Alex knew she was in trouble.

She definitely knew it when Landon pulled her so close she was forced to jump and hike her legs around his waist. Yes, forced, she told herself as their lips continued to collide passionately. She had no choice in the matter, none at all . . . not if she wanted to keep kissing him.

Which she did.

And that was why she was in so much trouble.

Landon spun them both around. He was taking them somewhere, but Alex wasn't sure where . . . she could barely concentrate on anything outside of the hot crush of his lips and the hand roaming along the curve of her ass. A shiver raced through her as she let herself be touched, anywhere and everywhere, by the infuriating man she had allowed to move in and throw her life into chaos. Hadn’t she been the one to talk so fastidiously of boundaries? Why hadn’t she ever outlined any of those for where his hands were allowed to go? And what her own legs were allowed to wrap around, for that matter?

They were out of the kitchen—out of the living room. Fuzzily, she thought she knew where he was headed. It was the same room she had caught him outside on more than one occasion, late at night, when she rose unexpectedly to go and get a glass of water. Twice, she had discovered a shirtless Landon on the other side of her door; once, he had played it off like he was only headed to the bathroom. The other time, he had mentioned his burns . . . and Alex knew it was an excuse to throw her off the scent of his real motive. Landon never brought up his burns unless asked.

Now, he shoved open her bedroom door and maneuvered her down onto the bed. The mattress sagged beneath their combined weight. Alex's head spun as she found herself both cradled and cratered beneath a well-muscled male body. She had convinced herself that four years wasn't that long a time to go without sex, but she was hyperaware of everything that came into focus now: the familiar creak and settling of the bed, the rising temperature of the room . . . and Landon's powerful body eclipsing hers, seemingly everywhere at once. The breadth of his shoulders could fill the whole house they now shared.

It's too much. It's too soon. The panicked thoughts cannoned around her skull. Alex listened to them, paralyzed, even as his fingers slipped beneath the collar of her shirt and his lips followed.

Four years is too soon?

You can't do it here. You can't do it in the bed you shared with Henry.

I threw the old bed out.

You're still betraying him.

Around and around it went, a constant carousel of doubt and mistrust of herself. Of fear. Well, Alex wanted off the shitty carnival ride for one night. She wanted to scream and beat her fists against the furniture (old or new), rip Henry's picture off the refrigerator, and give her body what it so desperately needed. She needed Landon's hands, blazing a hot trail along her writhing curves. She needed the way he pinned her, the way he pressed all his weight down on her, the way the hard angles of his pelvis slid against her own. She thought she must have been going slowly crazy for years before she had met him and had only just now been informed that there was a pill, a remedy, to the creeping madness taking her over from within.

"Landon," she panted, and, "yes."

What more was there to say, really?

He groaned in helpless surrender, then, and Alex realized the effort it must have taken him to hold himself back for so long. Being in her proximity must have taken its toll. What silent price had Landon been willing to pay to respect her boundaries? A shudder coursed through her, and she realized that the thought of a man desiring her so intensely was a massive turn-on. She didn't care if it made her shallow—and she definitely didn't care if a need for release that trumped every other consideration in that moment made her worse than shallow. She didn't just want this, she needed this—and judging by the darkening timbre of Landon's voice, so did he.

Those hands that doused fires ignited them now. His callouses skated along every squirming curve of her. Despite giving her express permission to be taken, Alex suddenly found that she couldn't hold still.

It had been too long, and no amount of self-pleasure she had given herself in the intervening years could compete with the living, delving hands of a lover. Landon's exploratory touches were the opposite of restrained, or even hesitating—he caressed every inch of her as if he were a blind man mapping a long-quested terrain. His palms moved beneath her clothes, skimmed up and down her navel, glanced along the heaving outline of her breasts until Alex had to stop her throat to keep from begging him further. She still had some dignity left, despite their compromising position . . . no way was she going to plead with Landon Brenner to go further, faster. Just a few weeks ago, she had occupied a position of relative authority over him; and now—

Now he thrust his hands beneath the twin cups of her bra. Alex gasped and bucked up off the bed beneath him, but he pinned her unruly hips with his own. The increased pressure, the suddenly display of physical dominance, made her inner thighs turn to jelly. Landon was so cordial by the light of day, so much the classic, consummate gentleman, that experiencing him now in this way was something of a panty-drenching revelation.

It was only now Alex realized how disconnected she had allowed herself to become from her body. She thought she knew every inch of herself that required gratification, and she had dealt with her urges over the years with dismissive, borderline-guilty expedience. She was a driven, working widow: Orgasm was a requirement to get through her week, and often she could take care of it within minutes. She habitually detached herself in her fantasies: She didn't allow herself to think of Henry, to dwell on memories of their intimate time together, nor did she let herself imagine any other man moving between her legs.

It was only recently, after Landon had moved in, that she had found herself taking more and more cold showers . . . that she found her hand wandering between her legs late at night under cover of darkness. Even during the daytime, she touched herself to thoughts of him—before pulling her hand back suddenly as if an invisible nun had swatted it with a ruler.

Now, in this moment, she didn't have to fight herself anymore. And best of all, she didn't have to imagine. It was the flesh-and-blood Landon palming her breast, experiencing for himself just how hopelessly aroused he made every inch of her.

Her nipples weren't the only thing tightening rapidly as a result of his fondling. She felt the damp walls of her womanhood loosen and contract, already anticipating the deep friction that would satisfy. She hadn't realized how much she needed to be filled until the moment she felt Landon's clothed erection press against her.

He groaned at the contact as if it was painful, when Alex guessed the opposite was true. He rubbed himself against her again and confirmed her thoughts.

"Do you . . .?" She was too embarrassed to get the words out suddenly, and bit down on her lower lip to stop it from trembling on the rest of her sentence.

Thankfully, Landon seemed to have gained the ability to read minds. He whipped around, only long enough to fish a square package out of his back pocket. Alex's heart fluttered at the sight.

They were doing this. They were really doing this. The condom question had been her last stalling tactic, the last door closing on any possible escape.

It was a profound moment when Alex realized that she really, really did not want to escape this. She gazed up into Landon's eyes, certain she must have looked stricken at his preparedness because Landon now looked down guiltily. Not that looking in that direction helped any: Her naked breasts thrust upward proudly from where he had excavated them from her bra.

"How long have you had that on you?" She reframed her query to fill the sudden, tense silence. It wasn't awkward, but obvious anticipation charged the air between them. If she thought this was the moment of no return, then Landon must have thought so also.

"You wouldn't like it if I told you 'since I moved in'," he replied.

Alex supposed she had her answer. "I figured they didn't sell them at the hospital store," she quipped as she drew him back down. The wrapper crinkled audibly as Landon braced himself on the bed.

"Why?" Landon asked as he lowered himself further to whisper in her ear. "Have you ever checked?"

"Let's just say I never had a need to," she replied. "Most of my male patients behave themselves better than you do."

"And just look how far my bad behavior got me."

Talk of him being a patient served as a much-needed reminder for Alex in that moment. She scrutinized the bandages around his arms as Landon sat back to tear open the condom package. She even allowed her hands to linger a moment on his bulging biceps, trying to convince herself she was satisfying clinical curiosity rather than a long-held desire to test their firmness with her own hands.

He flexed beneath her touch, although she had a feeling it was a subconscious response. He was a virile male specimen, and something deep within him needed her to understand his strength.

"Landon . . . wait a moment," she interjected breathlessly. "Your injuries—"

"Nothing hurts," he replied, which Alex knew was an absolute lie. Still, as her eyes searched his, she couldn't identify any telltale tightness or see any pained creases.

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?" he countered.

Slowly, hesitantly, she nodded. Then, just in case he wasn't totally convinced, she wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck and drew him down for a kiss. He came unresisting, his hot lips snagging against her own; she opened her mouth, forcing his to follow, and thrust her tongue between them. He was too distracted by her kiss to notice the hand that crept between their bodies until it gripped the bulge in his pants with dedicated firmness.

"God," he broke away from their twining tongues to groan.

They dispensed with their clothes in a frenzy. Alex lost herself in a tangle of sheets and a frantic whirlwind of limbs; their naked bodies became so indistinguishable for a moment that the only way she knew how to tell the difference between them was by identifying the coarse bandages that flashed in and out of focus. She let her hands climb every inch of him as he kneaded her breasts. Her breathy little moans only increased the pressure of his hands on her. Now that she had tasted his touch, she craved to know his full strength. She wanted Landon as unleashed as she was in that moment.

Scratch that: she wanted him, full stop. Where the hell did that damn condom get to . . .?

Alex had her answer in the next instant. Landon gripped her inner thighs and parted her legs; her muscles twitched to life in halfhearted protest, but even her full resistance wouldn't have been enough to stop him. He was a man on a mission, an alpha determined to take what had been laid bare before him, and Alex's whimpers only urged him on. He gripped his sheathed cock and slid it inside her, inch by careful inch.

Alex's head dropped back onto the bed. Her breath came in great, shuddering gasps, and she stared hard at the ceiling, her vision swimming. No matter how she tried to control her panting, every additional inch Landon filled her made her want to cry anew. It was too much—it was not enough. When would it end, and how could she prevent it from ever coming to a conclusion?

How could she have even imagined there was an adequate substitute for having a man's rock-hard length filling her to the brim?

"Ahhh," she half-hissed, half-purred, and gripped his shoulders.

"Too much for you?" His voice was a velvet whisper. She was surprised she could hear it over the thunderous crashing of her heart. Her lonely bedroom suddenly seemed overfull of noise. Even Landon's eyes, focused tightly on her in the dark, spoke volumes more than she was prepared to hear. She thought she saw a truth buried there that was now suddenly, starkly laid bare: This wasn't just a hookup for him. He had craved her too badly for too long for the itch to be satisfied with a one-time scratch.

Even in the darkness, with his cock buried inside her, Alex saw the admiration in his eyes. It was more than purely physical for him . . . and for her, as well. The fact that it was Landon Brenner, the driven, maddeningly insistent man in uniform filling her, couldn't be denied or ignored.

"Fuck me," she whispered. She had to hear the rough word spoken out loud. She had to be the first to put a name to this thing, and she would give it the hardest name she knew. She would own their union, shape it, as best she could in that inescapable moment.

Landon began to move, thrusting in and out of her with enough force to propel her hips halfway across the bed. Alex clung to him, gritting her teeth as she rode his rhythm. The pain from having him inside her soon gave way to pleasure, and the burning friction became a desperately-needed deep massage. He pulled her right leg up over his shoulder, angled himself, and plunged, striking the secret node inside her, and Alex belted out a cry that seemed to shake the walls of the house they were sharing.

"Landon," she breathed urgently in the aftermath. "Landon—!"

"I got you," he said. It was a nonsensical assertion, but combined with the strength of his arms banded tightly around her, hugging her close, the words overwhelmed her.

She jolted and came; she crested and fell, carried away on an orgasm so powerful it was almost enough to knock her senseless. The deafening crash of her own blood drowned out her cries. She grabbed the sheet in fistfuls as her body writhed.

"God . . . you look so . . .!" But she would never know what she looked like in that moment, because suddenly Landon was following her over the brink and flowing into her. A moment later, he collapsed in a spent heap on top of her.

Alex stared at the ceiling spinning overhead. She tried to control her breathing as she came back to earth, but it was difficult with Landon's massive form sprawled on top of her.

Then again, it wasn't an altogether unpleasant feeling.

The opposite, actually.

Just as she was about to tentatively circle her arms around him, Landon pulled back. He withdrew from her and rolled onto his back. "Guess I'll head on back to my room now." The bed creaked as he swung his legs around.

Alex rolled over and caught his wrist before he could stand. "No." She breathed the simple word into the darkness, but it still seemed to shake the room like an earthquake. "Stay. I mean—it's all right if you stay."

Maybe she had only imagined the reluctance toward leaving in his voice. Maybe Landon had gotten what he wanted—and so had she. Hadn't she? The pressure steadily building inside her for four years had been released, hadn't it? It wasn't a bad thing to want sex.

But it was a bad thing to make it into anything more.

Landon said nothing. The mattress sagged beneath his weight once more as he took her in his arms and settled down on top of the tangled blankets with her.

Alex didn't protest. She didn't even try to pull the covers up over them. His body burned like a furnace beside hers, keeping her warm as she drifted off to sleep.