A soft hand stroked his brow.

Diego cracked an eye to see Rosalyn hovering over him, a sweet smile on her face.

“Hey,” she murmured.

He blinked. “What time is it?” He rubbed a hand over his sleepy face, then yawned and lay back on the bed, eyes still on her.

“Dinner time,” she told him as her stomach rumbled. “Or way past then,” she clarified with a laugh.

“What are we having?”

“We could order in? Pizza? There’s a place near here that does late night delivery.”

He grinned. “Sure. It’s a classic for a reason.”

Rosalyn turned on the light and grabbed the menu from the fridge. They ordered, and then Rosalyn eased herself onto the bed next to him.

“They said twenty-five minutes. You should shower in the meantime and we can redo your bandages. They’re looking a little loose after…” Her face grew charmingly red. “Well, after our activities.”

“Okay,” he said, but didn’t make any effort to rise. He rubbed a hand over her hip, disappointed to see she’d put on some shorts and a tank top while he’d slept.

“Later,” she said, batting his hand away with a laugh. He liked that sound, wanted to hear it often—be responsible for it.

But in the shower, he stared down at his hands, imagined them tainted with blood even as the water washed over him. Nothing would clean him of the sins of his past. And it was only a matter of time before he hurt Rosalyn. Whether by staying or leaving, he wasn’t sure. But it was inevitable, nonetheless.

And yet he still didn’t leave her apartment—her life—as he knew he should. Instead, he pulled on his boxers and sat calmly on the bed as she wrapped a new bandage around his chest. Her fingers brushed his skin as she did so, almost accidentally at first, then with more purpose. She leaned further in with each lap of the bandage around his chest, until she was almost pressed against him.

He glanced up as she finished and their eyes locked. Heat flashed through him, pooling in his groin. If he’d ever thought one time with her would be enough to purge her from his system, he was sadly mistaken.

He wanted her again, and again. His fingers itched to touch her, but he kept his fists clenched in his lap.

“There,” she said, stepping back to admire her handiwork.

“It’s a good dressing,” he said, testing his range of movement.

She grinned. “You like it? It’s my first.”

The doorbell rang and she strode over to answer it.

“Take some cash from my wallet to pay,” he said to her back. “Since you got breakfast.”

“Sure.” She bent down to his partially-opened bag on the ground and snagged his wallet off the top. He frowned. Hadn’t he buried that under his clothes? He usually did, since he couldn’t risk his wallet getting stolen. He remembered her digging through his duffel earlier, suspicion nagging at him.

But as she sashayed towards him with the delicious-smelling pizza in her hand and an open smile on her face, he dismissed his suspicions. His wallet had probably shifted to the top when she’d gone looking for the tape for his chest.

They sat on the bed again to eat the pizza, a box in each of their laps. “You really need to get a table,” he muttered as crumbs rolled down his chest. Not that he could talk, since he often ate his meals in his truck.

She shrugged. “I had one, but I only ever used it to put stuff on. I like to watch TV as I eat, so this is the best spot. Unless I sit at my desk, which is also common enough. I wash my sheets a lot instead.”

“Is that where you work?” he asked, gesturing to the desk. “I never asked what you did.”

She swallowed and looked down at the slice of pizza in her hands, moving a mushroom so it didn’t fall onto the sheets.

“Yeah. I write blog posts. Mostly about stuff I’ve never done, or places I’ve never been to.” She glanced up with a wistful smile. “But they don’t need to know that. I mean, I’d love to do those things eventually, but they aren’t exactly feasible right now.” She glanced around her tiny apartment with a wry smile.

He chuckled. “So, you’re a kind of journalist?” he pressed, eyeing her carefully.

“Sometimes,” she murmured. “Freelance, that kind of thing. I write the society page puff pieces in the Journal, too.”

Nothing he needed to worry about, then. But the way she was so focused on her food made suspicion tug at the corner of his mind.

She moved on to questioning him again about his life and he forgot what he’d been thinking. She asked about his early years with his mother, the fights for McCready, and everything in between. He side-stepped as many of those questions as he could, but in the end he discovered he didn’t mind revealing things he’d never told anyone.

“When my mother got sick, we needed money to get her treatment. I was only a teen, and there weren’t that many options available to me—and even less good options.”

“So what did you do?” she asked, face a mask of sympathy.

“I fell in with a bad crowd. A gang. I did…things for them, and they helped me with my mother.”

She swallowed. “What kind of things?”

He shrugged. “I roughed people up, threatened people so they’d pay Victor—that was the leader’s name. It didn’t start off too bad, but he kept asking me to do more and more things. By the time I realised what I was really doing I was in too deep.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “I got caught. Went to prison. The worst of it was that my girlfriend at the time, Radha, she’d stuck with me through all of it. We were dating before my mother’s diagnosis. And she kept trying to convince me to stop, to get away from Victor. One night she insisted on coming with me on a job—I guess she thought she could talk me out of it. Instead, it all went wrong and we both ended up arrested.”

His fists clenched as he remembered that night.

“I felt awful. And it confirmed all her parents’ worst suspicions about me, about how I was bad for their daughter. I went to prison. The judge took pity on her and she got off easy enough, but she still has a criminal record, because of me.”

Rosalyn ran a hand down his arm. “She made her choices.”

He scoffed. “Yeah. It’s still my fault. I should have…well, so many things, but it’s too late to regret it now.” A cloud hung over him at the remembrances. Those were dark days, the ones that had set him on the path he was now following.

“Did you ever see her again?”

He hummed. “Not until about a year ago. She actually got into some trouble with Victor.”

“What did you do?”

Diego shrugged. “Nothing, at first. But eventually some speck of my humanity surfaced and I helped her escape him. By turning my back on Victor, that’s how I ended up here.”

“That’s what you’re hiding from?” she asked.

“Something like that.” He didn’t tell her Victor was dead, and as far as Diego knew his gang was decimated. That would lead to questions he didn’t want to answer.

“Wow, that’s quite a story.”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I’ll never see Radha again, but she’s responsible for awakening enough of a conscience in me that I left my old life completely behind with only the clothes on my back.”

“And that’s why you fight?”

He nodded. “I have to earn a living, but I can’t let the gang find out where I am, or they’ll come after me as a traitor.” If they were still operational, that was. He suspected Mickey—one of Victor’s most trusted men—would have tried to take over. Whether he would have succeeded was another question entirely. But Diego was certain that even if the gang was gone, the individual members would still hold a grudge against him for what he did. They’d come after him regardless.

The conversation drifted away again. He tried to steer it to her life, and she let drop a few hints as to what she’d been through in the foster system. It made his heart ache to think of all the pain and misery she must have gone through.

It was close to dawn before they finally stopped talking. With barely a discussion, they readied themselves for bed and slipped beneath the covers.

He tugged her towards him, unable to resist her. She came willingly into his arms, as if she belonged there. His lips brushed tenderly over hers. He cradled her face as their kiss deepened, but they didn’t touch anywhere else. Just sunk into the pleasure of kissing each other.

The kiss deepened, but he kept it unhurried, leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world. The bittersweet ache in his chest told him that he didn’t—that he should claim her immediately before he had to leave, or before she found out who he really was and left him. But he wanted to revel in every part of her, imprint her on his memories.

This woman, this moment. The way she kissed him as if were a normal man, not one with bloodstained hands.

His cock grew heavy with desire, and his hand trembled where it cradled her face, but he kept himself under ruthless control. Now was not a time for rough desire. It was a time to prove to Rosalyn—and himself—that he wasn’t a brute.

But eventually Rosalyn became insistent, shuffling forward until she was laying half on top of him. She broke their kiss so she could press her lips against his neck, his pecs, his abs. She held his gaze the whole time, and Diego couldn’t imagine anything hotter than the fire in her eyes. He stilled as he understood her intent, frozen in anticipation.

She didn’t disappoint, tugging the waistband of his boxers down to reveal him to her hungry gaze. She worked him gently with her hand, then slowly bent over to draw him into her mouth.

His hips bucked at the first touch of her mouth, pleasure spearing through him. He stilled, afraid he might have hurt her, but she smiled around his cock and drew him deeper.

Sweat beaded his skin as she worked him. He clutched the sheets instead of her hair, twisting them in his effort to keep himself under control. She felt so good. So hot and wet, like a tropical heaven. He groaned as she teased the tip of his aching erection with her tongue, locking her gaze with his as she did so.

Her confidence was so fucking sexy. It brought him right to the edge.

“I’m close. Your turn.” This time he did tangle his fist in her hair, tugging to draw her up. He didn’t stop until she knelt over his face, presenting her perfect pussy to his view. He gripped her hips and lowered her until she was in position. Then, he devoured her.

She tasted so fucking good. He slid his tongue into her channel, then flattened it to draw up and tease her clit. She moaned and tilted her hips, fucking his tongue. It was the hottest experience of his life.

She came hard, gripping the headboard so hard he swore he heard it crack.

He slipped out from beneath her and knelt on the bed. Rosalyn flopped down, boneless, and Diego couldn’t help a grin of pure male satisfaction at the expression on her face. She was pliant, face still glazed with bliss. Her legs fell open in invitation and he groaned, tempted to dive back in. But his cock throbbed insistently. Next time. If there was a next time.

Diego yanked open the drawer of the nightstand and found a condom. He tore open the packet, but before he could put it on, Rosalyn’s hand settled over his.

“Let me.”

She rolled it on slowly, taking her time to stroke him, please him. Tease him.

“Enough,” he ground out. He hovered over her, but winced as he ribs protested. Frustrated, he gripped her hips and propped her up again in her former position. He put his hands over hers, curling her fingers around the headboard.

Then, he moved in behind her and entered with one swift thrust.

She gasped. He groaned. She was so perfect, so right, fitting his cock like a glove. He gripped her hips and thrust again, the headboard rattling at the force of his movements.

He tried to keep his thrusts slow, controlled, but it was no use.

“Harder,” she gasped, bracing herself against the headboard.

Unable to hold back, Diego let loose, slamming into her again and again. Rosalyn’s cries of pleasure echoed in his ears as he took what he wanted from her—needed from her. Lost himself in the feel of her.

She came with a cry, but he didn’t stop, just rode her through it as she contracted around him. As her muscles sagged, he held her hips, keeping her upright as he pounded into her.

The base of his spine tingled, but Diego needed Rosalyn to come this time, too. He reached around and found her clit, rubbing it in time to his thrusts.

“Yes,” she gasped. “I’m close.” He increased his pace, rocking the headboard into the low wall behind it with a rhythmic bang.

And then she was coming again, legs shaking as she squirmed on his cock. He kept thrusting, until her orgasm finished, then he finally loosened his control, slamming deep into her and coming hard.

He collapsed over her, still deep inside her, panting hard.

“That was incredible,” she whispered as she got her breath back.

Yeah, it was. And that presented a whole hell of a problem, because now he wasn’t sure he could ever give Rosalyn up.