Sam straddled him and bent to kiss him. “At least it’ll never be boring.” She teased him by sliding her slick heat over his erection before taking him deep.

He reached for her hips to stop her from moving. “I’m trying to talk to you, Sam.”

“And I’m listening,” she said as she rode him slowly.

“I can’t when you’re doing that.”

She took his hands and moved them from her hips to her breasts. “What am I doing?”

“Samantha.”

“Were you really going to break up with me?”

“Yes.”

Filled with overwhelming sadness, she stopped moving. “You told me there was nothing that would make you not want to be with me. You said that.” When he didn’t answer, she ran her hands over his chest. “More than once.”

“That’s what I thought, but then, what happened today…”

“Can I ask you something?”

His hands traveled from her breasts to encircle her. “Yeah.”

“Isn’t it better to have this, for how ever long it lasts, than to let fear drive us apart?”

He turned them over and withdrew from her. “That’s not fair. You don’t have to worry every day that I’m going to get shot or blown up or run over.”

“No one’s tried to run me over. Yet.”

“You’re not taking me seriously.”

“You don’t think so? I haven’t been able to take a deep breath since you walked away from me at the hospital. Just when I was finally starting to have some faith in this, in us, you went and changed the rules on me.”

“I didn’t take a deep breath myself from the second I heard a cop had been shot in Reese’s house until I saw you in the waiting room.”

“So then we’re even. Can we get back to normal?”

He caressed her face. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. If I lost you that way.”

“Then don’t lose me. Keep me. Take a chance that maybe it’ll all be fine.”

“I don’t ever again want to feel the way I did today.”

“I can’t promise that you won’t.”

He ran his fingers through her long hair, a gesture so familiar, so totally his, that her heart fluttered in her chest. “I know.”

“So where does that leave us?” she asked.

“I need some time.”

A prickle of fear worked its way down her spine. “To do what?”

“Losing Julian has messed me up, Sam. I don’t want to say or do anything right now that I’ll regret later.”

“Okay,” she said, suddenly finding it hard to swallow.

“I was unprepared for how it would feel to be certain you were injured or worse.”