I stared into his eyes trying to breathe as his hand at my midriff slid back down, slow, light. I shivered but he wasn’t starting something, something fabulous, like angry fighting sex that might lead, hopefully much later, to non-angry make-up sex.

He was saying something.

My still body turned to stone when his fingers stopped.

No, not when.

Where.

“You can’t hide it,” he whispered and I felt them, tears crawling up to choke me, biting the backs of my eyes, but I wouldn’t shed them.

No way.

I couldn’t give that to him.

I didn’t have it left to give.

“From the very first time, baby, I saw them. I saw them all. You can’t hide them,” he went on.

I stared at him, unmoving, not speaking.

“Here,” he ran his fingers light across the ridge on my belly. My scar. One of three. Opened up by a bullet, opened bigger by a scalpel. “Here.” He moved his hand to the pucker that ran along the top of my left thigh then his hand lifted. “And here,” he finished, his finger lifting to the mark that marred the skin just under my right breast.

I kept staring at him, unmoving, not speaking.

He held my eyes as his hand moved again, sliding down my arm, his fingers curling around my hand. He lifted our hands, pushed them between our bodies and pressed mine, palm flat, against my chest.

Against my beating heart.

“That’s you alive, Lanie,” he kept whispering then his head moved, coming my way, his lips hit the side of mine, his mustache tingling against my skin as his mouth slid along my cheek to my jaw and down, to my neck where he stopped and murmured against my pulse. “Feel you alive here, too, lady.”

I closed my eyes, my hand against my chest closing in a fist, my other hand lifting and curling into the fabric of the sleeve of his tee.

His lips and whiskers slid up to the skin just under my ear where he stated, “I’m right. You know it. You’re hiding. Right out in the open, Lanie, you’re trying to hide. Hide from me. Hide from everybody. I don’t know about everybody, lady, but you gotta know, you’re not hiding from me.”

I dropped my head, my forehead hitting his shoulder, and I admitted, “I can’t do this.”

“You won’t,” he returned.

“I can’t,” I parried.

“You won’t,” he repeated.

I pulled in breath then did what I had to do.

For me.

For my protection.

For my sanity.

I stated, “Okay then, Hopper, I won’t.”

I felt his whiskers prickle against my neck harder than normal as he shoved his face deep before he lifted his head and looked in my eyes.

“Okay, lady, so you won’t. But we got tonight.”

We had tonight.

Tonight.

Just tonight.

I could do that.

I could give myself tonight.

One more night of not being alone. One more night of not being lonely.

One more night of the drug that was Hop.

“We’ve got tonight,” I agreed.

His head dipped forward, his forehead coming to rest on mine as he closed his eyes and I felt it coming from him, the same thing I felt deep inside me, and my stomach hollowed out again in a way I knew it would never, ever feel full.

And it was then I realized I’d felt hollow a really f**king long time.

It was just that I really didn’t need to know that Hop felt the same way.

I had this realization for about a second before his mouth moved to mine and he kissed me—not hard, but deep, wet, long and unbearably, excruciatingly sweet.

Hop pressed his torso to mine, taking me to my back, kissing me sweet the entire time, his hands moving on me, under my nightie, whisper-soft against my skin, making me shiver, making my skin tingle, and then he did to me what he’d never done to me. He took his time. He was thorough. It lasted forever and it was beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced.

Beyond the best I’d ever had. It was the best I’d ever have.

And what it was was Hopper Kincaid making love to me.

After, when my mind was shut down, my body languorous, my limbs wound around the sheets, the pillow he’d tucked under me held tight, I watched him walk to the bathroom and then I watched him walk back.

He didn’t grab his jeans.

He didn’t grab me for another go.

He switched off the light and I felt the sheets tugged gently away, the pillow pulled out and thrown to the head of the bed, his warm, long, lean, strong body sliding into bed beside mine, the sheets and comforter pulled up and, finally, he tugged me close and held tight.

“Hop—” I whispered the start of my objection into his chest where my cheek lay.

His arm tight around my back gave me a squeeze. “We’ve got tonight.”

I shut up.

Hop’s hand found mine, curled around it and pulled it up his chest where he rested it, and I could feel his heart beating, strong and true, against the back of my hand.

I closed my eyes tight.

“One more thing I want from you, Lanie,” he said into the dark and I closed my eyes tighter.

I’d give him one thing. I’d give him a million things. I’d give him anything.

I knew that in my bones.

That wasn’t about great sex.

That was about him tucking the covers around me before he turned out the lights.

I didn’t tell him that.

I didn’t say anything.

Hop didn’t need me to.

His arm again squeezed and, this time, stayed tight. “Those bullets tore through you, baby,” he said gently and I felt my body tense. His other hand let mine go, came up and slid into the side of my hair, holding my head to his chest as he kept talking. “But you didn’t leak out. You’re still here. You lost blood, Lanie, and someone you loved. But you’re still here. Give me one more thing before this is over and promise me you’ll try to find it in you to remember that.”

So he would stop talking, I gave him what he wanted even if it was a lie.

“I promise, Hop.”

“Good,” he muttered, his hand pressing lightly against my head then sliding out of my hair, his palm gliding against my cheek before it fell away and he finished, “Sleep, lady.”

Sleep, lady.

I memorized his deep voice wrapping around those soft words as I replied, “Okay.”

My cheek rose as his chest rose to take in a deep breath.