He pushed off the bed, reaching for his boots, and Kara quickly scooted away from him, sitting up and leaning against the bed, her knees to her chest. Protecting herself from another attack of pleasure turned to pain. But there was no protecting her from the impact of him sliding down his jeans and boxers, his erection jutting forward, thick with his desire and with the promise of the satisfaction he’d denied her.

He tugged a condom from his pocket but didn’t put it on. She wanted him to put it on, she wanted him inside her, and yet, she wanted to escape before she did something foolish and trusted this man.

His knees hit the mattress and he crawled toward her, and she had the impression of a wild, wicked beast in pursuit of what was his. Right then, she wanted to be his. She wanted everything else not to matter, to just disappear. The hunger in him washed over her, the possessiveness, and her body responded, the slick heat of arousal glossing her thighs. His hands came down on her knees. He kissed one and then the other.

“Open for me, Kara.” And his eyes met hers and she saw what was there, the demand she give him more than her body. The certainty she would if she wasn’t careful, if she didn’t do something to stop where this was going. She couldn’t afford to be weak. She couldn’t let herself give into the temptation to trust him.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

“You can.”

She wished she could touch him, that her hands were free. “You want too much.”

“I want everything. I told you that.”

“Everything is too much.”

He reached for her legs, easing them down, and pulling her beneath him. And she let him. She didn’t have it in her to fight what she felt for him, not like this, naked and pressed close to him. Not with his cock thick between her legs, and him hard everywhere she was soft, right where everything else felt wrong.

He stroked hair from her face, staring down at her, and she saw that raw vulnerability in him she’d first seen in Denver, that pain he lived with, that made her ache with him. That she somehow knew he let few people see, but he let her. He surprised her then, reaching up and releasing one cuff and then the next, then cupping her face. “Everything is definitely not too much.”

The way he said those words reached inside her and grabbed hold. She was falling for this man and falling hard and in that moment she couldn’t seem to care why that was so wrong. “Blake,” she whispered; a plea for some invisible perfection only he could give her.