Flashback

“No.” She shook her head. “You never said.” He’d never said a lot of things. He’d held back so much.

And to be honest, so did I…

“I’d get off on it,” he said, not holding back this time. Which did exactly what she hadn’t wanted-it opened her heart to him.

“On you,” he murmured. “For years afterward, I’d get off thinking about you.”

She stared up at him. “You mean you…”

“Uh-huh. I jerked off.” Leaning over her, he was nothing but a shadow until he bent even closer. Through the shutters, rectangles of light slashed over him as he let her look into his eyes, which were dark and scorching. “So much I’m lucky I’m not blind.”

She laughed but also swallowed hard, surprisingly aroused at the thought of his touching himself while picturing her. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” His eyes glittered with heat and memories and suddenly both the heat and memories were making her feel awfully warm from the inside out.

Actually, they were making her hot.

Very hot.

“Tonight, just looking at you…” He let out a long breath and shook his head. “It brings it all back, but it’s even stronger.”

His mouth was in the shadows. She couldn’t see his lips moving but his voice washed over her, as did the images he evoked. He was bringing it all back for her, too.

“You were beautiful then,” he said. “But you’re even more beautiful now. I want to take this shirt off of you, Kenz. Please let me.”

At his words, she nearly turned the tables and begged him. She could feel the T-shirt caught high on her thighs. His hips were holding her legs open to him, and with just a little nudge of the shirt, he’d be able to see all her god-given goodies, along with the fact that she was already wet.

“Please,” he murmured. “Please let me.”

Oh, God. “Yes.”

He shifted, and then she could see his mouth, which rewarded her with a smile as he made his move, his fingers closing around the hem of the shirt, slowly tugging it up, revealing her body.

She’d wanted this, sought it out under the guise of getting her long-needed revenge, but that was really just a lie, and her first flicker of doubt hit.

Just who was going to get hurt here…?

The night air brushed over her breasts as he pulled the shirt all the way off and over her head. Her nipples hardened. Goose bumps spread over her flesh, and it wasn’t because she was cold. There were five stripes of moonlight across her body, one across her eyes, her throat, another highlighting her breasts, her belly and her crotch. He couldn’t have lined her up more perfectly for his perusal, and he definitely perused.

“Aidan-”

His hand stroked over her hip, and her breath backed up into her throat. She opened her mouth to say maybe she’d been hasty about this whole breaking his heart thing, but before she could, he’d put a hand on her inner thigh and pushed, further opening her to him.

The slants of shadows hampered his view, but he didn’t seem bothered, not with his front row seat.

The only sound in the room came from him as he let out a groan. “God, Kenzie. You’re so pretty.” He lowered his head, then paused, his mouth a hairsbreadth away from her trembling belly. “I want to kiss. I want to taste. I want that more than I want my next breath. Please let me…”

As far as begging went, it was pretty good. “O-okay,” she managed, and almost before the word was out, he’d nudged her legs open even wider, wedging them there with his broad shoulders. He slowly lowered his head. “Pretty please,” he whispered across her flesh.

Her wet flesh.

“Yes.” Her heels dug into the mattress as he “pretty pleased” his tongue over her, and then his teeth, and then his warm lips, over and over again leaving her a panting, gasping, quivery mass of sensitized nerve endings, and when she exploded for him, he surged up, produced a condom and slid into her with one sure, powerful thrust.

“Oh,” she gasped, reaching up to hold onto him because her world had just spun on its axis. The feel of him deep inside her-and he was deep, as deep as he could get-had her spiraling. Gone were all thoughts of hurting him, or revenge. She could think of nothing but this, but him. Not that she would admit such a thing. “You…you didn’t beg for that.”

Cupping her face, he tilted it up to his. “Pretty-please may I drive you out of your living mind?”

Oh, God.

“Kenzie? May I?” His voice was thick with the same hunger and need that was driving her.

“Yes.”

“Good. May I also pretty-please make you scream my name?”

In answer, she arched up, her breasts pressing into his hard, warm chest, her legs wrapping around his waist.

He groaned, a low, rough sound that scraped at all her good spots but he didn’t move. “Can I?”

“I don’t usually do much screaming.”

He just smiled, and then took her mouth as he took her body, indeed driving her out of her mind with all too disturbing ease, and when she exploded again, she cried out his name.

Loudly.

She might have even screamed it.

As the blood finally slowed in her veins, as the roar of it lowered to a trickle in her head, she became aware of the fact that she was gripping him tight, holding him close with her arms and her legs, not letting him escape.

He didn’t say a word, just nuzzled lazily at her neck as his breathing slowed.

Hers wasn’t slowing. Embarrassed at how tightly she was holding him, she forced herself to let him go, certain he’d roll away.

But in perhaps the loveliest thing he’d done all night, he didn’t. Instead, he remained right where he was, turning just his head to press his lips to her jaw, murmuring her name on a sigh.

It was one of those defining moments, where she suddenly knew the truth-she’d not exacted a single ounce of revenge. In fact, she’d made things worse.

She’d risked her own heart.

But for that one moment at least, she didn’t care, because maybe he’d changed. Maybe things could be different this time, and-

“You screamed my name.” He lifted his head, revealing a strong smile. “You begged.” He out-and-out grinned then, not broken, not even a little bit. “We still work hard.”

“There’s no we.” She pushed him off her, suddenly and irrationally irritated. “No we at all.”

Completely oblivious to the picture he made sprawled out on the bed, buck naked, he put his hands behind his head and continued to smile like an idiot. “Are you telling me you have no desire to do that again?”

“None.”

“Ah, Kenzie. You’re such a pretty liar.”

Yeah. Yeah, she was. A pretty liar, and a good liar. But she had no idea how else to hide the fact that she still had feelings for him in spite of their past-or maybe because of it. God. She needed to get out for a while, needed to clear her head. Get some answers. Alone.

“Stay,” he murmured.

“Okay.” She looked at him. “I’ll stay if you tell me this. Why did you really dump me?”

At that, his amusement faded. “I told you I was an idiot back then.”

“Granted. Why else?”

He looked at her and she nearly backed down; she certainly held her breath, but he touched her face. “Because I didn’t know what I had.”

AIDAN SLEPT like the dead. Or like a man who’d been far too close to serious exhaustion. When he opened his