“Yes, but I’m not going to,” he said. “Because I won’t leave.”

After a second, she nodded once, quickly. “I get it. Good-bye.” She attempted another exit, but he grabbed her again.

“You’re mad at me,” he said.

She bit a soft laugh. “Not really. Confused.”

“Understandable. Let’s not rush things.”

She searched his face, long and hard, the confusion darkening her eyes. “Why is it that every instinctive female alarm system that’s hardwired into my body is screaming a red alert right now?”

Because that female alarm system was in excellent working condition. “Not sleeping with you doesn’t mean I don’t want to. It means I do. More than once.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I like that.”

He slowly took the keys out of the ignition and gave them to her. “Let me walk you to the door.”

“No, that’s okay.” She gave a tentative smile. “I might never let you go.”

For some reason, the words got to him.

“Thanks for dinner and coming to the party.” She opened the door and stepped out, walking to the front of the bungalow. He watched for a moment, then he climbed out, closed the driver’s door, and took a few steps to his motorcycle.

As he was about to get on, he looked up and saw her slip into the front door, imagining her leaning against it inside, sighing, maybe a little let down, maybe a little excited, definitely a lot baffled.

What the hell was he doing? He couldn’t use this woman like this. He was a bastard, hurt and angry and desperate, sure, but she didn’t do anything to deserve this.

Fuck this lying.

He pivoted, his mind dead blank for a moment, then he sprinted toward the small porch, his feet pounding on the two steps as he bounded to the door, which opened exactly the second he reached it. “What are you—”

“I have to tell you something,” he said, surprised at how strangled the words were.

“What?”

“I have to tell you…” He put his hands on her shoulders, the confession jammed in his throat now. “I have to tell you…”

Suddenly, his head thrummed with blood and fear and the echo of Henry Brooker’s statement of raw fact.

Ian, you live with this lie or you die.

“Tell me what?”

“That I…” Lie or die. He closed his eyes and pulled her hard against him, finding her mouth and slamming his over it, squeezing her whole body as if he could kiss her from head to toe.

She stiffened, bunching his shirt under her fists, a soft whimper in her throat.

Lie or die.

The three words ricocheted in his brain, so he kissed harder, opening his mouth and entering hers, tasting heat and wine and the sweet flavor of her giving in. Her fingers loosened, flattened, and traveled over his chest with appreciation. Her tongue matched his, licking and flicking in a mating dance, and her hips rocked gently at the place where they met so naturally.

Lie or…

Kiss. It was all he wanted to do. Kiss. Touch. Taste. Smell. Press his hard-on into her pelvic bone and ride. The reverberations of Henry’s words faded into her tender moans and disappeared into nothing as he let his hands travel over her back, her hips, and cup her backside. Henry’s warnings went silent with the thrum of blood and the steady, heavy insistence of his body.

He broke the kiss only to trail more down her neck, walking her backwards into the entryway, unable to stop his hands from roaming up her waist to the sides of her breasts. To her nipples, so hard his mouth watered to suck on them.

“John.”

He barely heard the name, it hardly registered. He didn’t have a fucking name anymore; he just had need. Kissing her mouth again, he turned her to the wall, using it for leverage to roll against her.

Breathless already, she let him, lifting her chin to offer him her throat and breasts, bracing herself as he clutched her breast with one hand and gathered up her dress with the other. He wanted under. In. All the way—

“John.” She added pressure, pushing him back an inch, needing air. “Is this what you wanted to tell me?”

Was it? Wasn’t he going to tell her the truth? Or was he going to fuck her in every possible way?

God, he liked this woman. This hard-on was real and way too connected to his brain, and that alone was a lovely and unwanted change.

“Actually, no,” he whispered, opening his fingers to let her dress fall back around her legs. “I was going to tell you…”

A secret she had no reason or desire to keep.

He put some more space between them, taking his hand off the sexy curve of her breast and placing both hands on the wall, holding himself up and not giving her a way to escape.

She still fought shallow breaths, her eyes dark with arousal, her cheeks flushed, her lips a little swollen from his brutal kisses. She looked pretty. Hot. Ready. Willing to take him and trust him and he…

He was a total and complete fake who needed this woman to fall for him and marry him and give him the only thing he really wanted. Without ever knowing the truth.

Self-loathing rose up, replacing his fiery blood with ice. “I was going to tell you…that…I…” He closed his eyes, unwilling to look at her when he lied. “I want more than a one-night stand.”

“You told me that.”

“I wanted to emphasize it.”

When she didn’t answer, he opened his eyes and she was staring hard, clearly trying to weigh that statement with the man who’d pushed her up against the wall with his demanding dick and hungry hands.

“Me, too,” she whispered.

“That’s…good.” No, it was bad. Bad, bad, bad.

She smiled, reaching up to stroke his cheek. “Look, John, I can do casual sex, honestly, I can. I think I’ve proven that in the last four minutes. I can even handle a little sideline fun with a colleague. But if you want something that lasts more than a few days or weeks, then I need to be sure you remember that…” She struggled for a word, biting her lip. “You remember what’s important to me.”

She wanted a baby. She didn’t have to remind him; he remembered.

He backed away, and she winced ever so slightly. Enough that he saw the vulnerability that he could crush like a roach under his boot. That he would crush, when he had what he wanted…and she didn’t.

There was no way. No way he would ever dream of creating another child that grew up disconnected to him. And no way he’d—No. He couldn’t. He couldn’t tell her the truth, ever.

“That’s fine,” she said quickly, adding some pressure to push him back another inch, his answer obvious by his silence. “Just so we’re clear.”

He dropped one arm and she instantly stepped to the side and let out a soft, wry laugh.

“Is something funny?” he asked.

“No, just that, wow, we made progress tonight, huh? Met the friends, made out, almost had had the baby talk. What’s left?”

He reached for her face, holding her chin and stroking her bottom lip. He shouldn’t have picked her. She was too tender. Too precious. Too real.

All the things he wasn’t.

“There’s plenty left.” Assuming he had the balls to go through with it. Did he?

Time would tell. He hesitated for a minute, then lifted one hand in a halfhearted wave, walking out to the porch. When he reached the driveway, he turned to see her silhouette still in the doorway.

His heart hitched and he looked away, hating that the image was burned into his brain, where he had a feeling it would stay all night long.

Chapter Twelve

Two days later, Tessa lounged on her back porch, angling her laptop screen so the afternoon sun didn’t cause a glare. That way, she had a perfect view of the gorgeous lines of the dreamy, feminine, lace-layered wedding dress on the home page of All Gussied Up, the Web site run by the wedding consultant with pink hair.

She’d meant to spend this quiet Sunday boning up on each of the VIP guests, but for some reason she’d yet to click to Gussie McBain’s bio, staring at the dress instead.

“You’d look amazing in that.”

She jumped a foot and stabbed the Escape key, spinning around at the man’s voice. And not just any man—the man she’d spent the last two days allowing far more of a hold on her thoughts than he should have.

But look at him. And look she did, devouring the white T-shirt molded to substantial muscle, the faded jeans clinging to powerful thighs, his honey hair tangled from the wind and face shadowed with unshaved stubble, his hand clutching—a duffel bag?

“Hey, what’s up?” she asked, going for casual and friendly but getting a nervous hitch in her throat that she cleared away.

“I’m moving in.”

Her eyes widened and he laughed, the sound rolling right through to her toes.

“Next door,” he said, half lifting the bag in the direction of the bungalow that used to be Zoe and Pasha’s. After Pasha died, Zoe and Oliver had moved off the property and the bungalow had been empty. So of course Lacey would offer him the house built for sole purpose of housing Casa Blanca’s top staff.

But why hadn’t Lacey told Tessa?

“Well there goes the neighborhood,” she quipped, repositioning the laptop and sitting up so she wasn’t flat on her back in front of him.

He grinned, climbing up the single stair to her deck as though she’d invited him. There was one other chair, but he dropped the bag and sat down on the chaise next to her, taking his time to check her out from head to toe.

“Nice.” One syllable, one smile, one long look. “To see you,” he finally added.