“Do you really think I could fake this? Do you, Siena? Never in my life have I walked around with a permanent hard-on—until you came into my life. I can’t look at you without wanting you. It isn’t possible.”

He studied her face, her averted eyes. Closed off. Hell. She wouldn’t even look at him. But there was genuine pain there. She wasn’t faking that. This wasn’t some little manipulative tantrum she was throwing. Whatever she thought she heard had ripped her apart.

Siena tried to pull her hand out from under Elijah’s. His erection felt huge, hot. It pulsed with life. She couldn’t help but feel the velvet-soft flared head and the thick steel spike of a shaft, the way it throbbed with need, calling out to her for attention. She didn’t know if men could fake that kind of thing. She heard the raw pain in his voice, and his tone rang with truth. But she’d heard him. It wasn’t idle gossip she’d listened to—she’d heard him with her own ears. She hated the look on his face. So torn up. If she looked at him, she’d burst into tears and throw herself into his arms. She couldn’t be that stupid. She’d already humiliated herself twice for him.

“Baby.”

She closed her eyes. When he called her baby in his gentle, rough-with-need voice, everything in her responded. Melted. He was getting to her, because she heard the ring of truth in his tone, she heard the genuine pain.

“You have to stop, Elijah,” she burst out. She struggled to get her hand back again. His hold tightened, both on her hand and the arm locked around her waist. “I heard you.” He might sound truthful now, but he had then as well.

“All right, I’ll accept that you heard something, mi amor, something that has really upset you. Something that made you think I was lying to you.” Elijah’s voice was soft, almost stroking caresses over her skin. “Tell me what I said, because I swear to you, I don’t have any recollection of a conversation with Drake that could possibly make you believe I’m lying about wanting to be with you.”

She bit her lip hard and maintained her silence. If she moved she was afraid she would shatter. She had already made herself so vulnerable to him, she feared if she let him in even a little more, if she cracked that door again, she would be lost. Already she felt broken, and she knew she couldn’t take any more.

His hand rubbed hers over the thick bulge, and her heart nearly stopped. That bulge had grown, gotten even harder.