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The second she came, he knew he was finding a room.

‘We’ll go somewhere.’ His voice was husky, but slightly urgent, his breathing ragged in her ear. ‘Are you on the pill?’

She nodded, but it was a tense one. Her neck felt rigid, every inch of her beneath him fighting these new sensations.

‘Good,’ he said, and lifted his head. ‘Then I can come deep inside of you.’

‘Oh, God…’

She was gasping for breath, her thighs shaking, trying to lift her hips, coming to a void as he watched, and he knew she had, of course he did.

He just could not know that she never before had.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, kissing her now, back to earth, and she had to tell him, Stella knew.

‘What you said about…’ She paused just long enough for him to misinterpret.

‘We’ll stop and get protection,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where my mind went.’

‘No, I mean…’

‘God, but you look beautiful when you come.’

It astonished her that she had. And then she stared at the man who had just let her enter heaven, who assumed she knew the ropes.

Only she didn’t.

He had rolled onto his back, aching from not coming, willing his desire down, just so they could get the hell out…

‘I’ve never wanted anyone,’ she told him. ‘Not like that.’

‘Nor me,’ he admitted, still a bit stunned where his mind had gone, to kisses and intimacy and the prospect of hours spent exploring each other.

‘I mean, I’ve never been with anyone before…’

That worked!

His aching erection sobered up.

‘Gabe, I’ve never had a relationship.’

He was shocked but trying not to show it, then he told her a harsh but necessary truth. ‘Nor have I.’ On a different level perhaps, but he had never been emotionally involved with anyone either. ‘I just don’t do all that—a few days, maybe, a few weeks here and there.’

A few vague attempts in his thirty-five years.

‘I understand that,’ she said, still red in the face and trying to do up the tie on her dress. ‘I don’t expect this to turn into anything, but I want it to be you, Gabe.’

No.

Never me.

Do not give me the responsibility of this.

He might be a bastard, but he did not play with new, fresh, hopeful hearts. And hers was—he could see the light in her eyes, the shine of desire…and something else.

Something he did not want.

An affair of the heart.