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“And you haven’t heard from him since?”

“No. He dropped off Netta to my parents’ house and stopped answering our messages. Netta told my parents that Kyle’s friend stopped by, and after that her daddy had to go away for a while. But it’s hard interrogating a five-year-old. When was the last time you saw him?”

“Three years ago.” His brain hadn’t been able to piece much together hours before—and days after—the accident, but he’d never forget Yarrow’s face.

His uninvited guest scanned the ragged edges of his scars. He hated the pity flooding her features—that silent sympathy reserved for invalids. For cripples. A reminder that he was broken, maimed.

Before he thought better of it, he stepped into her space. Be nervous. Be scared.

Instead, she squared her shoulders. “What are you doing?”

This close, he could see the way the sun had bleached the tips of her lashes. The freckles across her nose formed a pattern he refused to commit to memory. He didn’t want to remember how sweet she smelled, didn’t know why he leaned closer anyway.

She had to feel this stupid attraction between them too.

Gripping her shoulders, he pulled her flush against him.

She froze under his touch.

No, dammit. Respond to me as you had.

Bracketing her head with both hands, he tilted up her face and kissed her. She held still for two seconds, three… When she melted against him and met his tongue with hers, he almost forgot the pain her brother had caused him.

Almost.

God, she was sweet. He squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to brand her into his memory—the warmth of her skin, the strength of her heartbeat against his hollow chest.

But if he could lock this moment away, maybe he could keep a part of her with him forever. A moment of happiness to last him through the cold years ahead.

When her hands lifted to his shoulders, he held his breath. Waiting. If she pushed him away—showed any sign she didn’t want this—he’d let her go. But her fingers tightened, gripping the tense muscles, and she rose on her toes, kissing him harder.

Her breasts yielded against his chest. He knew their shape by now, their soft weight. But what would they feel like bare in his palms? What would she taste like against his tongue?

She jerked back, as if reading his mind.

Loosening his hold on her when it was the last thing he wished to do, he let her go.

This time, when her darkened gaze met his, there was no pity there. Just sheer, blistering need.

Good. A woman hadn’t looked at him with such desire in years.

He’d assumed one would never look at him this way again.

How fucked up was it that the woman he wanted—who also wanted him back—was the one woman he could never have?

Nothing would erase the hatred he felt for her brother. The roots had dug too deep.

The intruder took another step away from him. “Show me to my room.”

Guess she really was staying. If he didn’t leave immediately, he’d lunge for her like a beast in heat. “Take the one down the hall. The upstairs is off-limits to you.”

“Off-limits? Like I’m some incontinent dog?”

“Call it whatever you want. But stay the hell downstairs. That’s the second condition.”

“And the third?”

“You change nothing here. I like this place the way it is. The curtains stay closed. The lights stay off.”