He swept her hair away from her face, and before she could take a cautionary step away, he cupped her face between his hands and brushed his lips across hers. A burst of heat ignited inside her.

“Sleep well tonight. No bad dreams.”

With that short kiss he’d awakened all the longing she’d tried to push away, but couldn’t. She wanted to linger, to lean against him and soak up his strength. She wanted to get him naked and devour every inch of him right there in his kitchen, then take him to bed with her again so she didn’t have to be alone. Instead, she nodded. “Right. No bad dreams. Thanks, Trevor.”

She grabbed her stuff and walked down the long hallway toward her wing, feeling the loneliness of another long night wrap around her like a cold chill she wouldn’t be able to shake.

It didn’t have to be this way, but she had no one to blame but herself for being alone.

When she got to her room, she undressed and got ready for bed, then climbed in, pulling the sheet over herself. She’d already finished work for the day, so there was no appeal to her laptop, though she could surf the net.

She didn’t want to, so she decided to read a book instead, settling back against the pillows, hoping getting lost in one of her favorite series would help her unwind and maybe she’d get tired.

An hour later she was still wide awake, and she kept reading the same page over and over again. Not the book’s fault, because it was a great romance. The problem was, the characters in the story were hot for each other—and they were actually doing something about it. They were communicating, and having awesome hot sex.

She, on the other hand, kept doing her best to avoid her own feelings, and as a result, she was not having awesome hot sex with a man she should be having awesome hot sex with.

Even fictional characters faced their demons better than she did.

She glared at the book, right now hating those characters, and threw off the covers and got out of bed. She went to the window and stared outside, wishing she were at home.

She missed her mom.

She really missed her dad, missed their long talks. She could use a long talk with him right now.

Not that she could have had a conversation with her dad about Trevor. She and her father could talk about anything—except men and sex. Those conversations had always been reserved for her mom. Sports and television and books and anything else? Her dad. But whenever she’d had boy trouble, he’d grown decidedly uncomfortable and had suggested she talk to her mom.

She looked over at the bedside table. It was late—too late to call her mom, and really, what would she say? That she and Trevor had had sex, and then she’d pushed him away because—well, she didn’t even have a valid reason.

That wasn’t even the kind of conversation one had with her mother. It was a girlfriend kind of talk. Maybe she could discuss it when she went out with Alicia and Liz later this week. She definitely needed some advice.

Or maybe she should just go with how she felt. And right now she felt alone, and lonely, and felt like spending time with Trevor.

Who’d likely think she was out of her ever-loving mind if she searched him out in the middle of the night after basically ignoring the hell out of him, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She was an indecisive idiot. And maybe he’d tell her to get lost, but that was the risk she was willing to take.

Determined to finally get the hell over herself, she put on a pair of shorts and opened her door.

And nearly jumped out of her skin, because Trevor was right there, his hand raised as if he were about to knock.

Chapter Eighteen

TREVOR WAS SHOCKED THAT HAVEN ANSWERED THE door before he even knocked.

He was kind of surprised that he’d made his way over to her wing, and hadn’t exactly prepared what he was going to say to her once he got here, but now she’d opened the door, so he’d better start talking.

“Hey,” was all that fell out of his mouth. Not exactly earth-shattering or comforting, but it was all he had.

“What are you doing here? Never mind. Come in.”

Okay, that went well. At least she hadn’t slammed the door in his face.

“I thought you might be sleeping,” he said.

“I wasn’t. Actually, I was about to come to your room to see if you were still awake. Or, I guess I was going to wake you up if you were asleep.” She looked as uncomfortable and awkward as he felt, shifting from foot to foot and looking around the room. “I don’t really know what I was going to do once I got to your room. You kind of saved me from having to figure that part out.”

He relaxed a little when he realized she was nervous. “Figure what part out?”