Jesus, he’d never wanted anything, anyone, as much as he wanted the woman in his arms, her ocean eyes so wide and loving.

Loving.

A sharp pang nicked him in the center of his chest, knocking loose a memory from his childhood. One of hundreds of afternoons he’d watched his friends’ parents come and pick them up from school while he walked alone to the bus. He’d loved his grandmother more than anyone in the world, but he’d wanted a mom and a dad so bad that sometimes he almost hated her.

Almost as if she’d taken their place, as though if she were gone then maybe they’d come back and he’d be whole.

And now, here he was, wanting a real wife just as bad as he’d wanted a real family back then. Fucking longing nearly tearing him apart again, nearly breaking him, the way it had tried to break him when he was a kid.

Didn’t she know he hadn’t gone looking for love? Or forever?

Anna was supposed to be temporary.

Not forever.

He wasn’t supposed to want her to stay forever.

Good thing he knew exactly what to do, exactly how to make it seem like he didn’t care.

“No, baby,” he forced himself to say, “they’re right. I’m not the wife and kids type.”

He waited for her to push out of his arms, to walk away, to cry. Instead, she simply blinked at him. “Why aren’t you?”

He was hit with another picture of himself as a kid, scrawny and smaller than the other boys in his class, a little kid who had to learn early how to protect himself.

Every day on the field, he practiced the defensive plays he’d learned as a kid. Protecting his back had helped get him where he was today.

He wasn’t going make the mistake of dropping his guard. Not for anyone.

Not even for Anna.

“Some people want those things. Some don’t.”

Her eyes darkened, a storm rising over the ocean. “Okay.” Her voice was measured. Too measured. “I’ve got another question for you.”

He tensed, waiting for her to push him, waiting for her to try and force him to admit what he was feeling for her. Women had done a lot of desperate things over the years to try and bind him to them. Fake pregnancies. Crying. Begging. None of it had worked even the slightest bit. In fact, he’d only ended up losing what little respect he’d had for them.

“Are you done showing me crazy?”

Jesus, what had she just said? Was she talking about sex when every other woman would have been trying to yank out his heart?

“You don’t want to go upstairs with me right now.” His cock twitched behind his zipper even as he warned her, the words hard, low, raw.

He couldn’t trust himself with her. Not when he wanted too damn much. Not when he wanted things a man like him had no right to want from a woman like her.

“Maybe you’re right. We shouldn’t go upstairs.”

Pain speared him at her quick agreement, until he realized she was glancing at the living room, then back at him.

“Right here worked pretty good yesterday.”

Fuck. No. She couldn’t be saying what it sounded like she was saying. But the look in her eyes, the new sensuality he’d so enjoyed putting there, was definitely front and center now.

“Anna.”

He could only warn her one more time before she pushed him too far. Especially when just being with her, just breathing her in and listening to her sweet words had already pushed him to the edge.

She stared right back at him. “Cole.”

He heard a growl rip from his throat, and then his hands were on her, turning her, bending her over the dining table, pushing her skirt up to her waist. He knew his hand was coming down over her ass, but couldn’t stop any of it.

The sound of his open palm again her panty-covered ass shot into the silent room.

But then another sound came. Anna’s whimper.

Not of pain. But of desire.

He’d promised her crazy, but constantly ripping her panties off wasn’t really what he’d meant. He’d planned to slowly introduce her to pleasure, had thought he’d tease her until she was begging for his lovemaking. Instead, he yanked her panties down to her knees and couldn’t stop staring at the imprint of his hand on her flesh.

And as he lifted his hand and brought it down on her sweet, soft flesh again and again, he knew he wasn’t just playing a sensual game, wasn’t just trying to drive her higher as arousal dripped from her pretty pussy lips down the inside of her thighs with every connection of skin on skin.

He was spanking her for making him feel too damn much.

He was punishing her for making him fall in love with her.

He was about to actually hurt her because he was desperate to prove to her that she was wrong.

Furious with himself—with her—with the whole damn world, he yanked open his pants and positioned the throbbing head of his cock at her entrance. Instead of trying to get away from him, she squirmed against him, trying to take him inside her body.

No! The voice yelled at him not from his head, but from his heart. He couldn’t do it.

* * *

Anna’s body craved Cole’s touch, any kind of touch at all. Hard or soft. Out of control or sweetly tempting. No question, there was something so wonderfully depraved about what he was doing to her.

And yet, even as she responded to him, even as her body begged him for more, for faster taps on her backside, even as she felt herself grow wetter, more open for him, she couldn’t hide from the fact that nothing about this was right.

Not when pain was everywhere in the room. Not when pain was taking her over, top to bottom.

She didn’t really feel the pain of his hand on her bottom. He wasn’t hurting her at all with his little smacks. He simply didn’t have it in him to hurt her. Physically, at least.

No, the pain she felt was all Cole. It was seeping from his cells, his veins, from his heart to hers.

On the verge of taking her, he’d sudden gone completely still, his fingertips digging into her hips so hard she knew she’d have ten finger-sized round bruises on her skin in the morning.

He moved away so abruptly she would have fallen if not for the table holding her up. She blinked back tears as she slowly pushed herself up so that she was standing, using the time to pull her underwear back up and smooth down her skirt to catch her breath. Finally, when she felt strong enough, she turned and faced her husband.

He’d righted his clothes too and now he was standing halfway across the room— away from her—his hands in fists, his eyes so dark and so bleak she had to choke back a sob.

“Tell me what you see now. Tell me if they’re all blind now, Anna.”

She knew what he was doing, that he was trying to force a monster into the room. But there wasn’t one.

“I see a man who knows exactly how to touch me.”

His jaw tightened, his biceps flexing as he clearly worked to control himself. “Fuck no, Anna, I was hurting you.”

“We both know you weren’t,” she countered in a soft voice as she took a small step toward him. “We both know I was loving, craving your touch. The way I always do. The way I always will. The way I’m craving it right now.”

She knew she had to be careful, that the big strong man who hadn’t run from anything in his life was a heartbeat away from bolting. But she was so sick of being careful. She'd spent a lifetime being careful.

She’d taken her first risk on Friday night when she’d let Cole kiss her, and then one after the other since in his arms. Every minute with him the risks grew bigger.

But so did her courage.

“Do you want to know what else I’m seeing, Cole?”

Instead of answering her, he said, “Don’t do this, baby. Don’t try to convince yourself that I’m someone I’m not.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like I don’t know my own eyes. My own mind. My own heart.”