“Hope…”

His voice was so soft I wasn’t sure I heard him, and I looked up. He touched my chin, fingers gliding up my jaw, so light that when I closed my eyes, I couldn’t feel it. When I looked, his eyes were right there, inches from mine. He tilted my chin up-

The elevator dinged. As the doors opened, we both looked over. In unison, our gazes shunted to the button panel.

“That ‘stop’ button looks pretty good,” I said.

He made a noise in his throat that sounded like agreement. “Unfortunately, if it stops for more than a couple of minutes, we’ll be rescued by the building super.”

“Had some experience with that, have you?”

He gave me a look. “On a job.”

“That’s what I meant. Seducing the marks in an elevator. How déclassé.”

A growl and he grabbed for me, but I quickstepped out of his reach and darted through the doors. He swung in front, caught me and slammed me against the door opening. His mouth crushed against mine, knocking the breath from me. The door bounced against my back, but he only pushed me into it, hands going to my rear, fingers digging in as he boosted me up, pushing between my legs until I straddled his hips.

I wrapped my hands in his hair, legs clasped around him, pulling him closer as he pressed into me, fierce and insistent. My brain whirled, a high made all the richer because there wasn’t a chaos vibe to be found. It was all him. The smell of him, the taste of him, the-

The alarm buzzed right behind my head. The elevator, warning us that its door was blocked.

Karl snarled at it, and I laughed, and he turned the sound into a harrumph, with a glare that said I hadn’t heard what I thought I heard. His lips went back to mine, punishingly hard, and my brain reeled, body arching into his, the ache so sharp that he could have taken me there and I wouldn’t have noticed where we were. Noticed or cared.

He pulled back, my lip caught between his teeth. I shuddered and squirmed against him, and he let out a low growl, then swung me around, in two steps pressing me into the opposite wall, next to my apartment door. He thrust me against it, hard enough that he could let go with one hand and tug the keys from my pocket. Once the door was open, he tried to swing me through, but stumbled, and we crashed to the floor.

When I laughed, he gave me another “pretend you didn’t notice that” glower. I closed my eyes, braced for another bruising kiss, but his lips brushed mine, feather light. I shivered. When I opened my eyes, he was right over me, and in his face was everything I’d seen that Valentine’s night and later convinced myself I hadn’t.

I inhaled sharply and the shock hit me, like a whiff of smelling salts. That morning after flashed back. All the pain, the humiliation. My hands shot between us and I tried to scramble back, but his grip tightened. He leaned down to my ear.

“I won’t hurt you again, Hope.”

He kept his lips at my ear, his breathing shallow, caressing my jaw as he pushed back a lock of hair.

“Never again,” he whispered. “I promise.”

My heart skittered. This was what I wanted to hear. What I’d dreamed of hearing. That it had all been a big misunderstanding.

But it hadn’t been. He’d said so himself. There was no other way to interpret what he’d said.

His lips moved to my neck, gliding along my pulse, registering my reaction. He moved to my throat, light kisses that sent my pulse racing, but I stayed stiff in his arms.

He rose, face coming to mine. “I didn’t walk away from you that morning, Hope. I ran. Turned tail and ran. My problem. But it won’t happen again.” His hand moved to the side of my face, fingers brushing my cheek. “I came back, and I’m staying.”

His mouth came down to mine. The kiss started slow, almost tentative, as if testing his welcome. When my hands went to the back of his head, it was like a watershed breaking. He grabbed me, and rolled us over, moving on top of me, his weight crushing in the most delicious way.

When I gasped, he thrust against me, all smoothness gone as he fumbled with the front of my jeans. He cursed, as if undoing a simple button was beyond him, as lust-clumsy as any teenage boy, and I was thrown back to that night in the pool, that first kiss igniting, Karl pulling back, struggling to be suave, to be gentle, to be a perfect lover, only to be swept up again and finally giving up, slamming me against the side of the pool. Brutally passionate and unforgettable.

And how many nights since then had I spent trying to forget it?

How many nights would I spend trying to forget this one?

When I broke the kiss, he hung there for a moment, panting. Then he looked down at me and blinked, and I knew he saw the truth, that I didn’t trust him. His lips curved in an oath.

He cupped my face, lowering his until he was so close I could see only his eyes. “It won’t happen again, Hope. It was my problem.”

“And that problem was…?”

“Later. I’ll explain it all later.” He brushed his lips against mine. “I need you. Now. Please.”

I shivered, eyelids fluttering. God, how many times had I dreamed of hearing that? I could look into his eyes, and see it. He wanted me. Desperately. And I had to talk about it first? Was I crazy?

I squeezed my eyes shut. If I said yes, I’d never get that explanation. Right now, he might honestly intend to give it, but come morning, he’d brush me off with a, “Don’t worry, it wasn’t about you.” That would be that.

Every morning after, if I went to sleep beside him, I’d worry he wouldn’t be there when I woke, because I didn’t know what drove him away the first time.

I opened my eyes. “I need to know now.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Not now?”

A tightness in his voice turned the words into a query-or maybe a plea-and I sputtered a laugh.

He growled. “You have no respect for a mood, do you?”

I eyed him. Considered my options. Realized there was only one way I was getting my answers, as much as I hated to use it.

I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him down in a kiss. His hands went to my shirt, and he had it out of my jeans and over my head so quickly, I barely realized we’d broken the kiss. A snap of the front clasp on my bra, then his thumbs tickled over my breasts as he pushed it aside.

His shirt started to follow, but I caught his hands and whispered, “Let me. Please.” I took hold of the hem, met his gaze and said, “Right after you tell me why you left.”

He let out an oath on a blast of chaos so sharp I arched my head back and shuddered.

“Like that, do you?” he said.

I grinned. “You know I do.”

“Damn you.”

“Mmm.” I nibbled the side of his neck. “Tell me more…like what you meant that morning.”

A growl and another string of obscenities.

I writhed under him. “Not bad. But it needs a little more venom. Say it like you mean it.”

“I wish I could. You have no idea, sometimes, how much I wish I could.”

He grabbed me in a kiss so hard, so rich with frustration, that had he reached for my jeans again, I wouldn’t have stopped him. Instead, he broke it off and sighed.

“You’re right,” he said.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Damn you.”

A moment’s silence. Then he rolled off me and propped his head up on his arm. I twisted onto my side to face him.

“This is going to take a while.”

“I’ve got all night.”

A noise, half sigh, half growl. “All right then. When I went to Europe, I planned to take you with me. I’d make it sound like a whim. A lark. Light and casual. Then morning came, and I realized you’d know it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision, and if I was telling myself it was light or casual…”

He shook his head. “I wanted to forget about it, but I couldn’t. So I told myself I’d mention the job, see your reaction when I said I was leaving.”

“See how crushed I was?”