CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A knock sounded on the door just as Lennon was tying the robe around her waist. She considered ignoring it, but what if her mom had decided hearing her voice over the phone wasn’t good enough—even though Lennon had downplayed her injuries—and headed over with a dose of herbs and tinctures that would wipe away both her bruises and her memory? She’d gladly swallow it down, every drop. She knew she was one of the lucky cops, as she hadn’t had any serious injuries since she joined the force. That streak had ended with the painful punch to her face.

She shuffled to the door and looked through the peephole, her heart stuttering when she saw Ambrose’s face filling the small oval. She was both surprised to see him and also not, and before she could even consider it, she found herself unlocking her door and pulling it open.

He stood there, his hair still slightly wet from what must have been a recent shower, because she’d been home since right before noon, and there hadn’t been a drop of rain all day. “Hi,” he said. His gaze went to her eye that was now just red and slightly swollen but would likely be black and blue in the next few days. “How’s the eye?”

“A little blurry, but otherwise okay. The boss is insisting I take the next few days off.”

“Good.” He was holding a bowl with foil over the top, and she had a momentary flash of all those neighbors and friends who’d shown up at her parents’ door so many years ago carrying a casserole or a potato salad or a Bundt cake meant to feed their hearts as much as their bellies. She pushed those old memories away and stepped back so he could enter.

“I talked to Lieutenant Byrd. He says he spoke to you already and that you seemed okay, but ... well, I thought I’d check for myself, because I missed you at the hospital. And I brought you this.” He presented the bowl, and Lennon looked down at it for several beats before taking it from his hands.

“What is it?”

“A fruit salad.” Her gaze held on the shiny foil cover. Oh. He’d brought her a fruit salad. It made her smile and oddly want to cry.

“Brave,” she said. “After my fruit salad tirade.”

“No guts, no glory.”

She pressed her lips together, stifling a bigger smile, and she was honestly shocked that she could smile at all today. It had been over twelve hours since the attack, and she still felt shaky. “Come on,” she said. “I was just going to make some tea, and I’ll check this situation out.”

Ambrose followed her to her kitchen, which was just a few steps past the small entryway, and she set the bowl on the table, carefully peeling the foil back so she could assess this fruit salad that he’d made. “Plenty of berries,” she said. “Watermelon—a good choice. And, oh”—she met his eyes, her heart squeezing—“you cut it into stars.”

“I thought that might score me a few extra points.”

She nodded, a jerky movement. It did. It did do that. She couldn’t help picturing him with that look of concentration on his face he wore so often, this enigmatic man who fought off attackers and told stories so well, leaning over a cutting board full of watermelon slices and carefully pressing a star cutter into the fruit, or perhaps even doing it by hand because how would he have a star cutter in a hotel room? In any case, he’d done it for her. To make her smile. And truly, she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done something nicer for her. “Mint,” she said, and even she heard the emotion in her voice. “That’s a nice touch too.” Her throat felt full, and she swallowed, refusing to be brought to tears by some star-shaped melon and a few sprigs of mint. “It’s good. I’d invite you back to my potluck, Ambrose Mars.”

He squinted one eye, looking as if he was struggling with something humorous.

“Don’t do it,” she said. “I set you up for some form of a ‘that’s what she said’ joke, but I know you can resist. I have faith in you.”

He laughed, and she grinned, and God, she’d been beaten and terrorized and made to feel so low today, and here she was laughing over fruit salad in her kitchen with this strange, confusing man. It felt as though her mother had arrived with that elixir that would erase her memory. Rather, Ambrose had shown up and, with laughter and fruit, had done the very next best thing. Distracted her. From the smell of the attacker’s breath on her face. From the pain of his hands around her neck. From the terrifying feeling that she was going to die.

“I wasn’t sure how you felt about fruit dip, so I decided to avoid any potential pitfalls,” he said, his eyes dancing.

“That was wise.” She nodded slowly. “There are several.”

“I figured.” He tilted his head. “Cool Whip?”

She pretended to shudder. “Whipped marshmallow is the true villain of that story.”

He grinned, and she did too. And for several heavy moments, they simply stared at each other, and Lennon felt lifted even further from her body—a blessed relief, considering the circumstances. But she also felt that same flutter of fear she’d sensed since the get-go with this man, and she was pretty sure what it was about, but she was too exhausted and emotionally fragile to ponder it right that moment. Especially with him staring at her with those sleepy eyes that made her think of crawling beneath the sheets at all hours of the day.

“How are you, Lennon?”

She sighed and sank down into a chair at the table. “Sore, but otherwise all accounted for.”

“Emotionally?”

She shrugged and let out a short laugh. “Well, a case could be made for the fact that I wasn’t exactly of sound mind before today anyway, so ...”

A ghost of a smile flitted across his full lips before he went serious. “The two officers who checked the men in the tent before you did feel awful. But as many drugs as the man who attacked you was on, he might have actually been pretty damn close to dead when they took vitals. Something sparked his attack, and then he promptly died again on the way to the hospital. This time for good. Paramedics couldn’t revive him.”

She felt an internal sinking, and though the man had terrorized her, she felt sorry for him. That wasn’t a nice way to die. “I should have waited for backup. I will next time I’m in a situation like that.”

He assessed her for a moment, his expression inscrutable. “The purple drug in the baggie wasn’t the same as at the previous scenes. It was something called purple heroin. Have you heard of it?”

She wrinkled her brow. “Maybe.”

“It’s mostly been found on the East Coast so far. This might be one of the first West Coast cases. It comes from China in pill form, but most dealers crush it up with heroin so they can sell smaller doses.”

She rubbed at her brow. “What’s in it besides heroin?”

“Brorphine, which is a synthetic opioid without a medicinal purpose, and carfentanil, which is an elephant tranquilizer a hundred times more potent than fentanyl.”

An elephant tranquilizer. Christ almighty.

“Why purple?” she asked.

“No one really knows so far. Maybe just a marketing feature.”

She blew out a breath. “My God. The things people will put in their bodies,” she murmured. It did make her consider what had happened to her a little differently, however. The man who’d attacked her had not only been mostly dead but very literally out of his mind. Who even knew what kind of human he was when his body wasn’t pumped full of opioids and large-animal tranquilizers. It wasn’t that she’d taken the attack personally ... exactly. But, well, maybe in some small, irrational way she had, and knowing what she now knew clarified for her that he’d have attacked a fly with as much vigor if it had landed on his arm. It didn’t make it less traumatic, but it did put it in a clearer light. “He was possessed,” she murmured.

“That’s a decent way to put it,” he said after a moment.

She looked up to see him watching her. “You were going to make tea,” he said. “Stay there and let me do it for you.” Without waiting for her okay, he picked the kettle up off the stove and brought it to the sink and began filling it.

She reached into the bowl of fruit and plucked out a star-shaped piece of watermelon and placed it in her mouth. It was firm and sweet and perfect. “You picked out a good watermelon,” she told him. “Not always an easy feat.”

He glanced up at her as he turned on the burner, the flame sparking to life, and then placed the kettle over the fire. “I bought three,” he said. “I figured at least one would be good. Mushy watermelon would have ruined my recipe.” He smiled, and she stared at him for a moment. And then she did cry, her face contorting as hot tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

With a look of alarm, Ambrose approached her, leaning over and turning her chair so that she was facing him. He didn’t ask her why she was crying; he simply gathered her in his arms and held her as she wept. “I didn’t realize the thought of mushy watermelon would upset you so much,” he said. She laughed. He was kind, and funny, and his sweetness was what had made her cry, what had made her feel safe enough to be vulnerable in his presence.

And God, but she hadn’t cried in a long, long time, especially not in front of anyone. Especially not someone she barely knew. “Why aren’t you married, Ambrose Mars?” she murmured when her tears had ceased. “Do you know how many women would scoop up any man who made watermelon stars?”

He removed his arms and stepped back, and she suddenly missed his closeness, the clean, masculine scent of him right against her nose. I want to know you, she thought, and the realization brought a buzz of fear, yes, but it also made hope glitter inside.

He smiled in that quizzical way of his and paused as if her question might have a double meaning or was more complicated than it seemed. “Marriage isn’t in the cards for me.”

She swiped at the lingering wetness on her cheeks. Marriage isn’t in the cards. Well, that was an odd thing to say. “Have you sworn an oath to an ancient brotherhood?”

He lifted the kettle off the burner and placed it back on another. “No. I’m just ... not great in relationships. I like my life the way it is.”

She stood, stepping to the cabinet where she kept her mugs and handing him two before opening the second cupboard, which contained the tea bags and the honey. “Okay. That’s fair, I guess. There’s nothing wrong with being a confirmed bachelor.”

“I’m glad you approve.” Coming from someone else, the words might have sounded snarky. But Ambrose gave her a teasing tilt of his lips, and his eyes squinted when he did so, and honestly, it made her stomach flutter. He placed a tea bag in each mug and then handed one to her. They both took a moment to add a couple of teaspoons of honey, and then he followed her into the living room, where she curled up in a corner of the couch.

Her phone rang, and she reached for it on the coffee table, about to silence it until she saw it was the number of the station. “I should take this,” she said. “One second.” She answered and heard Adella’s voice on the other end say her name.

“Hi, Adella.”

“How are you? I was just calling to check in.”

“Thanks. I’m fine. A little bruised.” It was kind of Adella to reach out, especially since they weren’t overly close at work. Maybe this was her way of letting Lennon know that even despite that fact, she had her back.

“Arnica gel. It will clear the bruise up in half the time.”

She smiled. “I’ll Instacart some tomorrow. Thanks for the tip.”

“I could drop some off to you on the way home. Half an hour or so?”

“Thanks, but Agent Mars is here, and as soon as he leaves, I’m heading to bed.”

“Oh.” She paused as if Agent Mars being there had taken her by surprise. And maybe it had. Maybe she shouldn’t have said it, but her guard was down at the moment and she’d simply told the truth. “Okay, no problem. Anyway, we were all worried when we heard what happened. Heal up quick, okay? Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks for calling, Adella.”

She hung up and glanced at Ambrose sitting on the other end of the couch as he took a tentative sip of the steaming tea. He set it down and looked over at her before picking up their conversation. “What about you, Lennon? Have you ever been married?”

She took a sip of tea, too, and then set it down on a coaster on the side table next to her. “Me? No. Single and satisfied. But ... I’m not opposed to marriage if the right man comes along.” And her mom and dad definitely weren’t opposed. Even if they weren’t pushy about it, she saw the flare of hope in their eyes every time she mentioned going on a date. And she knew it was solely because happiness had been ripped away from her and they wanted nothing more than for her to find it again. Because they loved her. Because they didn’t want her story to end in heartbreak. “I was engaged once,” she said. She immediately pressed her lips together, almost shocked by the admission. She hadn’t meant to say it, and certainly wasn’t in the habit of disclosing that fact to anyone, much less the hard-to-read FBI agent she’d so recently met.

When she looked over at Ambrose, she found him playing idly with the tag at the end of the tea bag and studying her. “What happened?”

Their eyes held, and something she had no idea how to describe moved between them. “I ... he died,” she finally said.

“I’m sorry.”

She gave her head a small shake and was tempted to administer a few hard taps to her cheek, as though she’d temporarily gone into a fugue state and needed to be physically jolted out of it. She picked up her tea and took another sip just to stall. Once she’d placed it back down, she said, “It’s ... thank you. It was a long time ago.” Thirteen years and three months and only yesterday. “And we were young.”

“Things that happen when we’re young have the most impact on our lives.”

She looked away. She had to. There was something in those eyes of his that she didn’t want to look into. She’d seen it before in the gazes of the victims she’d met. Hurt. And it embarrassed her because he was hurting for her and he didn’t need to. She didn’t want it. It was too much. She’d felt like a victim today. She still did, and she didn’t want to be reminded of another time when she’d felt like a victim too. “You’re full of wisdom, aren’t you?”

He gave her a small tilt of his lips, but his eyes remained serious. There had been sarcasm in her tone, and she’d said it to push back against the uncomfortable feelings he brought out in her. It wasn’t like her to do that, and it made her feel bad. “I’m sorry. No, you’re right. It was hard. It changed me. But, well, time heals all wounds, as they say.” She barely held back a cringe. She hated that saying, and it wasn’t even true. In fact, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Time buffed away the raw edges, yes, but underneath those edges were layers of what-ifs and what-could-have-beens, and they were as rough as sandpaper. If you rubbed against them too hard and too often, you would make yourself raw. You would bleed.

“How long ago did he die?” Ambrose asked.

“Thirteen years ago.” She sighed, still surprised by her own candor. “He was my high school boyfriend. He proposed to me the summer after we graduated. We were going to get married after college.” The whole future had stretched out before them, and when he died, that future had died along with him. She’d been adrift, with no idea where to go from there, the path that had once been so clear suddenly covered in dense fog. As dense as that which could swallow the entire city so that, from certain vantage points, you couldn’t see it at all. Entire buildings. Entire lives. Gone. Lost in the mist. “I was going to be a teacher,” she told him. “I hadn’t even decided exactly what kind. I wanted to teach kids to read, but I also wanted to teach art history, or maybe music.” She’d pictured it, her classroom, the way she’d decorate it in bright colors, the little faces that would gaze up at her with awe as she filled their minds with words and art and beauty. Not the most exciting of dreams, perhaps. But just the thought of it had warmed her heart and made her purpose feel so clear. “I’d completed a year toward my teaching degree. Tanner was majoring in criminal justice. The teacher and the inspector. What a beautifully simple life. And then ... then it all blew up.”

“You switched majors?”

She nodded. “It seemed right at the time. I can’t even remember why it felt so right.” Maybe it’d just been something to do when, in every other way, she’d felt so utterly helpless. Devastated.

“You did what he never got a chance to do.” He tilted his head, seeming thoughtful, a little sad.

“I did. I tried to fill his void.” It seemed so stupid now. So ill-conceived and irrational. She’d set herself up for a mighty fall. But at the time, she’d clung to it. The empty place where he’d once been had felt like a deep, dark pit that she was desperate to fill. And somewhere inside, it’d seemed like her duty to a world that had been suddenly deprived of his impact. Deprived at least in part because of her . It’d seemed like maybe it would serve to heal her heart in some way too. What had she imagined? That she could become him, in some sense? No. Instead, all it had done was make it obvious that no one could replace Tanner as a force of good in the world. Least of all her. Instead of filling his void, she’d made a mockery of what he’d intended to do. She turned her gaze to Ambrose. “I’m scared more often than not. Sick. Distraught. I care far too much to be useful.” Why am I telling him all this?

“I’m not sure that’s possible, Lennon.”

“It is. It is possible because it makes me shit at my job. I relate. I spin stories in my head about what they felt. I picture them dressing in the clothes I find them in, not having any idea it’s going to be the last outfit they ever wear. I hate the blood and the gore. I keep vomit bags in my car just in case, and I’ve used them more often than I want to admit.”

“Your empathy isn’t a bad thing. And it probably means you see things others don’t. It can be a strength. But it hurts you.”

His voice was so even, and he didn’t sound judgmental, only understanding. And God, she appreciated it, but it also made her want to cry again. As if she didn’t already look pathetic enough as it was. As if he would have shown up here tonight if he knew she was going to sob all over him. She let out a long, shaky breath, meaning to stop. But the words just kept coming. “I didn’t love being a cop. I never said that to anyone. I thought being an inspector would mean I’d sit at a desk and pore through files and it’d be better. Easier. God, Tanner must be laughing down at me. He’d find it funny, he really would. I tried to take over his life, and I suck at it.” Would he, though? Would he think that? Or was it her judging herself too harshly? Because Tanner had always been far more forgiving of her faults than she was, and it was one of the many reasons she’d felt so valued by him. And she didn’t want to lose another part of him by misremembering that.

A small smile drifted over Ambrose’s lips. “You don’t suck at it,” he said.

“Okay, I don’t suck at it. But ...” She sighed. “I don’t know. I’m tired and I had a hard day. I’ll be okay tomorrow.”

“There are other jobs at the department that are more desk jobs than the one you’re doing,” he said. “Have you thought about applying for one of them?”

“Yes ... maybe.” She had thought about it, but then she’d felt like a phony. How could she lead others to do a job when she couldn’t do it herself? No, the better option was to transfer to a department where she’d be less exposed to horrific crime scenes and stories that ripped her heart out. But she still hadn’t quite worked up the courage or ... whatever it was she needed to work up to not feel like a quitter. As if in doing so, she’d be letting go of the last piece of Tanner she’d managed to preserve.

Ambrose scooted a little closer, and he reached out and tentatively took her hand. “Lennon, you also have to realize that what happened to you today ... no one would have handled that well, not even the most hardened cop.”

“I know. You’re right.”

“Maybe you’re a little too hard on yourself sometimes,” he said. “Maybe it’s more abnormal and worrisome not to be affected by other people’s blood and suffering.”

“There must be a happy medium, though, right?”

He smiled again. “Unfortunately, not every circumstance features a happy medium. Sometimes there are only extremes. Your job—our job—just doesn’t make that easy to deal with.”

She conceded his point with a nod. He was right. Perhaps it shouldn’t be her goal to nonchalantly stroll through a room where people had died violent deaths. Perhaps she should stop beating herself up for her natural reactions. But she also had to do her job. In any case, talking like this with him was soothing her and helping her put her emotions into context. It was helping her let go of some of the pent-up stress. This was what she’d missed about having a partner, though she didn’t at all feel toward him how she’d felt toward Tommy and still did—sisterly. But Ambrose was kind and understanding and he was making her feel safe, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way.

But it wasn’t just that. She’d felt simmering attraction to this man since she first laid eyes on him, but she’d desperately tried to hold that back. His supportive words, his touch—the way he was looking at her —was crumbling her resistance. And once it started crumbling, it crumbled fast.

When she gripped his hand back, his eyes moved to their fingers, laced together. She saw his nostrils flare very slightly, and a muscle jumped in the corner of his eye. She became very aware of him, too, the air between them charging. Electricity sparked in her stomach, but it wasn’t at all unpleasant—not like the buzz of anxiety she was so used to feeling. Ambrose Mars made her feel alive, energized, but in a way she loved and hadn’t felt in so, so long. She leaned over, and she brought her mouth to his. He froze, obviously surprised, and she moved closer, bringing his hand inside her robe and covering her breast with it. She pressed her palm over the top of his, and he moaned, seeming to break out of the momentary shock he’d been in, using his other hand on the back of her neck to tilt her head so he could kiss her in earnest.

Without breaking their kiss, she climbed on top, straddling him, her blood heating when she felt the hard evidence of his arousal between her thighs. God, he tasted good, and he felt good too. Sleek and solid. Their kiss deepened, and he made that sexy sound of desperation in the back of his throat again. It sounded raw and primal, and it drove her higher, her pulse pumping blood to her core, nipples tingling. Life. This was life. Not death. The opposite of the thing she was trying to shrug off from today, to deny, to turn away from.

He flipped her off him, onto her back on the couch, and she bounced slightly and laughed. And then he was over her, claiming her mouth again, pressing his groin into her and grinding slightly. “Is this okay?” he asked, holding his weight off her. And that’s when she realized that he’d thought about the fact that he was putting her in the same position she’d been in today when she was victimized, and he didn’t want her to be reminded of it in any way. But she hadn’t thought about that, and the realization brought a surge of relief.

“It’s better than okay,” she said. She’d needed this. She hadn’t realized how much. She pulled him back toward her so he was once again pressing right where she needed him. Tingles of pleasure radiated from the place where he pressed, and she gasped and broke from his mouth, tipping her head back so he could kiss her throat.

He brought his mouth to her skin, dragging his warm lips down her bruised neck, feathering them over her wounded skin and then kissing the hollow at the base of her throat as he ground into her again. Everything drifted away, and she realized what a weight she’d felt hanging over her—not just today, but for such a long time. She suddenly felt unencumbered. Free.

Kissing him like this on her couch reminded her of those teenage make-out sessions, but ten times better. All lips and tongues and still-clothed pressing bodies, hormones rushing crazily. She felt dizzy with lust. She’d forgotten the joy there was to be found in sex, the way it made everything brighter and hotter. She’d needed this. God, she’d needed this.

But she also needed more. And she wasn’t a teenager anymore. There were no limits, no boundaries. She was a fully grown woman, and she could have sex with this man on her couch if she wanted to. It’d been years since she’d been with a man. Years! It made her want to laugh.

She wrapped her legs around his circling hips, tilting upward as her robe fell open, and she felt the cool air of the room on her naked breasts. Ambrose exhaled against her skin, lifting his head as he met her eyes. Oh. She blinked, momentarily stunned by his beauty: not only his face and his features, but the way those bedroom eyes looked when they were filled with lust. There was something else there, too, however. A vulnerability. A tentative joy that she’d never once seen on any man’s face, ever. She felt inexplicably awed by it, even as she couldn’t explain why or how or even who. Was it she who’d put that look in his eyes?

He exhaled, leaning back, his gaze moving from her face down to her breasts. She was glad to let him look, wanting a few moments to study him, too, to soak in that expression in his eyes that made her feel both honored and confused and slightly overwhelmed.

“Lennon ...,” he began, his voice gravelly. She shivered as though the word—her name on his lips—had come to life somehow and scraped across her skin. Her nipples pebbled, and his eyes flared. “Maybe we ... are you sure?” he asked. “Do you want this?”

This. Him. Them. “Is this against your brotherhood oath too?” she asked, to infuse some lightness into the moment. Because he’d paused, and now she was questioning it, too, despite the fact that her body ached for him. This. It suddenly seemed filled with far more gravity than she understood. And maybe he did; maybe that was the look in his eyes that she didn’t comprehend. But he laughed softly at her question, bringing his eyes to hers. “No. I just don’t want you to regret doing something in a moment of ... well, after today.”

“I want this, Ambrose. I want you.” His gaze held to hers, and he must have seen her certainty—and perhaps her need—because he brought his lips back to hers, and then the next thing she knew, she was in his arms and he was carrying her through the living room and down the very short hallway to her bedroom.

He placed her down gently on the bed, pushing her robe aside, his gaze roaming over her naked skin. The look on his face ... he seemed awestruck , and it made the shyness she’d momentarily felt at being naked in front of him melt away. “You are so beautiful, Lennon,” he said.

She smiled, holding out her hand to him. He kicked his shoes off and then quickly removed his clothes before climbing into bed with her.

They kissed again, and their kisses were both languorous and filled with urgency. She relished his taste, his scent, the way his hard, honed body felt above hers, and the velvety roughness of his skin. She allowed herself to get lost in him, and it felt so good, so necessary . It was beautiful, he was beautiful, and the way he looked at her made her feel so beautiful too. His expression looked like she’d imagine on a person gazing at the Grand Canyon, or the first snowfall. Mesmerized. Entranced. Appreciative. His hand trembled slightly as it moved over her skin, exploring her, and reexamining the places that made her gasp or moan.

His hand lingered between her thighs, and she thought she might scream with frustration before he parted her with his fingers, and she gasped with pleasure, leaning her head back into the pillow as he stroked and teased, nearly driving her to the edge. “Condom?” he gritted. “Please tell me you have a condom?”

A what? She could barely think through the fog of lust. A condom. No, she didn’t. Wait—yes, she did! “The closet,” she said, as though she’d just remembered the buried treasure amid her clothing. With the raise of his brow, he climbed out of bed, and she was treated to the view of his muscular back as he opened the door and looked inside.

“Shelf to your left,” she said.

He reached in, and when he turned her way, he was holding the ridiculous visor with condoms hanging from it that had been passed around at the bar from woman to woman during a coworker’s bachelorette shindig. She’d forced herself to go to that and left the moment she could, still wearing that stupid hat that was now actually the most beautiful, wonderful creation she’d ever seen.

Ambrose tore one of the condoms off, climbed back into bed, and slid the protection on as his mouth returned to hers, her hormones taking up the same dance again as though the music had only briefly paused but the desire to revel had not. She almost laughed at the silly nature of her thoughts and that dumb hat that had saved the moment, just all of it. Of him. And how much she’d needed this brief vacation from reality and also from herself.

His mouth came to her breast, his tongue lapping at her nipple before he gave one long suck, causing a lightning rod of arousal to shoot between her legs, her hips bucking toward his hand. “Please,” she said, the word ripped from her throat. She needed him inside her or she’d lose her mind. Her skin felt charged, her nerve endings vibrating with the need for release.

Their eyes met as he lined himself up at her entrance and then surged inside, his lids closing as his lips parted, expression contorting in bliss. Oh God. Oh my God. And then his hips began to move.

She watched him as he thrust inside her, his dark lashes lying in a crescent beneath his eyes. They were thick and fringed, and there was something beautifully boyish about them that was so contradictory to the muscular breadth of his shoulders beneath her palms and the masculine scent of his skin. And of course, the way his body was moving over her, and inside her, a steady pace that was nudging her higher with every quickened press. He’d been a study in contrasts to her since the moment they’d met, but one thing she could not deny was her attraction to him or this thrilling feeling of watching his reaction to her. Watching the way he was trying so mightily to hold on to control, and almost managing but not quite.

She had a flash of the way he’d gazed up at her as he knelt before her after the attack, hands warm on her thighs, and then of the way he’d looked when he described the songbird in South America. Both those expressions were flitting over his features now—concern, peace, focus, but with the addition of naked desire. God, he was so expressive when he wanted to be. Or maybe when he couldn’t help himself. And those eyes, those sleepy, sexy eyes that nearly sent her spinning.

He gave a twist of his hips that sent a shock wave of pleasure to her toes, and she gasped, wrapping her legs around him and tilting her hips so he could go even deeper. “Lennon,” he whispered, a plea of his own. And she didn’t want this to end but could feel the pinpricks of pleasure dancing between her legs and tightening her belly.

It only took three more strokes before she came, shattering apart and then slowly coming back together, blinking up at him as he increased his pace, finally shattering, too, as he groaned and panted and pressed his face into her neck, rocking slowly and then stilling with a pleasure-filled sigh.

They spent long minutes just breathing together, as she ran her fingernails over his back and he feathered his lips along her shoulder. When he leaned back to look at her, he appeared just a little bit drunk, and she breathed out a short laugh. He kissed her lips and then rolled to the side, gathering her in his arms, her cheek pressed against his warm skin.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but the next time she woke, a slip of gray was showing around the blind. She extricated herself from Ambrose’s arms and scooted to the other side of the bed, grabbing her discarded robe as she stood.

She used the bathroom, and when she came back out into the bedroom, Ambrose was sitting on the side of the bed, fully dressed, his features shadowy in the low light of dawn. “I should go,” he said softly. He looked up at her, and she detected the uncertainty in his expression, and perhaps just a bit of regret. He stood, running his hand through his tousled hair as she fumbled to pull her robe all the way closed to her neck, disappointment and a drip of embarrassment making her feel slow and gawky. She wasn’t sure what to say, didn’t know if she should ask him to stay. He’d obviously wanted to be with her—she knew she hadn’t imagined his response. But she’d also begged him at a certain point.

“Okay,” she said. What else could she say? And whether he’d responded to her or not, he’d only come over here to make sure she was okay and that she wasn’t alone. She felt slightly rejected, and a little embarrassed, but she was also still exhausted. And however this had ended, he had made her feel better. Talking had helped. The rush of lust had helped, too, and so had the orgasm. Her muscles felt lax, her emotions settled. She’d slept like a rock in his arms for several hours, and she knew she’d have no problem going back to sleep. And truthfully, he was probably right to leave now rather than stay longer. What happened had shaken her, and she hadn’t had much time at all to process it. She needed to sleep as long as her body told her to, and she needed to find her own equilibrium.

He paused, his heavy gaze moving over her face, cataloging. He gave a succinct nod.

God, this was awkward. And yet, she still couldn’t bring herself to regret it. She was halfway back to sleep already, and she wanted nothing more than to fall back into bed.

She walked him to the door, and when he got there, he turned back around quickly, opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and then leaned forward and kissed her softly on her mouth. It looked like he was having an internal argument with himself, but finally he said, “Get some more sleep, Lennon. Goodbye.” And then he turned and walked away, and she closed the door behind him, confused about why his goodbye had sounded permanent.