“Thanks again, man,” Rex said to Seth, the last officer at my house. He was a guy Rex had apparently known since high school, someone Rex considered a friend.

“Just, stay safe,” Seth said, glancing between the two of us before he ambled down my porch steps and slipped into the driver’s seat of his Ford sedan and pulled away.

Timothy Roth had been fired this afternoon. Apparently, my complaint of sexual harassment hadn’t been the first he’d received. Apparently, when his wife found out the reason for his termination, she’d kicked him out.

His wife.

I trembled at the thought of it, at the arrogance and stupidity of the man and how much worse it could have been.

The taillights of Seth’s patrol car splashed another dose of red into the blaze of reds and oranges and purpled blues that twisted into the sunset as he accelerated down the narrow neighborhood road.

Then it was as if the dial had been turned up on the silence.

So loud it was profound.

As loud as Rex Gunner’s presence that eclipsed all.

A thunder.

A thriving, living being.

His gruff voice cut into the tension. “Don’t like that you refused treatment. You sure you don’t want me to give Kale a call?”

I chanced looking over at him where he stood behind me on the far side of the deck.

My savage savior.

Streaks of blood were dried on his face, and a small gash oozed from the corner of his eye. His clothes were tattered, soiled with sweat and blood, his hair a mess, body still bristling with remnants of pent-up rage.

My lungs inflated at the mesmerizing sight of him. Every part of me expanded. Reaching toward him.

“You’re worried about me?” I managed. “You’re the one who came to my rescue. The one who put himself on the line. Again. I can’t . . . what if . . .”

His head angled and his shoulders rolled back, and the man took a powerful step forward.

The energy spiked.

“You think I’m not worried about you?” It almost sounded like an accusation. He took another step forward, the man a raging tower of protection. “You think I wouldn’t do it all over again? You think I would have let him hurt you?”

He was suddenly in front of me. My breath gone when he stood over me.

An imposing, conquering shadow.

Eclipsing the fear that had taken me hostage. If it weren’t for Rex, today would have ended in an entirely different way.

He lifted his fingers and brushed back a chunk of hair stuck to my cheek. His words rumbled like a threat. “I wanted to kill him, Rynna. He was going to hurt you, and I wanted to kill him. I would have. Second I saw you were in trouble, my heart was screaming out to protect you. To protect what belonged to me. To shelter what was mine.”

Mine.

The word trembled around us.

“Thank you,” I whispered. A tear slipped free, and my body began to shake with the aftermath. With the reality of it all.

A gasp ripped from my chest when I was suddenly swept off my feet and into the strength and security of Rex’s arms. He had one arm under my back and the other beneath my knees, my body held possessively against the strength of his chest.

“Won’t let anyone hurt you,” he murmured against my forehead. Carrying me, he angled through the door. “I’m gonna take care of you.”

“Rex.” It was a whimper.

“Shh. I know, baby. I know.”

I clung to his neck as he carried me upstairs. At the landing, he took a left and headed into my bedroom, pushing right past my unmade bed and through the cutout arch that led to the bathroom.

As if this man already knew the way.

He set me on unsteady feet and turned me to face the counter. My eyes met his in the mirror. A low growl climbed his throat, and he leaned around me to turn on the faucet.

The air constricted.

Charged.

I swore, our slowed, measured movements attracted every molecule within five miles. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, taking my hands in his and placing them beneath the fall of warm water. He gently rubbed our hands together, the basin filling with pink-tinged water as he scrubbed the blood free from our dirtied hands.

“Two weeks, Rynna. Two weeks I’ve been dying, hating the way I left things between us. Hating that I hurt you.”

His words brushed my cheek, and his presence filled my senses.

Overwhelming.

He squirted soap onto our hands, continuing to wash away this afternoon, as if he wanted to erase the possibility of what could have happened.

Carefully.

Meticulously.

His voice was a soft scrape at the shell of my ear, sending shivers down my neck, turning my heart into a thundering orb at the center of my chest. “All that time, I was wishing with every part of me I could change my circumstances. That I could be right for you. Then this, Rynna. Then this happened and I don’t fucking care, anymore. Don’t fucking care that this is wrong.”

His eyes captured mine through the mirror. They flashed with a warning. An omen. A prediction.

“I’m not afraid,” I whispered, my promise striking the throbbing air. He gathered my hair in his hand, shifting it all to one side, exposing my neck. He pressed his lips there in the barest kiss. “That’s funny, because I’m fucking terrified of you.” His nose ran up to the back of my ear. “Terrified of this.”

A shiver rolled down my spine, and Rex eased back a fraction, taking the hem of my shirt and drawing it slowly up my body.

That shiver shifted. An avalanche of chills. He peeled it over my head before he did the same to his own, scrubbing at his face before he tossed his shirt to his feet.

My gaze traced him through the mirror, and I swallowed around the emotion that grew thick at the base of my throat.

This complicated, amazing man drove me crazy with desire. Crazy with need. Crazy with this want that had become its own entity inside of me.

He reached up and let his fingertips flutter across my exposed shoulder and down my arm. Tingles spread in a slow slide. All the fear I’d felt earlier transformed into this emotion I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt before.

Something so real it staggered my senses.

He reached back and unfastened my bra, drawing the straps down my arms.

My nipples pebbled as my breasts were exposed, and his chest heaved with a grunt. “So beautiful. So goddamned beautiful,” he murmured.

His fingers pressed under the waistband of my shorts.

“You want this, Rynna? You want me?” There was a tremor in his words. That same warning that flamed in his eyes. “Because I’m done running from you.”

“I want you so badly it hurts.”

He heaved a breath before he dipped down and kissed a path down my spine as he dragged my shorts and underwear down my legs.

“Oh God,” I whimpered, hit by an onslaught of sensations.

Need and want and desire.

But it was that emotion that pulsed in the depths of me that nearly sent me to my knees. Wave after wave. Seeping and saturating. Trembling in my throat and tightening in my stomach.

“Rynna.” It was a groan as he kissed down the cleft of my bottom and unwound my clothing from my feet, the sound so guttural it rumbled against the walls.

Then I was back in his arms and he was carrying me to my bed, lying me in the middle.

He stood with his chest heaving. So much stunning strength. The man so gorgeous and darkly appealing my mouth went dry.

Every thought and reservation fled from my mind. Every pep talk I’d given myself over the last two weeks about forgetting him and moving on scattered in the wind.

Because when it was just him and me?

There was nothing but the beat of our hearts.

Nothing but the call of our spirits. It was something louder than all the questions. Something bigger than his past. Something higher than our obstacles.

Something fierce rippled as he looked down at me completely naked on my bed.

“Are you sure?” he grated.

My hands fisted in my sheets, my body arching toward him. Needing him in a way I’d never needed anyone before. “I already told you I’m not afraid. You, Rex Gunner, are a chance I’m willing to take.”

“You shouldn’t be real.” It was rough. Just like the man.

I bit my bottom lip, loving when he let me glimpse under all that hardness. “Yet, here I am.”

“And what happens when you’re gone?” There was something so sorrowful in it, a stab right to the center of my chest.

Slowly, I climbed up onto my knees and stretched out my hand. I brushed my fingertips down the side of his rugged face. “And what happens if I stay?”

For a beat, his eyes dropped closed, and he leaned into my touch before he snatched me by the wrist and pressed my palm to his mouth. “And what if I don’t let you leave?”

God, this man. He pushed and pulled. Taunted and tugged.

Slowly he edged back, eying me with those mesmerizing eyes as he kicked off his boots. Without freeing me of his gaze, he unfastened his belt. His abdomen flexed and bowed as he tugged on his fly and lowered the zipper.

Desire swept through my body.

A battering storm.

Anticipation and need.

He nudged the jeans down his legs and took his underwear with them.

He stood there in the shadows that fell into my room.

Completely naked.

Bare.

So beautiful a downpour of desire soaked me through.

I hadn’t been lying to Macy. This man was what gods were made of. Sleek and defined. Carved in hard, indestructible perfection.

All except for the broken pieces I knew he tried to keep concealed, buried deep inside. I saw them so clearly. Held in the depths of those eyes. Those eyes that were looking at me as if maybe I should run if I didn’t want to be devoured.

But I did.

I so desperately did.

He edged forward an inch, big hand splayed across my chest, nudging me down onto the mattress. I was spread across its width, the man towering over me from the side.

I writhed, hips jutting into the air, not caring for a second that I was desperate.

That I needed him.

His touch and his body and that spirit that had already taken me whole. He ran a fingertip down the inside of my thigh. “Last two times I touched you nearly ruined me. Seeing you like this? Don’t think I’m ever going to be the same. Stealing my sleep. Stealing my breath. Stealing my sanity. Little thief.”

Chills flew. A chaos of sensation.

His hands were on my knees, pulling them apart.

I’d never felt so exposed, and I gasped out a shocked breath when he leaned down and gave one long lick up my slit.

He pulled back, and it was almost a smirk that was riding his sexy mouth as he stared down at me, as if he were looking at the sunrise for the very first time. Shifting his attention to my face, he grazed just the tips of his fingers through my folds. “Stunning. Fucking stunning. Feel like I’m in a dream when I’m touching you this way. Like I’m lost in some kind of fantasy and I don’t ever want to wake up.”

Redness flushed across the surface of my skin

“And you . . . you make me feel like I’ve finally found my reality. Like I finally figured out exactly where I’m supposed to be.” A million emotions flashed across his mesmerizing face. Regret and lust and this consuming affection he couldn’t keep contained.

He crawled over me.

Slowly.

Carefully.

I sucked in a staggered breath when the man was suddenly caging me, hands planted on either side of my head, those powerful thighs wedged between mine.

His cock bobbed against my belly, and a shudder ripped through my body.

He sank down onto his elbows, hot hands framing my face. “I don’t understand this, Rynna. The hold you have on me. But when I look at you? Get this feeling that I’m looking at everything right.”

“Rex.” His name was a tremor.

A plea.

He leaned down and kissed me.

He kissed me carefully.

Gently.

Tenderly.

That energy lapped through the air. A slow, steady build. A current stoked by each pass of his tongue, by the heat that sizzled across our flesh, by our hands that explored. I ran my palms across his chest and over his wide shoulders, down the sinewy muscle of his back to his narrow hips.

I wrapped my hand around him, stroking him slow from the base of him to the tip.

He pulled his mouth away from mine. Head tilting back, he released a long groan. “Rynna . . . fuck . . . Rynna.”

He pressed back up onto one hand, touching my face, a hand on my cheek before he edged back even more. He grasped me by the back of my knee and spread me wide. Jagged pants ripped from his lungs as he took himself in his hand and rubbed just the head of his cock through my center.

Flames.

I swore that single touch set me on fire.

“Rynna . . . fuck . . . you are gonna destroy me.”

I whimpered, “Please.”

Jaw clenched, he began to work himself inside me, tiny thrusts as he spread me, as he stole my breaths and seared himself into my body.

He was so big, so big that my nails sank into his shoulders. I knew he was holding himself back, forcing himself to remain in control.

He slowly worked himself farther.

Deeper.

Until he was seated fully.

Owning me.

His cock throbbed in the tight clutch of my walls.

The hand that had been on my thigh skimmed over my hip and up my side, cupping my breast, gliding to my jaw. “Fuck, Rynna . . . you feel so right. So fucking right.”

“We are right,” I murmured toward his face.

He groaned again before he pulled almost all the way out and paused, that mesmerizing stare held fast on my face. As if he held the power to see straight inside me.

Or maybe he was just begging me to look to the depths of him.

In that moment, everything went electric, that current lashing and zapping in the air.

Then he consumed me with one dominating thrust.

A thrust that shocked the air from my lungs and sent it scattering somewhere in the vicinity of my heart. My heart I could feel shattering. Shattering with emotion.

With need and affection and this feeling that was rising to obliterate all else.

The same annihilated heart that struggled to keep up with the battering crash of his.

He went back to holding me behind the knee.

He watched down on me while he dominated my body.

Eyes raking my flesh. My face. My breasts. Where we were joined.

Again and again.

As if he couldn’t get enough. As if he never wanted it to end.

His body glistened with sweat as he worked over me. Muscles bowing.

His fucks deep.

Passionate.

Whole.

Pleasure glowed. Bright white flames.

He was looking at me as if I weren’t real.

As if I were a fantasy.

Something he could never deserve or hold or keep.

When he’d already won every part of me.

Body and mind and quivering soul.

He shuddered through a frantic swallow, barely hanging on. “Fuck . . . baby . . . Ryn. Baby. You are a fucking miracle. No woman should feel this good. Fuck . . . I don’t know if I can hold back.”

“Then don’t.”

“Shit. You are so fuckin’ sweet. So goddamned sweet.” And I loved the grin that quirked at the side of that mouth. That mouth that was descending on mine, his hand on my neck. He kissed me until my head spun then he edged all the way back onto his knees and grabbed me by the waist.

He lifted my hips in the air.

My body arched.

All spread out.

My hands fisted in the sheets. I held on while Rex Gunner let go.

His control gone. The man driving to the depths of me. Where bliss spun and tightened and burned.

Gasps shocked from my mouth.

His fucks so desperate they were almost sweet.

He hissed through the wild rocks of his hips. “You are a miracle. Look at you. So damned sexy. So gorgeous and you don’t even know.”

He drove harder.

Faster.

His frenzied pants lifted into the air.

He tightened his hold with one hand, the other grazing over my trembling belly, and his thumb found my clit.

“Oh God,” I cried out.

And I could feel my own reality slipping away. The burn of pleasure he incited with every thrust of his cock.

The man fucked like a barbarian that had perfected his art. Rough and grueling and driving me mad.

Higher and higher toward where day and night spun.

“Rex—”

Everything burst.

Strobes of light that flashed behind my eyes and the pleasure that exploded in my body.

Fracturing.

Scattering wide. Bliss.

It rode every nerve and obliterated every cell.

A sound tore from my throat, given voice where it came to life from somewhere in my spirit.

Because just like Rex had said, this shouldn’t have been real.

It was too good. Too much. Too overwhelming.

Pleasure rushed.

A landslide.

So intense I thought it might go on forever.

Rex drove deeper and harder and wilder. His fingers sank into my hips, and he jerked my body to meet each dominating thrust. The man coming unhinged. Every breath a grunt. He gripped me as if he were clinging to safety, afraid he would be swept away, too. His head kicked back, and he roared toward the ceiling.

And I floated on his ecstasy. My walls clutching him tight. My heart holding on tighter.

For a few moments, we remained there, his shoulders and chest heaving as he panted for air. He slowly lowered my hips to the bed, wincing as he pulled out before he slumped down on top of me.

Threading his fingers through my hair, he rolled us to our sides. He stared at me, blinking in wonder as he brushed his thumb over the curve of my cheek. “That was . . .”

“Incredible,” I whispered, almost shy.

“Incredible might be an insult. Feeling this way should be impossible, Rynna Dayne. Not sure how I’m going to walk out of this house and ever be the same.”

“What if I don’t want you to walk out of here ever feeling the same?”

“Don’t think there’s any worry about that.” He studied me, hesitating, before he spoke, his admission scratchy. “I haven’t been with anyone since Frankie’s mom.”

Shock burned through my mind and jolted my spirit, questions tumbling through my head, this man who was such a mystery.

I shifted onto my elbow, causing Rex to roll onto his back. I searched him in the shadows. “What? Why now? Why me?”

“Because you change everything, Rynna. You walk in a room, it’s better. And when you walk away, everything grows dimmer. Colder. And I’m tired of living in the dark.” He brushed back the hair that fell against my cheek. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not terrified. That I’m not scared I’m doing something wrong. Making bad choices, the way I have all along. Last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

I dipped down and placed a soft kiss to his chin, rising back up to meet the intensity of his stare. “The only thing that would hurt me is you walking away.”

“My daughter . . .” I watched the heavy bob of this thick throat, the fierce protectiveness seeping through his pores.

I pressed my palm over the erratic thunder of his heart. “I know. Your daughter . . . your beautiful Frankie. I promise you I would rather die than hurt her, just like I know you’d rather die than see her hurt.”

His heart pounded harder, and a dent pulled between his eyes. “How’s it you just get it?”

“There are some things that just aren’t that hard to understand. Like loving a child. It’s complete. Absolute. There’s no middle ground. So yeah, I get it.”

“She’s gonna fall for you, Rynna.”

A soft smile pulled at my mouth, and I scratched my fingertips through the scruff on his jaw. “That’s good, because I’m already falling for her.”

Falling for you.

I didn’t say it. Because I had my own fears. That he might not be ready. That the words might push him away. I figured when he looked at me, it was blatant, anyway.

Tentatively, I reached down to run my fingers through the soft locks of his hair. “What happened with Frankie’s mom?”

He flinched. “I don’t fucking know, Rynna. I came home one day, and she was . . . driving away. She didn’t even stop when she saw me pass her on the road.” His eyes squeezed shut. “Thought everything was fine. Left for work that morning, and then boom . . . gone. Some bullshit letter left behind about me working too much and she couldn’t take it anymore.”

Nikki was right. What a selfish bitch.

“What was she like?”

Emotion flashed through his eyes. Hurt and hatred.

“Last thing I want to be talking about is her when I’m lying here with you. Because right here? With you? That’s where I want to be, and the last thing I need is her here in the middle of it.”

“You don’t need to tell me anything, Rex,” I whispered, just as softly as my fingers that trailed across his jaw. “But when you want to? When you’re ready? I’ll be right here, ready to listen. I promise you there isn’t anything you could say that would turn me off or send me in the other direction. Because this is where I want to be, too.”

He nodded, his hand on my neck. “You know . . . your grandma . . . she was there with Frankie when I got home that night. Watching over her. Caring for her. She helped to get me through that time.”

At the thought of my grandmother with Frankie, warmth spread beneath my skin. She truly had been a part of their lives. I guessed I’d only related it to the pies. But she’d meant something to them.

Without a doubt, they’d meant something to her.

“I’m so glad she was there for you.”

“She was amazing.”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

Contentment rolled through my being as a slow, slow caress, and I snuggled closer, laying my head on his chest, my ear against the steady thrum of his heart.

“Can’t believe what nearly went down this afternoon,” he muttered, lightly gliding his fingertips along my bare back.

Fear flickered in my spirit. “Me, either. But it’s over. I don’t want to dwell on what might have been or could have happened. I just want to be thankful for what did.”

“But the loan you were after that set that bastard off? What now?”

I kept drawing patterns on the rippling muscles of his pecs, words subdued. “I wait, I guess. Pray that they approve it and this whole mess doesn’t affect it in any way.”

“You mind me asking how much you were asking for?”

“No, I don’t mind. Two hundred thousand. When I found out my grandmother left everything to me, the attorney had an estimator go in to give me an idea of what repairs would be needed to reopen. He wanted to give me the option to cut my losses and sell it off for what it was worth.”

“And that’s what you wanted? To come back here and take all that on?”

Soft affection slipped from my mouth. “When I was growing up, running that restaurant was the only thing I wanted. I couldn’t imagine anything but being there at my grandmother’s side.”

“Why’d you leave, Rynna?”

Sadness wove into the fibers of my being and I tilted my face so I could see him. “Because I thought I was in love and it turned out it was nothing but a joke. I couldn’t be the joke anymore, Rex. It hurt too bad.”

“Fuck . . . I hate him.”

“It wasn’t just him. It was everything. Everyone. The school. This town. I knew if I stayed, everyone would be laughing at me.”

I could still see Janel, that evil, depraved laugh, no care as she crushed my soul and destroyed my world.

“I was humiliated. Betrayed. At the time, I saw no other option than running, thinking I couldn’t stay here and face the people I thought cared about me. I was so young. Looking back now? It seems ridiculous that I let them affect me so much.”

He tightened his hold. “It’s amazing how much power the ones we care about most hold. Especially when they’re hurting us.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I just wish I hadn’t stayed away so long. I wish I had come back when she was still alive. She wanted so badly for me to come home, even though she paid for my college, encouraged me to find what I loved. What made me happy. And I was fine in San Francisco, satisfied on some level, but it never brought me the true kind of joy I knew she wanted for me. And then . . . she was gone . . . and I was too late.”

He shifted a fraction, staring at me intently, almost cautiously. “Did you come back for her, or for you?”

“At first? I—” I blinked, wandering through the emotions I’d felt at the news.

Agony.

Grief.

Guilt.

The fear that had stumbled my feet and the hope that had pushed me forward.

“I was terrified to come back, but I did it because there was a part of me that had never let this place go. It didn’t take more than my walking through the doors of that restaurant for me to realize this was where I belonged. All the years I spent working in a corporate office and, it turns out, I just want my fingers buried in dough.”

Warm laughter floated out. “And here you are . . . home . . . right where you’re supposed to be.”

“Yeah.”

“Making pies.” A tease slipped into his tone.

A grin pulled at the corner of my mouth, and I edged back onto both hands, grinning down at him. “Oh, you like those pies, huh?”

He leaned up, kissing the tip of my nose, the caress of his lips chained to my heart. “Mm-hmm . . . I definitely like those pies.”

I could feel the heat flush my body, my voice growing quiet when I asked, “Did you eat the one I made you?”

He rumbled a greedy sound. “Every single bit. All except for the piece Frankie had to have. And fuck me, if I didn’t want that piece, too.”

“Stingy.”

“You can’t blame a man who knows what is his.” He was all smirks, this easy cockiness where he lay in the middle of my bed.

God. He was beautiful and I still couldn’t believe he was there. That this was real.

A rush of joy took me over. This happiness that spread far and fast. I fell into his playfulness, the ease I had no idea this man could show. “Is that what won you over? My pies?”

“Maybe . . . a little.”

I swatted his chest. “No more pies for you.”

A shock of surprise jutted from my lungs when he suddenly flipped me, straddling me from above. His fingers dove into my sides, this hard, callused man, laughing as he tickled me. “Those are just wicked words, woman. Don’t you dare tease me like that.”

“Oh my God . . . Rex, stop! Stop! I’m so ticklish,” I squealed, struggling to break free and never wanting to go anywhere.

“Not until you make me all the pies.”

I tried to catch my breath and fight him off and hold him all at the same time. “No. No more pies for you.”

“Tell me, Little Thief. Tell me you’re going to make me all the pies.” He kept on with his sweet, sublime attack until we were a laughing mess of prodding, tingling fingers, hysterical, shrieking laughter, and wild, pounding hearts.

It tapered off when he pinned my hands to the bed above me, those piercing sage eyes holding me firmer than the hold he had on my wrists.

That awareness spun. Fierce and intense.

“You belong here, Rynna. You’ll make it work. I have faith in you.”

And then he was kissing me as if he didn’t ever want to stop.