Dane returns to the kitchen, his strides steady, and I grip the edge of the countertop behind me to stabilize myself. I need to say something, anything, to cut the tension.

“I just wanted to stop by. You know, after our conversation.” Yikes. I sound like every scorned woman in history. Except that I rejected him. He should be the scorned one.

He reaches across me, and I stiffen, but he just picks up my glass and sniffs the contents, then rinses it out. He’s still waiting for me to explain myself further, I think. His patience is a little maddening.

“I just feel like we left things in a weird place . . . What are you doing out here, by the way?” I look around, just now noticing the rest of the bungalow is dark, and the only noise is coming from the basketball game on TV.

There’s a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. Probably because of the scatterbrained, one-sided conversation. I feel off-balance and wholly out of my element.

“I’m making dinner.”

“For that . . . girl?” I jab my thumb over my shoulder before I can stop myself. “Did I just interrupt your date?”

“No, not for that girl. For me. Game’s on.” He angles his head toward the TV, and I nod to myself. I’m not accustomed to his new dismissive demeanor. “What are you doing here, Raven?”

The words are clipped, but the sight of him in low-slung shorts and bare feet soothes the sting. Makes him less intimidating somehow. Emboldened by the gin in my system, I say, “Should I not have come? Was there some kind of dress code I didn’t live up to? Do I not add much to the slut quota of your party?”

His eyes cut to me, and I see the first sign of fire there. His normally tranquil irises are incinerating.

“No, you shouldn’t have come. I think we both know that.” I bite my lip, a terrible habit that’s impossible to get rid of. I’m about to crack back at him when he interjects. “You’d look fantastic in anything, not that I’d complain about seeing you in a dress like that.” Dane nods his head in the direction Sarah Michelle Gellar disappeared in. “And a lot of those girls are just trying to find their way in the world, kind of like you and me. Doesn’t make them sluts.”

I’m formulating a retort before I stop myself. Who am I to judge? I know nothing about them, and I’m sure my nastiness is just a diversion from my own discomfort. “I didn’t mean that, I just—”

“There’s probably enough for both of us,” he says, glazing right over my words. At my puzzled expression, he gestures between him and I, then over at the food. “You and me, that is.”

“I don’t want to impose. I wasn’t even invited.”

“I won’t starve,” he says firmly.

I bite my lip again, the taste of iron on my tongue. His lack of words has left me scrambling. I’m not used to this, filling in the gaps. I’m used to Jenson and his philosophizing about life—trying to make sense of my silence, not trying to lure me out from behind my fortress with his own.

I crane my neck, scanning the skillets and other cooking utensils, avoiding his eyes. He hit the nail on the head the other day when he said I didn’t want to get to know him. More importantly, I didn’t want him to know me. I came here for one purpose, so why has my apology suddenly been knocked further down my list of priorities?

“What did you cook?” I finally ask. I didn’t think I could eat with everything on my mind, but the delectable smells are making my mouth water.

“Steak. It’s better on the grill, but—” he waves his hand toward the house, and I think I understand. He’s hiding. But why? “Brussels sprouts with mushrooms, and pasta with white wine sauce.”

My head retracts sharply. “What the hell?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” There’s just a hint of a smile on his face as he cuts through the steak, dividing it into two halves, and grabs another plate from the shelf behind him. He slides a portion of meat onto it, dishes out the vegetables and pasta, and still, I stare at him in open-mouthed awe.

“You really made all this for yourself? What kind of guy makes Brussels sprouts if he’s not trying to get laid?”

“Who said I wasn’t trying to get laid?” There’s that suppressed grin again. The one that thins his lips and looks like trouble.

I point to myself. “Girl who rejected you.” Then I point toward the general direction the brunette disappeared in and say, “Girl you blew off, who probably jumped out of her panties the minute she saw you in here cooking.”

“I enjoy cooking, and I need to feed myself.” He shrugs, like that explains the white wine sauce . . . and the Brussels sprouts. Jesus. Not even close.

As my short-lived buzz wears off, guilt rears its ugly head once again and I feel myself withdrawing. I was rude to him, I insulted him and his family based on hearsay, and now he wants to serve me dinner. Dinner he cooked.

Retrieving the glass Trey gave me from the sink, I reach for the bottle of brown liquor on the counter—my truth serum—but Dane’s fingers close around my wrist. He nods his head insistently toward the wooden dinette. “Go sit down.”

For once in my life, I follow directions and take a seat, observing as Dane sweeps up the two plates and brings them over to the table. He sets mine before me, then sinks into the chair opposite. He looks too big for this table. In fact, he looks too big for this entire room.

I refocus on the meal, something that’s much easier to comprehend than our situation. Half of what would’ve been a large portion of steak sits in front of me, perfectly pink in the middle, along with the noodles and sprouts. I’m impressed, but I don’t let it show. When I look up, Dane is chewing and watching me impassively.

“Are you going to eat?”

So he’s really going to avoid this inevitably awkward conversation? Okay. I slice off a small bite of steak and slip it on my tongue, chewing slowly. Shit. For being cooked on a stovetop, it’s damn good. I swallow, and when I meet his eyes again, they’re brimming with satisfaction.

“You are so proud of yourself.”

One side of his mouth quirks up into a smile, and he twirls pasta around his fork and brings it to his lips. I look down when he slides the fork between them. “Earlier tonight I didn’t know how the steak would turn out, or that I would have a dinner date. Now both have worked out in my favor.”

“This is hardly a date,” I scoff, popping a Brussels sprout into my mouth. Cooked in butter. I barely suppress my moan of appreciation.

“I made dinner.”

“You made you dinner. I’m just an unwanted guest who crashed your party.”

He sucks his teeth, cutting into his portion of meat. “Uninvited, maybe. Not unwanted.”

“But uninvited all the same. This pasta would go great with some wine,” I point out to him.

“Raven and wine,” he murmurs, his tongue darting out to lick the juice from his bottom lip. He thinks it over for a moment, then stands, selecting a bottle from above the refrigerator. A man who keeps wine on hand . . . he either has good taste or knows the women he picks up will believe he does. It’s true, women eat that up. He uncorks the bottle with practiced efficiency and pours a glass of red. One glass.

Taking a sip as he walks back over to me, he sets it between us.

“Cutting back?” I tease, taking a large swig.

“I’m not.” He gestures with his steak knife in my direction. “You, on the other hand, have already had a drink. As for what that drink consisted of . . .” he trails off, and I instantly grow defensive.

“Why does that matter?”

He chuckles bitterly and my nostrils flare in anger. “Why pour wine down your throat to pry a few words out of you when you barely give them to me otherwise? Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not going to use alcohol to find out what I want to know about you. That’s not how I do things.”

The cold, hard truth tastes bitter in my mouth. But my mind is lagging, hung up on the words “I want.”

“Your brother made it for me,” I say, and I could be imagining it, but I think his eyes darken a shade. Still, he doesn’t offer up his words willingly. I guess he’s serving me a taste of my own medicine, in a way.

“And I meant what I said the other day. Part of it. I’m not playing games with you, Dane. I’m not trying to be coy. I don’t need to get involved with anyone right now.”

He swallows another bite of steak, then shakes his head, feigning indifference. “Okay.”

It could be a trick of the light, but I think I detect some curiosity. I expected him to be angry with me, maybe spit out a few curse words for judging him and send me back out the door with a “thanks, but no thanks.” I didn’t expect this. There’s no sign of the slightly intrusive, humorous, kind Dane who was one of my first introductions to Heronwood. In his place is someone much more skeptical and intense. I don’t know anyone who can play both roles like that.

I clear my throat, forging ahead before I lose my nerve. “I guess you’re wondering why I’m really here.”

He just slides a bite of steak off his fork using his teeth, his eyes on me, perhaps a glimmer of a challenge beneath those lashes.

“I wanted to apologize for the other things I said the other day; about you, about your family. You were right when you said I didn’t want to get to know you. I guess I panic when someone gets too close.”

“Was I?” he asks, and when my expression morphs into confusion, he says, “Getting close?”

“I guess not. Maybe I panic at the first sign of friendliness, too. I don’t know. Kindness and charm can be deceiving. I just . . . I guess I wanted to protect myself. Scare you away before you had the chance to learn things about me you might hate. I’ve got some baggage, and it ain’t pretty.”

“No, it’s not. And you were right about one thing: it is a good idea to keep our distance.” Our gazes level, and his chewing subsides. The intent in his expression contradicts every one of his words, and around us, time seems to stand still.

“Yeah, we should definitely stay away from each other.” I swallow hard.

“Far, far away.”

We both sit in silence, in a stare-off over the table. Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, we’ve set our cutlery down, all thoughts of food abandoned and the space occupied by something else. Something less tangible. A no-man’s-land cloud of lust. I lick my lips nervously, catching the last of the wine sauce. Dane’s eyes trace the movement while he sits back, raising the glass to take a drink.

“It’s a good thing we have so much restrai—” He barely gets the words out, because I’m across the table in the span of a heartbeat, taking the back of his neck and pulling him closer. He wouldn’t let me have my own glass of wine, but I taste it on his lips when his mouth lands on mine. Almost as if he was ready, as if he expected it, his lips ease open in acceptance, his tongue grazing my upper lip.

I can tell myself all I want that I haven’t been imagining how his lips would feel against mine, but that would be a bold-faced lie. I’ve been subconsciously hoarding visions of Dane kissing me in the back of my mind like a teenage boy hiding dirty magazines under his mattress. Experiencing it firsthand, however, is so much better.

I groan, and being a few feet away is still not close enough. There’s a table and the remnants of dinner between us, so I sweep my plate aside, ignoring that it teeters precariously over the edge, and pull myself up and over, my hands and knees sliding across wood. I’m not sure I’ve ever done something so unnecessary, but reason is overcome by the need pulsating within me. Large hands move to my waist, pulling me, guiding me across the table to where I sink down onto his lap, straddling his chair. Dane pauses, one hand wrapped in my hair, our foreheads touching, the other hand cupping my rib cage just below my breasts.

There are a few seconds of silence, punctuated only by our breathing, then our lips collide again without losing momentum. The things he can do with his tongue . . . My scalp prickles as his hand delves deeper into my hair, but any possibility of pain is lost to everything else. I’m consumed, emboldened by the mass of the man between my thighs and the spontaneity of it all. But this . . . this is not making things easier. This is chasing any concern of consequences from my mind and drugging my conscience.

I only realize my hands are pushing him away when our lips separate. It’s almost like my limbs have a mind of their own; acting on their own accord one step ahead of my brain. His eyes are slow to open, but I’m already lifting my leg over him, turning and gathering our dishes. I set them in the sink, taking a steadying breath. It feels like an hour passes before I hear chair legs scrape against the floor. I don’t see him approach because I’m staring down into the sink.

Why did I do that? What good can it do when I only came here to apologize and establish the boundaries of our friendship moving forward.

Boundaries.

I’m nudged out of the way, and Dane takes over, spraying down the dishes. I don’t want to see what kind of emotion lingers in his eyes, so I avoid them. I gather the pots and pans from the stove and set them on the counter beside the sink. The skewed chairs glare at me, a reminder of what I just let happen. You lost yourself, they say snidely. And all it took was dinner and a drink.

“Get out of your head,” Dane says. I hear a clink and look down, seeing he’s set a glass of water beside me. I think I might’ve heard him wrong until he says it again.

“What?”

“You heard what I said. You’re trying to make this into something it isn’t. You want to convince yourself that something about this is wrong, just to make it easier for you to stay away.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Denial roars within me. “I don’t have to convince myself of anything. I know this shouldn’t happen.”

“Because of something you think you know, some vendetta you began before you even showed up here? It’s bullshit. You’re the only one standing in your way.”

“My way or your way?” I shoot back. He can’t be mad at me for knowing better than to sleep with the first handsome guy I meet here. His eyes are hard, but he’s reached the end of his rope. He’s offered enough to me tonight, and now he’s going to make me work for his words again. What a turn of events. “You admitted we should keep our distance.”

“Yes. It would be easier on both of us, choosing the path of less . . . resistance.”

I don’t miss the curve of his mouth around the word, and I can’t resist stoking the fire I sense is burning beneath that careful gaze.

“Less friction that way,” I say, but my voice has lowered to no more than a murmur. Dane leans over and turns off the faucet, bracing his hands on either side of the sink. If he were mine, I would wrap my arms around his waist and rest my cheek against his strong back. But those are foolish, dangerous thoughts. Things like that are the things you miss when there’s no one around to lean your head against.

And his guard is back up. I’m not sure I could slip past his defenses even if I tried. I grab a rag draped over the sink and turn away from him, attempting and failing to funnel all my energy into wiping down the counters. It is humming beneath the surface of my skin, making me feel charged and on edge.

His sudden presence behind me makes me suck in a breath, my hand pausing on the granite. I can’t see him, but it would be impossible not to feel him. His fingers graze the length of my arm, shoulder to wrist, taking the rag in one hand while sweeping my hair off my neck with the other. My thoughts go quiet and crazed at the same time when he presses his mouth there, in the space where my neck and shoulder meet.

He trails kisses up my neck, alternating caresses of his tongue and grazes of his teeth, and I shudder once he reaches the tender sweet-spot beneath my ear. There isn’t a drop of resistance left in my body when he maneuvers me around so I’m facing him, trapped between his hips and the cabinetry. There is no place to hide now, nowhere to look other than at him.

Dane tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear and tilts up my chin, gently forcing my eyes to meet his. Then he closes the distance and his lips make quick work of mine, caressing each of them like he doesn’t want to abandon a single millimeter. My hands, which have been fisted in his shirt since the moment I turned around, brace themselves against his chest. Despite everything, there’s still a blanket of caution settling over my thoughts, screening my movements. At some point, our lips have parted again, separated by indecision. If I give in, I’ll be lost.

My hands drag downward, dipping beneath the hem of his shirt and smoothing over warm, bare skin, before coming to rest on the small of his back and urging him against me. It’s confirmation, which Dane reciprocates by capturing my mouth again, using his grip on my belt loops to turn and walk me backwards through the house. Something solid meets the backs of my thighs, and I look back. It’s an overstuffed gray sofa.

The next move is obvious and would involve me relenting and lying back to await whatever Dane has in mind. It’s a line that I know shouldn’t be crossed if I don’t mean for it to. Instead of insisting, or pushing me, Dane slips out of my grasp, circling me and dropping down onto the couch. Residual heat simmers in his gaze, but still he waits.

I could walk back out and pick up my strong will where I abandoned it on the threshold, but then I think about arriving back at my dark, empty house, slipping into the pajamas only my ex-husband’s seen me in. I think about how every time I look in the mirror I feel guilt; how merely seeing my reflection leads me to search for blame in my features. Suddenly, leaving seems to lie beyond the realm of possibility. I don’t want to think about those things. I just want to forget.

I perch on one hip on the couch, and Dane raises his chin. The muscle in his jaw flexes beneath the skin, and my lips find that place, feeling it still beneath my touch. He doesn’t move to embrace me, or to kiss me, he just waits. He has an ocean of patience, and I feel myself crash down into the middle of it.

I drag my leg over his hips to straddle him. His chest is tense beneath my hands, which are still braced against it in a way that would allow me to push away if I still wanted to. I grip his shirt once more before relaxing my fingers, running them up over his shoulders, exploring the hard planes of muscle before they clasp around his neck and pull his mouth back to me.

At last he responds, motions fervent. He kisses me so deeply that I don’t have to imagine what sex with him would be like. I know it would be just like this: rhythmic, tantalizing, senseless. His hands anchor my thighs, securing me against him, and mine go to the hem of my shirt, tugging it off. It felt like a barrier, a breastplate trapping in all my evasiveness and apprehension. I want it gone.

I think he’s going to unclasp my bra, but his fingers just slip beneath the strap, running along the indented skin beneath. He pulls me close enough to trail kisses down my neck to my chest, kissing first over, then beneath, the cups of fabric. Now I’m the one gripping his hair, grasping at my waning control. He cups my shoulders, holding me to his lips, hard, then he uses his grip to pull me back, away from him, away from the contact of our skin. I’m so taken aback that my eyes fill with questions before I can rein them in. What? Why?

Dane sits up to where his chest is even with mine, bending to kiss me gently in the hollow between my collarbones, then he pulls his legs out from beneath mine. It’s a gentle movement, but the effect is jarring. He can’t look at me. My cheeks burn, and I yank my shirt off the ground, feeling snubbed. Did I misread the situation so badly?

I fumble with getting my arms through the sleeves, and Dane stills my hand. “Stop.”

“Stop what?” I snap.

“That. Arming yourself.”

How dare he? He doesn’t get to invade my mind and play games with what he finds. “I’m not going to sit around with my shirt off, twiddling my thumbs.”

There’s that tic in his jaw again. “That’s not what I meant. For once, I could almost feel what you were thinking.”

“Because I let you. What a mistake that was.” I go to stand, but his grip on my wrist causes me to bounce right back down onto the couch.

“How long is it going to be before I see that again?” Dane’s eyes are boring into the side of my face, but I stare determinedly ahead, lips glued shut, until he cups my jaw and turns it toward him. “How long, Raven?”

I shoot daggers at him with my glare. “You could have had me, right now, and you pushed me away.”

He chews his lower lip, turning my words over. I can see the thoughts wheeling in his head. I don’t need to ask how vulnerable it feels to be so open, to have them on display like that; I’m experiencing it now for myself.

“You shut yourself up in your head. Use your silence to keep people at a disadvantage. What could I ever say to make you listen? What words could I possibly come up with to coax you out? None. So I used the only thing I could.”

“You were going to use sex against me?” The words may be whispered, but they’re dripping in venom.

“No, I refuse to do that. That’s why I stopped when I did. You show up here, after that conversation in the square, drinking something my brother made you and waltzing into my house, and you want to say nothing? You want to lay that on me without any explanation?” His eyes rake down my body before snapping back up to meet mine. “It doesn’t work that way, Raven. A lot of people will fall for that, but I’m not going to use something so cheap to my advantage.”

That stings. Badly.

“Cheap?” Rage makes the word tremble in my mouth.

“Not you. Your little stunts. You want to shut me up by throwing yourself at me, but I’m not going to give up so easily. It’s a pretty illusion, but it’s just that: an illusion. You would be gone before the sun came up if I let this night go where it was headed.”

“I could be gone now.”

“And yet, you’re still here.”

He has me there. I feel like he’s just talked me off the edge of a breakdown, but it’s an improvement from feeling like a cornered animal. That’s how I often felt with Jenson—cornered by his words, unable to make mine sound as poignant and convincing as his. But why was I ready to show Dane with my body what I wouldn’t, couldn’t, tell him with my words?

“I don’t know if I’m ready to say much more tonight,” I say after minutes of silence. I did what I came to do—I apologized—but as for telling him the other motivations behind pushing him away, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do that. There’s no place for my past in Heronwood.

“That’s fine. I have a movie in the DVD player and wine in the kitchen.”

I steal a glance at him, the ice fortress around my heart melting just a fraction. Who is this man?

“No more stunts?” he murmurs.

“No stunts,” I say, and he stands up to get me a glass of wine.

 

 

Harsh rays of sunlight rouse me from sleep, and I cover my eyes, rubbing the sleep away. When I finally peek through my fingers, my head jerks back in surprise. Just a few inches from my face is a pair of the wisest, richest brown eyes I’ve ever seen, set into the scruffy, gray face of a dog that’s larger than most ponies. I receive a huge lick across my face in greeting.

“Hello, handsome,” I say when I’m upright. I stretch out a hand, allowing the dog to sniff it, and he gives me another soft lick.

I look around, gathering my bearings. I’m in a bed. Dane’s bed. And I’m wearing a t-shirt that’s too big for me. Nothing happened beyond watching a movie last night, that I remember, and I wasn’t drunk. But I don’t recall coming in here. Snippets of me asking for a change of clothes, however, arise in my memory.

“Good morning to you, too,” says a voice from the doorway. The dog ambles over to where a bright-eyed, mussed-haired Dane is braced against the frame, mug in hand. I pull the sheets tighter around me.

“That’s Gulliver, by the way.”

“He looks like a horse.”

“Irish wolfhound,” Dane says in answer.

Gulliver sits at his feet, his wiry head reaching Dane’s waist, and I finally get a good look around, scanning the room and taking in all the features like I’m seeing them for the first time. The head and footboard look crafted from reclaimed wood, and there’s a matching dresser across the room with a toolbelt, some loose change, and a bottle of cologne atop it. Dane’s little bungalow couldn’t be more different from the main house. There are no modern lines and sharp, metallic edges; it’s all warm wood and muted, masculine colors, containing all the character the other is missing. It suits him.

“I slept on the couch,” Dane offers, as if sensing my bleary confusion.

I nod, and as my mind wakes, I become more conscious of myself. I’m sure my breath leaves something to be desired. Smoothing my unruly morning hair, I clear my throat. “Bathroom?”

Dane gestures to his left, toward the other door in the room, and I make for it. I don’t know if it’s my imagination when I feel his eyes sweep up my naked legs before I take cover behind the closed door. It’s much harder to be bold in the light of day. It wasn’t my aim to stay over, and now I’m tiptoeing into unfamiliar territory. I haven’t woken up in a strange man’s house in over half a decade. Thankfully, the stars have aligned and my clothes from last night are waiting in a folded stack beside the sink.

Thinking it’s past time to leave, I take a moment to change and compose myself, swishing around a bit of toothpaste and cleaning up smudges of mascara. It’s not the prettiest picture, but he won’t catch more than a glance as I walk out the door.

“Cream or sugar?” Dane asks when I step out of his room.

I freeze in place, unprepared. He’s tending to something in the kitchen, his gaze directed down at the countertop, but nothing in his tone or expression leads me to believe he regrets the unexpected night we had. Nor that he’s ready to rush me out the door. He just looks up in question and holds up a mug.

“Just cream,” I finally say. I accept the mug and inhale with pleasure. Maybe sticking around won’t be so bad.

“I took you for a coffee woman.”

I just quirk my eyebrow at him, wondering what else he can perceive from what few hours we’ve spent together. His expression tells me he’s pleased to have gotten one thing right.

“So, last night,” Dane begins.

“Will never happen again,” I say.

“We’re back to that?” He laughs and shakes his head wryly. Then he discards his mug in the sink and crosses his arms, facing me.

“It wasn’t my smartest move.”

“I wasn’t referring to you showing up unannounced and forcing yourself on me over dinner.”

My chest tightens, and I feel my cheeks heat. This is why I don’t make a habit of acting recklessly. The consequences are always uglier when the sun comes up. “You didn’t object.”

“I didn’t because I didn’t want to. Trust me when I say it was difficult to hold back. That still doesn’t explain why it happened.”

I lean my head back, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t think we’d circle back here so quickly. My reasons for coming over. My reasons for kissing him. My reasons for being in Heronwood. Reasons, reasons, reasons. Explaining myself was low on my to-do list when I moved here. It would’ve been better to sneak out while he was sleeping. Or not to come in the first place.

“Something brought you here, Raven. I don’t expect anything from you but to admit what that was.”

“Guilt,” I answer in a rush because if I hadn’t, the word would’ve never come out.

Dane waits for a beat, then says, “Is that all?”

“I judged you and your family when I had no idea what I was talking about. I had no right to make assumptions based on the things people I don’t even know told me.”

He nods slowly. “So you came by to apologize, and instead—”

“Ruined your dinner.”

“Ruined my dinner.” He chuckles. “Yeah. Something like that.” Grinning to himself, he directs his eyes away from me, toward the cabinets. Maybe he senses that too much eye contact with those Mediterranean-blues makes me uneasy. “So you owe me a dinner.”

A dinner? My foot begins to tap, a sure sign of my agitation. Would I really mind going to dinner with this man? No. Am I certain that it’s the best idea? No. But I can feel my heart, my gut, leaning in towards him. Straining against the bonds that my overactive brain has placed on them.

“Okay, a dinner. That’s fair. I did interrupt yours.”

“A dinner date,” he clarifies, with laughter in his eyes.

“Fine.” I raise my chin, willing my gaze to hold his. I feel foolish for showing up here and making him think he had to dote on me with some couple-y movie night, so it’s the least I can do.

“I’ll let you call me, then,” he says, and I nod.

Dane insists on walking me out to my car, and when we reach it, he opens the door for me. Thankfully, there’s no awkward inner debate over whether we should hug or kiss because he urges me not to forget about our deal and shuts the door behind me. Just like that. No nonsense.

He waits at the edge of the driveway with his hands in his pockets all the way up until I round the bend in the trees.