After a moment, he rose to his feet and glared at her. “You don’t ever refer to yourself like that in front of me again. We clear? Never again. I don’t give a fuck who you were with or how many there were—you’re not a slut to me. You want to beat yourself up, do it on your time and don’t try to drag me into it.”

On a survival instinct, she cringed back from him and shielded her head, expecting his hands to curl into fists and come flying at her.

She’d been trained thoroughly in what men who were furious did to women.

Except Vin just stared at her, the anger in his face draining out and leaving a pale panic behind. “He hit you, didn’t he.”

Marie-Terese couldn’t answer that. Because even a nod would have sent her into a spiral of tears. Tonight…as Vin himself had said, tonight was not the night for trusting herself: Whereas quitting the business had made her feel stronger, that had been temporary. Here and now, she was vulnerable as hell.

“Jesus…Christ,” Vin murmured.

Before she knew it, she was back in his arms, back in them and up close. As they stood together, something occurred to her about the choices she’d made…something that she didn’t want to look too closely at, so she pushed it away and locked it up tight.

Lifting her head to look up at him, she said, “Be with me. Now.”

Vin went stock-still…and then cupped her face with his gentle palms. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

After a long moment, he closed the distance between their mouths and kissed her sweet and slow. Oh…soft. He was so soft and careful, stroking, tilting his head to the side, stroking some more.

It was better than she remembered, because it was better than she’d ever had.

Running her palms up his arms, she felt as if the two of them were suspended in air, tethered by choice, not trapped by circumstance. Light as the contact between them was, gentle as his lips were, careful as her hands were, power sizzled between them.

Vin pulled back a little. He was breathing hard, the muscles in his neck straining. And that wasn’t the only thing. As he looked at her, his body was even more ready for what was going to happen next.

He cleared his throat. “Marie-Terese…”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to call her by her real name, but she stopped herself. “Yes?” she whispered in a voice as husky as his.

“Lie down with me.”

When she nodded, he gathered her into him and pulled her onto the bed so that they ended up with her top. As their bodies adjusted to glorious effect, his hands brushed her hair from her face and lingered on her shoulders.