I round the corner and stop dead.
She’s already there.
Delaney stands at the counter in nothing but an oversized T-shirt—not mine, but close enough that my brain short-circuits anyway. The hem hits mid-thigh, and her legs go on forever, bare and pale in the moonlight streaming through the window. Her hair falls loose and wild around her shoulders. The cotton’s thin enough that I can see the shadow of her nipples, and I have to look away before I do something stupid.
Too late. Already did something stupid. I’m standing here in nothing but sweats with a hard-on I couldn’t hide if I tried.
We both freeze.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I manage. My voice comes out wrecked.
“No.” She doesn’t meet my eyes. Looks at the counter, the floor, anywhere but at me. “You?”
“No.”
The kitchen shrinks around us. The air between us could catch fire. Twenty feet separates our rooms upstairs, and somehow that’s both too far and not nearly far enough.
Her gaze drops to my chest. Tracks down over my stomach. Lower.
She notices. Of course she notices.
Her breath catches, and the sound goes straight to my cock.
“This is going to be hard,” I say. The double meaning hangs there, obvious, and I don’t take it back.
Now she looks at me. Eyes dark in the dim light. “What is?”
“Having you this close and not touching you.”
“Who said you can’t touch me?”
Everything in me locks down. Combat-ready, except the enemy is a woman in a threadbare T-shirt and I’m losing this fight.
“I did.” The words scrape out of my throat. “Until I do this right. Properly.”
She shifts her weight, and the movement makes the shirt ride up another inch. “Even after...”
She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t have to. The line shack hangs between us—her taste on my tongue, her hands in my hair, the way she came apart against my mouth.
“Especially after,” I agree. “Your terms. Your timeline. Your choice, Delaney.”
Neither of us moves toward the other. Neither of us moves away.
The moonlight catches the curve of her shoulder where the shirt has slipped. I track the line of her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, the way her pulse jumps visibly beneath her skin. I want to put my mouth there. Want to feel her heartbeat against my tongue.
“You’re staring,” she whispers.
“Can’t help it”—I grip the doorframe to keep myself anchored—“when you’re standing in my kitchen looking like that.”
Her expression softens, as if she recognizes and appreciates the control I’m exerting.
“Goodnight, Laney. Get some sleep.”
It takes everything I have—every ounce of Ranger discipline, every shred of self-control—to walk toward the stairs instead of toward her.
“Daniel—”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
