In her haste, her palm slipped on the fine nap of his sweater and brushed over something that was hard below his waist. And not hard as in bone.

“Damn, I’m sorry,” he said, moving his hips away. “Yeah, it’s definitely time to pull out of here…”

She looked down. His erection was unmistakable, and what do you know, she had a roaring sexual response to it. She wanted him. Needed to have him inside of her. And all the rational reasons not to go there were suddenly nothing more than yada, yada, yada….

Locking eyes with him, she whispered, “Kiss me.”

Vin froze in the process of getting up. As his chest expanded, he stared at the floor and didn’t say a thing.

“Oh,” she said. “I understand.”

His body might have wanted her, but his mind was jamming at the thought of being with a whore.

In a horrible rush, she saw the faces of the johns she had been with…or at least those she could recall. So many of them, more than she could count, and they crowded the space between her and this man who sat on his boyhood bed, looking as sexy as anything.

She hadn’t wanted the others. Had taken pains to be as separate from them as she could, layers of latex and dissociation barriers she used to try to stay as untouched by the contact as she could.

Vin, however…Vin she wanted close, and he couldn’t go there.

This was the real damage she had done to herself, wasn’t it: she’d assumed that as long as she stayed disease-free and unharmed physically, the long-term effects were going to be limited to a store of memories she’d be desperate to forget. But this was cancer, not the flu. Because she could barely see Vin through the cast of hundreds, and he was as blinded by the anonymous, invisible crowd as she was.

Swallowing hard, she thought…in this moment, she would have given up everything to have had a clean slate between her and Vin. Everything…except for her son.

Marie-Terese shifted off the bed, but he caught her hand before she could shoot out of the room.

“I can’t stop at just kissing you.” His hot eyes locked on her. “That’s the only reason I’m holding off. I’d like to tell you I’m a gentleman and could pull back or out with only a word from you, but I can’t trust myself. Not tonight.”

Caught up in the distance between them, all she could hear was, Women like you don’t get to say no.

In a hoarse voice, she said, “You already know I’m a slut. So I won’t stop you.”

Vin’s expression went cold and he dropped his hold on her.