“I had them set on a timer, but I haven’t been here since the time change.”

The air shifted. Sounds of her breaths reverberated to her more quickly than they had a second ago. His fingers caressed the outside of her hand until they reached her fingertips. He cupped her hand in his. Her breaths came faster. Cold metal settled into the well of her palm.

“You don’t live here.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“It’s my house, but I live in the building where I …”

“Where you met me.” Sarcasm laced his voice. She waited, knowing he’d say more. “You shouldn’t invite strange men into your house even if you don’t usually live here.”

“You are strange,” she admitted.

“The strangest.” His hand closed around hers, cupping her keys inside, then released her.

Not knowing what to say, she stepped back and felt along the wall. “Let me find a light.” She felt her way through the foyer and into the living room to the right. Her fingers found a table lamp. With one click, the room came into view. The chaise and sofa, magazines and glass coffee table, the books lining either side of the fireplace were as she’d left them. As her housekeeper had left them, actually. Her guest, though, hadn’t followed. She dumped her purse and keys on the small table.

“Beckett?” She stepped into the foyer, and there he stood in a small puddle just inside the door, clutching the dripping leather jacket in one hand. “Just one second. Don’t leave.”

Larkin rushed down the short hallway between the stairs leading up to the left and the sitting room on the opposite side into the dining room. She looked around for a towel of some sort but found only linen napkins. A run down the staircase led her to the kitchen. She pulled a hand towel from a drawer and hurried back. When she rounded the corner, the man stood where she’d left him.

His right brow furled. “Surprised?”

“Yes.” She moved slower toward him. “I expected to see the door open and you gone.”

“The thought occurred to me.”

Larkin stopped at his puddle and handed him the towel.

He buried his face in it. Then he dragged it over his hair several times.

“But?” she prodded.

“I gave you the key.” His wide shoulders bobbed.

“Like a lock would stop you.”

He didn’t offer a courtesy laugh.

“Why’d you stay?” Larkin couldn’t keep the words inside her mouth. She wanted to know everything about this man. Especially why he’d come with her, a lunatic who—in his mind—wanted to throw herself off a roof a few days ago.

“Curiosity.”

She just waited. Maybe not just waited. Her eyebrows did some extreme stunts.

“I need to know what you want with me.”

“I don’t want anything from you.” Larkin offered her palms in a wide shrug.

“Then I’ll be on my way.” Beckett nodded and turned toward the door.

Larkin shocked herself by running around him and throwing herself between him and the door. Her chest heaved with adrenaline and overwhelming, unexplainable lust.

His head canted to the side.

“Fine. I just want to talk about the other night.” It was part true. “Please, come in. Let me get you some tea.”

He groaned.

“Coffee?”

“Better, but I can’t.” His gaze hit the puddle at his feet.

“Oh. Let me take your clothes.” Larkin covered her mouth, sighed, and tried again. “I can dry them.”

“They’ll just get wet again.”

“Are you homeless?” No matter how she tried, she couldn’t cork her mouth around him.

“Yes and no.” He offered the first hint of a laugh, but it was gone so quickly she could have hallucinated it.

“Care to explain?”

His head shook.

“Why were you on the roof the other night?” she tried.

He simply stood and watched her.

“How’d you get up there?”

“You said a lock wouldn’t stop me.”

“Fine. Fine. You won’t come in. You won’t let me dry your clothes. You won’t answer my questions.” Larkin yanked off her coat, glad for the working thermostat. At least he wouldn’t freeze for as long as she could keep him inside. She sidestepped him and hooked her coat on the rack. If she was going to get this out, she couldn’t look at him. The sight of him all big and fucking sexy as hell muddled her brain. Her feet carried her from one side of the foyer to the other.

“That night on the roof … I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

When he didn’t protest, she looked at him. His gaze followed her, calculating her again and again like a high-functioning computer. Reading and reading and not asking a single question.

“I know it looked that way. I know, now, why you acted the way you did, but it scared me. No one is ever up on the roof. It’s my place to get away from … everything. I hadn’t been up there in a while. Too long. Things were pressing in on me. Work. My …” Why was she blabbing so much to him? He didn’t give a shit. He was probably worried about where his next meal would come from. What did he care about her problems? Which really weren’t problems at all in the grand scheme of the world. People lived not knowing where their next meal was coming from. People lived without proper clothing. Without proper shelter.

Beckett didn’t look homeless. He wasn’t malnourished in any way. His clothes were used but clean and well maintained. The scruff on his face wasn’t more than three days growth.

“Your … boyfriend?”

She stopped pacing and found his gaze. “I don’t have those. They’re … messy.”

“Husband?”

Her face crinkled. “Even worse.”

“Finally, someone who understands.”

“So many people don’t.” She nodded and walked, studying the intricacies of the woodwork and the fibers of the entry’s rug.

“They’re needy.”

“And you don’t need much, do you?” She stole a quick glance at him. His head shook.

“So who was it that night?”

Her gaze dropped to the ring on her finger. “My family.”

His fingers came into view. They grazed the thick band and large stone.

“It was my mother’s.” She hated the words as soon as they were out.

“Why are you mad at a dead woman?”

Her gaze flashed to his. He stood over her, eyes warmer than before. She hadn’t said a word about the rage that boiled inside her bones for her mother, but he was smart. Smart enough to add her action that night and her words tonight and ask the one question she wouldn’t answer.

Larkin’s head shook, jarring loose the tear she’d been fighting back.

“Seems we both have our boundaries.” His thumb wiped the tear from her cheek, dragged it down her face, and smoothed it over her lips. They parted for him. He took his time tracing the high arch. The salt from his fingertip bled into her mouth as the pad dragged over her lower lip and pulled it wide. “Unlock the door and tell me to leave.”

“No.” Her tongue slid along the path with his finger. “You ran away from me Saturday. I’m not going to let you do that tonight.”

“It’s what I should do.” His thumb left her lip and joined the rest of his fingers at the side of her neck. He tilted her face up. “Tell me to stop.” His face, scarred and angry, neared hers, open and intent.

Not a sound passed through her lips. She grabbed his jacket, only inches from his hand, and tugged. His hold broke. The cold exterior chilled her fingertips. The weight of it forced her muscles into action but not for long. She dropped the thing on the ground behind her, toward the wall and away from the door. Her gaze never left his. His gave nothing away.

He was too tall for her to lift up onto her tiptoes and press her lips to his, and he didn’t move from his battle-ready posture. She could climb him like a tree, but if this was going to work, he would have to give … just a little.

Toe to toe, she studied him as blatantly as he did her. A healthy pulse swelled the veins of his thick neck. His gaze narrowed and cooled as though begging her to lose interest. Not a chance. Every inch of him intrigued her. Even the ugly scar that hid in the shadow of the foyer. She reached up slowly. His head shifted higher into the stratosphere of her entryway.

“Don’t tell me a big guy like you is scared.”

His jaw worked back and forth. “Cautious.”

“I won’t hurt you. Don’t think I could if I tried, but I won’t.”

His head lowered.

Larkin grabbed his chin. It barely fit in her hand. The short hairs pricked her fingers. She turned his face to the left and held her breath. Webbed and raised skin slightly darker than the rest of his face gleamed with a waxy smooth finish in the lamplight. Its dips and rises spread wide from a point just below his eye to encompass the hinge of his jaw and a two-inch swath of his cheek. It was fully healed but not an old scar. Her fingers slid up the side of his face. She mapped the ridges of scarred and unmarred skin alike.

He moved under her touch, not visibly, but energy hummed under her fingertips. She dragged her touch down over his scar, his neck, and gripped the collar of his shirt with both hands. Cool water seeped from the fabric, running through her fingers.

Hunger flashed in his eyes.

She pulled his face down. Her heart beat against her chest, urging her to take his mouth, but determination made her wait. He had to give. Saliva pooled. Her breasts ached. Oxygen, so skittish before, heaved in and out of her lungs as though she was chasing him down the street again. If he broke down her door and ran away, she’d chase him again. This wasn’t like her. She took what she wanted. Men gave it freely. But this man just looked at her.

“What?” she broke. “What are you waiting for? It’s like you’re looking for something?” Her fists squeezed his shirt tighter.

“Your motivation.”

Her mouth fell open. Nothing came out.

“You said you only wanted to talk.”

“I lied.”

“Don’t lie to me again.” He said it with such finality, such assurance, that she believed he’d know a lie the moment it left her lips. As though he’d known all along that it had been a lie.

Larkin nodded.

“What do you want?”

He might as well have stripped her bare on the street corner. She felt as open and exposed. She held on for dear life because if she let go, he’d vanish.

“I want to know your name. I want to know where you’re from. Where you live now. Why you were on the roof that night. Why you pulled me from the edge. Why I always see you on the street. How you got your scar. Who hurt you.”

His jaw hinged so tight the muscles controlling his jaw flexed.

She drew a deep breath. “I want to know everything about you, and I never want to know anything about anyone. But more than that …”

“Could there be more than everything?” he growled.

“I want you to fuck me, to fuck you out of my mind. I need you to scratch this itch. Take the mystery away. Make me stop looking for you on every rooftop and street corner.”

His fingers bit into her hips. Then his eyes lowered to her level. “After tonight, you’ll never see me again.”

“I won’t need to,” she promised.

“Poor Larkin. Have your past lovers impressed you so little that you have eternally low expectations?”

“You know my name.” The words came in a gasp. She was surprised her slacked lips moved at all.

“I don’t get into cars with strangers. You shouldn’t let them into your house.” His mouth came down on hers hard, stirring her shocked lips back to life and driving away the questions that revelation created.

His tongue tasted of whisky. The good stuff. Cigar tobacco scented his hair that hung unruly and dark around his nape. Her fingers released his collar and delved into the wet locks. Water turned to steam, rolling off the back of his neck. It warmed her fingers that dug in and tugged him closer. Trapped between the confining cups of her bra and the promise of his touch, her nipples tingled. His hands gripped tightly, holding her perfectly still while his mouth assumed authority over hers.

So often she set the pace of her carnal encounters. She led them where she wanted them, how, and when. This man didn’t wait for cues. He ransacked and found them for himself. When she expected him to break for breath, his tongue swept deep inside her mouth and mated with hers. His invasion reeled back only long enough to bite her lower lip and then trace the marks he’d surely left with the tip of his tongue. She opened wider, relaxed into his hold, and prayed the assault on her senses would never end.

She had no cause to trust this man she knew so little about, yet she did. At every turn, he treated her better than she had any right to expect.

The unbreakable grip he held at her hips loosened. Before she could lament the break in pressure, his gigantic hands rounded her hips. Large fingertips sank into her gym-sculpted butt, causing a yip to slip from between her lips. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he used the salacious handholds to hoist her off the floor. Her jeans-covered crotch dragged across the swell of his thighs, then an appendage nearly as big. She nearly choked, but it morphed into a moan. Her hips rolled on their own volition, savoring the length and girth.

“Stop that.” His words were deep and grave.

She ignored them, used his muscled shoulders as leverage, and worked her aching clit over his cock.

The most erotic, guttural sound she’d ever heard launched from his throat.

“Yes,” she moaned. Her legs wrapped around his waist. The heels of her boots dug into his ass.

“You don’t take direction very well.” Beckett’s mouth attacked her neck. His hands molded to her bottom and shifted her up and down along the unyielding bulge locked inside his pants.

“I usually give them.” Her throat quivered. Her orgasm approached like a locomotive cresting a mountain. It was too soon. Not enough, yet too much to stop the force from collecting inside her.

Larkin’s fingers gripped the top of his shirt. Her face grazed the side of his. Stubble scraped her cheek. Her eyes shut, and her body seized in the tumult. Everything quivered except the man. He stood stock-still, save for the breaths that whooshed against her neck and the heartbeat that thumped against her chest.

When she finished, her body melted against his.

He set her on her feet and pulled away.

Larkin stood blinking. Where were they? The foyer came into view. A cold, stark difference from the warmth in which she’d just been engulfed. Her chest heaved. Her body throbbed. Suddenly, she was five feet away from the man she wanted to be on top of. A chill swept over her cheeks. Was that shame? Fuck no. She wasn’t ashamed of the way she’d acted. He’d wanted her just as much as she’d wanted him. Still did, by the looks of the swell in his pants and the heat in his eyes.

“Bedroom,” he barked.

Her legs shook beneath her. Her heart beat so fast it might spontaneously combust. She just stared at him, completely bewildered.

“Lady, if I let you set the pace I’d be passed out right now. I need a minute to keep from fucking you on the floor in my rain puddle. Can you walk?”

She continued to stare at the animation coming from a face that until then had given away so little.

“Christ.” Beckett stepped forward and hooked an arm behind her back. The other scooped her shaking legs from under her. “Where to?” He didn’t wait for her to answer before starting up the stairs just to the left of his rain puddle.

They arrived on the third-floor landing in no time as though he weren’t toting a hundred and thirty-five pounds. Her bathroom lay in front of them, inviting with the continually flickering light of sconces that framed a large claw-foot tub.

She motioned left toward the bar-brick archway. No light poured in through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her bedroom, yet he moved confidently through the space. Did he have echo location or some other form of night vision, not gifted to simple humans?

He set her on her feet at the end of the bed and turned away without a word. His darkly clothed form melted into the darkness. Her ears pricked, listening for the sounds of his movement, but there were none. Her breath caught in her throat. If she breathed, she might miss what he was doing.

Light blinded her for a split second before her eyes adjusted to the lamplight of her bedside table. He straightened. His gaze roved over her, then slid to the bed. A hint of a frown yanked one side of his face. She couldn’t even toil over what the problem could be. He stepped to the bed, grabbed two handfuls of pillows, and tossed them onto the floor on the other side of the bed. Next, he peeled back the fluffy duvet, leaving only a gray fitted sheet hugged tightly to the mattress where a neatly made bed had been.

Her mouth watered. Her palms itched. Her thighs rubbed together in an anxious dance of desire.

His hands moved to his belt buckle but stalled. He stalked toward her, fingers moving slowly across the metal clasp and soaked leather. Leaving the buckle, the hide popped the air.

Larkin bit her lip and balled her hands into fists to keep from touching him. She had a feeling she’d gotten away with all the missteps he’d allow. No way did she want him bailing before she got her fill. She watched his eyes, awaiting a command. His zipper screamed in the quiet room. Her clit pulsed. That zipper and the flesh behind it had done more for her already than some had done the entirety of their short stay.

Cool air seeped in from under the edge of her sweater. Warm fingertips grazed her flesh; hipbone to belly button. He yanked the snap of her jeans open and worked her zipper down more slowly than he’d done his own. Rough palms scraped up her midriff to the edge of her bra. Her breasts heaved, begging to be manhandled. His palms rounded to the back and yanked her top up over her head.

Need sizzled across her skin like electric pulses, trying desperately to get the message out. Touch me. Kiss me. Fuck me.

His gaze touched her as though his fingers did the job. It roved high over her face to her collarbone, down over her swollen breasts to the erect nipples that reached for attention, then down across the plain of her abdomen to the open V of her zipper and the lace panties that peeked out from below.

He picked her up, much as he had before, then tossed her onto the bed. His fingers made fast work of the laces, boots, and socks. With her on the bed and him standing at her feet, he looked like a giant. His breadth ate up more than half the width of her king-size bed.

“Cute.”

“What?” Her eyes shot wide. She couldn’t believe a giant like him even knew the word, much less used it.

Beckett gently pinched her pinkie toe between his thumb and forefinger and wiggled it. Then she remembered the tiny cherry design Marlis had talked all the girls into getting on their pinkie toes at the spa.

“My girlfriend talked me into it.” Her cheeks warmed under his scrutiny.

“It means you have a playful side.”

“Do you?”

He grabbed her ankles and pulled her to the edge of the bed. His hands worked their way up her jeans to the pockets. “Nope.”

“Don’t lie to me.” She didn’t believe him. Sure, it was buried in there beneath layers of muscle and the ashes the world had left him under, but it was there.

“Don’t delude yourself into thinking I’m something I’m not.”

The seat of her pants left her ass with remarkable speed. He tossed them onto the floor along with everything else he’d littered it with.

“I don’t know enough about you to think anything.”

“Good.” He toed off his boots and peeled off his socks. His hands moved to the hem of his shirt. His gaze bore into hers, and then he heaved the long sleeve off his body.

A lump formed in her throat.

His gaze never left hers. Only the shirt obscured his line of sight for a split second. Long enough for her to see the continuation of the scars that started on his cheek. They encompassed the bold muscles of his left shoulder, bicep, and thick forearm. They stretched down across the left side of his torso and abdomen and disappeared into the side of his pants. His expression dared her to say anything about them.

What could she say?

I’m sorry that happened to you. It must have been so painful, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to lick every inch of your body. It doesn’t stop me from wishing you were on me and in me now.

“What are you waiting for? You can’t fuck me with pants on.” Larkin’s thighs rustled together bent up to her middle to keep them on the bed and to torment herself, stoking a fire that needed banking not stirring.

Larkin marveled at the stark differences between his two sides. The right was frothy with dark hair on his arms and chest, delineated with every muscle fiber beneath the skin. The left was slick with ridges and valleys obscuring the perfect definition of muscle tone but not obstructing its devastating abilities in any way.

Beckett shucked his pants and boxers in one defiant swipe. His lower abdomen pointed to the very thing she wanted so desperately. Her body begged for it, weeping until her panties were wet with desire. His sex lolled wide and long, pink and full. Only a hint of the scar hugged his left hip. The rest of him was untouched as he had been before whatever had stolen time from him in exchange for unparalleled pain. Her need to touch him drove her onto her elbows.

Before she could sit, his head shook. “You had your fun. It’s my turn now.”

He dropped to his knees on the floor and grabbed her ankles. His gaze winked on her decorated toe again, then drifted up her calf to the crook of her knees to the swell of her thighs. Where his eyes traveled, his hands followed slowly behind.

Inside her chest, her heart quivered, vibrating every vein from head to toe. He stroked just as he stared—with such intensity the whisper of his touch would stay far past the physical. The study his hands made of her flesh wasn’t gentle. His hands molded her skin, sculpting it to new life.

She relinquished control for the first time and watched him learn the curves and sways. He surveyed with fingers and breaths, hands and lips, tongue and teeth all over her skin until every part of her hummed, the places he had yet to touch most of all. After so much time had passed that she’d forgotten her goals with him, with life, he pushed her legs wide and pressed his mouth against the crotch of her panties.

Her head thrashed as his did the same between her legs. The tips of her nails scraped the tight sheet. Oxygen rushed in and out of her lungs. He pushed and prodded until she stood at the top of the mountain with her arms stretched wide. The wind whipped her hair and the horizon begged her to jump.

His mouth and hands left her too abruptly, and she teetered on the edge of oblivion for several seconds. He stood over her watching, waiting. When her breaths settled to a pace that wouldn’t leave her unconscious, he leaned down and threaded his fingers inside the waistband of her panties. His hard, sun-kissed hands contrasted with the silky fabric of the pale lace.

A swift yank rolled her onto her belly. His grip on her lace vanished.

“Crawl to the middle.” The command was low and concise.

Larkin never crawled anywhere, not for anyone. She scrambled to her hands and knees. They wobbled but obeyed the order.

He muffled a curse. Then another. The zero motion, high-end foam mattress dipped and rocked her under his weight.

“Breathe.” His chest grazed her back. The breath of his simple word warmed her arm. Her head canted toward his, seeking his mouth.

Fingers twisted in her hair, pulled her face higher, and their mouths collided in a frenzy of lips and tongues. Somehow, he yanked the panties from her hips and unfastened the clasp of her bra all while tormenting her mouth and mind. He released her lips with a growl and worked the last of her undergarments free of her limbs.

With one arm around her middle, just under her breasts, and his dick nestled lengthwise between her ass cheeks, he pushed her forward with his hips. She collapsed flat onto the bed. The hold he kept on her chest kept her from crashing … physically. Emotionally, she was a violent ball of nerve endings. She’d never been taken from behind. She didn’t like the domineering quality. The object of his pleasure. Her body, on the other hand, howled in thanksgiving. Anything to quench the empty need between her legs.

Damn him, but he didn’t enter her. His hands toyed with her breasts and sculpted her bottom. Sharp teeth nipped at her shoulder and hiked up her neck. Pants filtered into her ear. Hers. His. The fullness of his cock pressed against her bottom. Her hips flared in response. She rocked them against his smooth length in blatant invitation. The back and forth skimmed her swollen clit across the cotton sheet. Her nipples thrummed under his fingers. Once more, her breathing sped, and fingertips tingled, and her orgasm was a breath away.

One firm, hot hand gripped her hip and tilted her, opening her. The head of his cock pressed against the slickness of her entrance. She rolled into the intrusion, coaxing it, begging for it. He eased in. Just the tip stole her breath for only a second before he left her empty and wanting.

His unyielding grip flipped her onto her back. The world spun with her. Suddenly, she was face to face with the god of her body; the man who’d scared her and rescued her all at the same time; the man who tormented her days and this night.

Veins hugged his every swollen muscle. His chest heaved. Sweat coated his abdomen. He was feral with dark wild eyes. Hunger etched his features.

“Condoms?”

It took her a second to comprehend what he said. “Drawer. Bedside table.”

The bubbled lines of his skin showed more vividly in the lamplight while he wrenched the dainty drawer wide in search of protection. A wide, jagged scar more than four inches long ran along his back just under his ribs. She felt along the uneven line, wondering how his stunning body had received such abuse.

Beckett released a gruff exhale, but she didn’t remove her touch. Instead, it roved higher over the burn-scarred skin she’d touched on his face.

“You like pushing boundaries? Running up to the edge like you’ll toss yourself over?” His gaze sliced to hers and held. His hands ripped the foil package and rolled the latex over his hard, smooth cock.

“Not usually. Every once in a while, I can’t stop myself.”

She waited for him to grab her hands and shove them over her head. He burrowed his full weight between her legs and pressed his mouth to hers. His full lips were insistent but tender. It wore on and on until she forgot about his scarred skin, and it became a part of the complex creature driving her to the brink. Their lips parted.

“Me either, apparently.” He positioned himself at her entrance and worked himself slowly inside.

Their breaths and bodies mingled. Pants and grunts filled the high ceilings. Time shrunk and stretched as they consumed one another in almost every way one could absorb and be absorbed in the process.

Her body gave under the extreme weight of focus, his and hers, time and again. Each time, his followed suit but soon revived for more until nothing was left in either of them.

Too soon, the sun teased the sky with light. Beckett stood. He retrieved the duvet he’d dumped onto the floor and pulled it up over her shoulder. His wide frame leaned close, and the whisper of his lips brushed over her brow. He turned, grabbed his clothes from the floor, and headed for the exit.

“What about the door?” Larkin’s voice was rough from use.

He stopped bare to the butt and turned with a question on his dark face.

“It’s locked, and you don’t have the key.” She swallowed, releasing the feel of his hands on her throat even though they were no longer there.

“Like a lock would stop me.” He offered her the first glimpse of a wicked smirk and turned away, leaving her with her own words. Her own words and her body molded by his hands.

Larkin grabbed a handful of the comforter, pulled it close to her breast, and snuggled into the sleep only utter satisfaction could bring.