Leigh walked past Rick’s dark office and paused midstride. A quick glance revealed that he sat at his desk.

Again.

She’d just seen the time on the microwave clock a few moments ago when she’d made herself a cup of tea. It was a few minutes after midnight.

With his brow furrowed, head resting in one hand, he stared at his computer monitor. His face was masked in pale blue light as he frowned at whatever the screen displayed.

Or maybe he scowled at what it didn’t show him? The search for answers continued to eat at him. She couldn’t imagine the pressure he’d put himself under as time dragged on. He continued to blame himself for their trouble. She hadn’t been able to figure out if it was only his deep sense of responsibility and honor, or if there was far more than she was aware of.

Changing course, she entered the office. He didn’t even notice as she walked up to the side of his desk. She picked up a cup of cold coffee then set it on an empty book shelf with her tea. His eyes flickered, following the movement of the mug, reminding her of a hungry animal watching food being removed from its cage. She sat in the cup’s former spot on the desk. “Hey.”

He blinked. Then he blinked a second time. Slowly, life seemed to return to his body as he focused on her.

He scrubbed both hands through his thick, messy hair then finally responded. “Hey.”

She poked him hard in the shoulder with a finger.

“Ow.” He frowned and rubbed the spot. “What’s that for? Sadist.”

“Just checking. I wanted to make sure you were still alive. We didn’t see much of you today, and it’s getting late. Maybe you should take a break and look at things with a fresh eye in the morning.” They’d seen so little of him that day, she’d briefly worried if he’d had second thoughts about the night before. Doubt had threatened to steal her happy glow, but she squashed it flat. She knew better. He wasn’t intentionally putting space between them.

He was in work mode.

“I’m fine. I’ll say goodnight to Addie in a few minutes then maybe spend a little longer going over everything. I just want to look over everything one more time.”

“Rick, it’s after midnight. Addie has been in bed for almost two hours. You told her goodnight when she brought you a bowl of ice cream.” She pointed to a bowl half full of melted strawberries and cream on the opposite side of the desk. “You’ve gone over everything you have a hundred times. If you had what you needed, I have every confidence you would have seen it by now.”

He leaned back in his chair and stretched his shoulders and back, reminding her of a great cat, waking early, flexing its muscles, and preparing for the day’s hunt.

“Shit. Sorry. I’m missing something, I keep hoping that if I look at the pieces in a new light, I'll figure out what I'm missing. Getting frustrated that he’s gotten one over on me doesn't help. I can’t let our past cloud what’s happening now.”

There was that vague reference was again. Rick and Marcus had some sort of history. Could she get him to confide in her? It couldn’t hurt to get him to talk about it, could it? She shook her head in frustration. “Driving yourself headfirst into a grave won’t help anyone.”

She went to the small fridge in the corner and got him a bottle of water. “Here. Drink. Flush some of that coffee out.” She stood behind him and snuck her hands beneath the collar of his shirt. Tension knotted the already hard muscles in his neck and shoulders. She gently rubbed and massaged, hoping to ease at least a small portion of his stress. “How long have you and Marcus known each other?”

He dropped his head and groaned, the sound one of half pleasure, half misery. He’d probably been at his desk at least eighteen hours, if not longer. After a moment, he finally answered. “Since I was eleven years old. He’d just turned nine.” There was something in his tone that warned her she wasn’t going to like this story, but she knew that it was an important part of his life and their current conflict. She’d suspected that something significant lurked in their past, but would have never guessed that their history went back as far as childhood.

“You were only boys. What could have sparked so much hatred that it still burns more than twenty years later?”

“Jealousy. Heartache. Grief. Anger. It’s all in there somewhere.” He twisted the cap off the bottle and she stopped working the tenseness from his shoulders so he could take a long drink. He set it on the desk, but before she could resume the neck rub, he twisted and took her waist in his hands. Not meeting her eyes, he spoke soft, low and maybe a little desperate. “Come here.” He pulled her around until she faced him.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” Her heart bled for this man. He always put himself last and never asked for anything, even as he gave everything.

He pressed his forehead to her lower abdomen. “I’m failing you, both of you.”

Indignation sparked. “Bullshit. You’re doing no such thing.”

“No, it’s true. I can’t do the one thing I’m supposed to be the best at. And while I’m wasting time, giving Marcus more and more opportunity to dig deeper into whatever hole he’s crawled into, I’m also leaving Addie’s care to you. I’d…” His words trailed off as he kissed her abdomen in apology.

“You’d what?” She ran her hands through his hair and tilted his head, forcing him to look up at her.

His words were so quiet she barely heard them in the still room. “I wanted to help.” Then he straightened his spine and his voice grew to match hers in volume. “I wanted to help raise her. Be there for her. Just enjoy day to day life with her. With you.”

Good god. If I wasn’t already in love with this stubborn man…

She acted as if his words hadn’t just tilted her world. “There’ll be time for that when this is finished. I, we, have faith in you and your team.”

“I wish it were that easy.” He rested his chin on her belly and sighed.

“It’s not an easy thing you guys are doing. We understand that it’s going to take time. Now, are you going to tell me your story or am I going to have to pull it out of you?” She caressed a thumb over the shell of his ear.

He closed his eyes for a long moment. “We met when his mother came to work as a housekeeper. Mom had just started feeling ill and had gotten her diagnosis. From day one, her prognosis was poor.” He pulled her from the edge of the desk to sit on his lap. She wondered if the position change was so he could hold her close or so he didn’t have to look her in the eye.

At that very moment, she would have given him the moon and the stars, so she let him have his emotional space, even as she lay against the solid warmth of his chest. She resisted the urge to strip his shirt away so she could get even closer. The fine cloth barred her from what she wanted.

“At first, they lived on the outskirts of town in a small trailer park. I rarely saw Marcus. I think once or twice she brought him with her when there was no school, but Anita did her job well and was rarely seen. Then mom started getting sicker and the harsh treatments only made her feel more so.”

He stroked a hand tenderly up and down her back, as if she were the one who needed comfort.

“The sicker Mom became, the more we saw of Anita. I never gave it a second thought. A few weeks before Mom passed away, Anita and Marcus moved into the guesthouse. I didn’t care, didn’t even notice, until dad mentioned it. I saw Marcus in the kitchen a few times having lunch or dinner, but he never ate in the dining room where we had our family meals. I was worried about Mom, so I didn’t speak to him much. I lived day by day in a fog of oblivion, utterly clueless about the world around me.” He shook his head. “Never again.”

His chest rose and fell beneath her as he took a deep breath. She looked up in time to see him press his thumb and forefinger into the inner corners of his eyes. She kissed the underside of his jaw and waited.

“I watched her get closer to death each day and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it. One day, she told me to eat something. I was looking too thin. Eager to do anything she told me to, I went to the kitchen to get a sandwich. Marcus sat at the breakfast table eating his lunch. He was excited and chattier than usual. He sat there, legs swinging under his chair, babbling away. My head was in the fridge when his words registered. He said that it wouldn’t be long until he and his mom moved into the big house. He already had toys packed.”

Rick shook his head and resumed stroking her back. “In my, I’m-two-years-older-and-wiser brain, I brushed it off as silly little kid talk.”

Oh, no. Oh, please, no. The heavy stone resting in her stomach only grew heavier as suspicion set in.

“Two weeks later, mom died at home. She refused to stay in the hospital during her final days. She wanted to be home in her bed, surrounded by the people and things she loved. It wasn’t until years later, while I was in high school, that I remembered something. While she slept at home, in their bed, Dad was nowhere to be found. Most nights he slept elsewhere. He should have at least been in the same room in case she needed something.”

“Oh no. Was she alone?” The words slipped out before she could call them back. No wonder there was so much animosity between Rick and his father.

His chest heaved beneath her. “No. She had around the clock care. A nurse waited nearby, always at the ready. They loved her, everyone did.”

“Rick, honey, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine the pain you shouldered alone.” She tried to gently steer their conversation back on track. “Marcus and Anita didn’t actually move in, did they?”

Gruff, angry and still grieving, he replied. “Nothing happened until two weeks after we buried my mother. Marcus had been present in the house more and more, but I hadn’t cared, barely paid any attention to him. This time, when we came across each other in the TV room, he said ‘Now that the sick lady is dead, we’ll be moving in soon. Just a couple more days.’ His words hit me like a blow. I snapped and yelled at him, screamed at him to take it back. He just stood there confused. He didn’t understand why I was upset.”

“Rick, you were both children.”

“I know. He likely repeated what his mother had told him. My father heard me yelling and came to see what the fuss was about. He sent Marcus back to the guesthouse and tried to calm me down. Something in my sputtering rage got his attention. After I let it all out, he sent me to my room. I cried myself to sleep. The next thing I knew, Marcus and Anita were gone from the guest house.”

“Oh, Rick.” Her palm lay over his heart and she wished she had some way to heal the pain he continued to bear.

“I didn’t see either of them again until about six or seven months later. Anita rang the bell and asked the new housekeeper to see my father. She stood there waiting, a suitcase in one hand and Marcus’s hand in the other. He had a backpack over one shoulder and a suitcase of his own in his free hand.”

“She didn’t think she’d be able to move right on in did she?”

“Yeah, she did. Her belly was swollen and very round. She was a strikingly beautiful woman. Waif-like, fragile appearing, and obviously pregnant. She carried my half-brother inside her. Maybe she genuinely thought Dad loved her. She might have figured pregnancy bought her a golden ticket. I don’t know. I didn’t even realize what her pregnancy or any of the drama meant until Dad came in and they started arguing. She started off sweet and teary eyed, and dad almost let her in. When a victorious light came over her face, he paused. The argument grew uglier. In her rage, she lost her temper and accidently revealed that she’d gotten pregnant on purpose. She’d seduced my grieving father from day one.”

Words failed her, so she took his free hand, tangled her fingers with his and held tight.

“After they left, he and I fought. Less than two weeks later, he sent me away to my first boarding school.”

“Did she…did he…? I don’t know what to say. You have a half-brother?” As painful as his past was, she still wasn’t quite sure how it amounted to so much utter hatred on Marcus’s part. “Is that why he hates you? I mean, he’s downright evil, Rick. It’s all horrible, utterly terrible for you both but, even as my heart bleeds, I still don’t get it. I’m sorry.”

“I found out later, when I was old enough to search for my brother, that my father paid Anita a great deal of money to go away. She happily took it. She had a drug habit, and when she came into money, it only got worse. In just a few years, she went through all of the money and they ended up back where she started.”

“But now she had two children to care for.”

He tucked her head beneath his chin. “Yeah. I didn’t know they needed anything. She should have gone into rehab. It guts me to think that they needed food or, who knows what. I would have helped somehow if I had known. The house they’d lived in was foreclosed on and the three of them had moved back to the same trailer park. Anita overdosed not long after that. Marcus, who was a child himself, raised my brother, our brother alone. Looking back now, I don’t think my father had any idea of what happened to them. I think he was overwhelmed by grief and guilt. It was just easier to forget they even existed.” His hand tightened on hers.

“During spring break, my first year of college, I looked them up. Anita had already been gone a few years. Marcus told me in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want me around Wendell. He stared at me with cold, dead eyes and vowed that he’d take away everything both my father and I held dear. He’s shadowed me at every turn, never acting, but always making his presence known.”

“He raised your brother alone while she wasted away. He thought he was going to get a better life, and then, in his childish viewpoint, you took it all away. Then he watched his mother slowly kill herself with drugs. Jeez. If he weren’t so despicable, I could feel sorry for him.”

“Yeah, but he’s a grown man who’s made all the wrong decisions for a long time. That’s all on him.”

“He didn’t have any other family to turn to?”

“I had to do some digging to find Marcus and Wendell that first year and really had no idea what I was doing at the time. I did find Marcus’s father, Darrell Sutton. He could have given Tom Caudill a run for his money in the shitty absentee father department. I drove out to his cabin in a little speck on the map called Barker Hollow. His home looked barely fit for animals to live in. He came to the door and sneered at me as if I’d crawled from the sewer.” Rick’s gaze lost focus as he got lost in the past.

“When I explained who I was looking for, it took a few minutes for any of my words to register. He finally remembered Anita when I showed him a yearbook picture I’d found. There was no denying her waif-like beauty. He denied having a son, but there was something odd about the way he spoke. He kept saying ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. ‘We don’t want your kind around here.’ That kind of thing.

“I left that hollow with the suspicion he knew more than he admitted. I also felt about ten times worse, knowing that Marcus’s father made mine look like a saint. My family might have fallen apart after my mother’s death, but its roots were sown in love.”

“It’s a shame when people have to go it alone. No one should have to live a life without family or friends. I’d survive without mine, but I’m not sure it would be a life worth living.”

“No, Leigh, sweetheart, you’d be just fine. You’d build your own. You’d adopt people all along the way, bringing them into your light. Men like me are destined to walk alone in the dark. I don’t deserve you.”

Heart cracking into a thousand pieces, she stood, leaving the warmth of his hold. She turned her back on him, going to the open door. She closed and locked it, the quiet snick loud in the still, heavy air. Returning, she stopped before him. When he would have pulled her back into his arms, she shook her head and placed a staying hand on his shoulder. “Bullshit.” She unbuttoned her short-sleeved blouse and let it fall from her shoulders as she spoke. “You are no less deserving of love than Addie is.”

Without waiting for a reply, she yanked his shirt free from his waistband and stripped it from his body.

“Leigh, you don’t have to do this.” Despite his concession, she heard the desire in his husky voice. He wanted her every bit as much as he wanted to be the good guy.

“I know. This isn’t pity sex. This is me, expressing my hunger for a man that is absolutely worthy of everything good the world has to offer. I found the man of my dreams, and I’m not letting him get away. Neither will I let him suffer alone. Is that okay with you?”

The light in his eyes flickered in the darkness, hunger coming to life. She sat on the desk’s edge and took his face in her palms. Without waiting for a response, she set her mouth upon his, kissing away the sorrow. He tasted of pure sin. Sweet ice cream, a hint of coffee, and all man. Her man.

His hands found the clasps of her bra and sent it flying, freeing her aching breasts. Deliciously rough palms cupped their weight. His thumbs caressed over her nipples.

Desperate with need for this man, she pulled free and dropped to her knees. She unfastened his pants and freed his erection. Steel hard, eager, it waited for her. Her mouth watered at the sight. His body, just like his very character, defined raw, masculine, power.

She took him in her mouth and hands, working a labor of love to bring him pleasure.

Each of his groans rumbled through her, spreading tremors of dark joy through every fiber of her being. He cupped her jaw and swept his thumbs over her cheeks. She might be the one on her knees, but she felt utterly worshipped as he bathed her in praise. Love.

She flicked her tongue at the underside of his cock, making it buck. He groaned louder and longer. Lost in her own pleasure, she hummed.

Suddenly, strong hands gripped under her arms and lifted her from the floor. He set her on her feet and tore at the button of her jeans. It popped free, then he yanked the zipper down. “Rick, this was supposed to be my turn to give to you.”

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that thought. I also don’t care. One thing I forgot to tell you about me? I’m as greedy and bossy in the bedroom as I am in life, maybe more so. You’re going to have to learn how to deal with that.” He pushed both hands into the back of her pants and beneath her panties, shoving them down as he went. His palms smoothed over the flesh of her bottom, down to the backs of her thighs. “Off.” He punctuated his command with a light slap to one cheek. “All of it off. Now.”

“Yes, sir.” She answered him playfully, but she wasn’t so sure that he didn’t take her seriously.

She did as he’d instructed. Shedding the suddenly constricting denim, she bared herself to him.

“My turn to play. Sit. Open your legs.” Her breath hitched at the image he created. Again, she complied, even as her heart stopped at his devilish grin. He took her place, kneeling on the floor, facing the desk.

“Here. Put your feet on the chair. He demonstrated by taking one trembling foot, kissing the top of it, then placing it at the chair’s front edge, against the padded armrest. She placed the other foot on the chair’s opposite side. He remained in between her legs, his rugged, virile presence saturating her with aching need.

She hadn’t known it was possible to feel so vulnerable and overwhelmingly aroused at the same time.

Only Rick.

He swept his palms slowly up her knees to her inner thighs. His dark eyes met hers. She felt pinned in place by the intense possessive heat simmering deep inside their depths. “Put your palms flat on the desktop. Don’t move.” She complied and felt the hard, cold wood beneath her hands.

“Sweetheart, you might want to breathe.” His focus then left her face and moved lower. “You’ll regret passing out and missing this.” He blew a hot breath over the flesh between her legs.

Oh, my.

She grew dizzy as indescribable, decadent sensations rippled through her.

He braced his palms on the uppermost part of her inner thighs and opened her wide. Then he kissed her. His hot mouth closed over her pussy and hummed. He flattened his tongue, sweeping a long lick up the valley of her flesh.

Unbidden, a whimper of desperate need escaped her. She shifted her weight to one hand and grasped the top of his head with the other. Her fingers gripped his hair, holding on for dear life. Intense, bright joy whipped through her as he licked over her again, slowing his progress to a crawl as he came to her clit. When another jolt of electric bliss hit her, she didn’t know whether to urge him on and beg him to never stop or beg him to quit before she fell so far deep into his spell, she’d never find her way back to sanity.

He flicked a light tap over her exposed flesh. “I don’t think so. Palms flat on the desk or I’ll stop.”

“Damn you, stubborn man.” She snapped her hand back to its former place on the cold wood.

“Relax.” When he nudged lightly against her thighs she realized they ached from pushing against the hands holding her open. She took a deep breath and tried to do as he said.

Relax. She almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea. He was giving her what was possibly the most erotic experience of her life, and he wanted her to relax?

He returned his attention to his task, licking the dampness from her, loving her as every bit as thoroughly as she’d worshipped him. When she thought he couldn’t push her any higher without tipping her over the edge, he inserted two fingers into her pussy. Another whimper escaped.

“So very sweet. I could play here all night. I’d happily keep you on edge until dawn.” He worked her flesh until her arms became weak from the tension. All sense of time disappeared as he worked her with his hands and mouth, leaving no part of her untested, unloved.

When he’d teased her into a whimpering, half-sobbing mess, he stood. Grasping his cock in hand, he touched the head to her hypersensitive flesh. He circled her sex, gathering moisture and taunting her.

She bit her lip in a stubborn attempt to keep from begging him to take her. A knowing, cocky grin spread across that delicious mouth she loved so much.

She’d do anything for this man.

When he finally slid home in a slow, wicked glide, she broke. She clutched his shoulders with both hands. He whispered into her ear, a rough but tender, reassurance. “Hang on, love.”

Then he pounded into her, a hard, wracking, desperate rhythm. Each blow, a delicious shock that filled her full of him and mind-blowing pleasure. Wave after wave of exquisite pressure crashed through her as flesh slammed against flesh. Bliss bloomed deep in her center, rolling out to fill every single pore. Her breaths hitched. Her pulse skyrocketed. Her pleasure soared.

Thrusting harder with each rapid blow, he pistoned into her. His chest heaved, his hands on her hips tightened. He completely owned her.

His movements shortened and quickened until he jackhammered into her. Her sex tightened on his, gripping, squeezing. Stars exploded behind her eyes, light shone through her, burning away everything except Rick and the ecstasy consuming her. His arm tightened around her waist and anchored her. His heavy pants brushed her ear. Taking his mouth in hers, she nipped his bottom lip and scraped her fingernails lightly over his nipples. He groaned into mouth as his back arched, pushing his hips tight against hers.

He laid her back against the cool wood of the desk and slammed his cock deeper. Another wave bliss ripped through her, sharper, brighter and she cried into him, a desperate keening sound of joy.

Gripping her hips, fingers biting into the flesh of her cheeks, he came, filling her. He groaned into their kiss, and she wrapped her arms around the wide breadth of his shoulders. Their breaths mingled as their gazes met, holding each other in the still of the night.