He didn’t feel good. He felt like a failure. Like a man who’d let another man beat this woman near to death. Like a man who couldn’t protect the weaker people around him, even though he tried with everything in him.

There were tons of people who never let their fathers drive off in a drunken stupor and die. And those people probably didn’t try half as hard as he did.

Sometimes he wondered if he was destined to fail everyone around him, no matter how hard he tried to be acceptable. To be good enough.

So if he was going to be bad, maybe he should just embrace it.

“I think you’re underestimating me,” he said. “Still. And I’ve had you in handcuffs.”

“I don’t know, Eli.”

“Sadie,” he said, gripping her chin, kissing her firmly on the lips. “Get your ass in my bed.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SADIE WASN’T SURE what was happening, or why it felt so different. It wasn’t about sex. She knew that much. Well, it was about sex, but it was about something more, too. Something deeper. Something she really didn’t want to guess at.

Eli had only let her in his house that night she’d used his shower when she’d burst the pipes. Never since.

They had sex at her house. And then he returned to his space. His neat and ordered space.

She walked through the front door, her heart hammering hard. Everything was like she remembered, identical, really, to the only other time she’d ever been here.

Neat, clean. Verging on shiny.

For a man who worked with farm animals and criminals, he sure kept his space spotless.

Maybe that was why.

“You know where my bedroom is,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Get upstairs.” There was a hard, determined light in his dark eyes. Like a switch had been flipped. There was so much electricity arching between them. So much heat. And so much intense meaning.

Things had changed. She’d changed them by telling him her story. By telling him he should have protected her.

She wasn’t sure yet if she’d made things better or ruined them, but she was sure she’d changed them. She’d felt it then, standing isolated in the woods with him, and she felt it now.

“Okay,” she said, because whatever was happening she wasn’t going to tell him no.

She turned and headed up the stairs, her footsteps loud on the wooden floor, her heart hammering louder in her ears, sounding over her feet.

“I like to watch you walk,” he said. “Though I like it better when you aren’t wearing anything.”

She heard him behind her, following her, his voice rough. “Well, I’m hardly going to walk through your kitchen naked,” she said.

“I walked through the woods naked for you,” he said. “And that’s not my usual thing.”

“No,” she said, tossing a look over her shoulder, her stomach knotting tighter as she saw the hungry look on his face. “I don’t suppose.”

“But I don’t do any of the usual things with you,” he said.

She pushed open his bedroom door and tugged her shirt over her head, ditching her bra just as quickly before crossing one arm over her breasts and turning, giving him her best saucy smile. “Oh, really?”

“No,” he said, his voice lowering. “I don’t.”

“Well,” she said, spreading her fingers, giving him a slight peek at her nipple, knowing that she was driving him crazy, “maybe we can see what else I might tempt you to do.”

He advanced on her, his expression dark. He extended his hands and cupped her face, tilting her head backward, his fingers forked through her hair. “Don’t make this a joke, Sadie.”

“I’m not,” she said, her heart tightening, like he’d grabbed hold of that instead of her face and squeezed tight.

“You’re trying to make light of it so you don’t feel it. I can’t do that. As you pointed out, I’m a pretty humorless bastard.” He traced the edge of her lower lip with his thumb. “So no more talking. Don’t try to make it funny. I have to feel it. So you damn well have to feel it, too.”

Her heart lurched into her throat, made a response impossible. But it didn’t matter because then he was kissing her, his lips hard and firm on hers, stubble scraping her chin, her cheeks, as things intensified between them.

Their little love scene in the car had been intense, driven by her need to wash something out of the past. To make it different. But this was different still. He was different.

And he was right. She wanted to do exactly what he had accused her of. She wanted to do a striptease and laugh and make it fun. She wanted it to be the kind of sex she knew, the kind she could control.

But Eli was in charge now. And for some reason, she felt more helpless now than when her wrists had been in handcuffs.

Because that had been her idea, her plan. But this was about his demons, not hers.

He pushed her back onto the bed, stripping her jeans, underwear and shoes from her body before he shoved his jeans down his hips, leaving him naked, bare for her.

“I’ll be right back.” He turned and walked into the bathroom and returned a moment later, rolling the condom onto his length as he moved back to the bed.

He positioned himself between her thighs, kissing her deep. There was no foreplay, no preamble at all, but she didn’t care. She was ready. She’d been ready since the last time he was inside her.

There was just something about him.

He pushed inside of her, deep, thick, filling her completely. A sharp gasp escaped her lips as he pushed his hips forward, going impossibly deeper. She wrapped her legs around his thighs, opening herself to him, allowing him better access.

She smoothed her hands over his hair, down his shoulders and back, her eyes never leaving his, the impact hitting her deep, sparking off the protective shields she’d built up around her chest, making her burn. Making her feel like she was on the verge of an attack that might bring the walls down forever.

He ground himself against her, pleasure rushing through her, her orgasm taking her by surprise, taking her over completely. Rushing through her and eclipsing all of the emotions that had been knotting up in her chest, leaving her feeling clean, new.

Relieved.

Above her, Eli lowered his head, his body shaking as he shuddered out his own release. He let out a hard breath and moved away from her, rolling onto his back. She just stayed where she was, staring at the ceiling, at the slats of wood, knotted and imperfect, but somehow orderly. Like the man himself.

The only sound was his harsh breathing. Probably hers, too, but for some reason she was much more aware of him than of herself. Possibly because she didn’t want to be aware of herself, all things considered.

The things considered being the fact that it felt like there was a potential avalanche of feelings about to crash down inside of her. A veritable rock slide of emotions.

No, thank you, sir.