Hell. Her ankle. She was injured and he was so intent on his own needs that he’d momentarily forgotten.

“We need to slow down,” he forced out, his voice gritty, as if he’d swallowed sand.

Her eyes popped open, and she leaned forward to kiss him again.

“We don’t need to slow down,” she said after a few seconds during which his mind got semi-scrambled again. “I want this.”

It took an effort to move his hand safely to her back, farther from temptation, but he managed it. “I want this too,” he said, and he closed his eyes, thinking it would be easier to get the rest out if he wasn’t staring into those gorgeous eyes. “But tonight’s not the right time. You’re hurt, for one thing.”

“You make me forget about the pain,” she said, running her fingers over his jaw.

“I need to catch up,” he said. “In my head. You decided you’re okay with fooling around with the help—”

“You’re not the help,” she said, flicking him on the chest, grinning.

“But I still need to get my mind around sleeping with the boss,” he finished. It wasn’t a lie, but it was only part of the truth. The heart of the matter was he needed to figure out if it was possible to hook up the way they both seemed to want to without her hoping for more. It was the “more” he would screw up.

She became serious again, peered into his eyes, as if measuring whether she should persuade him or appease him, which really wasn’t the right word for it, because walking out of this apartment tonight was going to be one of the hardest things he’d done in his life. But it was the right thing. He didn’t have a long history of doing the right thing, but for Sierra, he would start.

She pressed a light kiss on his lips and then increased the space between their heads. “Okay. I guess that’s only fair. The getting-your-mind-around-it part, not the ankle part.”

With a halfhearted smile, he said, “Both are legit. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to pick you up, and you’re going to tell me where you want to be for the rest of the evening. In your bed? Here on the couch? And then I’m going to set you down there and get you whatever else you need. And then I’m going to limp out of here with my jeans threatening my ability to reproduce.”

She laughed and lowered a hand to his crotch, but he intercepted. “No, you don’t,” he bit out, wanting nothing more than her hands all over him.

With another quiet but wicked laugh, she lifted her hand, trailed a finger over his lower lip. “I see I’m not the only one who can be bossy.”