When she turned away, he crossed his free arm over his chest to keep himself from grabbing her and pulling her into him.

And she didn’t go nearly far enough, as it turned out. She stopped in the doorway, the light from the hall hitting her profile and drawing over her perfect features ever so gently.

She deserved that kind of carefulness in a lover, he thought.

But he was too raw, too needy . . . too starved to be tender with her.

As she stood on the threshold, with the hand that had been on him gripping the doorknob, her hold tightened until her knuckles went white.

“What’s wrong,” he said in a voice so deep it nearly disappeared.

Stupid goddamn question.

Especially as he traced the curve of her breast with his eyes and wanted to do the same with his mouth.

“Have you ever wanted something you shouldn’t?” she asked.

Fucking hell. He had half a chance at resisting her if it was all one-sided—namely, his: There was nothing like telling yourself you were a nasty bastard to get a choke hold on your libido. But if he’d woken up in some parallel universe where she somehow wanted him that badly, too?

They were both screwed—even without the sex part.

“Have you?” she demanded.

“Yes, ma’am.” Like right now.

Now her voice was as husky as his. “What did you do?”

I took two steps forward and turned her around by the hips. I yanked her in tight and then I kissed her for about a minute and a half before I stripped her naked from the waist down. After I got on my knees, I threw one of her legs over my shoulder and worked her with my mouth until she came all over my tongue and—

“I walked away.” His throat was so tight the reply was strangled. “I walked away and I didn’t look back.”

Her shoulders straightened as if she’d resolved herself. “Very smart.”

He released his breath, relieved that she wasn’t as insane as he was feeling—

When she shut the door, she was on his side of it. And then she came at him through the darkness, drifting over like a shadow . . . and bypassing him to go lie on the bed.

Isaac couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think. But he could move.

Damn right, he could move.

All that let’s-be-smart went right out the window as he approached and loomed over her, seeing her pale skin against the dark navy sheets. She’d stretched out in the place he’d warmed not from some cozy-ass dream, but in his exertions to get away from his nightmare. And didn’t that remind him of what they were both going to wake up to.

“You sure about this?” he asked in a guttural voice. “I get down on that mattress right now, I’m not stopping until I’m inside of you.”