“Is everything okay, Miss Kia?” David asked her, obviously bristling at the sight of Chase.

“It’s fine, David. You can leave now and return to my parents.”

He gave Chase a warning glare, which only succeeded in the slight tug of amusement at Chase’s lips.

David moved back to the vehicle and closed himself in as Kia moved slowly to where Chase waited.

She could feel the stroke of his gaze on her, and felt heated, warmed, even as the cold air swirled around them.

“Are you alone?” she whispered. He moved, his arm coming around her back, pulling her against the heat of his body.

“Just us.” He lowered his head, his lips almost touching hers. “Come out with me. We’ll see the lights.”

Kia felt hope, warmth, life. She stared back at him and let a smile curl her lips as her fingers clenched on his biceps.

“I would love to see the lights with you, Chase.”

He stole a kiss. She was certain he meant for it to be only a quick one, but he lingered, stroked her lips with his and she felt her heart race as he pulled back reluctantly.

“Come on.” He led her to the passenger side door, opened it, and helped her into his sporty BMW.

She watched as he moved around the car and got in beside her before moving into the traffic and the snow that was coming down heavier.

Aerosmith was playing from the CD, but it wasn’t loud. The blend of music, the swish of the wipers, and the warmth of Chase beside her lulled her into a vortex of spiraling desire and comforting warmth.

“Are you too warm?” he asked her as she unclasped her cloak and pushed it back on her shoulders.

It was warm, but she didn’t think it was the heat spilling from the vents that created the heat.

“I’m fine.” She shook her head. “Why are you here tonight?”

His fingers tapped against the steering wheel as he negotiated the traffic.

“I’ve missed you,” he finally stated.

Kia stared at him suspiciously. “I see.”

“Do you?” His tone was classic male mockery. “I’m glad one of us sees what the hell is going on here.”

“What is going on?”

“I’m dying for you,” he said. “It doesn’t just go away, Kia. It never has.”

She looked down at her hands, smoothing her thumb over the nail of her index finger rather than letting him see the hope rising inside her.

“No, it doesn’t go away,” she finally murmured. “You know, I was completely fascinated with you before I married Drew.”

He lifted his head to stare back at her in shock.

“It was one of the reasons I was so furious to learn that even though he was bastard enough to try to sneak another into our bed, I was hurt when I learned you had turned him down.”

He grimaced. “Being your third wouldn’t have been enough,” he finally growled. “I knew it then. I’ve always known it.”

“But it’s enough now?” she asked him.

“I’m not the third in this, Kia, and Khalid knows it. I was your main lover. He took his cues from me, not the other way around.”

“Ah, so there are rules even to that?” she asked, almost shaking her head at the thought.

“Rules make things simpler,” he said, his voice a bit distant now. “It keeps emotions from running the show.”

Kia nodded at that. “Yes, things do get rather messy when emotions get involved.”

She could testify to that one.

Silently as they moved through town, the lights decorating the buildings and homes twinkled and flashed in merry chaos.

“I didn’t want this to hurt you, Kia,” he said as they moved toward Squire Point. “I didn’t want it to hurt either of us.”

“It can’t go on the way it was, Chase.”

And perhaps that was what he didn’t want to hear. Chase drove on through the snow, the music soft in the background as Kia rode quietly beside him.

“Your father saw me leave the ball,” he told her. “He didn’t seem happy with me.”

He saw her amused grimace. “Daddy is under the impression we have a relationship. The 'just friends’ line I gave him didn’t go over so well.”

Chase winced. That definitely explained things.

“He’s a good man,” he said. “And a bad enemy. He reminds me some of what I remember my father as being. Dependable, but he had his own rules, and that was how his world ran.”

“That’s Dad.” She turned and watched him curiously. “Your parents are gone, aren’t they?”

He nodded. “Since we were thirteen.” And hell had begun that year.

“Did you have family?”

“If you could call her family.” He grimaced. “Aunt Davinda. My mother’s sister. A demon from hell if one was ever born.”

He could feel the dark bitterness rising inside him, the knowledge that it had been his brother, Cameron, who she had nearly destroyed, and how she had done it. Accepting that in the past six months hadn’t been easy. And in a way, perhaps Kia was paying for that, as well as another woman’s insanity.

Moriah Brockheim. Cameron had nearly been killed by her. Chase had killed her—and ripped a part of his soul to pieces. Even now, he could see the neat little hole that bloomed in her forehead and the innocent confusion that filled her eyes at the instant of death.

His hands clenched on the steering wheel as bitterness rose higher. He hadn’t wanted to believe Moriah had inside her anything that could harm another person. He had cared for her. Not as he cared for Kia, had always cared for Kia. But she had been important to him. And the emotion had clouded his judgment.

And if he made the same mistake with Kia? If he let himself care, let emotion cloud his vision and risked the destruction of his life again?

“Is your aunt the reason you don’t let yourself get involved with your lovers, Chase?” Kia asked then.

He shook his head. “No.”

There were too many reasons, there were too many variables, and none of them were Kia’s fault. Yet she was paying for them, because he was fighting an attraction to her that he couldn’t seem to escape.

“Then why?”

She asked the one question he was hoping she wouldn’t ask.

Chase frowned. Why? he wondered. Because Davinda had first taught him not to trust, and the years that followed had only reinforced it?

That wasn’t a good enough reason. He couldn’t explain the reasons why; he only knew the events that created him. And that was sad. Hell, she deserved better. He knew she deserved better, and still, he couldn’t let her go.

“Some men just don’t have the sense God gave a mule,” he finally stated, remembering something his father used to say. “We could give those mules lessons in stubbornness, you know?”

He flashed her a grin, picked up her hand, and played with her slender, delicate fingers. Even as he shifted the gears of the car, he held her hand beneath his, keeping that contact, that warmth, as they drove into Squire Point and he turned to take the narrow road that led to the back of Ian’s property.

“Where are we going?” she asked softly.

“Ian’s building a house out here,” he told her. “He’ll be turning the mansion over to the club once it’s completed.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “It’s quiet. Sheltered. I thought we could watch the snowfall.”

He pulled into the driveway that led to the half-finished mansion, driving along the blacktop and taking the turn that led to the area where a guest house would be built.

There were no lights here, just the snow falling, the silence of the trees sheltering. He turned the car and brought it to a stop, leaving the engine idling as he pulled the emergency brake and cut the lights.

The snow was falling slow and easy. Flat fluffy flakes that dissolved on the geothermally heated driveway while piling up around them.

He turned his head as Kia opened her door and stepped out.

The cloak flowed around her shoulders as she moved from the vehicle. He watched her. She lifted her head, a smile lifting her lips as the snow caressed her face. The snow swirled around her, melting against her upturned face.