Tension roiled between us. That tether pulled taut. Drawing us closer. I swallowed around it and reached for the latch. He was quick to open his door, jumping out and rounding to my side before I had time to step out of his massive truck. He helped me down, and his hand scorched where he aided me by holding on to my elbow.

“Let me walk you to the door. Last thing I need to be worried about is you here by yourself and some asshole taking advantage of you.”

He quirked this belly-flopping grin that pierced me like an arrow. “Unless of course that asshole is me.”

He barely angled his head to the side. There was something so endearing and self-deprecating about it. Everything about him right then was at odds with the surly, bear of a man I’d met weeks ago, the man exposing himself, layer by layer.

I lifted my chin, both in strength and vulnerability, tossing all the uncertainties and questions out into the open. “Should I be afraid?”

“Yeah, you should be.” His response was hard, but there was no missing the fact his irritation was aimed at himself. He set his palm on the small of my back, helping me through the gravel drive in my heels, an inch behind as we ascended the porch steps.

We crossed the planks. That tension wound higher with each step until we were nothing but needy pants at my door. Slowly, I turned around to face him.

His presence sent a ripple of energy vibrating across the floorboards, the overwhelming sight of him the owner of my breath.

He stood beneath the faint glow of the hurricane lamp that hung outside the door. A sculpture of sinewy muscle and raw strength, forged through years of obvious physical labor. Every inch of him was rugged, from those roughened, callused hands to the crinkles set deep at the edges of his eyes.

The man was a carving of pure, daunting beauty.

“What exactly am I supposed to be afraid of, Rex?” My brow twisted, and my voice quieted with the admission. “Because when I’m around you, the last thing I feel is afraid.”

“I fuck everything up, Rynna, and the only thing I’ve got to offer you is my mess. I can’t do this.”

Restraint rumbled in his chest, the sound so deep I felt it shake the ground beneath my feet.

I gently cupped one side of his rugged face. “I’m not afraid.”

It was a promise.

An appeal.

“You should be,” he grated. “Warned you, my shit doesn’t ever end well.”

“Maybe that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

He groaned and he planted his hands high above my head. The man panted above me, torn, desperate, his nose just brushing mine. “God damn it, Rynna. God damn it.”

I felt the moment he broke. When the thread pulled too tight and this mesmerizing man snapped. His mouth descended on mine.

Overpowering.

Overwhelming.

Dizzying.

Lips and tongue and nips of teeth.

And those hands. They were on my face. My neck. My waist. Somehow, I managed to hold on to him and spin away as I fumbled with the lock. He pressed against my backside, his cock against my bottom, and his mouth leaving a trail of fire at the side of my neck. We stumbled into the darkness of my house, breaking apart as I turned to face him.

The only light trickled down from the lamp I’d left on upstairs.

Slowly, he clicked the door shut behind him. We stood there, two feet away from each other, staring.

Chests heaving.

Before we collided.

A tangle of tongues and bodies.

The man frantic, trying to touch me everywhere.

“What am I doing? Fuck, what am I doing?” he muttered incoherently, kissing me deeper. Madder. Wilder.

I pushed up on my toes and tore my mouth from his so I could kiss down the strong column of his throat. His head thudded back against the door, his entire body pressing against it as if he needed it to keep him standing.

He grated my name, and I kept kissing at his throat while I worked free the button on his jeans, hands shaking.

Every reservation spun out of control.

Out of reach.

It was only spurred further when the defined muscles of his abdomen jumped and twitched beneath my touch, when he mumbled, “You’re killing me, Rynna. Fucking killing me.”

Desire rippled from him in heady waves.

And I felt so brave and bold, my kisses brazen as I nipped at the hollow of his throat, my fingers sure as I inched down his zipper.

Before I could consider it—the ramifications and the repercussions and the distinct threat to my heart—I dropped to my knees and pulled his jeans and underwear down to the middle of his thighs.

I refused to think of anything but setting him free.

Hoping he’d find a little of that freedom in me.

Even if it was only for a few stolen moments.

But God, I was unprepared. Just an unsuspecting, naïve fool when his thick cock bobbed out in front of me, level with my eyes.

Engorged and hard.

As big and ruggedly beautiful as the rest of him, the fat head already dripping with his need.

A flood of desire rushed me, and my stomach twisted into a thousand knots. It incited an ache in the deepest part of me. My core was a ball of fire. Heat spreading fast and throbbing between my thighs.

I pressed them together as if it might offer relief, my mouth dry, my heart thrashing against its boundaries.

Racing ahead of me as if it already knew our destination.

Those big hands were suddenly on the sides of my head. He forced me to look up at him. Hunger glinted in his eyes, a dangerous cocktail of sorrow and need and restraint.

That mesmerizing sage deepened to steel. It was when I knew he’d taken another turn.

All needy, dominant man.

“Is this what you really want? You want me to fuck that sweet mouth?”

I shivered with the promise of his words. Again caught off guard by this man who’d left me on unstable ground.

“I just want to make you feel good,” I whispered.

He was so hard. Every inch of him. From the clench of his jaw to the ripple of his stomach to his length that protruded and dipped and bounced in front of me.

The tip barely grazed my lips. My tongue flicked out and swept across the velvet flesh.

Rex hissed. “Fuck . . . Rynna. I can’t fucking do this. This is wrong. So fucking wrong.”

But instead of pushing me away, he tugged me closer. A raw groan escaped him when I wrapped both my hands around him at the base and sucked his crown into my mouth.

He rasped a curse and rocked forward. Control slipping. Control I somehow knew he used as a defense. As a way to keep everyone at arm’s length.

My tongue pressed at the underside of his cock, and I pulled him deeper.

Drawing him in.

Slowly.

Just as slowly as I began to work him with my hands.

And maybe I should have known I was in trouble when I began to shake. When the entire room spun at the feel of him. At the impact of him.

At the way I completely succumbed when he muttered, “That mouth,” as he hooked his fingertips below my jaw, drawing my eyes up to meet his.

His thumbs brushed the curve of my cheeks before he moved them to the edge of my lips. His eyes flashed with something tender. Soft and gentle.

Before something else entirely took them over. Something raw. Possessive. Intense.

His hips began to snap, jutting forward. He pressed himself deeper into my mouth. Filling me so full I struggled not to gag. So turned on I writhed where I knelt on the floor. The man so powerful I had to surrender.

“God . . . Ryn . . . Ryn . . . feels so good. Fuck . . . so good. That mouth.”

A flood of words poured from his mouth as he fucked mine.

Wildly.

Madly.

Greedily.

And God. I liked it. I liked it that he’d taken control. Liked that he stood over me, taking what I wanted to give. Liked that I held the power to make him moan.

I liked him.

I liked him so much. More than I should. In a way that was getting messy. In a way that was soft and fragile, breakable, as it spun the most complex web inside me. Strands of want and ribbons of need.

“Rynna . . .” He grunted my name, a deep, reverberating utterance that echoed the walls. I swallowed around him, taking him as deep as I possibly could. Every part of me ached. My jaw and my heart and that needy throb that begged at the juncture of my thighs.

His thrusts turned rough. Hard and demanding. “Harder . . . please . . . take it.”

I pumped him savagely, just as ruthlessly as he took my mouth, my hands picking up the same frantic rhythm as his assault.

And I could feel it. His balls tighten and lift. The ripple of his abdomen, those powerful thighs straining.

That electricity licked and lapped.

Striking.

“God damn it, Rynna. God damn it.”

His hips snapped twice more.

Frantic and frenzied.

Before every glorious inch of him went rigid. A tightly keening bow.

He pulsed with his orgasm, and his head kicked back on a guttural roar as he let himself go.

It was exactly what I’d wanted.

To see this man undone.

To get a glimpse of him with his walls toppled.

And the sight of it . . . the sight of it was magnificent.

His cock throbbed and jerked as he spilled into my mouth, and I gulped him down as I stared up at the ecstasy on his face.

Slowly he opened his eyes, but the same frenzy remained in them. Fire. He quickly lifted me from the floor. Before I could make sense of it, my bottom was balanced on the back of the sofa, my dress around my waist, his fingers spreading me.

Filling me.

His eyes were desperate as he stroked me deep. I moaned as he fucked me with his fingers, his thumb bringing me to ecstasy.

So fast.

So fast I was shocked by the bliss that exploded in my body. A flashflood that came out of nowhere.

Laying me to waste.

My fingers dug into his shoulders as I came. Wave after wave.

He slowed, panting, eyes wild. He stepped back as if he couldn’t make sense of what had just happened between us, slowly lowering my feet to the ground.

“God damn it.” His words cracked.

I sagged, holding onto the back of the couch for support. Spent. Drained. Confused.

He was quick to tuck himself back into his jeans. Looking everywhere but at me, he roughed agitated hands through his hair. “God damn it. God damn it. Friends. Friends. What bullshit.”

He started to frantically pace.

“Rex,” I whispered, trying to break through whatever freak out he was having.

“I can’t . . . I can’t believe I just—fuck!” he shouted and threw an aimless punch into the air. “I can’t do this.”

My knees were shaky, and my heart was erratic. I stretched a hand out toward him. “Why can’t you? Why can’t you do this?”

I’d never been a beggar. I’d never chased a man except for the one who’d broken my heart the day I’d turned eighteen. I was a quick learner. If a man didn’t want what I had to offer, then he didn’t deserve me.

Yet, there was something about Rex Gunner that made me want to shout and plead and pound on his chest. Demand he open up. Show me everything he kept shored up inside.

That same something told me he needed what I had to give. That whatever I’d been lacking, he’d found in me, too.

“I have to get out of here,” he said, stalking for the door.

Shocked and confused, I watched, hurt bubbling up and coating my tongue with disbelief.

He was just going to leave? After what we’d just done?

I pressed my lips together, my chin trembling as I fought tears. Tears bred of hope and frustration. “I told you I’m not afraid. Why are you? All I’m asking is that you take a chance on me. Life’s not worth living without taking them.”

He froze at the door, and he laughed this horrible, cutting sound. He shifted to look at me from over his shoulder. “You want to know why I’m afraid, Rynna?”

His head angled to the side, and his eyes brimmed with a kind of hatred I knew wasn’t directed at me. “I’m afraid because I fuck everything up. I’m afraid because everything I touch? Everything I love? Eventually, I taint it. Ruin it. And then there’s nothing left but misery and suffering and fear. And my daughter . . . my Frankie? She’s all I’ve got left. She’s the one good thing that remains unblemished. And the few bits remaining of me? They belong to her, because I’ve already given everything else. I told you, I don’t have anything to offer you. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, but I refuse to do anything selfish or stupid that would put her happiness at risk.”

He opened the door, but he paused, wavering before he peered back at me again. Surrender carved into every line on his gorgeous face. “I don’t have any chances left to take, Rynna Dayne. I’ve already used up all the ones I’ve been given, and if I take anything else? I’d be nothing but a thief.”

Without another word, he strode out, letting the door drop closed behind him.

It was that moment when the man officially twisted me in two.

Because when he walked out that door? He took a part of me I had no chance of ever getting back.