I figured at the very least I was saving her from making a dumb-ass decision tonight. Not that there was anything wrong with having an active sex life, but she seemed to be exercising it for the wrong reasons. I pushed away the thought of just how many guys she might have been with at college. The idea of any number of dudes pawing at her body made me want to slam my fist through the windshield.

But then a heavier thought flitted through my brain. At least she was at the university. At least she was living a life that had once threatened to be taken from her.

I noticed the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes and knew she was on the verge of losing it. So I turned up the radio and let her be alone with her thoughts. If I tried to speak she’d ream me a new one anyway.

Yep, she was definitely alive and letting everyone know it.

She pulled into the underground garage and thrust the car into park. I wanted to yell at her for bashing on my brakes, but I held my tongue. She slammed the car door and charged up the stairs to the bank of elevators in the lobby. I caught up to her just as the metal doors ground open. I allowed her to pass in first, and she jammed the button to our floor before sagging against the far wall.

I could hear her heavy breaths as she attempted to keep her emotions at bay. I tried to keep my gaze off the vein throbbing in her neck as her gaze skated over my body as if she was memorizing me or discovering me all over again. I didn’t know which. Maybe she just wanted to use me as a punching bag. I pushed away the thought of what angry sex with Rachel would feel like. Her on top, riding me with wild abandon in her eyes. Fuck.

I bolted out of the elevator as soon as the doors parted, and then turned the key in the lock. She pushed open the door and stormed past me, heading straight for the bar. She rummaged around before finally pulling out a shot glass and a bottle of Patrón.

She sat down hard on a barstool and poured herself a generous shot. Swirling the tequila in her cup she looked lost in deep thought. I made my way behind the bar and pulled out a glass of my own. I began prepping the lime slices and salt but she didn’t wait for me. She threw back her head and gulped the strong drink, wincing as it went down.

Then she started pouring herself another one.

Her eyes slid up to meet mine in quiet determination. She looked woozy yet still defiant.

“Well, damn,” I said, finally breaking the silence that had been building up between us.

A bark of amusement shot out of her mouth before she covered it with her hand. It was like being back in middle school all over again. My lips twitched as I tried to hold back my own grin. I downed my shot and heard her break into the same kind of hysterical fit that, when we were kids, would become contagious.

She stopped laughing long enough to knock back one more shot, and then choked and coughed after it went down. She rested her head on the edge of the bar, her shoulders shaking with laughter, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I laughed long and hard right along with her.

After a couple of minutes her chuckling slowed into sputtering gasps. She lifted her head and heaved out a gloomy sigh. Her eyes welled with tears that had nothing to do with the laughter from moments before as she tried keeping her trembling lips in a neat straight line. But she failed miserably after two seconds more as the floodgates opened and she began bawling.

Fat trails of tears rolled down her cheeks, and she tried swiping at them unsuccessfully.

Her emotions were all over the map tonight.

“Hey,” I said, my own voice rough with compassion. “Come here.”

I pulled her into my arms, and she cried even harder against my shoulder. My cotton T-shirt was soon soaked from her tears, but I didn’t give two shits. This was the kind of weeping she’d done in the hospital over that same piece of garbage, and I fucking hated hearing it again.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I said, rubbing circles on her back. I wasn’t sure what to say at this point that wouldn’t hurt her worse.

Her arms, which had been hanging limply at her sides, came up to grasp my shoulders, as if I were her anchor. She was breathing heavily into my neck, and I felt her tears slide onto the skin at the base of my throat.

My fingers trailed down her back to grasp her waist, and I could feel how lean she was. Not as lean as she’d been in the hospital. This was shapely, sexy, all-woman lean. My fingers rested on the sliver of bare skin that had become exposed when she’d raised her arms to embrace me, and I relished the softness there.

Her head moved to the crook of my neck, and I felt her shudder, so I drew her even closer, my fingers sliding up her bare back in an attempt to comfort her. The next moment I felt a tentative brush of her lips against my skin. Right above the neckline of my shirt. I became perfectly still, wondering if I’d only imagined it.

But then she trailed her soft lips across my neck to my throat as I swallowed roughly. It felt so damn good that I couldn’t help the groan that escaped my lips shortly thereafter.

I grabbed hold of her shoulders and pushed back to look into her eyes. There was alarm there at what she’d done, certainly. Like her body had been on auto-pilot and she couldn’t stop herself. Yet there was something underneath as well. Need. Passion. Desperation.

At that realization my brain lost all logical function. I gathered her face in my hands and whispered, “What are you doing, Rach?”

She shook her head, maybe trying to clear the doubt, the shock. “I . . . I don’t know.”

My thumbs slid over her cheeks and I asked the more direct question. The one that maybe she’d been waiting for, given how she’d dealt with her emotions the past three years. “What do you need?”

In response, she closed her eyes and let out a whimper. Her hips thrust forward against mine and my dick immediately responded.

Then I felt her fingernail trail up the back of my neck, and she fisted my hair tightly in her grasp, which only lit a fire inside my chest. I realized just how fucking much I wanted her in that moment.

Except, she didn’t want me in the same way. She just wanted the idea of me. She wanted the escape I could give her. And given my history with the female population, she probably thought I knew damn well how to deliver it to her.

Sure, after downing those two shots she probably wasn’t thinking too clearly. But neither was I, because she was touching me and her hands were warm and her sounds were sexy and her eyes told me she needed me. Just for tonight.

And I’d give her whatever the hell she wanted, even if I had to forget it ever happened tomorrow. I’d do that for her. And suffer the consequences.

Before I could reason any further, she brought her other hand up and stroked the pad of her thumb across the flesh of my bottom lip. I let out a soft growl and flattened my body against hers.

Her back angled above the lip of the bar, and I positioned my groin against her smooth center as she spread her knees to adjust. And, shit, being this close to her was amazing. Fucking unbelievable. To smell her soft scent and hear the heightened arousal in her harsh breaths.

A moan tumbled from her lips and her nipples pebbled through the thin material of her shirt. I flicked my tongue along her jaw to her ear and mumbled, “Is this what you wanted?”

“Yes.” She panted out a breath, and then opened her eyes to look at me. Her pupils were clear. So damn clear in that moment. “Please.”

No question about it. I was so fucked.

Chapter Five

Rachel

My entire body was thrumming with carnal lust and the need to escape into someone else, the way I usually did these days. This was so damn wrong, but something about it felt so fucking right. More right than any of my past conquests had ever felt.

Maybe because this was Kai and he was familiar to me—and so different from all of the other guys. He smelled unbelievable—like a mix of pine and spice—and even the hint of weed was working for me, surprising enough. Maybe I was getting a contact buzz. God knows I’d lost my brain cells somewhere back at that party.

His biceps were bulging beneath his T-shirt, strands of his hair were coming loose from his elastic tie, and he looked beyond sexy.

I figured he knew how to be with all kinds of girls. Hell, I’d seen him with tons of girls over the years. So maybe he would know how to be with me. Just this once.

In the back of my foggy brain I knew this might change us. Would change us. Unless we both took it for what it was. We were both good at this sort of meaningless hookup, weren’t we?

As my back scraped against the bar and I felt his body mold to mine, I lost all lucid thought. My thighs were spread wide to accommodate him and I was desperate for release. To feel his rough hands on me. To taste his tongue in my mouth.

Why hadn’t he just left me alone? I could’ve been screwing somebody else’s brains out by now—someone from the local bar. Yeah, even though everyone around here knew me, and word would probably spread fast if someone saw me leaving that pub.

But Kai wouldn’t tell anyone if we were together tonight.

What do you need, he had asked—it was like he knew me. Saw inside me. I’d shaken my head as if I didn’t know, but the truth was that I had been too ashamed to admit it. I needed a warm body. I needed his warm body.

His eyes were hooded and filled with so much desire that I almost wanted to look away from the truth hidden inside them. He studied my mouth, corner to corner, and then slid his gaze up to meet mine. A fireworks display of yearning exploded inside me.

“I know he left you,” Kai said with a gravelly voice that was like fingernails sliding up my bare skin. I could hardly focus on the meaning behind the words. His head bent forward, his mouth finding my ear. “But look at you now. Strong. Confident. Gorgeous.”

“You left me, too.” I didn’t even know where the words had come from. From somewhere deep inside my body. Deep inside my soul.

He braced his arms against the bar and flicked his penetrating gaze to my eyes.

“Is that what you believe?” As if on cue, tears began to pool behind my eyes again.

“I . . . I don’t know.” I shook my head. Why had I said that? Maybe I had always wanted him to know. That I had needed him to stay. “Ye . . . yes.”

“Fuck, Rach.” His voice sounded tortured as he grabbed on to the back of my head and tugged me closer to him. “I never left you. Never.”

Kai’s warm heat was wrapped around me. His heady scent was potent now—soap and spice, and all man. It made my brain all kinds of fuzzy.

My lips skimmed along his neck, and I pinned his earlobe between my teeth. “Show me, Kai. Show me that you didn’t leave me.”

A low groan escaped his mouth right before his fingers tunneled deeper through my hair, the pads of his thumbs mapping patterns against the hollow of my throat.

His mouth hovered close to mine. So damn close that I could feel the current running between our lips, like a magnetic force drawing us together.

I could see him deliberating—his midnight eyes were deep pools of wonder and lust and heat, and I wanted to swim in them, get lost in them tonight.

Kai’s lips brushed mine—a barely-there kiss—and the hairs on my arms stood at attention.

His mouth was soft and his lips tender as he applied gentle pressure again. I closed my eyes and hummed from the sensation.

“Rachel,” he whispered, and my entire body erupted into flames.

My tongue flitted out and skimmed his lower lip.

“Goddamn.” His lips became harder, more insistent, as if he were attempting to brand me. His tongue slashed past my lips and entered my mouth—hot, wet, and demanding. His tongue ring scraped over my teeth, acting like a tuning fork inside my body.

The metal ball swiped against my tongue, teeth, and the roof of my mouth, creating a sensation I’d never felt before. I was beyond turned on. Ready to combust.

I let out a long moan that only urged him on. He bit my bottom lip, swiped the tip of his tongue across the sensitive skin there and then moved on to my jawline, taking pieces of me as he went.

His hips thrust forward and I wrapped my legs around his waist, allowing our hot centers to collide. We were all lips and teeth and heavy breathing as we devoured each other. His tongue licked and tangled with mine as he tugged at my hair, making me even more frantic for him.

Never had I kissed someone like this before. Sure, there had been horny and sloppy make-out sessions with guys. This was altogether something different. We were pouring ourselves into each other. Like we were filling each other up before becoming empty again.

And Kai. God, Kai.

He was kissing me like he needed to memorize my lips, my tongue, and my taste.

My tears continued to fall along my cheeks not only because I was sad and confused from earlier, but also because what I was experiencing in this moment with Kai was mind-boggling. Startling. Fucking incredible. Too strong for words.

I never wanted it to end. I wanted him to fill all of me. To consume me. To make his way inside of me.

My fingers reached out and clutched him through the front of his jeans. He was hard and huge and ready in my grasp. He ripped his mouth away from mine and hissed through his teeth.

Yanking my hands away from his zipper, he laced his fingers through both of mine and then pulled them behind my back. “Turn around.”

His voice was so commanding and thrilling that I immediately did as he said. I swung around on the barstool so that my ass was against his front, my heart crashing through my chest. He still had my arms tucked behind my back with one of his hands, like he was holding me captive. And in that moment I would have stayed his prisoner forever. Would have done anything he asked.

“I’ll help you take the edge off,” he growled into my hair. “I’ll make you feel good tonight.”

Then he slid his palm along my stomach and up the middle of my chest before finally cupping my breast. He huffed out a breath that matched my own. “Shit.”