Lyrica came quickly to her feet, too afraid even to breathe as she felt Natches put his arm around her shoulder and her mother move beside her.

“Kyleene.” The surgeon nodded to Kye as she came to her feet as well, Sam Bryce standing beside her as Graham’s sister fought to stem her tears.

“He’s out of surgery and everything looks promising,” he announced. “It was touch-and-go a time or two, but he’s strong, and he wants to live . . .”

Kye turned to Lyrica, her smile brimming with hope as her tear-drenched eyes overflowed once again.

“I told you,” Kye whispered as she covered the short distance to give Lyrica a quick, hard hug. “I told you. He won’t leave us. He’ll not leave us.”

He was alive, that was all that mattered, Lyrica promised herself as she returned Kye’s hug and they stood together, listening to the surgeon as he described the injuries and Graham’s recovery.

He was alive. She could live with it if he wasn’t smart enough to love her. She could live with it if he loved another.

All that mattered was that he was alive.

TWENTY-FOUR

Four weeks later

The hard knock at the door of the inn’s suite Lyrica had moved into surprised her.

It was close to midnight, and the rain-drenched Kentucky night was filled with steamy heat and a loneliness unlike anything Lyrica had ever known.

She’d gotten used to sleeping with Graham. She missed him, even now, a month later. She would awaken in the deepest part of the night reaching for him, realize he wasn’t there, and lie until dawn, staring into the darkness.

Rising from the bed, she padded to the patio doors, pulled the curtain aside, and froze.

It couldn’t be.

Fumbling, her fingers suddenly refusing to cooperate properly, she fought to unlock the door and pull it open.

“I’m going to spank your pretty little ass,” Graham growled as he stalked into the bedroom, glaring at her, his expression filled with male irritation as he moved to the bed and sat down.

“What did I do this time?” Her hands went to her hips as she stared back at him, her gaze raking over him closely to make certain he was okay. “Aren’t you supposed to be home resting? Kye said the doctor ordered no exertion. You’re to stay in bed and rest until you’re healed.”

“Dammit, it’s been a month. How much fucking healing do you think I need?” Irritation flashed in his eyes.

“However much the doctor prescribed,” she snapped back, but once again, there was no heat.

“Undress.”

The order had her blinking back at him in amazement.

“What did you say?” She couldn’t have heard him correctly. Could she have?

He was unbuttoning his shirt, watching her broodingly until he shrugged it from his still-powerful shoulders while toeing off the leather sneakers he wore.

“I said, undress,” he growled.

“And I should do that, why?” Joy erupted inside her like a sun exploding from the fiery heat it contained.

Oh god, she’d missed him so desperately.

“So I can fuck you until you’re too damned exhausted to ever run from me again,” he snarled, hunger, need, and so many other emotions she’d prayed to see in his eyes during the weeks she’d been confined at his home filling his eyes. “Until some of that damned Mackay stubbornness you obviously possess is tamed just a fraction.”

“Won’t happen.” She was unbelting her robe, though, letting it slip from her shoulders before moving slowly to him.

Rising from the bed, he tore at the clasp of the khakis he wore, shedding them before she could reach him, his fingers curling around the stiff length of his cock.

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But let’s say I keep trying anyway.”

“Let’s say you do.”

He reached out, pulled her to him, his lips covering hers as a needy, hungry moan left her lips. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her lips parting beneath his, taking his kiss and the power of his need and returning it. His hands moved over her back, her sides. Gripping the material of her gown, he released her lips only long enough to relieve her of it, then he was sipping from them again, hunger and heat building with rapacious intensity between them once again.

Turning, Graham had her on the bed in seconds, her legs spread as he moved between them, his lips pulling from hers as he guided the throbbing crest of his erection between her thighs.

Nudging at the entrance of her vagina, her slick heat flowing, coating the mushroomed head, he glared down at her.

“Run from me again and I’ll paddle your ass.”

She grinned back at him. “Are you trying to deter or convince me?”

His hips shifted. His cock impaled her until the heated width of the crest was lodged inside the snug, rippling tissue, causing devastating pleasure.

Lyrica cried out, pleasure so sharp it was almost pain tearing through her senses as she lifted to him.

“More,” she cried out, her fingers fisting in the blankets beneath her. “Oh god, Graham, please.”

He waited. He didn’t move, the heavy throb of his cock head tormenting her as she ached, whimpered for a deeper thrust.

Staring up at him, she watched as he leaned back, his eyes locked with hers, his expression gentling.

“I love you, Lyrica,” he whispered.

Her lips parted, shock, disbelief, pure happiness filling her where before only aching emptiness had existed.

“You love me?” she whispered.

Rocking against her, he tore another gasp from her lips as he pressed deeper, taking her slowly, raking across tender nerve endings and sending her senses flying.

“I love you, Lyrica,” he groaned. “God help me. I love you.”

There was no stopping either of them then. Pushing into her to the hilt, penetrating the slick, desperate depths of her pussy, Graham groaned in rising hunger, in a need that echoed clear to her soul.

Perspiration coated their skin and pleasure whipped around them, between them, tearing at the solitary moorings that once held them grounded and binding them together, mooring them to each other.

Deep, hungry kisses, whispered promises, pledges. He took her to the edge of rapture, pulled her back, and pushed her up once again.

His lips roamed to her breasts, suckling at sensitive nipples, sending slashing waves of heat and pleasure to race from the tender buds to the clenched depths of her vagina. His hands stroked, caressed. His body moved over her, inside her, until he tucked his head at the bend of her neck and began moving with hard, desperate thrusts, each thrust pushing her closer to a brink she raced for eagerly.

“Love me, Lyrica,” he groaned, his voice hoarse, filled with all the desperate, hungry emotion that had ached inside her for so long. “Just love me.”

Ecstasy ruptured inside her, blazing in such fiery eruptions of pleasure, joy, and melting bliss that she knew she would never, could never, be the same.

“I love you,” she gasped, writhing with the extremity of the explosions racing through her, the pleasure and emotion surging free of the depths of her soul. “Oh god, Graham. I love you.”

He stilled above her, groaning her name as she felt the heat and force of his release jetting hard and deep inside her, each pulse of semen another caress, another stroke of rapture racing across her nerve endings.

Until they were left, limp, ragged, exhausted. Weeks of lack of sleep, of searching separate beds for that single heartbeat, took their toll.

Rolling from her, Graham groaned at the weariness that poured through his body. He pulled her against his chest, tucked her close to him, then his hand moved to stroke and caress her still-slender belly.