The woman he wanted.

The only woman for him.

The soles of his shoes echoed on the steps as he walked up the three flights to her home, staring left then looking right, inhaling everything. For so long, he’d searched for her. He’d tried to picture her, to imagine her life, her home, and her place in the world.

Right here. He was in it now. Mere feet away from where Shannon Paige-Prince had lived for the last few years. Only a handful of miles away from his home. So damn close, and so incredibly far away. He turned the corner on the next landing, and lifted his foot on the step, then he froze.

He didn’t move. He was stuck in a sliver of stalled time.

Michael walked down the stairs. His eyes were razors. His jaw twitched. The sound of the other man’s shoes clanged loudly in Brent’s ears, snapping him back to attention.

He unfroze.

“Hey, Michael,” he said, doing his very best to keep it casual, keep it chill. “Good to see you again.”

Brent hadn’t spoken to the guy since Michael had helped him get the ring. He hadn’t seen Michael since Christmas that same year, when he’d met him, along with Ryan, Colin, and Shannon’s grandparents. Brent and Shannon had flown back to Vegas together for the holiday break. He’d met her family and she’d met his. A few months later, he’d proposed. Her brothers had all liked him.

Didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know the opposite was true now.

Michael’s dark eyes raged as he stared at Brent. He raised his left hand, clapped it on Brent’s arm. But it wasn’t a friendly pat. It didn’t speak of years missed. It didn’t say good to see you too, man. His hand sent another message. Do not fuck with my family.

Michael spoke, low, but powerful. Like a hiss. “My sister is one of the most important people in the world to me. I swear,” he said, letting his voice trail off like the smoke from a fired gun. Brent parted his lips to say something, anything, but Michael left him no room. This was not a conversation. It was a speech. “If it were up to me, you’d never get close enough to hurt her again. You have no idea what you did to her. You fucking broke her heart—”

He held up a hand. “I know, man. And I am sorry. And I have told her that—”

Michael didn’t even acknowledge the words. “And if you do it again, you will know a new kind of hell.” Michael’s hand moved to Brent’s collar. He smoothed it out. Brent’s collar didn’t need smoothing. “I will not hurt you with fists, because I am not that kind of a man, but I will make sure you are fucked in this town. Is that clear?”

Brent shrugged off Michael’s hand. As much as he understood where Michael was coming from, he wasn’t going to let himself be manhandled.

He raised his chin. “Message is loud and clear, Michael. But I want you to know I’m not the same guy I was ten years ago, and I will do whatever I have to do to prove that to your sister,” he said, then paused, because as much as he didn’t intend to get pushed around, he also knew he had to show some respect to a man who looked out for his own. “And to you.”

Michael didn’t answer. He simply stared at him and breathed out hard. He lifted his chin slightly, a nearly imperceptible nod.

“You better,” Michael said, then resumed his pace, walking down the stairs, the confrontation over. Each man had said his piece.

Brent cleared the moment from his head and made his way to Shannon’s door, knocking twice. When she answered, there was no real estate in his brain for anything but her. He forgot about everything else in the world—schedules, plans, flights? Gone.

“Wow.”

He’d never been short of words. Never.

But as he repeated himself, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to speak again. She knocked the breath from his lungs and stole the words from his tongue. “Wow.”

Her eyes sparkled, and she jutted out her hip. The dress she wore had been painted on. The color of champagne, and with some kind of shimmer to the fabric, it hugged her hips, her thighs, her flat belly, and her beautiful breasts. He wished he had been there to watch her slip it on and zip it up. More than that, he hoped he’d be taking it off tonight. Feeling everything underneath. Tasting every inch of her skin. Watching her arch beneath him.

“You like?”

He shook his head. “I love.”

He loved everything about her. The dress that was caressing her body. The bare legs boldly on display. The red leather shoes that he’d bought for her.

Most of all, what she’d said about those shoes the other day. And is this your way of trying to fuck me again?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Right now.

Skip the show. Spin her around. Fuck her against the wall.

Wait. No. Spread her on the table. Get those legs of hers where he wanted—up on his shoulders.

She stepped closer to him, ran her hands down the front of his dark blue button-down shirt. Her touch was electric. It torched his blood. It was a bolt of lust slammed through his body. She trailed her fingernails down the buttons on his shirt, and he was sure she was reading his mind, seeing straight through him.

“You look so handsome tonight,” she said, and there was softness in her voice, an affection that surprised him, maybe because his mind was so damn focused on the rest of her. On having her body.

But this side, this sweet side…it worked its way through him like a good drug. He wanted this side of her, too. All of her.

“Thank you,” he said, once again robbed of quips and wit.

She raised a hand and cupped his cheek. “So damn handsome,” she repeated, and that tenderness turned him speechless. There was vulnerability in her voice tonight and he wanted to handle her with care. To shove all this lust and desire aside and give her whatever she wanted, whatever she needed.

He threaded his hands up the back of her hair, letting the soft strands spill all over his fingers. She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly. Oh hell, he stood no chance. He didn’t want to stand a chance of fighting anything he was feeling for her.

Because he felt everything.

He whispered her name.

She whispered something better. “Kiss me.”

He ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. She murmured and melted into his arms. She fit him so perfectly, sliding against him, their bodies like magnets, seeking their opposite, finding their way home.

He kissed her, soft and tender, and he could have gone on all night. Could have kissed her forever. But he wanted to take her to the theater, too. To prove he’d changed. That he could put her first. Ahead of himself.

When he pulled away, he spotted a picture on her kitchen counter, a close-up of sunflowers, lit from the sun with a bright, golden glow around the petals.

He tipped his chin to the image. “Did you take that?”

“I did,” she answered without looking at him, as she gathered her purse from the table.

“Didn’t know you were into photography.”

“I’m not,” she said.

In the corner of the photo, he could barely make out the edge of a stone. He was about to ask where she’d taken the picture, but when he turned around she was on the other side of the door, ready and eager to go.

He clasped her hand and walked her down the stairs, leaving her home far behind them.

* * *

It worked. It always worked with Brent. His touch erased the bad. His mere presence made her start to feel good again. To feel happy. To feel hope. She loved who she could be with him. And she wanted to be that woman tonight. Not the woman who’d lost so many pieces of her family, young and old, leaving her with just memories in frames.

Memories she’d have to share soon enough.

For now though, for this second in time, as she slid into the town car with him, she was the woman she wanted to be.

There would be time to say all those things.