I think I’m already hurt, I thought. I think I’m bleeding and I don’t even know it.

This was, without a doubt, the nicest thing any man had ever done for me. Ever. The champagne, the disgusting cheese. It was all so kind. It was the most trouble. The most care.

And I didn’t deserve it.

I was lying.

I was married.

I knew I should just leave. Hadn’t I gotten what I wanted? That something amazing I knew he’d be able to give me—I’d gotten it. He’d touched me. Kissed me the way that a woman should be kissed. With passion and care. Some of the ugliness of my life before was wiped away by the last few hours.

But to accept more…it was too greedy.

Wanting more only got me punished. Wanting more got me hurt. I had to carefully calibrate what I wanted to what I deserved.

A penny more, an inch more, and it would rain something awful down on my head.

I’d let myself have this terrible, terrible thing. And I should end it. Now. Before it got worse. Before I wanted even more. Before…before I ruined everything and told him.

“I have a question for you,” he said. He came over to my chair, and with one hand, he picked me up and set me down on the table and then he pushed in between my legs, bracing his hands on the table beside me.

He was crowding me and I wanted to push him away and pull him closer. All at the same time. I pulled in a deep breath and my breasts touched his chest. The robe had split over my legs and I could feel the denim of his jeans on the insides of my thighs.

He tilted my face up so my eyes met his.

“What are you scared of?” he asked.

DYLAN

Dylan knew fear. He knew how it smelled. What it tasted like—the bitter, coppery taste of blood and adrenaline in the back of the throat. And he knew what it looked like when someone was trying not to be scared.

After he turned sixteen he’d had four long years learning every inch, every side of fear.

“I’m not scared,” Annie whispered.

“And now you’re lying.”

She shook her head and he eased his grip up under her chin.

“Are you scared of me?”

She shook her head, that white-blond hair falling over her eyes. Dylan reached up and brushed it away, taking in all her softness. Her skin. Her hair. All of it. Her entire body communicated her fear. The white-knuckled grip on the champagne glass, the way her eyes wouldn’t stay locked on his. Her shoulders were up at her ears.

“Then who are you scared of?”

“No one,” she breathed. “I’m fine. Just…maybe nervous.”

Why the fuck was she lying? He’d kicked women out of his life for far less than lying to his face. If Dylan was thinking at all, he’d pack this girl up and send her on her way.

But he wasn’t thinking. And that always meant trouble.

“No one’s ever gone to all this trouble for me,” she said, putting her hand out toward that gross cheese Margaret insisted was the best and the olives.

“It’s not that much trouble,” Dylan muttered. Truthfully, he would break every rule he had, every promise he’d ever made, and go to all the trouble in the world for this girl and she had no idea. None.

He’d made a joke earlier about her living in a box before. And he knew he wasn’t wrong. She’d talked about her mom, and Dylan had the sense that she wasn’t the only one that had kept Annie small and pushed down.

“I don’t need champagne,” she said, setting down her glass. She was doing it again, that thing that made him nuts. Pushing past her fear to be brave, to reach out, however scared, for what she wanted. “I don’t need fancy cheese and all this…stuff.”

“It’s a seduction, Annie. It’s about want. Not need.”

“You’ve already seduced me,” she whispered. “All I want is you.”

She reached up and pulled the lapels of the robe off her shoulders, revealing herself to him. That creamy skin. The small, round, tight breasts with the pink nipples. She pulled open the belt and the rest of the robe fell away and she sat there surrounded in black satin, like a present just for Dylan.

And Jesus…she’d shaved.

That tender sweet spot between her legs was nearly bare.

“Oh baby, look at you…”

“Finish this,” she said. There were two terrible, trembling inches between them. She couldn’t hide how much she wanted him. But she also couldn’t hide how much she didn’t want to want him. “Just…let’s finish this.”

“You think if we fuck each other hard enough it will go away?” he asked her. He was already hard as steel behind his zipper. “We’ll get it out of our systems?”

“That has to work,” she said. “It has to.”

Dylan pushed back her hair, holding her face in his hard hands. He was worlds too rough. Worlds too wrong. But he was going to take what she was offering. “You really are innocent, aren’t you?”

She shook her head and he could feel her shaking in her skin. Her eyes were frantic on his.

“If we do this right, it’s only going to get worse.”

Dylan didn’t give her a chance to argue. He picked her up again, his hands under her armpits, and she wasn’t awkward this time. She put her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and he carried her down the hallway again, this time straight to his bedroom. Where it was dark and still.

No one had ever been here with him. Not ever. And when she left, he knew her ghost was going to haunt this bedroom. This whole damn house. And it pissed him off. It pissed him off that he wasn’t strong enough to stop it. That he had no shred of control left with this girl. She stripped it all away with her wide eyes and her clenched fists and all her secrets and lies.

“Lie back,” he growled into her ear, and when he let go, she fell back onto the bed, naked and beautiful against the dark, silky duvet.

Dylan stood over her, fully clothed, his dick so hard it hurt.

Who the fuck was this girl to do this to him?

No one, he wanted to say, wanting her to be nothing. Wanting her to not matter. She was just a lying bit of trash from a trailer park who happened to pick up a phone call.

But it wasn’t true.

She was fucking killing him.

“You got something you want to tell me, don’t you?” he asked.

She blinked up at Dylan and then tried to scoot away to the other side of the bed, but he grabbed her leg. Not hard. Just enough to hold her.

“No,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you. And you’ve got no right to be mad. You’re not telling me things either.”

Wasn’t that the truth? In a heartbeat he saw what a dead end this was and how fast they were rushing toward it. And because it was his nature to destroy, he put his foot on the gas and made sure when they hit that dead end they were really over. That there would be no pieces for them to pick up.

“Past this,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. “You can stay in my place in Charleston. I want you to. I want you to be safe. And you can call if you need help. Margaret will take care of you. Or one of my guys. But it won’t be me. We are never going to talk or see each other again. Ever again. Do you understand that?”

She nodded, her cheeks bright. Her eyes brighter.

“Do you still want me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said on a sobbing gust of air, sounding nearly hopeless against this thing between them. “I do.”

Dylan knew the feeling. But there was no point fighting it anymore. The new rules were set. Today and then over.