I catch his hand in mine, holding his palm against my cheek. I should be peeling it away, pushing him away from me. But even though I want this to be the kind of relationship that starts and ends with the horrible task of scattering my family’s valuables to the ends of the earth, I just can’t do it.

I want his touch too much.

I’ve been craving it.

I need it like a woman in the desert needs a drink of water, and from the energy arcing through Levi’s eyes, he needs it just as much as I do.

“We have to be.” The words are raw in my mouth. “We have to be, at least when it comes to—when it comes to the house. It makes me…” I draw in a ragged breath. “All of it together—you, sorting through everything, the auction—all of it together is just too much. Do you understand?” A desperate note enters my tone at the end of the sentence, and I hate the sound of it. I want to be the kind of woman who can face everything with grace and poise. I’m not that woman now, and I certainly wasn’t her when I broke down over that damn dollhouse.

“I understand.”

I let out a breath that’s caught between relief and disappointment. God, will anything with Levi ever be straightforward? Will it ever be easy to lose myself in the touch that I spend all day wanting, only to feel torn in two about finally getting it?

Levi’s not done speaking.

“When we’re dealing with matters of the estate and the auction, we’ll be professional. You’ll be nothing more than my client.”

He’s giving me what I wanted, and his words are like claws in my heart. How? How?

“But when we’re alone…” His eyes flash, and his hand tenses against my face. I can’t let go, and I can’t let him pull it back. Not that he’s tried. “Tell me I don’t have to stay cool and professional and distant when we’re alone.”

I can hardly breathe. “I would hate it if you did. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it.”

He grins, and my core melts. “You don’t have to know.”

“Do you?”

He moves closer and brings his other hand up to my face, then pulls me gently forward until he can press his lips against mine, a weightless kiss that sends fire rushing through my chest. “Damn right I do. It started the moment I saw you.”

“I didn’t—” He kisses me again, harder, deeper, and when we come up for air I lose the thread of the conversation for a long moment. “I wasn’t doing anything but standing there.”

“You looked lost.”

I pull back a little, giving him a look. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those men who goes after vulnerable women to fix them.”

He laughs out loud, and his voice sends a curl of desire down my spine. “No. I’ve never been interested in damsels in distress.”

“I ended up being in distress. You haven’t forgotten that pathetic phone call, have you? Because—”

“Before you made that phone call, you turned me down. You looked me in the eye, and you told me you were worth more than I was offering. Not—not you, exactly, but your family, their estate. You wouldn’t even accept the offer as a starting point for negotiations—you just dismissed me outright.” Levi laughs again, thinking of it. “It was the sexiest thing that’s happened to me in years. Most women—” His expression goes serious, but there’s still a light dancing in his eyes. “Most women either want my money or want me to think they need my money. You needed it. You wanted nothing to do with it.”

“So as long as I don’t want your money, you’ll want more of me?”

The last of the smile disappears from Levi’s face. “Oh, no. It’s way past that now. I want you aside from all of this. Aside from the auction, aside from money, aside from everything else. I want you. I want the way you’re so...” He drops one hand to the side of my neck, tracing a path downward to the neckline of my dress. “You’re so damn careful to keep your worries locked away, but when we’re together—”

“You see all of them. I can’t hide from you.”

“I can’t hide from you.” Levi’s tone is deadly serious. “I’ve never once lost control with a client before. I’ve never let it go so far. And I’ve never offered my services for practically nothing, just because I was so captivated by a woman that I couldn’t let her go.”

I laugh, but it’s so full of heat that it’s almost more of a moan. “You were ready to let me go when I turned you down. You turned your back on me. You walked right out.”

“I wanted to run back in.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Now that sly half-smile returns. “Levi Blake, running back into an estate sale to beg a woman for a scrap of her attention? Not likely.”

“Not then, you mean.”

“Not then. Now? I’d run into any room with you in it. I’d beg on my knees for your attention.”

I don’t want to see him on his knees.

That’s the truth that overwhelms everything else roiling in my mind right now. I don’t want to see Levi on his knees. I want to be on mine. I want that same power to hold me in place again, just like it did on the sofa two days ago.

“Don’t beg on your knees.” It’s a plea that’s so soft I’m not sure that he hears it.

But he does hear it.

“Mmm,” he says, nodding just slightly. “No, it’s not for me to beg on my knees, is it?” I shake my head. “It’s for you.”

Oh, my God, what have I gotten myself into? What happens when all of this comes crashing down? What if the guilt grows and grows, despite this wall that we’re building between business and pleasure, and drowns me?

I want answers, but then Levi’s lips are on mine, and he’s pressing me back against the door of the town car, and I am lost, utterly lost, and the answers become meaningless.

Then the car rolls to a stop.