Before they left this isolated cabin on the edge of the bayou, he’d uncover her secrets. She’d fight him, but he was stronger and determined. Nathan, he figured, was somehow connected to California. The story he’d been unraveling with her had jumbled once more. The killer in New Orleans. A killer in California. A man named Nathan. A woman named Analise.

A wide yawn cracked his jaw, and he wrapped her still body closer, savoring the quiet. They wouldn’t leave until he’d learned everything, he decided drowsily. Until she trusted him.

As dawn crested and topaz cascaded through the uncovered windows, he slid into sleep.

“GABRIEL?”

He emerged into full wakefulness when he conked his head against the wooden frame of the sofa’s arm. “Ouch!” Unfocused gray eyes shot open, then closed immediately on another groan of complaint. Bright, unfiltered light streamed into the living room and directly into his line of sight. Erin lay wrapped in his arms, hers twined around his waist.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“I can’t tell. Looks like morning.”

“Great deduction, Professor.”

Erin smiled at the grumpy tone, knowing she was safe. She’d resisted waking, resisted abandoning the sensual oblivion that had become hers in sleep. During the night, they’d come together, so that she awoke to find her face snuggled into his chest.

Her traitorous hands had sought the sleek heat of his naked back, sliding beneath his shirt to hold him close. Hard hips cradled her between steeled thighs, and she could feel him growing impossibly harder. Awake, as in her dreams, she wanted nothing more than to pull him to her, into her, their union at once a safe haven and a dangerous prison.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Gabriel unwound bare arms that circled his waist and eased her into the dip between his body and the back of the couch. Without a word, he surged to his feet and strode off in what she assumed was the direction of the bathroom. Erin drew herself into a seated position and pulled her knees up beneath her chin.

Abruptly, she recalled the events of the night before. How they’d stumbled over Harmony’s body and how she’d tried to revive her. Gabriel had plowed over the paramedics to get her to the Jeep and away from the scene.

She replayed her panicked reaction. Gabriel would have new questions. More questions. He would want to know about Nathan and California. About Analise and her crimes.

Erin could hear Gabriel returning, and she cast desperately for the explanation she knew he’d demand. Why had she become so distraught over Harmony’s death? And more damning, who was Nathan? Answering the first would be simple. A student’s death was guaranteed to shock. Nathan would be harder to explain.