“But there’re none in yours.”

“I see clear enough. I started this with you, and I’d end it. I was prepared to end it. But that’s not the way to solve the matter. Mary Kate won’t forgive and forget just because I step away from you. If she’s to grow up, she needs to learn how to face the hard things.”

“So, you’ve decided for all of us, then.”

Because he stopped, she turned to him. Moonlight streamed at his back, spilling over sand and sea like liquid pearls. And in its light she saw his eyes weren’t calm and easy, but very near to furious.

“Someone has to.”

“And it’s always you? Maybe I’ve had enough of you. Maybe I prefer having my life on balance instead of being in the middle of two women who want to bite and scratch.”

Nearly as shocked as she was offended, she snapped at him. “I don’t bite and scratch, and I wasn’t looking to fight Mary Kate or anyone over the likes of you. It just happened. And as far as you having enough of me,” she added, “that’s a different tune you’re singing than the one I heard only this morning.”

“I know a variety of tunes. And as you think so little of me, I’d suspect you’d be relieved to part ways in this area. Both of us can find sex elsewhere when we’re in the mood for it.”

“It’s not just sex.”

Ah, he thought, finally. “Isn’t it?” He stepped closer, backing her toward the sea. “Isn’t that what you said you wanted from me?”

“Yes.” What was going on in those eyes of his? she wondered. They were black as night, with thoughts and feelings she couldn’t read. “But we have a caring for each other. I won’t have you cheapen what’s between us that way.”

“But you’ll say what I’ll have and won’t, what I’ll do and don’t?” He snatched her up seconds before she backed into the surf. “Why would you want a man touching you who could be so easily ordered about?”

“Shawn.” He had her up, her feet dangling inches above the ground. Her heart began to boom. “Set me down.”

“You want me to touch you. Even now, thinking you can point and I’ll go here, or I’ll go there, you want my hands on you.”

“It’s nothing to be proud of.”

He jerked her up another inch. “Fuck pride.”

And when his mouth crushed down on hers, it was rough and ruthless. She might have resisted, might have shoved and struggled. But she did none of those things.

She gave, because he so rarely demanded. She gave, because she needed to. As her body began a fevered quaking, she said his name.

“I could have you, right here and now.” He dropped her abruptly on her feet. “Think about why that is. I have.”

She couldn’t think at all, not with her insides churning and the blood roaring in her head like the sea at her back.