The day after the ill-fated dinner, Lana cleaned her house.

She swept through the rooms like a tornado, armed with a broom—a duster—a mop. She beat rugs. She lifted things she probably shouldn't be lifting to get at every speck of dirt. She wanted any evidence that Hank Logan had ever been here gone.

In a final, desperate act, she removed her favorite picture from the fridge and tucked it inside a drawer. She felt horrible as she shut it away, exiling those beaming faces to darkness. She convinced herself that she would feel better with time. She was making the right decision.

Hank had made it very clear that there was no other decision for her to make.

". . . and with the storm still closing in, viewers are advised to batten down the hatches," the local weatherwoman was reporting. Lana went into the living room and turned up the volume. She dropped down onto the couch, surprised at the fact that she felt winded, and studied the cartoon raincloud shown sweeping toward Cedar Springs.

"Well, well, Dyna. Looks like you were right," she murmured to herself.

"And we've got a warm front from the south setting record highs throughout New Mexico," the forecaster continued with a sweep of her arm.

Someone knocked at the front door. Lana rose, still studying the television screen, and went to answer it. She had an ill feeling, but maybe the beginning stages of her pregnancy were to blame. Inviting company into the freshly-scrubbed house might be just the thing to make her feel better.

She pulled the door open and found Hank standing on her porch.

"Hank!" she exclaimed. "What are you . . .?" But she couldn't finish the question. Seeing him standing there stole the breath from her lungs. After ten years of imagining this exact scenario, she feared she would get used to it, no matter how many times the moment had seemed ready to repeat itself in recent days.

"Lana." He gazed down at her, and her heart trembled at his look. "Can I come in?"

Lana moved aside before she could think to do otherwise. Not even five minutes ago, she had been ready to file away her favorite photographs and start fresh—now look at her! She was hopeless.

Casting memories of Hank Logan out of her house was proving a lot easier than turning the man himself away.

". . . I didn't think you were coming back," she mentioned as she closed the door.

"Neither did I." Hank stood with his back to her. "I told myself I didn't want to."

"Why would you tell yourself that?" she asked desperately. "Hank, why are we doing this? We keep reopening old wounds the moment it seems like they've healed. You keep ending things with such finality . . . and when you come back here, it makes my head spin."

How many more times can I find you on my porch, Hank Logan, before the déjà vu drives me absolutely crazy?

"If your head's spinning, Lana, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't be a better man and make things right by you." His fists clenched at his sides. "But I can't stop my own head from spinning. And I can't make myself stay away from you."

"Why won't you look at me?" Her voice sounded so small in her own ears. She pushed herself to speak louder. She needed to gain his attention, and she needed an answer. "Hank."

"Because every time I look at you, Lana, I want to do all the wrong things," he replied. He turned in place, and his eyes swam like liquid amber beneath her hallway lights. "I'm tired of being the kind of man who makes a good woman like you suffer because he's selfish. If I was a good man, I'd stay away from you. For your own sake. This thing between us, it's—"

"You said before that it's a mistake, what we're doing. It's not a mistake, Hank. You have to know that." Tears sprang into her eyes. "You know that, right? You feel it, too?"

"Yes, I feel it."

He caught her face between his hands and kissed her. Lana almost sagged with relief against him. Feeling his lips on hers was like gaining that first long-needed release. And she knew now that there was more to come.

Hank wasn't going to leave her. A man who kissed her the way he did was as helpless to tear himself away from this as she was. They were addicted to each other. They were no good for each other.

. . . but couldn't they be? How could something that felt so right, time and again, be so absolutely wrong?

We are right for each other, she thought as his hand slid up her thigh beneath her dress. We have to be. We've created a new life together.

But only one of us knows it.

"Hank, there's something I need to tell you—"

But he was too far gone already. His eyes were closed as he kissed her, dragging his lips from hers to anoint her cheek, her jawline, that special spot just beneath her ear.

Lana shuddered, and her own desire overtook her. There could be time enough later, she thought, once things had cooled down, to discuss the sobering results of their torrid night together. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and let him suckle her neck. She panted hotly in his ear, blowing on the lobe and dragging her fingers through his hair—the way she knew he liked it. It was a pleasure of his they had discovered together, long ago. They had been each other's first.

"Fuck." He muffled the curse into her neck, and Lana sighed. "I can't hold myself back when I'm around you."

"Then don't."

The restraint he showed by the light of day wrenched at her. Hank was so closed-off to everything, so unemotional and above it all. Was that what it meant to be a fire chief?

Somehow, Lana didn't think so. Hank had gone so many degrees beyond what his job required, it was as if he had lost himself and didn't know how to find his way back.

But he could find it, here, in her arms.

Or she could find it in his.

Hank picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. He positioned her on the edge of the bed and skimmed her panties down her calves. They flew across the room.

Lana tossed her head back, wetting her lips as he drew her knees apart. She tried to keep them from quaking with anticipation as Hank bent his head between them.

It was like licking a spark plug—or how she imagined the licked spark plug must feel. His tongue teased and thrust against her wet folds, and electricity jolted through her.

Lana arched her back and moaned. When her legs did begin to shake, Hank forced them firmly still. His tongue flicked along her slit and up again. He gave her clit a hard stroke, then sealed it with a kiss. Lana convulsed. She grabbed his hair. It was almost too short to clench her fingers through, but she managed to raise a few tufts. She closed her eyes and lost herself to the overwhelming sensation.

"Hank . . . kiss me," she sighed.

He didn't respond. His mouth worked along her entrance. Lana's legs began to shake harder.

"Hank . . ."

Pressure bloomed in her belly, unfurling petals of hot desire. The pressure of Hank's mouth increased in seeming accord. He thrust his tongue into her.

Lana snatched at his hair and cried his name. Her knees shook uncontrollably as she came. Hank pulled back, and his thumb replaced his tongue on her clit. He rolled the nub of flesh, eyes trained on her intently as she rode the wave of her orgasm.

"Hank," she panted. "I need you. I still . . ." She couldn't complete the thought.

Thankfully, she didn't have to. Hank shrugged off his shirt and undid the front of his pants, shoving them down his hips as he joined her on the bed. Their mouths met again, and they kissed—now languidly.

Lana still felt that throbbing between her legs, and Hank's kisses only made the sensation more pronounced. If he didn't fill her up soon, she thought she would go insane.

His erection pressed against her slick entrance. It slipped inside her, aided by the additional lubrication from his mouth. Lana shuddered. Hank's right hand gripped her waist, raising her up off the bed slightly to better accommodate their joining.

"God, Lana, you feel so good," he whispered.

"I want to make you feel good, Hank," she crooned. They were speaking in an almost nonsensical call-and-response, but she lived for nothing else in that moment. To hear the fire chief surrendering to his passion was heaven itself. She caressed his neck and then laced her fingers behind his head as he began to move.

Their lovemaking was agonizingly slow. Lana, still coming down from her first orgasm, relished it. She felt charged and oversensitive, aware of every miniscule movement he made within her. As Hank's pace increased, so did the rate of her breathing. Try as she might, she couldn't hold back the little cries of pleasure that seemed to escape her at every opportunity.

Soon the cries were more than little. Her moans were loud and sharp and came again and again with each thrust. She hoped the neighbors didn't hear. She didn't want them to know what innocent Lana Sweet was getting up to late at night, with a man so enigmatic, sometimes he made sex feel like an illicit encounter with a stranger.

But not tonight.

Tonight, the way Hank moved within her felt wonderfully familiar. It felt right. This was exactly where they were meant to be: loving each other.

He took hold of the sheets around her and twisted them up into a fist. The way his hands clenched was tell-tale. He was close.

"Hank." Lana's fingers brushed down between his powerful shoulders. "Come for me, Hank."

Hank groaned. The sound shook unbearably in her own chest. And—the blossom started to unfurl again. Lana dropped her head back, dizzy with anticipation. Her hips rocked beneath his. The bed strained and squeaked.

He propelled himself into her. Lana clenched. Her thighs, locked tightly around his waist, shook as the pressure in her belly built. "Hank . . .!" She gasped his name, and he sank against her with a groan. His cock filled her with its thickness, and she felt herself contract around him. She was coming again. Her thoughts fragmented and flew beyond her ability to call them back.

When it was over, they collapsed back onto the bed, together. Lana tried to steady her breath; her breasts rose and fell with the effort. Just when she seemed about to succeed, a pleasurable aftershock would course through her, and her breath would hitch again. She wanted to laugh at the struggling state he had left her in, but she didn't have the additional air to pull it off.

Hank's hand smoothed down along her belly. Lana froze. It wasn't possible that a part of him knew, was it? He touched her so tenderly that she could almost believe Hank sensed there was more going on. She caught his hand with hers before he could retract it and pressed it to her stomach. Their hands rose and fell together as she breathed.

This was it. The moment. She would tell Hank now. Come what may, they would face this uncertain future together, and maybe, just maybe . . . 

"Hank?"

His phone buzzed the same instant she said his name. Lana clamped her mouth shut, then laughed quietly to herself as the interruption persisted.

Hank glanced at her curiously before rolling over to reach for his cell. "Station's texting me," he said. "Looks like I've got another meeting with the commissioner in half an hour."

"Bet he saw the weather report," Lana said.

Hank rolled back over and scooped her into his arms. She laughed with delight at the surprise embrace. It was as if the old Hank was returning to her, slowly, his icy exterior thawing by degrees. "What were you saying?" He stroked a strand of hair back from her eyes.

"Just that this was nice," she lied. She pressed her hands against his chest. "I'll see you after, okay? If you want to stop by."

"I do want to stop by." Hank pressed a kiss to her lips, and Lana melted. She wondered if every fire chief was capable of liquefying a girl with even a chaste touch, or if Hank was just a special exception. "I'll bring dinner," he said.

"You don't have to do that."

"I'd like to."

Lana beamed as Hank slipped his arm out from underneath her and replaced it with a pillow.

He rose to get dressed. She watched him change, drinking in the sight of his tall, muscular body as it slipped its way easily from motion to motion. I could get used to this, she thought.

Hank paused, hovering in the doorway, to look back at her. Lana lifted her hand in a shy wave. "See you soon," he said.

She waited until she heard the front door close behind him. Then Lana sank back down into the bed and hid her face in her hands. She couldn't stop smiling, no matter how hard she tried. That's what good sex does to you, she thought, but knew it was so much more than that.

It was Hank. Hank had come back to her. She couldn't suppress her love for him any more than she could forget about a picture hidden away in a drawer.

Or a pregnancy test. Lana pulled her hands back and sighed. That was twice now she had resolved to tell him, and twice she had let a last-minute distraction get in the way. Now it was her turn to roll over and hunt for her phone on the bedside table.

The day was still young, and she needed some advice.