OH.

My.

God.

Desire surged between my legs, and I didn’t know if I hated his dirty talk and crudeness or if I wanted him more for it.

My secret thick on my tongue, unable to think of a single response because I was fixated on what having his dominant mouth between my legs would feel like, I did the first smart thing I’d done since waking up this morning.

I retreated.

Doing what I should’ve done an hour ago, I walked back upstairs.

To my disappointment, he didn’t stop me.

My bottom lip on fire, my neck still tingling where he’d held me with intent, my core pulsing with hungry, incessant need, I went straight to the masculine bedroom that screamed Shade Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was, and sat my ass down on the bed.

Covering my face with my hands, I rocked forward and relived my embarrassment. “Jesus, Summer, what the fuck?” I whispered. A hot second out of rehab, and I was already screwing up so badly, I wanted to crawl into a hole and never surface.

What the hell was I thinking, coming on to man like Shade?

That he’d what? Take me to bed and fuck me nice?

I was an idiot.

And his ex?

I hated her and her designer dress and Jimmy Choo heels. Older, more sophisticated, she wasn’t some skank. She was in the same league as my stepmother, and Fallon was a supermodel. No, she was the supermodel. Elegant, graceful, reserved, she was everything I wasn’t. I’d spent my entire adolescence trying to be like her before I gave up.

I would never be that.

I may have been raised with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I didn’t have the kind of patience to have poise, and I sure as hell didn’t have the compassion my stepmother did with her charity that helped sick kids.

Not that Shade’s psycho ex looked like she spent a single second on the charity circuit, but she was beautiful. Beautiful and put together, and he didn’t have to pick her ass up from rehab.

“Fuck my life,” I whispered.

“Hell of a thing to say, princess.” His deep voice rumbled from the open doorway.

Jumping out of my skin, I started. My hand flew to my chest, and my breath caught, but the real shock came when I looked up.

Pulling his shirt over his head, he pushed off the doorway and walked into the bedroom. “What’s wrong with your life?”

My mouth suddenly dry, I watched him toss his shirt at a chair without looking. It landed perfectly as he stepped out of one boot, then the other.

If I thought he was striking dressed, he was a fucking masterpiece shirtless.

Covered in ink, ripped, abs for days, shoulders that were a mile wide, he wasn’t beautiful, he was unreal.

My hand went to my throat. “What are you doing?”

He smirked as he set his gun and phone on the nightstand before reaching for his belt. “What does it look like?”

“I’m not asking to get fucked,” I blurted, my mind confused by his flip in attitude but my traitorous body giving a standing ovation.

He didn’t laugh. “I’m not offering.” He dropped his pants and tossed them on the same chair. “Move over.”

Holy shit, his thighs, his fitted black boxers, oh my fucking God, he was huge everywhere. “You’re going to… sleep here?” Heat hitting my cheeks, I forced myself to keep my eyes on his face even though he didn’t seem the least bit self-conscious—and why would he? He was fricking Greek mythology come to life.

As if knowing my thoughts, he lifted one sexy eyebrow in challenge. “You change your mind, princess?”

“No.” Yes. Definitely yes. “What changed your mind?”

“Only bed in the house.” He reached for the light but then he paused. His eyes on mine, he studied me for a second. Then he did the last thing I expected. Mr. Dominance gave me a choice. “Last chance. You sure?” Deep and commanding, but also laced with something I couldn’t read, his voice sank into every crack and crevice of doubt I had.

My breath short, my core pulsing, I bit my bottom lip and took one more look at his ink and the sheer size of him. Then I did what I’d probably regret.

I moved over.

Holding my gaze, he kept still. “I need words, babe.”

“I’m sure.” I wasn’t.

He turned off the light.

The instant darkness was so complete, air got caught in my lungs. My nerves spiked, and stupid insecurity flew out of my mouth. “Did you check outside?”

“Relax, sweetheart.” He pulled the covers back. “You’re safe.”

Moving to the very edge of the bed, my unfaithful nerves turned on me and my thoughts bled out. “You know, it’s better to find someone you want to wake up next to than someone you want to sleep with.”

The mattress dipped, and the room filled with his laugh. Short, but deep and rich like his voice when he was being suggestive, it made goose bumps race across my skin.

Reaching for me like it was the most natural thing in the world, he slid one arm under my head and another around my waist, and as sure as if I were his, he pulled me toward him. “Sweetheart, the only kind of woman who says bullshit like that is one who’s never had a decent orgasm.”

All at once, my entire world became him. Shade without a last name. Bodyguard. Protector. Muscled. Inked. Shooter. Sandwich maker. Fire starter. Everything about him scared me, and my body stiffened. But at the same time, something down deep took a breath and inhaled his scent like this was exactly the place I’d been yearning to be my whole life. And that was one thousand percent scarier than the events that led me to rehab.

Forcing myself to concentrate on his last brazen statement instead of his rock-hard arm under my head or his warm, rough hand resting on my hip, I gave him a piece of my vulnerability. “Not everything is about sex.”

Not that I knew the first thing about relationships, or orgasms for that matter. I’d never had a boyfriend. Hookups with a few asshole guys my age and some one-night stands with older men—none of the encounters when I was straight. My experience with men wasn’t exactly legendary. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about everything I never had and yearned for something better.

His breath hot on my shoulder, Shade settled behind me with pure dominance. “That’s because you haven’t had great sex.” Pulling me even closer into him like we’d shared a bed a thousand times before and this was as natural as breathing, he swept his hand down my thigh before gently pushing it forward to make room for his leg to tuck into me. “Relax, woman. I told you, I’m not going to fuck you.”

“Gee, how reassuring.” Desperately trying to put some indignation into my tone instead of letting out a desire-laced moan, I held my body stiff even though all I wanted to do was melt into him. I’d never slept next to someone as muscular as him. His sheer size alone was making me salivate to both taste his spicy musk-scented skin and bury my head into the crook of his neck until his heartbeat soothed me to sleep.

And I never slept.

Well, not very much.

Every time I lay down, my brain waged a mutiny, sending thoughts faster than I could process. Everything became magnified, and I all I wanted was morning to come. The counselors at rehab said it was anxiety. Whatever. I hated sleeping. I also hated those racing thoughts. Which was why cocaine and downers had become my best friends. Speed made my thoughts too scrambled to hold on to, and valium made me not give a shit about them.

“Never doubt an Italian, princess.” He brushed my hair off my shoulder. “Now go to sleep.”

The intimate gesture throwing me, I almost wanted to laugh at his command. “If only it were that simple.”

“It’s exactly that simple.” His deep voice rumbled up from his chest and tickled my back. “Close your eyes.”

“And what then? I’ll magically fall asleep?” With him next to me, maybe I would.

“Nothing magic about it. I ran you, fed you, and you had an adrenaline rush back in Jacksonville and on the road coming up here. You’re tired. I saw the exhaustion in your eyes in the kitchen. Now you’re safe, and you’ve got a warm body at your back. Close your eyes. Sleep will come.”

He was right, eventually it would come, except if history was any indication it’d be fleeting and short-lived and I’d be left feeling groggy until I mainlined caffeine, but I still liked the dominant way he put everything. I foolishly let myself feel special that I was center of his attention right now, but that didn’t change the one thing that he couldn’t do for me, that no shrink in the entire state had been able to cure me of. “Sleep.” Or rather, sleeplessness. “The elusive equalizer.”

His hand absently brushed over my hip. “You normally have trouble sleeping?”

I liked this.

Me and him. In the dark. Our bodies intertwined like we knew each other. He was right, he did make me feel safe, and his body was definitely warm. Warm enough that I’d forgotten about the snow falling outside that made me feel trapped. But despite all that, I didn’t want to talk to him about why I’d always had trouble falling asleep.

It seemed selfish to mention I always felt alone. That despite all the partying, I had no one I confided in. No one I thought I could rely on. No one I could call in the middle of the night if I wanted to feel sorry for myself. I didn’t even think anyone would truly mourn my loss if I died, except maybe my stepmother, but only because she’d probably feel like she’d failed. And my father? What a joke. He’d turn the whole thing into a media storm for company exposure.

Whatever.

I didn’t want to think about this.

Inhaling to clear my thoughts, brushing off Shade’s question even though I’d started us down this path, I shrugged.

Taking it as confirmation, Shade pushed. “That why you turned to drugs?”

If I didn’t want to talk to him about sleep, then I sure as hell didn’t want to wax poetic about the joys of cocaine. “Why does anyone do drugs?”

“No fucking clue. Whiskey’s where it’s at.”

I smiled in the dark. “I would’ve pegged you as a beer man.”

“You got me pegged, woman?”

Not even a little. “Yep.”

He chuckled. “You’re a shit liar.”

Quickly becoming addicted to his voice and his presence, I ticked off what I knew about him. What anyone would know if they spent two seconds with him. “You’re dominating, controlling, and impatient. You do this job not because you have to but because protecting comes naturally to you. Probably because you had to protect someone before you even joined the Marines—your mother, sisters, someone you care about. I don’t know who exactly, but that protective trait’s like, ingrained in you. You also check the magazine on your gun like a regular person would have a nervous tic, and you don’t suffer fools. You always like to be the alpha on top, not because you’re that controlling, but because you trust people even less than I do.” I turned slightly to look at him. In the sliver of moonlight peeking through the falling snow, his features looked even more austere. “How am I doing so far?” Fighting the urge to touch him like he was touching me, my fingers ached to brush over the two-day growth covering his strong jaw.

For two heartbeats, he didn’t say anything.

Then, as I was only just beginning to learn about him, he did the unexpected.

Shade, the bodyguard with a thousand layers, kissed me.