He closed his eyes as guilt wrestled with need. He’d always craved more love than he could get, had always been left wanting. Except when he was with Shiloh. Those years with her had been the only time in his life he’d been able to assuage that old ache.

“I want it too badly. That’s the problem,” he said and sank into her in relief when he felt her arms finally clasp tightly around him again.

Tia woke on the floor, tangled up in Seth, beneath a fur throw that had been on the couch.

She realized where she was quickly enough. The light glaring through the windows on either side of the huge room made that obvious. But it wasn’t until she heard, for the second or third time, what’d awakened her that she understood they were no longer alone in the house.

“Seth?” a male voice called as whoever it was came charging up the stairs.

“Someone’s here!” she whispered in alarm.

Seth covered a yawn. “What’s wrong?” he mumbled, still half-asleep.

Pulling away, she jumped up and scrambled to collect her clothes. “You have to get dressed.”

“Hey, where are you?” came the voice again. “You home?”

Once he heard the person, too, Seth said, “It’s Gavin” and sprang into action. But he’d barely managed to shove his legs into his jeans—was still buttoning his fly—when his brother walked through the door Tia had left standing open when she’d come in herself last night.

“Whoops!” Obviously embarrassed to find them only half-dressed and Tia with her back to him, struggling to get her yoga pants on, he whipped around to face the other direction. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I’ll be downstairs,” he said and left as fast as he could.

“Do all of your family just...walk in?” Tia asked once Gavin was gone. Eli had done the same thing, she remembered, when she was over for dinner.

“It’s my fault,” Seth explained. “I shouldn’t have given them the code to the gate. I just...didn’t have any reason not to at that point.”

And she was supposed to be staying in the guesthouse, so they’d have no reason to think they might walk in on something they shouldn’t.

“They aren’t used to worrying about interrupting anything like this with me,” Seth added as he found his shirt. “I haven’t been with anyone since Shiloh.”

Tia had wondered from the beginning if that was the case, and the way he’d acted last night had pretty much confirmed it. He’d seemed able to give himself a pass the first night, but he felt more guilt making love a second time. “I guess this is an office,” she said as she grabbed her bra off the floor. “It’s not like he barged into your bedroom.”