They fell onto the bed. He grabbed her hips as she reached for the headboard.

“You want me to feel you?”

“So much.”

He buried his face between her legs, inhaled deep, his lips fastening on her slick flesh as he gave a long, slow, suck. “Oh, yeah. I feel that.”

She let out a whimper that would have to pass for “I do too.”

He dragged his tongue around her clit, twirling over the hypersensitive nerve endings until she sank into a gyre that was nothing but his sucking, probing, and nibbling mouth.

“Let me see you watch what I’m doing,” he rasped. “Want to see your face as you get there.”

She glanced down, mouth drying as her heart accelerated. Her hips were inches off the bed as she greedily bucked against him for more. “I’m right there.”

“Yeah? I’ll bet you can go a little further.”

Even though she was teetering on the edge, toes curling and pulse racing, he plunged onward.

Her legs locked tight against his head but he didn’t seem to care about the pressure. Instead, he rolled back and forth between her thighs as if he’d never get close enough, like every lick, suck, and stroke was precious, to be savored. In the distance, an oven alarm went off. No way. He couldn’t have been down there a half hour. No one had ever been down there a half hour. How the heck did he do this? Not allow her release, but kept leading her forward, out along a tightrope of almost painful desire.

It hurt not to be coming. Her entire body was reduced to a single clench. Finally, he eased a finger inside, no easy feat when she was this tight, this wound up, this—

“Oh. Oh God.” He pressed up, mirroring the same action on the outside with the flat of his tongue. It ratcheted everything from merely “good” to “glorious and floating aloft on a cloud being serenaded by angels.”

She didn’t know it was possible to feel this much . . . everything. Still he took her deeper and deeper into her climax until her back bowed. She writhed, pinned against him. His hands braced her hips and he took her whole center in his mouth. She skyrocketed to sitting up, her brain waves going into a perfect flatline while every other body part trembled uncontrollably. White light pulsed in her peripheral vision and as it ebbed she floated like some sort of feather, wafting back to earth.

“Good?”

“Dear Lord, I’d give you a standing ovation if I could trust my knees to hold my weight.” She could barely find the energy to move her lips. All she could think of doing was curling up like a kitten in the dappled evening light filtering into the bedroom.

He kissed one thigh and then the other, planting one last sensitive kiss at her apex, before resting his head on her lower belly.

She breathed deep, trying to rejoin her mind and body.

The alarm kept ringing.

“Better go grab that cake,” he said at last.

“You do this and then feed me red velvet cake?”

“This is a date, right?”

“Best in history.”

His smile took her breath. “You look happier than when I knocked on your door.”

And she realized, impossible as it was given the morning’s strain, that she was able to smile back with her whole self. Even if for the next few weeks she lived under the weight of an invisible axe, for this one moment maybe it was okay to believe that everything would be okay.

Whatever this was between them, was more than a fling. It was more everything. And that meant she’d have to tell him what might be waiting ahead for her. She’d never in a million years ask anyone to be part of her ticking time bomb. If she was going to go off like a grenade, best to limit the collateral damage. But she wouldn’t run off again, sneak away like she did this morning. Time to hike up her big-girl panties and explain the grim situation.

She grabbed her yoga pants and hiked them over her hips. Then her shirt.

Wilder banged around in the kitchen. Not exactly a domestic sound. More like a bull in a china shop, but the idea that this big brutal man would make her something as simple and sweet as a cake melted the ice that she had around her heart. There was more to him than met the eye.

He came back in a few minutes, carrying a slice.

She took the plate and pressed a hand to her mouth. “You put sprinkles on it?”

“You seem the type to like a little sparkle.”

That was it. Holding the plate, staring at a cake with rainbow sprinkles, she bent over and began to sob.

Chapter Twelve

THE SIGHT OF Quinn’s tears cracked Wilder’s granite heart, sank roots into the barren waste. The growing pains caused an ache but a good one that felt like living. For so long he’d kept himself from feeling anything except for what came easy. Anger, mostly. Or dogged determination. He’d learned to stop fighting others when he started to fight fire instead, reminding himself of the real enemy. Since he’d stopped working he’d turned the fight against himself, beating himself up night after night. But now he finally had a productive direction in which to channel his urges.

He wanted to fight for the woman in front of him. The one wiping her eyes and taking great shallow, sobbing gulps of air.

“You going to tell me what’s going on here, Trouble?” he asked, lifting her chin.

Her eyes were haunted. “There isn’t an easy way to say this.”

“Take all the time you need.”

That set her off on a fresh bout of crying. “Why are you so good to me?”

He caressed her hair, wishing he could feel every nuance of the soft, silky-looking texture. “You make me want to be a better man.”

She took off her glasses, wiping the lenses with her sleeve. “Stupid things, they always fog up. But contacts make my eyes itch. My mother used to force me to wear them in high school. Always said, ‘Quinn, no man wants to look at a four-eyes.’ ”

“Are you shitting me?” His voice went quiet, anger scraping his stomach hollow.

“Let’s just say we aren’t taking our mother-daughter duo act to Vegas or anything. I used to pull straight A’s but all she cared about was how many guys asked to take me to prom. I haven’t even told her about anything that’s going on.”

“Take it easy, Trouble.” He kissed her warm brow, wondering what could have her so rattled. “You’re hyperventilating.”

She braced her hands on her knees and appeared to fight for a deep breath. “I’ve tried to handle everything, but it’s like I’m so jam-packed that leaks are springing everywhere. I hate it.”

“Go on and eat some of that cake. We can talk whatever it is out afterward.”

QUINN OFFERED A prayer of gratitude that he was willing to give her space. “Okay.”

“I’ll be right back.” He left, returning a few minutes later as she licked the frosting from her lips. Chocolate had a funny way of making bad or scary things seem better. Magical stuff indeed.

“What’s all this?” she asked, looking at his laden tray.

He passed her a mug of warm milk. “My mom used to heat me a cup of moo juice whenever I got upset.”

She cupped the ceramic mug between her hands, hoping the heat might loosen some of her body’s tension, and took a tentative sip. “That’s so sweet of you. Thank you.”

He held up a book. “The other night, I noticed how you read to your dad, thought maybe you’d like someone to read to you for once?”

She stared at the woman in the Regency dress on the cover, her brain trying to register the image. “Sense and Sensibility? You want to read me Jane Austen?”

He set down the tray on the nightstand and picked up the book with a trace of uncertainty. “It was on my list, and when I went into your shop today after going to Haute Coffee, the woman working there said that you like this author.”

“Jane is life. I love her.”

His chest heaved a little bit. “This is good then?” He sat down on the bed, grabbed the soft throw blanket on the end, and shook it over her lap.