This was where Kia slept, she had said. Did she stare into the darkness and feel the pain it held? Did the warmth of the fire ease her ache for Chase as he held so stubbornly onto his heart?

Chase, it seemed, refused to acknowledge what even his friends knew. Kia Rutherford would not be easy to walk away from. He might wish she was. Khalid had no doubt Chase would try, but he would never let her go.

Khalid shook his head at that as he let himself out of her apartment and pulled his cell phone from his jacket.

“Abdul, I am ready to leave,” he stated as the chauffeur answered.

“Yes, sir, but I should inform you, I have company.”

Khalid’s brows lifted. “What company could you have, Abdul?”

Abdul sighed heavily. “It is her, sir.”

Khalid paused at the elevator, then stared back at the apartment as he smothered an oath. He didn’t have time for her.

“And she is with you why?”

“Because she brought with her a Thermos of excellent dark coffee and some rather fresh donuts.” Abdul cleared his throat. “But her ride left.”

“Then she can get a cab,” Khalid snarled.

Abdul cleared his throat again. “It’s very cold, Mr. Khalid. Her hotel is not far from here.”

Khalid stepped into the elevator, grinding his teeth.

“Does she not have a coat?”

“No, sir.” Abdul did the throat-clearing thing again. “Well, yes, sir, but it is very thin.”

He felt his nostrils flaring. “And I should care about this why?” he snapped.

“Mr. Khalid,” Abdul’s voice was shocked. “It is very cold tonight.”

“He’s being a bear again, isn’t he?” Martha’s voice sounded through the phone. Too damned cheerful and too fucking perky. “Tell him to get over it.”

“Get over it?” he snarled.

“Now, Mr. Khalid, her hotel, it is just down the street.”

“Go,” he said harshly. “Get her out of my limo, immediately. Take her to her hotel, give her her coffee and her donuts, and get your ass back here. Are we clear?”

“I drank the coffee and donuts,” Abdul said mournfully.

Khalid was forced to massage his temples as he heard Martha making compassionate sounds in the background.

“Abdul, ten minutes,” he said furiously. “You had best be back in front of this building within ten minutes, without her. Are we clear?”

“I am going now, Mr. Khalid,” Abdul promised nervously. “Ten minutes. Should I, umm, replace her coffee and donuts?”

Khalid swore he would have to make his first trip to the dentist ever if he didn’t stop grinding his teeth.

“Let her get her own,” he growled slowly, just to make certain Abdul understood. “Ten minutes, Abdul.”

Abdul cleared his throat. “Ten minutes, Mr. Khalid.”

And in the background, Martha, damn her hide, laughed.

Chase awakened as Khalid left the apartment. His eyes opened and he stared around the bedroom, feeling strangely content. And content wasn’t a feeling he should be experiencing in Kia’s bed. His arms wrapped around her. His legs encasing hers. Her head against his heart, her breathing deep and even, as though she belonged there.

He had to force himself not to jerk away from her, to jump away as though in fear. He didn’t fear anything. He hadn’t feared anything since he had stared down the woman whose finger was tightening on the trigger of a gun aimed at his brother, Cameron.

He forced the memory, the thought, back and closed his eyes, allowing himself to hold Kia just a few moments longer.

During the years when he had been his brother’s third in his relationships, sleeping with a woman hadn’t bothered him. It had been his responsibility to make certain more than their sexual needs were fulfilled.

Hell, now he knew why Cam had fought sleeping with Jaci, or in taking her without a third. Because there was this intimacy. He could feel it, working its way inside him, filling him with something so damned unfamiliar he couldn’t make sense of it.

The feeling that if he didn’t get the hell out of that bed now, then he might never make it out of her bed, and then he would never keep her out of his heart.

Like Khalid said, women were gentle creatures with fierce desires. And one of those desires was the need to be touched and held outside sex. It had never bothered Chase to be the one to supply that, until now. Now it frankly scared the shit out of him. Because the longer he held her, the more he felt her.

He turned and stared down at her in the darkness. Thick blond lashes lay against her cheeks; her lips were relaxed in sleep, though they were still swollen from his kisses, from the thrusts of his cock.

He swallowed, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone in the lightest caress.

Sometimes, he knew she saw into his soul. It was an uncomfortable feeling for a man who had learned to hide who and what he was. She knew parts of him that he knew other women could never guess. And though she hadn’t vocalized it, hell, he had given her a chance to, he wondered if perhaps she didn’t know more than he did about himself.

It was going to have to stop.

He touched her hair, let the soft strands caress his fingers, and felt his jaw clench at the thought of dragging himself from her warm bed and facing the cold outside. And he knew he had no choice.

This wasn’t a relationship, he reminded himself. It was just for the pleasure alone. Confidences weren’t exchanged; late-night pillow talk and waking to the same pillow the next morning weren’t condoned.

If he did that, he was admitting it was more, and admitting it was more held the power to weaken him. Chase had stared into the dark void of weakness six months before when he had to kill a woman he was more fond of than most, a woman who had somehow lost her grip on reality and attempted to kill his brother and his brother’s fiancée.

A woman Chase had desired. One he had thought was a friend. His judgment had been flawed to the extent that he had overlooked all the signs as he ran the investigation into Jaci’s and the Robertses’ pasts in an attempt to figure out why the Robertses had tried to destroy her.

And now, here he was, six months later, caught in the grip of some strange, unknown hunger for a woman who threatened to twine around his heart in ways Moriah Brockheim hadn’t had the chance to.

If he didn’t get away from her, then he was going to end up trying to keep her. And keeping her wasn’t possible. Keeping any woman wasn’t possible at this point. Because Chase had never been good at letting anyone get close to him. It was too much of a risk; the danger in it was too great.

He’d lost his parents at thirteen and lost his twin for nearly twenty years. He had allowed Cameron to be nearly destroyed when he was a child, and for years he had fought to survive without the bond he had grown up with.

He’d learned how to be alone. It was all he knew. He’d never wanted, never ached for anything more, but Kia made him wonder what more would be like. That curiosity was brewing inside him, and it was dangerous.

He didn’t want to hurt her. Breaking her heart, after what Drew did to her, was something he flinched at the thought of doing.

This wasn’t for the emotion, and he had to remind himself of that. It was never for the emotion.

He forced himself to untangle himself from her slowly, tucking the blankets around her as she moaned, a whispered “no” leaving her parted lips as he rolled to the edge of the bed and straightened up.

His fingers plowed through his hair as he fought to keep from turning back to her. Shaking his head, he pushed himself to his feet and stared back at her. There, in that ocean of a bed, she looked like a little doll, lost and alone.

Son of a bitch. No wonder she slept on that fucking couch. This bed was meant to be shared with a lover. Large and romantic, but it swallowed her small body. The couch, with its firm cushions against her back, would at least give her a measure of illusion. Maybe she could pretend there was someone to hold her through the night.