Kelly was silent for a moment, shifting slightly against him, her soft hair brushing against his skin. “A lot of men don’t treat their wives well. It doesn’t stop them from marrying.”

“That’s true.”

It felt like she was going to pursue the question, but then she seemed to pull herself back. He wondered why she’d asked in the first place, since she seemed to avoid any sort of personal conversation.

He felt off-kilter and strangely vulnerable—having admitted more than he had to anyone for years—so he asked, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why haven’t you gotten married?”

“No one has ever asked me.”

“Don’t give me that. You’ve never given anyone the chance to ask you. Didn’t you tell me on the first day we met that you don’t do seconds?”

He remembered that day well and wondered why she’d felt more complete to him then than she did now. What about her now—even with his arm around her—felt like it was always slipping through his fingers?

“Yeah. I might have said that.”

“So why? Why just casual sex?”

She pulled away from him, rolling over on her side to face him. He could only see a vague outline of her face and body in the dark, but she felt defensive, prickly, even though her voice was still light as she said, “Coming from a man who has lived his life with nothing but casual sex, that’s a strange question.”

Maybe it was a strange question, but he knew why he resisted any serious relationship. Wes had been right a couple of weeks ago when he’d said he always ran when things got real. He didn’t know why Kelly resisted, though, and he wanted to know. “Coming from a woman who just asked me why I’ve never gotten married, that’s a strange response to a harmless question.”

He felt her relax with a long exhale. “I’ve just never wanted to do relationships. Is that so strange?”

“It’s rather unusual, yes.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“Partly.”

“I don’t know.” She rolled over onto her back and now seemed to be staring at the ceiling. “I don’t like to depend on other people, and in a relationship I would have to. I’m not inclined to trust people, and you have to trust to make a relationship work. Sex I can control, so that’s what I do.”

A thick silence followed her words, a silence Caleb could feel in his chest. He somehow knew the words were true and that she hadn’t intended to say so much.

If he’d been a kind man or a sensitive one, he would have let the topic drop, since her tension now made it clear she wasn’t comfortable with this conversation. But, for the first time, he felt close to getting her, reaching her, understanding her, and he wasn’t going to lose the advantage.

“Why don’t you trust people?”

“Because they let you down.”

Her voice was small, tight, clearly trying for casual, and it evoked the most unexpected response in him. He reached out to pull her against him again, holding her snugly. She buried her face against the side of his chest, clinging to him with a strange sort of tension.

He didn’t understand it at all, but she felt uncharacteristically needy. After a minute, he asked, “Everyone in your life has let you down?”

“Not everyone. But if they don’t, they get taken away anyway.”

His throat suddenly tightened so intensely, so powerfully, that he couldn’t breathe for a moment. Because he knew—he knew—he knew how she felt.

It had happened to him too.

She might look beautiful and soft and untouched, and she might be secretive and sensual and damaged, but she wasn’t all that different from him.

He understood her. Knew her. The way he knew himself.

Maybe she sensed some of what he was feeling. Maybe she felt it herself. Because, after a minute, she raised her head and stared down at him in the dark. “What about you? Do you trust people?”

“No.” Just the one word, the one truth.

“I didn’t think so.”

It felt like she was drawing away from him, so he tightened his arm around her. She didn’t resist, settling against him again.

“What about your mafioso lover?” He’d been putting pieces together about her in his mind.

She jerked.

“What?”

“The guy who’s after you. If you just do casual sex, how did you get involved with him?”

After a brief hesitation, he felt her shrug. “I was just trying something out with him, and obviously it didn’t work. Plus, what makes you think he was Italian mob?”

“You said he was connected.” He stiffened as he processed this new idea, the puzzle distracting him from his intense, softer feelings before. Maybe—he sucked in his breath as a different thought crossed his mind. “If you’re going to tell me you got involved with someone in the Mafia or some—”

“Oh, just shut up. It’s none of your business who I got involved with. Just let it go.”

He didn’t respond, knowing she was really annoyed now, so the conversation would be fruitless, but he was worried in an entirely new way. Some wannabe gangster from Atlantic City would be one thing. A Russian or Albanian would be something entirely different. The stakes would be much, much higher.

He was mulling over this new avenue of investigation when she shifted beside him, stroking his bare belly with her hand. “Sorry,” she murmured.

“Don’t be. It’s fine.”

“I know you’re just trying to help, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful. But it’s my mess.”

“I know you don’t like to depend on other people, but sometimes we can’t get out of our own messes without help.”

She gave a loud sigh. “I know.”

They lay in silence for several minutes. She started to stroke his chest and belly again, and he couldn’t help but like the feel of it.

Finally, she said, “I should probably start figuring out what I’m going to do with my life now. I can’t stay here with you much longer.”

He tensed involuntarily, for just a moment. “Why not? I’ve told you that you can stay for as long as you need.”

“I’m not your mistress, you know.”

“Damn it, Kelly,” Caleb snapped, responding to a surge of resentment and—very strangely—defensiveness. “Of course you’re not my mistress. You’re staying here because you’re in danger, and we just happen to be having sex.” He wasn’t sure why he was reacting this way. It wasn’t like him at all.

It must have to do with how vulnerable he’d felt a few minutes ago.

“You’re supporting me, and I’m fucking you. You go to work, and I lie around here all day. It feels like being a mistress to me.”

“You are under no obligation to fuck me. I’m not going to kick you out if you’ve gotten bored with it. The sex is not the reason I’m letting you stay.”

It was part of the reason—he had to admit to himself. He found it unlikely that he would be this interested in her, this invested in her, if they hadn’t been having sex, if the sex hadn’t been some of the best he’d had in a long time. But he was bothered by the implications of her words.

She asked, “So why are you letting me stay? This situation is kind of crazy, you know. We were strangers two weeks ago, and all of a sudden I’m living with you and sleeping with you. It makes me feel—weird.”

Caleb had no idea she’d been feeling this way, and he didn’t like things that he didn’t know. “So, we won’t fuck anymore,” he said tensely.

Kelly groaned. “Would you stop it? I’m not saying I don’t want to fuck you anymore. You must know how—how much I enjoy it. But I don’t like to feel dependent, and that’s how I feel with you.”

He was silent for a long time, recognizing that he liked her being dependent on him. He liked that, right now, he was the only person in the world she was relying on. What that said about him, he didn’t really know.

“So what are you planning to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can understand why you might not want to live with me indefinitely—and honestly, I can’t keep staying here myself. It’s becoming inconvenient for me to keep commuting to the city every day for work. But surely you don’t expect me to just let you walk away, when you have no resources.”