Oh dear. Harrison had just made a joke. He’d made a joke while his body burned against hers. She wasn’t sure she could take this much novelty at once. The only solution, she decided, was to make a mad grab for the bottom of his T-shirt. As long as she was being shocked with revelations, she might as well get a glimpse of his abs too.

But he stopped her just as she managed to snake a hand against the flat, muscular plane of his abdomen. She caught a glimpse of the patch on his stomach where his pump attached, but that was all before his free hand pressed over the top of hers.

“I’m not some sad, solitary charity case, Sophie.”

She knew, in a second, that she’d pushed too far. Instinct told her to say something playful and light, anything to get him back to the serious business of kissing her, but she took a deep breath and met his gaze instead. His eyes were still steely, still gray, but they weren’t nearly as hard.

Swallowing heavily, she said, “Of course you’re not.”

His fingers tightened around hers, their hands near enough his waistband that there was no mistaking how much sexual urgency pulsated between them. “I’m serious. I know I’m not good at people, and I can come across all wrong sometimes, but I don’t want you to think I’m…” He frowned, struggling to find the right word.

“Desperate?” she ventured.

He halted. “I’m not desperate.”

“Alone?”

“I am alone most of the time, but I’ve always been that way.”

“Human, then,” she said, refusing to let him close back up. “Human and fallible and in need of a little comfort from time to time. Just like the rest of us.”

It took him a long time to answer. Too long, making her fear that she’d made yet another misstep, forcing him to withdraw once more into his hard shell. But he drew a deep, shuddering breath and said the words she’d been waiting her whole life to hear.

Well, almost.

“No one is like you, Sophie,” he said. “Thank God for us all.”

Instead of backing away, he lifted his wide palm to her cheek. She readied herself for another kiss. Half of her hoped it would be one of those hard, fierce ones. The other half yearned for something tender and slow. But as they stood there together, Sophie’s head cradled in Harrison’s hand, all she got was a long, lingering stare.

Strangely enough, it was as powerful as the feel of Harrison’s tongue sliding along hers. There was magnetism in those stony eyes of his, the lure of a powerful man drawing her in.

“How’s the heart rate now?” she asked.