Chills skated my spine, and I shivered with the slow release of his breath that washed across my jaw when he leaned in.

The heat of him took me whole.

Overpowering.

Too much and somehow not nearly enough.

“How was your dinner?” he asked.

The man was conflict.

Persuasion and dominance and sex.

Kind and perceptive and intuitive.

I didn’t know what side of him was more dangerous. The only thing I knew was I could barely breathe when he set one of those big hands on my knee underneath the table.

All night, he’d been touching me. Just tiny brushes and caresses.

Flutters of fingertips that sped my heart in a needy kind of anticipation.

It was as if he were issuing little promises—assuring me I was interesting and beautiful and he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

I took a sip of red wine, still unable to fathom I was actually sitting across from this man. “It was wonderful. I think I’ve had more fun tonight than I have in a long, long time. I wish I could tell you how much that means to me.”

His brow quirked. “Says the girl who basically made me beg to get a little bit of time with her.”

Thank God it was dim where we were seated at the back of the upscale restaurant. Because I could feel the heat rise to my cheeks. The way he managed to slip right under my skin with that easy smile, the man nothing but seduction where he casually rested in the high-backed upholstered chair.

One big hand was wrapped around the crystal tumbler he’d been sipping from all evening, the other still caressing my knee.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Embers flickering to life in the deepest parts of me.

I wondered if he had the first clue each stroke wound me higher. Higher and higher until it felt as if I was floating with the stars. Or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing.

“I guess sometimes we all need a little push,” I admitted quietly.

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Well, I guess it should be me saying thank you for giving you that little push.”

I tucked my bottom lip between my teeth, trying to figure out what to do with the magnitude of this man. “I’m just glad you were the one to do it.”

He sat back a little, head tilting to the side as he offered a casual expression. “What about last Friday? It seems like your friends don’t hesitate to have a little fun.”

I laughed lightly. “No, they definitely don’t. Jenna is always trying to drag me out.”

“Why don’t you let her?”

It was the first time Kale had let our conversation traipse in the direction of personal. His eyes narrowed, studying me with a new kind of severity through the flicker of the candles that lapped and licked at the center of the table.

It cast that strong jaw in shadows, that turquoise gaze glinting in the flame.

During dinner, we’d kept to safe subjects. Reminiscing about growing up. My life in Texas. His in Gingham Lakes. I told him how I’d been a total drama geek in high school, living my life for the next play, while he’d laughed the sweetest kind of laugh and told me nerds were always the best before he’d gone on to tell me he’d won first place in the Alabama State Science Fair all four years of high school.

I guessed nerds really were the best.

Now, beneath his scrutiny, I felt compelled.

I felt looser and freer than I had felt in so long. Before I could stop it, I was pushing right past the promise I’d made to myself that tonight was just for me and I was leaving everything else behind.

The words dropped like a bomb from my mouth, my frustration and bitterness bleeding free.

“I doubt very much my husband would approve of that.”

I watched as the admission penetrated Kale.

As he jerked back as if he’d been kicked in the gut.

The breath knocked out of him as he resituated everything he’d thought about me in his head. Eyes going wide before his jaw clenched tight. Slowly coming to the realization that when I told him my life was complicated, I meant it.

My life was in transition, a hard, painful transition. In the end, it would be the best decision I’d ever made. I just had to make it through to the other side.

Where I was didn’t change the reality of what was happening right then, though. It didn’t change the fight I had ahead of me.

I cleared my throat, knowing I’d made a mistake by telling him that way.

That was the problem when you started to feel comfortable with someone. When you started liking them in a way you couldn’t allow. You started telling them things you shouldn’t trust them with. Letting them go deeper than you should.

I tossed my fabric napkin on the table. “We should probably get going. It’s getting late. The day starts really early for me.”

It was stupid of me to even think this was okay when I had no idea the lengths Dane might go to. I searched for a breath, feeling like a complete fool. All I’d wanted was one night. I should have known not even that was possible.

I pushed from the small, round table, giving him my back, unable to face him.

Not after I’d sent our night spiraling.

Ruining it with just a dash of the truth.

Warily, Kale stood, and I could sense him slowly signing the credit card receipt and then tucking the card back in his wallet.

He was probably realizing that I was no princess just as I was realizing I was an idiot to hope for a knight.

Then his hand was back on the small of my back, stealing my breath, and a tiny whimper was breaking free from my lips. His words were uttered so close to my ear that I couldn’t help but cling to the security of his hold.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he said.

He wound us back through the lavish restaurant and out onto the sidewalk. Crowds moved around us, people darting here and there to enjoy their Friday nights, laughter ringing on the Alabama night.

I inhaled, filling myself with the calming, familiar scents of this city, the river and the trees and the thick, intoxicating scent of honeysuckle that rode the air on provocative waves.

But I guessed it was the sheer potency of him that made me feel lightheaded—drunk—when he shocked me by wrapping an arm around my waist and tugging me close.

Citrus and spice and the lingering scent of whiskey.

His lips were a murmur against my temple. “I know you’re getting ready to run from me, Hope. Don’t. Stay with me . . . just a little while more.”

I could feel the confusion pressed into the lines of my forehead when I pulled back to look at his face. And the man . . . the man had let that knowing smirk climb to his pretty, pretty face.

My knees nearly gave when he threaded his fingers back through mine.

Tenderly.

Possessively.

“Come,” he said, a glint in his eyes before he darted us across the busy street. A surprised gasp ripped from my lungs, and I struggled to keep up on my too-high heels as he hauled me in the direction of the bar on the opposite corner.

The same bar our paths had first crossed just last week that now felt as if they were being impossibly tangled together.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, the words a breathy plea.

Hope and reservation.

A giddy giggle rolled out right behind it.

Because this man made me feel so free. Unshackled after years of being chained. Years of trying to change our situation and not knowing the right answer to finding that solution. Of course, my conclusion had been swift and without question that day one year ago when I’d packed our things and left.

There are just times in your life when things become crystal clear and you know the path you need to run down, the situation you need to run away from.

Jerking open the door, Kale sent me one of those smiles that blasted through me with the power of a hurricane.

Annihilating.

Exhilarating.

Because when Kale Bryant looked at me that way?

I felt as if I were the only person in the world.

“I promised you a good time, and you’re gonna get a good time.”

He pulled me into the intensity of the bar. People were packed wall to wall, voices lifted above the mayhem, the vibe so much rowdier than it’d been last Friday.

Tonight, the band was the focus, commanding the attention with their distinct country flare. Tables were pushed back out of the way to create a makeshift dance floor beneath the risers that had been brought in to create an elevated stage.

My heart rate latched on to the intensity. An erratic thrum, thrum, thrum that hammered and beat.

Kale ran his hand down the center of my back.

Chills.

Fire.

Heat.

His palm hit home right above my bottom, his pinky finger just skating into the vicinity.

Oh God.

Maybe it had been too long.

Because that simple touch had me flying.

Wanting things I knew full well I shouldn’t. Not when so many things were still left unresolved.

His mouth landed at the edge of my ear, voice lifted to be heard above the chaos. “Carolina George is playing tonight . . . they travel around the South, hitting cool venues and dives alike. Ollie, the owner here? He and the guitarist go way back, so once a month, they come to play here. People flock through that door in droves whenever they do.”

“I take it you’re a fan?”

He glanced around with a grin. “Think it’s safe to say just about everyone around here is. Not a whole lot not to like.”

I patted his chest, feeling bolder in his presence. “Told you all Alabama boys are cowboys at heart.”

He pulled me closer. “Knight. Don’t forget it.”

“Whatever you say, Cowboy.”

Carolina George’s singer was this stunning, dainty creature, who belted out her song at the microphone. Her face was the perfect match to her gorgeous, mesmerizing voice.

It vibrated through the speakers, somehow both sultry and upbeat as it kept time with the quick rhythm that pounded from the drums.

In perfect harmony with the guitar that strummed at her side.

Clearly, it was the jaw-dropping man playing that guitar that had brought a herd of women squealing to the foot of the elevated stage.

I could feel Kale’s playful smile when he saw me gawking. “Now, don’t go getting any ideas. Rick seems to be a little popular with the ladies. Don’t understand what they see in him, actually, when they could be looking at me.”

There it was. That cocky arrogance the man wore so well, the words nothing but a tease that oozed from his mouth, which was still close to my ear.

Inching back a fraction, I stared up at his face. Because while I understood Rick’s appeal, Kale was the only one I wanted to be looking at. “You don’t have a thing to worry about. I’m a one-man kind of girl.”

I tried to make it come out light.

Playful.

But those blue eyes saw straight through me, glinting and sparking in the hazy glow of the bulbs that hung from the rafters. Searching me for the answer he so clearly wanted to reach in and pluck out of me.

He set one of those big hands on the side of my face, cupping my jaw, making me shake. “You think I don’t know that? That I can’t see it shining out of you? What do you say we grab a drink, and you tell me a little about that?”

He said it as if he’d gone right ahead and sifted around inside me and found his answer anyway.

I gave him the smallest nod. “Okay.”

He ran his thumb across my lips, and my tongue darted out without my permission, grabbing the tiniest taste of his flesh.

Oh God. How easily could I get wrapped up in this man?

I swore I could hear Kale’s body hum with a tremor of desire. Swore I could feel every inch of him grow hard.

Ripples of lust vibrated.

They struck in the space between us, shockwaves of heat that blasted across my skin.

I jerked when a man was suddenly there, clapping him on the back.

A man who was shockingly good-looking in an intimidating, almost frightening way.

Where Kale was tall with lean, packed muscle, this guy was a monster. Nothing but hulking muscle covered in tattoos, a mess of designs running down across his arms and hands and fingers.

But his eyes. They were soft with some kind of unknown affection when they landed on Kale.

“Well, well, well, look who’s here. Texted your ass fifteen times to try to convince you to show tonight, and each time you hit me back with some kind of lame excuse about being busy. And here you are. Not busy.”

Kale cocked his head, halfway toward me, his voice a little hard. “Do I look not busy to you?”

Burly guy laughed, drummed his fingers across his lips. “Honestly not sure what you look like tonight.”

There was some kind of conversation that transpired between the two of them, the giant of a man giving Kale a look as if he’d caught him stealing from the till and was going to offer him a prize for doing it.

Gaze traveling to me, the man’s eyes lit in recognition. A victorious grin pulled to his bearded mouth.

He’d seen me before.

That night.

That was right.

I’d seen him, too.

Maybe I’d been too busy stealing peeks at the splendor of the man who right then was slipping his arm around my waist and tugging me tight against his body. But it dawned on me that this guy had been there, in Kale’s group that had been huddled around a back table.

Kale roughed his free hand through his hair. “Hey, just be thankful I’m gracing you with my presence tonight. I did have better things to do than seeing your ugly face, but then I thought I’d introduce Hope here to one of the best bands in the South.”

“Pssh. Ugly? You only wish you could look as good as me.”

“Keep dreaming, man.”

The guy stretched out his tattooed arms. “I am a dream.”

I bit back a laugh, and Kale glanced down at me with a wide smile, gesturing to his friend.

“Hope, this is one of my best friends, Oliver, but everyone calls him Ollie. Ollie here is the owner of this fine establishment. Also, as you can see, a royal pain in my ass.”

Ollie’s brow lifted. “Pain in your ass? Says the guy who thinks he holds the answer to every last one of the world’s problems in the palm of his hands.”

Amusement danced across Ollie’s face when he turned his attention my way and hooked a thumb in Kale’s direction. “This asshole thinks he knows what’s best for everyone. Always tossing out advice like we actually wanna hear it. Singlehandedly going to save the world.”

Kale chuckled under his breath at the razzing and scratched nervously behind his ear.

Part of me wanted to ask more about the whole saving the world thing, considering tonight he’d set out to rescue me, but Kale was already tossing out a hand of entreaty between them.

Or so I’d thought.

“All right, all right, man. We get it. You think I’m the smartest guy around. No need to run it into the ground. It is kind of common knowledge.”

A scoff from Ollie. “Such a cocky bastard.”

“Says the guy who thinks he’s a dream.”

“Just keeping it real.”

“Right,” Kale drew out.

There was no holding the laughter back any longer, amusement rolling from my mouth when I finally pushed my hand toward Ollie, feeling more comfortable than I ever could have imagined. “It’s really nice to meet you, Ollie. My best friend tells me this is the place to be.”

He shook my hand, gentler than I would have imagined he could manage. “Ahh, she sounds like my kind of girl. And you have no idea just how great it is to meet you.”

Without releasing me, his eyes darted between the two of us. “So, tell me what you two were up to before you stepped into my house.”

“Dinner,” I immediately answered.

I had to wonder if it was the wrong one when Kale flinched.

Ollie’s eyebrows shot to the sky. “Is that so?” This was all directed at Kale.

Kale hesitated for a second before he met his friend’s demanding eye. “What, I can’t have dinner with the most gorgeous girl in Gingham Lakes?”

Puddles.

God, he left me a mess of gooey puddles right at his feet.

How did he manage that?

In disbelief, Ollie shook his head. “Nah, man, it’s no problem. No problem at all. Just comes as a surprise someone as pretty as her would want to hang out with the likes of you.”

“Jealousy.” Kale muttered it under his breath before he looked at me, mischief playing all over his striking face. “Pure jealousy. Do you see the nonsense I have to deal with?”

But there was no tension between either of them, and Ollie was all smiles when he stepped back, placating hands set out in front of him. “Sorry to cut this short, but duty calls. Need to go check on the band and see if they need anything. Cece’s manning the bar. She’ll take good care of you.”

“Shit,” Kale mumbled, rubbing a hand over his face.

Kale started to lead me toward the bar.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Seems you and I are both stepping out of our comfort zones tonight. When’s the last time you were on a date?” he basically shouted as he wove us through the horde of people jammed shoulder to shoulder.

“Um . . . I’m not sure you want the answer to the question.”

“What if I wanted you to tell me anyway?”

“Then I’d tell you I was twenty-one and naïve.”

The look he gave me from over his shoulder was one filled with guilt. Maybe regret. I didn’t know. All I knew was it twisted around my chest like a band.

Constricting.

Cinching tight.

“What about you?” I hurried to say, still keeping up with him as we jostled through the crowd.

“Twenty-two.” Somehow it sounded like a warning.

As if he were telling me something intrinsic about himself when I’d already made my own conclusions. That I saw this devastating kindness radiating from him, and it didn’t have a thing to do with my naivety.

Without giving more, he angled his way right up to the front of the bar, and the woman behind the bar sauntered right up. She was tall and curvy and wearing a leather corset, tattoos covering the flesh exposed on her chest and shoulders and arms.

Oozing sex, she flashed him a red-lipped smile. “Kale Bryant. I’ve missed you. You haven’t been around to visit me lately.”

Her eyes dropped to me when she said it. Sizing me up.

Unease spun through my senses, and Kale squeezed my hand in reassurance. “Ah, Cece, I’m sure you’ve been keeping yourself plenty busy since the last time we ran into each other.”

She threw her head back and laughed, smile widening with a wicked sort of glee. “Oh, you know I have, but none of these other boys are nearly as fun as you. But, clearly, you aren’t here for me tonight. Tell me, what can I get you.”

“I’ll take my regular.”

No. It shouldn’t have. But that stung, too. And I knew I was getting myself in far too deep, getting attached the way I would. Wanting something that just wasn’t there, wondering how it was possible I wanted to claim him when I’d been the one to tell him I could give him absolutely nothing more than just one night.

And a short one, at that.

Not the kind I was sure this beautiful man was accustomed to.

But then Kale was looking at me that way again. With that tender knowledge.

The man my conflict.

“What would you like, baby?”

Baby.

Damn him. Because I was nobody’s baby. I had to be strong.

Fierce to face each day.

But the only thing I felt then was fiercely vulnerable against the word, the part of me that wanted to be taken care of for once, adored, begging for it to mean something.

“A red would be nice.”

He looked back at her. “Get my girl some red.”

Cece smirked, and I knew Kale was making a statement in front of her, and she seemed to mind less than I did when she poured his whiskey into an ice-filled tumbler and pushed it his way, when she jerked off the cork of the half-empty bottle of Freak Show and filled me a glass to the brim.

“Enjoy,” she told me because, clearly, she already had.

“Thank you,” I barely managed, taking a long sip while Kale tossed two twenties to the bar.

It was in that moment that I realized there was so little I knew about him.

Nothing, really.

As little as he knew about me.

And part of me wanted to push him away and keep him there while the other side was begging for him to turn around, face me, and let me see inside.

Because I kept getting this feeling that he might need me the way I was beginning to feel as if I needed him.

That maybe it was okay to lean on someone once in a while.

He grabbed my hand again, not saying a word as he led me back through the crowd. I expected him to find a table around the dance floor, but he bypassed it, heading toward the stairs that led to the second floor.

The voices filtering from above were raucous, even wilder than downstairs.

The reason for it quickly became evident as we mounted the last step and found the rows of pool tables lining the back wall, country boys and city boys alike out shooting a few rounds, beers flowing as freely as the laughter.

My mama had always told me boys would be boys. Didn’t matter what fabric they were cut from.

She’d meant it as comfort.

After Dane, I’d taken it as a warning.

But I knew in my heart of hearts that no two were created alike. That no one person was a blanket statement. And someday . . . someday, I’d find the one who was created for me.

Kale didn’t pause. He just led me to the far left where a wall of windows blocked off a balcony.

A sign was set on an easel in front of it declaring that the balcony was closed, but Kale wasn’t deterred. He headed to the far end where the wall could be fully opened like an accordion, opened it just enough so we could slip through, and tugged me forward.

“Kale,” I whispered almost desperately, feeling as if we were committing some terrible crime.

A deep, dark chuckle rolled from him, the man dripping sex when he turned to tug me through the crack he’d made. “Call it the perks of putting up with Ollie.”

“You seem to have a lot of perks to offer.”

The chuckle that rumbled from his chest should have been illegal. “You have no idea.”

Those shivers were back, racing my flesh. There was no mistaking what was in his words.

The desire that soaked them. Drenched in gasoline. The mere brush of his hand a match.

That need was only stoked with each second that passed.

He shut and latched the partition, shutting us away from the rest of the world. Elevated above it.

The loud, boisterous voices had become a dull hum, just an echo of revelry that filtered through the glass panes. From below, I could feel the rumbling beat of the band, a vibration that traveled my legs and settled into my bones.

Only a trickle of the singer’s mesmerizing voice made it through, carried on the breeze that blew through the quieted, secluded space.

I released an awed breath.

I felt as if I’d been removed. Lifted from the realities of the world and was watching it in slow motion.

The city set out below us, the river a black, twisty, shimmery rope where it snaked behind the buildings on the opposite side of the street.

I edged up to the railing, leaning against it as I took in the view. “It’s gorgeous up here,” I murmured, never more unsure of what I was doing than right then.

Because I could feel that power blister over me from behind.

Hot, heated energy.

Billowing in waves and wrapping me whole. His voice enveloped me from behind. “I’m sorry about what happened down there.”

I almost laughed, and I bit my lip, gazing down at the couples that strolled along the sidewalk. “It’s none of my business who you sleep with, Kale. We just had a dinner date. That was it. Remember?”

It felt like a lie forced through my teeth.

“Was it?” he asked, inching closer, making me shake. He ran a hand from my shoulder down my arm.

I blew out a quivering breath.

Complicated. I could feel it compounding, amplifying in the dark.

“Because every time I get around you, it feels like something else.”

I gazed over at him for a long beat before I turned back to look over the twinkling lights. “My life is a mess right now, Kale.”

“Are you going to tell me about him?” There was no missing the hardness that lined his words.

He eased around the side of me and leaned against the ornate metal railing. He lifted the crystal to his mouth, the amber liquid glinting in strands of lights that crisscrossed like a starry ceiling above.

But his face.

His face was cast in shadows, eyes dimmed but no less intense.

So magnetically beautiful.

I took a steeling sip of my wine and fought to keep the tremor from my voice “What do you want to know?”

“You said husband. Not ex-husband.”

“I’m working on that.” I shifted my gaze to study him, searching for an answer. “You knew I was married and you still brought me up here.”

His head shook. “You’re no cheater, Hope. I may not know you, but I do know that.”

“No. I’m not,” I admitted, not sure how much to give him. Because some things were sacred and should only be trusted in the hands of those who’d earned it.

“So . . . you’re separated?” he hedged.

“Yes. For the last year.”

I might as well have been seeking refuge in the middle of a battlefield. Because I could feel myself rushing out onto uneven, treacherous ground. Where each step was perilous. Landmines underfoot.

His comfort unsustainable. Fleeting. If I weren’t careful, I’d be carving out a place for him, giving him those pieces that were sacred, the most important parts of me.

But giving him this little bit felt right.

I looked down at the red fluid dancing in my glass and wet my lips. “We’re in the middle of a divorce. You could call it nasty. He . . .”

He’s cruel and wicked. Appearances are the most important thing to him, but he’s the one who’s truly blind. The one who can’t see the beauty right in front of him. The one who’d rejected the miraculous gift he’d been given.

A strained breath seeped free, and my voice lowered with the admission. “If he found out I was here with you . . .”

Anger bristled through the air. It strangled the words in my throat. I could feel it radiating from Kale. A severe kind of protectiveness I was unaccustomed to.

“Do you miss him?” he asked, something fierce barely checked when he issued the question.

Casting my attention to the street, I pushed out a weighted sigh and whispered, “No.”

I lifted my gaze to the potency of his. “Is it wrong that I lost faith in him a long time ago?”

I’d wanted to believe. Believe he would come to his senses. That he was just in shock and dealing with the blow life had issued. That he would see perfection came in all forms.

But there were some lines that couldn’t be uncrossed.

The smile that turned up the corner of Kale’s mouth was soft. So soft, and I was trembling when he reached out and brushed his fingertips across my cheek. “No, Hope. It isn’t wrong. Not if he can’t see you for who you are.”

I searched him in the flickers of light that danced against the darkness, illuminating the stunning lines of his face. “You don’t even know me.”

“Some things are just written on a person. You can’t hide who you are, just the same as I can’t hide who I am.”

“And who is it you think you are?”

He sighed with my question, as if this time it was me who was getting too close. Digging in too deep.

Straight on, he met my gaze. “A guy who probably shouldn’t be standing here doing this.”

Grief.

I saw the stark flash of it take him whole, the impact of it so severe it jarred me back a step.

I blinked at him, trying to make sense of this complicated man and piece together his complex layers. “What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t get close to women, Hope, and the only thing I fucking want right now is to get closer to you.”

Everything inside me took flight.

Kale set his tumbler aside before taking my glass and placing it next to his. Then he pushed to his full height, towering over me, pinning me with the power of his presence.

He framed my face in both of his hands.

Gently.

Tenderly.

That conflict raged inside me.

The push and the pull.

Gravity.

“Is there any chance you’ll take him back?”

“No.” It flew from my mouth like a curse. “Never.”

He stood there, staring down at me, rocking on his heels. “Good. Don’t settle, Hope. Don’t fucking ever settle.”

“I won’t,” I promised, swallowing over the lump that had grown thick at the base of my throat.

His forehead dropped to mine, and I reached up, wrapping my hands around his wrists, the man still holding me while I clung to him.

His breaths mine. My heart reaching for his.

He groaned a needy sound before he tilted up my chin, searching as he stared down at me.

Slow . . . so slow . . . he leaned down and brushed his lips across mine.

Fire.

Everywhere.

Racing my flesh. Hijacking my veins.

His tongue tangled with mine. Stroking, dizzying as he edged me back, deeper into the darkness that lined the far recesses of the balcony.

His kiss no longer gentle.

An all-consuming demand.

My heart rate kicked, drumming wildly.

I swore his caught, too.

Because the very air around us started to thrum.

Heads spinning and spirits soaring.

I gasped when I was suddenly propped on the very edge of a small bistro table that was tucked against the far wall, Kale’s fingers sinking into the outside of my thighs as he broke the kiss and dropped into a chair in front of me.

“Kale . . . what are you . . .”

I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, not when he ran his thumbs over the flesh. “You said we had one night. I want to give you this. I want to make you feel good.” His voice deepened, so low it sounded like a threat. “Is that what you want? For me to make you feel good? Tell me, Hope. Tell me you want this. Let me make you feel good.”

My breaths came short, needy pants rising into the dense air, my heart manic where it pounded in my chest.

“I—”

He yanked me closer, my ass barely clinging to the edge. “Do you want me to touch you?” It was a demand.

Oh God.

There he was.

The confident, arrogant man.

Dangerous and perfect.

“Yes,” I whimpered.

He caressed his hands over the tops of my thighs and down to my knees. He started gliding his palms back down the inside of my legs.

Spreading me wide.

My pulse thundered.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt so exposed.

His thumbs traced along the inside edges of my underwear. Curling my fingers around the edge of the table, my head dropped back on a breathy moan.

I swore, I felt the ground quake.

“You are so sexy. So beautiful. Do you know, Hope? Do you have any idea the way you affect me?” he murmured, just a finger teasing over the lace that covered me. “Did you know the first time I saw you, you knocked the air right out of my lungs? For a fleeting second, I literally couldn’t breathe. How’s it possible you do that to me?”

I throbbed, overcome with the ache that pulsed at the juncture of my thighs.

The ache to be touched. To be adored. Just for a little while.

“I couldn’t stop looking at you.” My wispy admission carried on the breeze. “Wondering what it might be like to be wanted by a man like you. Wondering what it would be like to go home with you. Wishing for a little while, that girl could be me.”

“She is you, Hope. I want to get inside you so badly, it’s painful. But the last thing I want to do is complicate things more than they are. I get it. So, let me give you this.”

Did he get it?

Because the man was so absolutely complicating things when he nudged the fabric aside, his fingers slicking through my folds.

“Oh God.” Jerking forward, my fingers burrowed into his shoulders, my forehead dropping to his.

His mouth pressed up under my jaw. “Is this what you need?”

His free hand wound in my hair as he kissed down the column of my neck. He tugged my head back, demanding more.

“Yes.”

His breaths came harsh when he pushed two fingers into me.

“Kale.” I shook around the intrusion, fingers fumbling to hold on tighter, my belly in knots, white-hot coils that glowed bright and blinding.

Jerking back, that dominating gaze raked over my body. Purposed when it dropped to watch where he touched me. “You are perfect. Look at you, always so shy, all spread out for me.”

He drove his fingers in slow, deep, maddening thrusts, and his thumb . . . I gasped and writhed as he began to rub it back and forth across my clit.

“Please . . . don’t stop.”

“That’s what I thought. Knew you’d like it hard and slow and a little rough. You deserve a man who’ll take the time to do it right. Give me that time, baby, and I promise you, the only thing you’ll regret is the fact you didn’t let me take you sooner.”

And God, I should be mortified, the way he was talking to me, that same arrogant, overconfident man who’d approached me last week making a reappearance.

But instead, I stared at him through the dimness. Through the shadows and questions and madness that swirled around us. As he stroked me and touched me so intimately. In a way that was one-hundred percent unlike me.

But with him . . . I felt different.

I felt confident.

Beautiful.

Brave.

Reaching out, I trembled my fingers across his lush, sexy mouth, felt the needy breath he released against my palm.

He wrapped his free arm around my waist, nearly pulling me from the table, his stare severe. “Kiss me,” he demanded, and I did, nearly desperate as I wrapped my arms around his neck, our tongues coiled, winding and teasing and tasting.

While this man drove me straight toward ecstasy.

Pleasure. It gathered from the ends of the earth.

Speeding as it converged.

Tightening to a pinpoint.

Kale curled his fingers.

My frozen world ignited in a burst of flames.

The most intense orgasm ripped through my body. Unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

Wave after wave. Crash after crash.

Staggering.

Kale continued driving his fingers as I rode them. As I let myself completely go for the first time in more years than I could remember. Flying.

I begged for him to never stop. To never let go.

But that was the thing about trusting someone. Wanting them in a way you shouldn’t. You started searching for ways to make them fit into the mix of all your complicated things. Wishing there was a way to carve space for them without sending that precarious balance toppling over.

My chest heaved, and Kale held me steady, edging back to eye me with satisfaction.

While I clung to his shoulders, a gasping, heaving mess.

And just for a little while, I allowed him to hold me up before the weight of my world could come crashing back down.

He straightened my underwear and my skirt while I bit my lip and fought the creeping awkwardness that began to seep into my veins, climbing my chest and heating my cheeks.

Laughing a rugged sound, he gripped me by the chin and forced me to look at him. “You aren’t going to get shy on me now, are you?”

“I don’t know . . . it seems you have me at a disadvantage.”

He laughed lower, pushed back his chair, his grin easy when he gestured to the huge bulge straining at his pants. “You’re the one with the disadvantage? I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Look what you’ve done to me.”

His words were playful.

No expectation behind them.

My hands flew up to my face, and I frantically shook my head, the mortification finally taking hold. “I’m so sorry.”

Kale pried my hands away. “I’m not.”

A line pinched my brow. “You aren’t?”

“No, Hope. The only thing I asked of you was to let me make you feel good.”

A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. “I think it’s safe to say you accomplished that.”

“Yeah?” he asked, voice winding into a tease.

I couldn’t help but utter my own. “Gold medal. Perfect ten.”

He pulled me onto his lap so I was straddling him. “What, you think this is the Olympics? I know you didn’t get to experience my stamina firsthand, but I was thinking more like this knight deserves a promotion from his princess. Maybe then he’ll get to make her his queen.”

I ran my fingers through his hair and played along, though I couldn’t keep the tenderness out of my voice. “I think you may already be royalty, Kale Bryant.”

Because that was the way he made me feel. Special. Wanted. The girl who got her fairy tale.

But the clock was getting ready to strike midnight. “I’m sorry, but I really should get home. I wasn’t planning on staying out this late.”

His lips flattened, though he nodded in understanding. “Okay then, let’s get you home.”

He stood and gathered my hand, leading me back the way we’d come. Out through the riot of voices that shouted where they played and drank, down the stairs, and through the murky haze.

Confidently, he guided me through the crowds, which again broke for him, by the band that continued to play, the singer’s sultry voice a soft encouragement against my ear.

Someday.

Someday I’ll find what was meant for me.

That day you’ll find me, too.

Just don’t let it be too far away.

“Someday.” I let the silent promise move across my lips as I snuggled into Kale’s side.

He led me out onto the same sidewalk where I’d parted from him a week before. When I’d thought I’d never see him again.

My chest wanted to cave with that idea now.

With the cruelty of that distinct possibility.

But I had to protect what was important, and standing out there with him was a recklessness in itself.

He lifted his hand in the air, hailing a cab approaching from down the street.

It pulled to the curb. Kale opened the door for me.

Cavalier in his perfect, arrogant way.

“Thank you,” I told him, my heart in my throat and tears suddenly burning behind my eyes.

Damn it.

This was the kind of complication I didn’t need. The new kind of trouble this boy had ignited in me.

I climbed in.

Grinning, he slid in beside me.

“What are you doing?” The words were panicked.

“Getting you home. You really think I’m going to send you off by yourself in the middle of the night?” Mischief danced across his face, his brow arching high. “What kind of knight would I be then?”

I fiddled with the hem of my dress. “That isn’t necessary.”

“It is,” he said. This time his tone left no room for argument.

Resigned, I gave the driver my address, and Kale held my hand while the car drove through the city. Night pressed down through the bottled silence, broken by the streetlamps that flashed through the windows and the loud thrum of my heart.

This was so stupid.

Giving in this way.

Because my gut had warned me that one night would never be enough.

And if Dane was waiting for me again?

Anger and a shot of fear churned in my gut because I was so tired of playing by his rules.

It wasn’t fair.

Not at all.

The cab made the last left into the quiet, sleeping neighborhood. Big, dense trees stood guard over the small homes, their windows cast in darkness and wrapped in the comfort of the night.

The driver cut across the road, pulling up alongside the curb in front of my house.

I looked over at Kale, and I knew I shouldn’t, that I was only prolonging the inevitable. Making it hurt a little worse.

It didn’t matter.

I leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his full lips.

So gentle beneath mine. As if they might be able to promise all the things I wanted most.

A second later, I pulled back. “Thank you,” I murmured, my fingers regretfully fiddling with the top button of his shirt.

When I started to slide toward the door, he snatched me by the wrist. “Let me come in.”

I sent him a small, sad smile, ran my thumb along the defined curve of his cheek. “I had an amazing time tonight. The best time. Thank you for rescuing me for a little while. I won’t ever forget it.”

For a moment, he stared across at me before he gave a tight nod of reluctant acceptance, his smile slight, his voice wistful regret. “Good night, Shortcake.”

I would have giggled if everything didn’t suddenly hurt so much.

Clicking the door open, I let myself into the vacant loneliness of the waiting night.