plex like guilt measured, sharp, undeniable. She'd bar

n't fr

as s

open

vi

dn't

h deliberate slowness. The kiss hit her like a storm with no warning, no question. Just possession. Heat that bloomed from her lips and spread li

d screa

s in a voice that sou

a coma, machines breathing for him while she breathed for David. The miss

eath his like a flower

didn't feel like

pulse betrayed her. He lifted her effortlessly, hands beneath her thighs, fingers pressing into silk a

welled with breath, shadows dancing in m

ch didn

k

asp. The precise angle that made her arch.

without command, without thought, without anything but pure instinct. When his mouth found the hollow of he

ame. Half defian

like aged whiskey. "You pr

anything to anchor herself in the storm he'd become,

ll like au

everyth

of spun glass. But David... David loved like he'd been born to consume her, to

iss was

n, slow and heady like the first pull of fine w

laces she didn't know she needed to be touched. The slope of her shoulder where her perfume lingered. The inside of her wrist where her

atching in her throat

manding, practiced, reverent.

scove

all night and the intensity of on

lightning through her nervous system. The way his lips paused just long enough to make her ache, to make her beg without wor

't wors

aimed

trembl

ve pushed him away with hands

blooming beneath his touch like a night bl

shoulders like she could hold herself together with touch alone, like she co

and unbearably sure, vibrating against her ski

nevitable as the tide her gasp fractured

't just

transfo

he'd constructed, every reason she'd had for being there that wasn't th

the man above her and the man still trapped in that sterile hospital room. Guilt and hunger warred inside her c

e didn

ldn

neath the heat that pooled in her belly and the whispered endearments th

s just

nt

rn

like sugar diss

back, the storm she'd never learned to weather, the one thing t

slowly, soft and pale, like

ng where he'd touched her, kissed her, claimed her. Her body ached in the kind of wa

unconsciousness. He breathed evenly behind her, the rise and fall of his che

d've fel

it d

fragile mo

her mind could interfere. His scent clung to her pillow cedar and clean skin and something uniquely him that made her wa

ing chaos that had torn through her carefully

oken things. The afterglow. The shame. The unden

mbered the mission. Ryan lying motionless in

he ha

he hadn't

ion sat in her ch

lightly parted, vulnerability written in the shadows beneath his eyes. He looked younger. More human. Not the polished

e was suppose

ce of someone who'd perfected the art of not waking sleeping lovers. The sheets whisper

r reflection in the vanity mirror made her pause. Mascara smudged beneath her eyes. Lips still swollen from his kisses. Hair mussed in

a few hours, why that was

zed against t

ced at t

wn Nu