I can barely hear him over the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears. My heart is pounding so hard it is like a drum in a marching band.

Why did he have to come back into my life?

I don’t need this complication. For two entire years, I’ve gotten by without him. I don’t need him. I don’t want him, but my palms are sweating and I can’t get my heart rate under control. Something else too. Butterflies. Hundreds of them in my stomach. Making me feel nauseous with anxiety. I should leave. He is so big and distinctive. Anyone could see me here.

“Izzy …” he calls urgently.

I look up into his eyes. I can stand sitting here across from him as long as I’m not looking in those impossibly blue eyes. They’re just as beautiful as I remember, but there is something else in them. A bitter sadness. A sadness that makes me want to hold him close and rock him as if he was my baby. It isn’t right for us to sit together the way we are.

It definitely isn’t right that I feel exactly the same right now about him as I did when we first met—only now, I can’t blame the giddy, dizzy feeling, the breathless excitement, on alcohol. Worse, I can no longer hate him for taking advantage of me, of being a coward and a user of the worst kind.

He will never know how difficult it is for me to shake my head and say, “It doesn’t matter. Life has moved on for both of us. We’re not those people anymore. I’m not that girl anymore.”

“I don’t believe you.” His voice is soft, low, but deadly serious.

I wish he would. It would make things so much easier. His food arrives, but he doesn’t touch it. He just keeps on staring at me.

“That’s too bad. Because it’s the truth.” I shift in my chair, suddenly extremely uncomfortable. I’ve never lied to him before. Also, I’ve been sitting here too long. I look out the window again, just to be sure nobody’s watching. The coffee sours in my mouth.

“Why do you keep looking out?”

I whirl my head around. “Because I’d rather be out there than here, with you.”

“That’s a lie, too.”

“Don’t call me a liar,” I warn, my voice unsteady.

“But it is a lie,” he says calmly. “You don’t mean it. You want to be with me just as much as I want to be with you. I can feel it, and fuck anybody who says different.”

I bite my lip, angry with myself for being so transparent. “You’re so full of yourself. Doesn’t it hurt, being that full of yourself?”

“It’ll stop hurting when I’m inside you.”

My mouth opens in a gasp of shock. I can put on a show to everyone else, but I can’t try to hide the desire his words produce in me, there is no hiding from him. He could see right through me. From the very first moment we met.

Desire and dread fight back and forth in my heart. I don’t know which is winning, but I don’t wait to find out. I stand so fast I almost knock the chair backward. He stands too, his movements quick as a cat.

“I need to go now. Please, please don’t follow me.”

I leave the coffee and hurry to the door before he can stop me. I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe. I can’t think straight. For a second there, it almost seemed like a good idea to let myself fall for him again. He’s tempting. As tempting as the Devil himself, but that would have been the worst mistake imaginable.

I’m halfway down the street, rushing and weaving between people casually strolling along, when I hear him calling to me. “Izzy! Izzy, wait!”

Shit, I can’t have him following me and yelling for me like that. He must be crazy. Just to stop him from shouting my name, I come to a halt and whirl around. He’s running, holding out one hand. He comes to a stop in front of me.

“Please, leave me alone.”

“You forgot your gloves.” He holds them out.

I take them from him, feeling confused and saddened. He only ran after me to return my gloves. I shouldn’t feel sad. I can’t have him, anyway. I take the gloves from him. “Thank you. I love these gloves.” I tuck them into my purse rather than put them on. “And thank you for explaining what happened. I hope it’s made you feel better. It’s definitely made me feel a lot better.” He doesn’t say anything so I plough on. “Right. So I’ll be off. I really have somewhere else I need to be.”

“You can bullshit yourself, but not me. You gave up the most precious thing a woman can give, and you gave it to me. That means something. Nothing can ever change that. There is nowhere else you need to be but with me. Now.” He takes a step closer and I know I should push him away. I need to. I ought to. But I don’t. I let the magnetism of him pull me in all over again.

“Please, don’t do this.” It comes out as a weak, pitiful whisper.

“Come with me.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

His smile is just as bright as I remember it, just as sexy, and warmer than the sun. It warms me from the inside out. “Yes, you can. You know you want this as much as I do. We deserve this. Both of us.”

He is another step closer to me. I feel his warmth and smell his cologne. I want to fall into his arms here and now and never leave. What is the spell he has on me? I wish I could break it.

“I shouldn’t …”

“You should, and you will.” He is inches from me and I’m drowning in his eyes. I can’t breathe. There’s nothing in the world but him—nothing at all. Him and me. Just this once, Izzy. For everything you have suffered.

I’m in a taxi before I know it. His arms are around me and he’s crushing his mouth to mine. Everything else is disappearing. I want him to do more. My body melts against him when his arms tighten. I never feel so wanted, so safe, as I do when I’m in his arms. I sense his heart pounding under my hand when I slide it over his T-shirt. He’s just as firm and strong as I remembered, but no memory is as good as this. The sheer bliss of his lips pressed against mine—moving, demanding, taking. And I want to give. I need to give.

His tongue slides into my mouth, and from the back of his throat comes a growl. I remember the growl. I used to hear it in my dreams. I used to wake up with a rush of raw heat between my thighs. Heat and wetness. My body starts singing a song it forgot the words to. He knows my body, he knows what I need.

We don’t say a word as we hurry through the lobby of his hotel towards the elevator.