“I would have gone inside,” she said, her eyes searching his with an expression of such perplexity that he nearly flinched. She could not possibly be so naïve. He had raced through the house—he, who on some days could barely walk, had raced through this bloody monster of a house, unable to beat away the memory of his mother’s cry.

“Do you think that every single person in the world has your best interest at heart?” he demanded.

“No, but I think every person here does, and—”

“There are men in this world who hurt people, Sarah. There are men who hurt women.”

Her face went slack, and she didn’t say anything.

And Hugh tried so very hard not to remember.

“I looked out my window,” he choked out. “I looked out my window at half bloody three in the morning, and there you were, gliding across the grass like some sort of erotic specter.”

Her eyes grew wide, and they might have filled with alarm, but he was too far gone to notice.

“And what if it hadn’t been me?” He grabbed her arms, both of them, his fingers biting into her flesh. “What if someone else had seen you, and what if someone else had come down here, with different intentions . . .”

His father had never been one to ask permission of the women in his life.

“Hugh,” Sarah whispered. She was staring at his mouth. Good God, she was staring at his mouth, and his body felt as if it had been set afire.

“What . . . What if . . .” His tongue felt thick, and his breath was no longer even, and he wasn’t even sure he knew what he was saying.

And then she caught her lower lip between her teeth, and he could practically feel the soft scrape of it across his own lips, and then . . .

He was gone.

He crushed her to him, his mouth taking hers with no subtlety, no finesse, nothing but raw passion and need. One of his hands tangled itself in her hair, and the other roamed down her back, finding the lush curve of her bottom, pulling her close.

“Sarah,” he moaned, and some part of him realized that she was touching him, too. Her small hands were behind his head, holding him against her, and her lips had softened and opened, and she was making little sounds that shot through him like lightning.