Very little. I spent an embarrassing amount of time watching her sleep. “Better than usual.”

“Dream about anything good?”

“The dreams couldn’t compete with the real thing lying next to me.”

She snorts and rolls toward me, sliding an arm around my waist. “I bet that’s what you tell all the girls.”

Not at all. In fact, aside from kissing Vivian, I haven’t touched another woman since my first night with Hanna. No other woman has appealed to me since I touched her.

“Tell me about your dreams, angel. What does your future look like in that amazing brain of yours?” I ask because I want to know and to remind myself why I need to keep my distance from her.

She snuggles closer and traces my tattoos with her fingertips. “Hmm, I don’t know. I feel silly saying it out loud.”

I tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. “Try. For me?”

“Okay… My bakery is successful. Days that start at four a.m. The smell of bread and pastries. Happy brides and wedding cakes that are so beautiful no one wants to cut into them.” She smiles, lost in the image. “A little house for me in historic New Hope so I’m close to my bakery but still have space for kids, a backyard for a big dog. Evenings walking along the river and Sunday brunch, where I see my sisters and our kids grow up together—cousins who play and fight like brothers and sisters.” She shakes her head, as if to shake away the thought, and releases a breath. “Probably sounds pretty lame to a big-shot celebrity.”

“Not at all. It sounds…amazing.” There’s reverence in my voice. I don’t know what that’s like—the small-town life, the tight-knit family—and I envy the simplicity of it.

But she chuckles softly. “You don’t think less of me because I don’t want to escape the little town where I grew up?”

“I couldn’t think less of you.” I press a kiss to her mouth then move my way down her body, stopping to lick each nipple and suck at the sensitive skin above each hipbone. When I sink between her legs, she parts them easily, and her cries fill my ears as I explore her with my fingers and tongue.

And after she comes, I softly bite the inside of her thigh, suck until she gasps and then moans with pleasure. I’m marking her. Do I want her so-called ex to see I was here? Or do I just want her to remember me when she sees it? I don’t need to understand why I’m doing it to know that I am. Marking her. Because knowing I can’t have her doesn’t change that I want her to be mine.

“Looks like you’re cooking for an army this morning.”

I look up from the fruit covering my cutting board and see Hanna walking into the kitchen. She fell back asleep and I came down here to make breakfast. She’s not eating enough, so I made bacon, hash brown casserole, cinnamon rolls, and fruit salad. She’s wearing a robe—with nothing else if I’m lucky. I wipe my hands on a towel and skirt around the island to pull her into my arms. She has that effect on me. I see her and need to touch her. She melts into me as I kiss her, sweeping my tongue inside to taste her, to drink her in. When I break the kiss, it’s only because I want it to be so much more.

“What are you doing with all this food?” she asks.

“I’m feeding my girl.”

She blushes. “I just need some coffee and maybe a little of that fruit salad.”

“What you need is a keeper. How much weight have you lost since we met three months ago?”

Ignoring my question, she goes to the coffee pot to pours herself a cup.

“Hanna,” I whisper as she turns around. I tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. “I’m worried about you.”

“I needed to lose some weight. Trust me, I’m not going to waste away.”

“You didn’t need to lose an ounce.” My gut burns with rage at whoever made her feel this way. That rage used to be directed at the ex, but I’m not sure anymore. “Did he do this to you? Did he make you feel this way?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Fuck, Hanna. What did this loser do to you?”

“He’s not a loser!” She snaps her mouth shut and drops her gaze to her coffee.

My gaze floats to her na**d ring finger. “So you haven’t given him an answer yet.”

She gasps. “I wouldn’t be here if I had.”

I am such a hypocrite, because f**k that hurts. “Yeah, but you see, that assumes you’re going to take him back. If you’d answered and told him no, there’d be nothing wrong with being here with me.”

I return to the fruit salad, and the room is tense with our silence.

I make us each a plate and take them to the sunroom. No sun this morning. Rain has been falling since last night, and I’m not sure when it’s supposed to stop. She settles into the chair across from me and closes her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Hanna,” I say. “I know you love Max. I just…”

“What do you want me to do?” she asks.

I drop my fork and shake my head. Because that’s just it. “Nothing. I’m not asking anything from you. I’m not him.”

Pushing out of her chair, she goes outside. That came out wrong. Shit. I just mean that he’s better than me. He’s the better choice, the choice that makes sense. I follow her to the patio, where she’s watching the rain.

“It’s not you,” I say softly. “You know that, right?” The sky is gray, the rain coming down in a constant melancholy drizzle. Miserable day for a miserable conversation. “I can’t offer you more than this. Even when you deserve more. It’s not because I don’t want it. It’s because I made a promise to myself. To my son.”

When she turns to me, confusion is all over her face as she traces the tattoo with Collin’s birthday. “I never asked you for more, Nate.”

Her touch is killing me. Making me want what I can’t have. I grab her hand and squeeze. “But you deserve it.”

“I’m a big girl. Let me decide what I deserve.”

“You deserve everything. Anything you could want. But I’m not the man to give that to you. I can’t.” I take a breath and study the sky because I can’t look her in the eye when I tell the story—when I explain how easy I am to leave behind. I tell her about my dad leaving, about being the second family, explain that I can’t do that to Collin, and with every word, I hear Vivian talking over me in my head. “Don’t use Collin as an excuse to put walls around your heart. Whoever she is, she’s already found her way in. Think about what you’re doing before you push her away.”

“You’re a great dad, Nate,” she says when I’m finished. And even though she really doesn’t have any evidence for her claim, it still means the world coming from her. “You’d never make him feel like that.”

“It’s hard enough to be a kid to celebrity parents. I won’t pile that on too. Collin is the most important thing in my life. I can’t give you more without taking something from him. I won’t do that.”

“I wish you’d quit making it seem like I’m asking for that.”

I stare at her, long and hard. I know she’s not asking for more from me. Isn’t that why I’m so scared to offer it? “What happens if we don’t end this, Hanna? You can’t be my mistress for the rest of my life. You can’t keep flying out here when I snap my fingers. Every time I say goodbye, I tell myself that’s it. That I’ll end it. Because you deserve that. But I’m weak and selfish as shit and keep calling you back because I can’t get enough of you.”

“What are you trying to say?”

I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sky, letting the rain wash over it. Then I feel her behind me. She kisses my bare shoulder and my heart snags between fear and hope.

“Are you still in love with him?”

I feel her tense behind me as she removes her mouth from my skin. “I am. But I’m in love with you too.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Don’t say that.”

Before I know it, she’s gone—running into the house and away from me. How did I let this get so f**king complicated? I knew I would only hurt her, and I was right.

“Shit,” I breathe, chasing after her.

I find her in bed, curled onto her side, eyes closed. I climb in and wrap my arms around her. “I was in such an ugly, dark place the night we met. I looked into your eyes, and you were right there with me—my angel in the darkness. You saved me.” I breathe her in, a man taking his last breaths of pure oxygen before going underground. “You saved me, and I love you.”

She doesn’t reply, so I keep going. Because she needs to know. “I think I’ve been in love with you since the night we met. And I know that sounds crazy and implausible—like one of those things the guy says when he’s trying to win the girl—but for me, it’s just true. I love you and I’m terrified that you’re going to ruin your life because of it. I’m not telling you to take his ring. I honestly believe that if he were worthy of you, you wouldn’t be here with me. But don’t let me be the reason you don’t take the life you want.”

“What if you’re the life I want?”

There it is again. That snag on my heart, a tiny tear at the top as it’s caught in the middle of this internal war. “You’re asking me for something I can’t give.”

39. Hanna

I WAIT until he loosens his hold and then I turn in his arms. “Okay. But there is something you can give me.”

His brow furrows and his eyes drop to my lips. “What’s that?”

“Make love to me, Nate. I want you to be my first.”

Holding my breath, I wait for him to respond. His breathing changes, and he threads his fingers through my hair and tucks it behind my ear. “Hanna,” he murmurs, and I know from the way his voice breaks that he’s lost the battle with himself.

I close the inches between our mouths and sweep my lips over his. Before I can pull away, he fists his hand in my hair and holds me tight. The kiss turns hungry and desperate, and I understand. For three months, we’ve been building up to this moment, and as much as I’m sure of my decision, my belly is a bundle of wild nerves.

He rolls us until I’m on my back and he’s hovering over me. He parts my robe with one hand and lowers his mouth to my neck, my breasts, my belly. I shove his pants down, and he kicks them to the side. I’m trembling by the time he tugs my panties from my h*ps and pushes my thighs apart.

“Once won’t be enough,” he murmurs as his mouth skims my hipbones. He rocks his hand against me, and I raise my h*ps off the bed.

“Please,” I whisper. “Don’t make me wait.”

After grabbing a condom from the drawer, he sits back to slide it over his thick erection. Then he lifts his eyes to mine. “There’s so much I want to show you, and you’re going to be sore tomorrow.”

I grin. “Pretty confident, aren’t you?”

He moves back up my body until he’s framing my face in his hands. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes the first time he saw me na**d, the intensity, the heat. But it’s different now. There’s something else in those dark, expressive eyes. Tenderness. Love.

Maybe I thought it would be rough and crazed if Nate and I ever made love, but he’s not in any hurry. His mouth on mine is slow and thorough and full of promise, and when he breaks the kiss, I feel him poised at my entrance. He watches me as he slowly slides in, and I’m so desperate for more that I want to arch my back and push him deeper.

“Please,” I murmur.

He shuts his eyes for a breath, and his lids are heavy when he opens them again. “You feel so f**king amazing. But I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “It feels good. I want more.”

He hesitates a moment. Then he sinks all the way in. There’s a stretching and pulling sensation, but it’s not pain, not exactly. It feels too good to be described at pain. It’s just adjustment as my body stretches to accommodate him.

He’s completely still inside me as he sprinkles kisses across the bridge of my nose and down the crook of my neck. When I lift my hips, he groans. “Do you feel okay?”

“It’s good,” I whisper. I draw up my knees, and we both lose our breath for a second as our positions adjust and he’s fully sheathed by me. I lock my ankles behind his back. “So good.”

He lowers his mouth to my ear as he finds his rhythm. Each time he presses into me, fills me up, he touches some deep spot that begs for more. It’s a new sensation. Deep and unexpected. I wouldn’t know how to describe it if I had to.

“I’ve dreamed about this,” he murmurs against my ear. “I’d dream that we got carried away, and it felt so damn good.” He nips at my ear. “Then I’d wake up and you’d be next to me. So f**king sweet and beautiful. I’ve wanted to do this since that first night. And knowing that you were a virgin…” He groans in my ear and slips a hand between our bodies, finding my cl*twith his thumb.

I cry out and squeeze around him.

“I wanted to be the one to show you how good this feels.” He adds more pressure to my cl*tand drives deeper with those words. I feel myself coil tight, so close to release. “I’ve spent months imagining what it’d be like to have you squeezing my dick when you come.”

My body quivers with orgasm, and I can’t help but rock my h*ps as I ride it out. I expect him to come with me or right after, but when my body has turned to mush and the orgasm has passed, he pushes up on his elbows and smiles at me. It’s not his normal cocky grin. It’s this sweet, vulnerable smile that seems to say I’ve just made him happy.