It wasn’t a lie when I said that seeing him at the gala felt like fate. There have been so many times in the last eighteen months where I could have stopped reaching out to him—and, whenever the guilt of betraying Dad struck too deep, I almost did. Still I came back for more, compelled to peel back the layers of every word and email to piece together the man who spun into our lives like a wrecking ball.

I tucked away the details of his life like secrets I would never tell another soul—that he’s the third generation of Paxton men to work for the FBI, that he can see the spire of St. Louis Cathedral reaching toward the sky from his house, and that when his days are too busy to even breathe, there’s nothing that settles his restless spirit more than running on the levees that border the Mississippi River.

He wrote once to me, I’m terrified that I’ll look back at everything and realize that I’ve never done anything that makes my heart pound with want. Right now, I want.

Him. This. Us.

When the door cracks open five minutes later and his broad frame enters the room, it takes every ounce of willpower to remain kneeling on the floor. Dark-wash jeans mold to the muscles of his thighs and a black leather jacket hugs his shoulders like a glove. He’s not even remotely dressed for today’s frigid temperature, and a smile inches its way onto my face when he shakes his head like a damp dog and sends snowflakes fluttering to the ground.

“Clearly, this Southerner didn’t come prepared.”

His gaze flares at my teasing comment. Closing the door behind him with the heel of his boot, he shucks off his jacket and drops it over the back of a nearby chair. Each movement is executed with masculine grace, snaring my focus and holding it captive. The warmth in the room spreads like liquid heat in my blood, teasing my naked skin with the promise that any minute now, it’ll be him who sets me on fire.

Reid lowers his frame into a wingback chair to my left. Pools of sunlight dance across his handsome face as he runs his thumb over his bottom lip, that restless tic revealing that while his expression might be calm and composed, his soul is rattling the chains of his self-restraint.

“I want more, Laela,” he says huskily, never allowing his stare to drop below my face. “You give yourself to me, and I’m going to take it to mean that you’re mine.”

It’s a proposition.

A vow.

I dig my nails into my bare thighs. “It goes both ways.”