

“I need you, too, Hope. Fuck. I need you, too.”

There was so much in that statement. Things that burned in that cold, dark place. Impaling the numbness I’d surrendered it to.

Her light threatening to bring that dead place back to life.

My kiss was a slow claiming, as I backed her across her room until she butted against the bed. She didn’t hesitate to crawl on top.

Our breaths heaving into the dense air when we broke apart.

The girl watched me through the shadows that jumped and danced against her bedroom walls while I stood there, taking her in, all lush milky skin and fiery red hair and hopeful, trusting eyes.

So damned gorgeous where she rested on her elbows with her knees bent and feet planted on the bed.

Rocking softly.

Touch me.

Love me.

Protect me.

Body singing with the appeal.

“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.”

Another shudder ripped through me at the thought because the way she was looking at me promised it was already too late.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked her, gritting my teeth, hands fisting in restraint.

“You already know my life is in turmoil.” Her words were wispy tendrils that left her sensuous mouth. “I hate that I’m dragging you into the middle of it, not knowing what’s going to happen. But if I’m sure of one thing? I’m sure of you.”

Heart clattering with her words, I tugged my shirt over my head and ticked through my fly, shoved down my jeans and underwear, shrugged them free of my feet.

Lust knotting my insides.

A needy sigh puffed from her lungs when she looked at me, those eyes wandering with a greedy awe as they roved over me. The girl doing her own claiming. Raking my chest. Moving down my abdomen, muscles flexing and bowing, taut with need.

Her attention dipped lower, those pink lips parting when she let her heated gaze trace over my cock.

I was hard.

So damned hard.

Harder than I’d ever been.

Because this felt different from anything I’d ever felt.

Her eyes flicked back up to mine, her words soft adoration. “How is it possible you’re standing there? You are magnificent, Kale Bryant. Better than any dream. Better than any fantasy. Inside and out.”

I didn’t know what it was about those words. But they crushed my reservations and made me forget any old devotion and any lingering fear.

Without thought, I was reaching down, fisting her underwear in my hands, dragging them down her gorgeous legs as I dipped over her to kiss at her belly.

She squirmed and sighed.

Body reaching for mine.

And I was wondering what it really meant to dream. To hold them and possess them and never give them up.

If she and Evan could possibly become the reason for mine.

Because my heart was careening in my chest, knocking at my ribs like some kind of beast when I climbed over her, when I made a spot for myself between her thighs.

Her pussy bare. Fire against my cock that barely kissed through the slick warmth of her lips. I hesitated for a second before she whispered, “I’m on the pill.”

I brushed my fingers through her hair, staring down at her. “Princess,” I murmured.

Her expression shifted, so soft and tender, voice sweet affection. “Hey, Cowboy.”

And fuck. I wanted to tell her I’d be her anything. Her cowboy or her knight when the only fucking thing I wanted was to be her hero.

She looped an arm around my neck, our chests pressed together, hearts beating wild against the other.

Little pants of anticipation escaped from her mouth.

“Are you ready for me?” I asked.

She blinked at me through the shadows, the fingertips of her free hand running the line of my jaw. “I think I’ve been ready for you my whole life.”

I grabbed the hand tracing my face, kissing her fingertips, her wrist, the inside of her forearm, hoping she knew that this meant something to me. That it was more. Then I hooked that arm around my neck, too. “Hold on to me, sweet girl.”

I edged back a fraction. Just enough that I could watch her while I began to tuck myself deep in the tight, clutching grasp of her body.

Her walls hugging my dick perfectly as I spread her.

Sweet, sweet heat.

“Fuck . . . Hope . . . baby.” It was all a guttural rasp from my mouth.

Heaven.

Didn’t think I’d ever touched on it until right then. Because she was warm and snug and felt a little too close to home. Like maybe this girl had been meant for me. Like right here . . . with her was exactly where I was supposed to be.

She sucked in a sharp gasp, and her chest arched into mine.

“Kale.” It was a shaky, unstable prayer.

Slipping my arms under her back, I gathered her tighter, wrapping her whole. Holding her as close as I could get her.

Our hearts battered against each other’s, almost frantically, and I swore, I could feel the beats catching time. “I know. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” I told her.

And that energy—that feeling that had made me stumble the first time I’d caught the full impact of her face back at the bar—it combusted.

I should have known it that night that she had the power to change everything.

Because it spun the room and my head, licked through my veins, and knocked something loose inside me.

My spirit thrashed when it touched those dark places. Kindling and sparks.

Pushing up onto my hands, I pulled almost all the way out, until the tip of my dick was just hanging on.

My eyes swept over her sweet, sweet body where she was laid out beneath me, and her knees hugged my hips eagerly. Her nails sinking into my back. “Kale.”

I pressed back into her heat.

Slow and sure.

Deep and promising.

Until I was filling her, the girl taking all of me the same way I was taking her.

Wholly.

“You are perfection. So goddamned perfect.”

She whimpered, her perfect tits jutting toward me as she arched.

Demanding more. Emotion thick as it washed across her gorgeous face.

My hips dragged out then surged forward.

Possessing.

I quickened with each thrust, and Hope met every one with the needy roll of her body. Her hips lifted from the bed to meet mine, my name a constant prayer from her lips.

I dropped back to my elbows, every inch of us pressed together because we no longer knew how to be apart.

I fucked her and consumed her and murmured her name. Kissed her mouth. Her neck, her jaw, her tits. My lips everywhere I could reach.

She whimpered and begged and moaned, nails scratching deep into my skin. Sinking in until we were a blur of rocks and moans and twined bodies.

And I wanted to make a million promises.

Promise it all.

Pleasure threatened at the base of my spine, my balls tightening as I drove deeper and madder and faster.

Hope grasped at my shoulders as her moans and pleas increased.

Until she was begging, “Please. Kale. Oh, God, I’m close . . . please.”

I edged back, pushing up onto a hand, giving myself a second to let the other smooth over her unforgettable face.

Then I dipped my thumb into the well of her mouth. She sucked it, tongue grazing the flesh, nearly sending me flying right then.

Tugging it free, I cupped her round, full breast and ran my thumb across her nipple.

She mewled a tiny plea.

Slowly, I dragged it down the valley of her stomach, winding her up, before I slipped it lower and against her clit.

I circled and flicked and teased as I climbed to my knees. The new position let me take her deeper.

And this time . . . I took her hard.

Her head rocked back on the mattress, and her hips lifted from the bed.

Every fuck of my hips drove her higher.

Higher and higher and higher until I could see it.

The second it split.

The orgasm ripping through her being.

Hope tried to mute her scream. To control the way the quivers of bliss ravaged her body.

It was the exact same second that ecstasy went streaking through mine.

The most intense kind of pleasure rocked through my body. I held back a roar when I came, pouring inside her, not giving a single thought to consequence except for the one where I might get to keep her.

I panted over her before I slumped down, resting most of my weight on top of her. Hope wrapped her slender arms back around me and held on as I rolled us to our sides.

She smiled at me.

Smiled this smile that demolished me.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

Her fingertips danced across my brow, my jaw, my lips. It wasn’t shyness that blossomed on her cheeks, just soft, sweet affection. “I think you ruined me.”

There was a tease in it, mixed with a heavy dose of awe.

I let the smirk ride to my mouth and pulled her naked body flush with mine. “You think you’re ruined?”

A giggle slipped between her swollen lips. “Really?”

I ran the palm of my hand over the top of her head, cupping it from behind. “Yeah, really, Hope. That was . . . I don’t know how to properly describe what I feel when I’m with you. And getting to be with you like that? Inside you? You own me, Princess.”

Redness flushed her cheeks, and she drummed her fingers over my bare shoulder. “I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around, Kale. I’ve never experienced anything like that.”

I ran my nose down her face, nuzzling up under her chin. “So, you’re telling me you like my stamina after all?”

Another giggle. “If I tell you I do, will it go to your head?”

I laughed, pressing my hips to hers in a playful way, my dick already perking up with the contact. “Uh, I’m thinking that’s a possibility.”

Smacking at my arm, she laughed, keeping it quiet, so much easiness floating through the air. I gathered her closer and locked my arms fully around her, loving the way she felt against me.

All warm, silky flesh and lush curves and tender spirit.

Light.

Rolling again, I pulled her on top of me, and more of those giggles slipped free. And fuck. I loved being her haven. Giving her some reprieve.

She pressed her palms to my chest and pushed up, red hair falling all around her, lighting up in the dawn of the day that was barely breaking at the window.

She stared down at me, all that belief shining around her like a halo.

And this gorgeous girl?

Looking up at her?

I was gone.

Incinerated.

“What you did today, Kale . . .” Sincerity took hold of her expression, and she chewed at her bottom lip, like she was searching for what to say. “I want you to know how much that meant to me. You staying with us.”

“I wanted to be there,” I told her, threading my fingers through the fall of her hair.

Her eyes searched mine. Honestly. “I wanted you to be there, too.”

A heavy sigh pressed between my lips. “I hate that I have to, but I’m going to need to put in a transfer of care for Evan. It isn’t a good idea for me to see him as my patient if you and I are together.”

It was a tweak of joy that pulled at the corner of her lush mouth, though concern swam in her eyes. “Is that what we are . . . together?”

I bucked up a little. “Sure feels like it to me.”

Heat bloomed on those sweet cheeks, her freckles prominent in the wash of the sunrise that glowed against her face. Hesitation rimmed her words when she said, “But you do this all the time.”

I shot up to sitting, framing both sides of her face in my hands. “No, Hope. I don’t do this all the time. Not like this.”

“It feels different, doesn’t it?” she asked, voice almost whimsical as she chanced meeting my eyes.

I cupped the side of her neck. “Yeah . . . it feels different. It feels better.”

It feels right.

A sad smile tweaked her mouth. “I hate the idea of you not seeing him. You’re a good doctor, Kale.”

“I want to be.”

“Does this scare you?” There she was, once again, so goddamned open. Vulnerable and honest and real. No games.

I refused to play them, either. “Yeah. It fucking terrifies me.”

“I don’t ever want to put you in a position you don’t want to be in, Kale. I’d never back you into a corner. But you need to know, Evan is my life, and every choice I make affects him. I have to be careful, especially with what’s going on with his father right now. Most of all, I need you to know I will do whatever it takes to protect him.”

There was almost a warning in her words.

Anger flamed, and I pushed it down, refusing to let that bastard come into our sacred space.

Instead, I wrapped my arms around her slender waist and tipped my head back so I could read her expression better. “I’m not here to yank you around, Hope. You already made yourself perfectly clear, and I knew what I was doing when I followed you into this room. I get it. I know what’s on the line.”

With her, I wanted to walk it.

She wrapped her arms tighter around me, pressed her mouth to my neck. “I didn’t expect you, Kale Bryant.”

I hugged her body against mine, our hearts synced, beating in time. “I definitely didn’t expect you, Hope.”

I glanced at the clock on her nightstand. “I should go before Evan wakes up.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, albeit reluctantly.

I shifted so I could toss her onto her back on her bed. Giggling, she bounced, red, red hair splayed all around her, her smile brighter than the sun that rose through her window.

My chest clenched. Never thought I could feel this way.

I climbed off her bed, feeling the heat of her gaze as she watched me dress from behind. When I turned back to her, she had her sheets pressed to her mouth, blushing all over the place.

God. This girl.

I leaned over and planted my hands on her bed, kissed her mouth. “You can ogle me any time you want, Princess. You don’t have to be shy about it. I’ve been ogling you since the second I met you.”

“It’s just . . . you’re gorgeous, Kale. Such a beautiful man. Inside and out. I don’t think I ever want to stop looking at you.”

I dipped down closer. “And you’re the best damned thing I’ve ever seen.”

I let my gaze rake her body. “Fair warning . . . next time I get you in bed, I’m not gonna be so easy on you.”

Because there I was, wanting to climb right back onto her bed and take her again. My mind running wild with fantasies. The ways I wanted to have her. Wanting to incite that sweet little vixen.

Redness splashed those cheeks when she grinned. “Is that a promise?”

I growled, buried my face in her neck before I pushed back, smirking down at her. “You are in so much trouble, Harley Hope.”

She ran her fingers through my hair. “Figured as much. I knew you were trouble the first time I saw you.”

I pecked her mouth again. “I’ll swing by later, if that’s okay? Check up on Evan?”

Her expression grew soft. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Why don’t you try to get some more rest? Yesterday was a long day.”

She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, gave a nod. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I told her in encouragement before I straightened. Wavered.

Looked around her room, not really wanting to leave but knowing I needed to.

She was right.

We had to be careful with Evan. Their lives were riddled with complications, and I definitely didn’t want to make a single one of them worse.

I headed for her door where I slowly and quietly released the lock. The door barely creaked when I opened it. I tiptoed out, leaving it open a crack behind me, heading for the door.

I froze when I saw the mess of red hair sticking up all over the place from over the top of the couch.

I wondered if it’d make me a horrible person if I tried to sneak out, taking advantage of his disability that way.

But he’d already noticed the movement, anyway. His eyes keen and knowing, the kid always picking up on more than I thought he would.

He scrambled from the couch, going for the pad that was on the coffee table like he’d been waiting for me.

Furiously, he scratched something on the top sheet, and I slowly eased around to the front of the couch. I sank down onto the edge of it, the coward’s side of me wanting to bolt.

Somehow sitting there made me feel like I was fifteen and had been caught sneaking out the window of my girlfriend’s bedroom in the middle of the night, her dad standing with a shotgun on the lawn, waiting for me.

Which was ridiculous.

Or not.

Because my eyes bugged out of my damned head when I saw what he’d written.

Evan’s green eyes were hard and demanding behind his thick-rimmed glasses, his demeanor a little mad when he shoved it at me.

I roughed my palm over my face. Apparently, that feeling hadn’t been so off base.

Warily, I eyed him, watching him carefully when I took the pen and wrote out a response.

He seemed annoyed when he snatched it back.

“Exactly,” I said, knowing he was reading my lips.

He scribbled more.

A disbelieving laugh jolted free, nerves and caution and unease.

He scribbled again.

How the hell was I supposed to answer that? I didn’t want to lie. Fuck, I didn’t want to lie to this kid.

Because I saw it all over him.

He thought he was the one who was supposed to be protecting his mom.

Looking out for her.

The man of the house.

And I didn’t think he really knew exactly what he was asking me, but I knew it was wholly important to him.

My chest tightened, and I swallowed around the lump in my throat, leaned over, watching him as I wrote.

I knew in his expression that answer brought him to his conclusion.

In a flash, he was on his feet in front of me.

Tears of anger and frustration glistened in his eyes when his hands frantically signed.

No. I couldn’t read it.

But I knew exactly what he said.

BUT DO YOU LOVE HER?

Everything clenched and crushed, and I was rubbing my mouth again, dropping my hand to make sure he could see.

“It’s complicated, Evan,” I said.

He was back to the pad, the pen cutting deep into the paper.

And God, he was so innocent and wise. Smarter than I was. Seeing the world so simply.

I reached out and grabbed him by the outside of the shoulders, dragging him a step toward me, wishing with all of me he could hear me. That I could communicate with him better. That I could make him understand something that I didn’t fully understand, either.

“I care about your mom, Evan. I care about her so much. And I care about you. Okay?”

Without warning, his tears were running free, and I had him in my arms, hugging him against me.

I suddenly realized so many things about those complications that Hope had warned me about.

This kid and his mom had been through hell, and he was terrified of a man taking them there again. I pulled back, dried his eyes. “I won’t hurt her.”

He swiped his forearm under his nose. “Promise,” he said. His lips formed the word, but the sound he forced from his throat was unintelligible.

But I heard.

I heard.

“I promise.”

He stared at me for a beat before he nodded. OK.

Okay.

I huffed out a breath, hit with a distinct rush of relief.

I grabbed the pad and wrote out the question.

I chuckled.

All right then.

Breakfast.

I stood and offered him my hand. And there weren’t a whole lot of things in the world that felt better than when he took it.