He was there soon enough, at the base of her bra, tracing the outline to her underwire, teasing the satin.

She bucked a little, urging him on. She needed to be in this moment, jam-pack every second with life. Tomorrow she took the test and soon her world might spin off its axis. Everyone had a clock, but hers might be ticking faster.

She took his face between her hands and his jaw flexed against her palms. “You are being too careful. If we do this, I don’t want to think. I want to feel.” This was a night to forget fear, to live without regret, to let go, be in the moment.

He didn’t answer.

“Wilder. Please, I want it rough.” To heck with being coy or flirtatious. She desperately needed this man to take her.

He leaned close, his hands sliding to the top of her bra, over the soft swell of sensitive flesh. “And you think that’s what I am?” His whisper was a challenge, spreading a tantalizing heat through the shell of her ear, a heat that ignited another flame, lower and brighter between her legs.

“I want to find out.” She shifted her weight, the seam of her jeans pressing through the thin lace of her panties, not quite relief, but a subtle caress.

He reached her bra straps, holding her steady with an authoritative grasp. In the shadows he looked enormous. He sucked her lobe with just enough pressure to make her eyes roll back in her head.

“Then we do it my way.” His voice was strained. “Get on my bed. Now.”

One of her least favorite parts about her Hollywood job was being bossed around. Told what to do as if she were some sort of robot that lived only to serve at her master’s pleasure. It wasn’t her thing.

Apparently unless she wanted the order.

Unless she craved the order.

There was a scrape of wood on the floorboards. The cane. She had forgotten his injury. His leg. Even his scarred hands. All she knew was the core of the man awoke something in her, primal, wild as his name.

Tomorrow the world could burn. Tonight was theirs.

She slid free, feeling him release her with tangible regret. Walking to the bedroom, she climbed on the mattress, running her hand up a bedpost. Soon she’d run her hand up him and the idea of his shaft against her palm made her clamp her knees together—the anticipation almost too intense to bear.

He took his time approaching. When he was close enough, he set the cane against the wall and limped closer, covering her hand on the post for a moment before reaching out to grab her wrist. There was a sense he marked his territory, staked his claim before reaching down to shove open his jeans.

“Want you to kneel.”

Goose bumps broke out along the base of her spine. This was happening fast, but that’s what she wanted, right? What she asked for. Rough anonymous sex. Or mostly anonymous. Except for the fact she had just spent the night with his whole family. That she knew the intimate details of his bookshelf. That she’d slept in his bed last night and could still remember the scent on the pillowcase. Clouds must have moved because moonlight appeared—suddenly she could see a little more, she could see . . . him.

He froze as if sensing her hesitancy.

It was like her body split into two, one part urging, “Go on, hurry up and do it already,” while the other took a step backward, whispering, “Hang on, what if there is more going on here? More than sex, more than tonight?”

The two opposing parts broke into a furious wrestling match, clawing, gnawing, biting, and generally rattling her brain loose.

“Something changed,” he said gently.

She flinched. “I’m not sure if I’m a one-night-stand sort of person after all.” The “do it” part of her brain shook a fist, howling, “Good God, woman, we’d be getting pleasured by a hot-as-hell badass if it wasn’t for you and your meddling morals.”

She pressed her knees to her chest, setting her chin down at the place they met. “I’m sorry.” Her heart pounded in her ears. “I’m not sure what I want to do here.”

“No.” He fixed himself, zipping his pants with a wince. “I should be the one to apologize. It’s been . . . a while. Guess I got carried away.”

Her gaze jerked to his. “No, really, I pushed.”

“I started it.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “Are we having some sort of guilt-off competition?”

He grunted, not without a trace of humor. “It’s a specialty of mine.”

“Well, consider yourself up against a grand master,” she said with a rueful laugh. “I will meet your apology with a shirt-wrenching, teeth-gnashing plea for forgiveness.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who lives with a lot of regret.”

“Really, that’s your impression of me?”

He ran a hand up her arm in a light, gentle touch. “A bright spark. Beautiful. Happy. Confident.”

Maybe she picked the wrong job in Hollywood. “Smoke and mirrors.”

“Hrumph. Maybe I should borrow a little for myself.”

“Would you do something for me?” She inched closer.

“What’s that?”

She patted the side of the bed. “Come here. Be next to me. We don’t have to sleep together to sleep together. Maybe I’m not ready to go whole hog, but what about cuddling?”

“Cuddling?” His breath sounded labored.

“Don’t be so dismissive.”

“I’m not, it’s just that . . . no one has ever asked me to before. I don’t exactly have a reputation as the warm and cuddly type.”

“Or no one’s ever bothered to look close enough.”

He froze before sitting on the edge of the bed, the mattress creaking from his weight.

“There we go, that’s a start,” she said encouragingly.

“Now what?”

“Now we both lie back on your pillows, get under the blankets.”

“What about shoes?”

“Right. Shoes. Very practical. Glad one of us handles the details. See? This is what makes me a terrible Virgo.”

“You nervous?” He slowly undid the zipper to her ankle boot, easing it off, giving her toes a squeeze before proceeding to the next boot. Her stomach muscles clenched. This guy would give amazing foot rubs; she knew it.

“A little, but in a good way.”

He considered her. “You’re strange.”

“And you are terrible at giving compliments.”

He chuckled at that, tossing her boots on the floor and pulling back the blankets, tucking her in.

“Aren’t you getting in too?”

“For my sanity, I’d rather have this as a barrier.” He tugged on the thick comforter, “Otherwise, I’ll never fall asleep.”

“Am I that hard to resist?” She batted her lashes with a faux-seductive voice.

“Woman, you drive me crazy.” But he sounded happy or at least not angry, which was a change. And for not being a cuddler, he had an excellent way of putting his arm around the hollow of her waist and spooning her against him. Was the rumbling sound the blood still racing through her veins, or even his veins?

“What is that noise?” she asked.

“The falls. Castle Falls.”

“You live that close to them?”

He gave a single nod.

“Will you take me to see them?”

He smoothed back her hair. “How about tomorrow?”

The warmth of his suggestion cooled under a dose of reality. “Tomorrow I have to do something, but soon.”

“It’s a date.”

Something about the way he said the word made her thighs clench. “A date?” She turned and traced a small circle on the end of his nose. “I’d like that.”

“You would?” He pretended to bite her finger.

She cupped his cheek and kissed the tip of his nose. “Don’t sound so shocked that a person might like you, Wilder Kane.”

Chapter Nine

WILDER COULDN’T SLEEP. Quinn gave another cute little sigh but he couldn’t drift away with the prosthetic on. He needed to take it and the stump’s shrinker sock off. If she glimpsed his body, she would pity him. He’d faced enough—no point breaking the last spindly straw of his pride. As much as he hated leaving her, it was better if he crashed in the guest room. That way he could set his alarm early, be showered and dressed before she woke. Before she could see.