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you? So worried the guy you’ve brought home to fuck will see some deep…dark… terrible secret about you.” His fingers crept underneath her hair, to her nape, gently massaging there. She wanted to open her mouth and snap a retort to his crass comment, but all that came out was a groan. How did he weave such a spell? It wasn’t only his words, but the mesmeric pitch of his lightly accented voice, the ironic undertones. “Is that it, Madeleine? Do you have a deep, dark, terrible secret? Tell me.”
    The massaging fingers became firm, biting into the tender flesh under the base of her skull. But it felt good. She couldn’t fight his grip when he turned her head to face him. She didn’t want to, didn’t even try. His mouth was so close to hers his breath stole between her lips. Her own breath was coming in ragged little pants. She could gauge its speed by the erratic fluttering of the curlicue of hair hanging in front of her face, until his other hand pushed it away.
    The way he spoke of dark, terrible secrets made all of her angst seem like elementary school stuff. That was how she felt with him suddenly, like a trite child dealing with someone much older, more sophisticated and infinitely more knowledgeable. What that knowledge might entail, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
    “I don’t have any dark secrets,” she muttered.
    His dark gaze flickered over her features. “Of course you do.”
    “No, I—”
    “Very well, then, tell me why that idiot broke up with you tonight. Tell me what’s so bad about you that he couldn’t deal with it.”
    “He thinks I’m crazy.” It just burst out. Rolled off her tongue as if it didn’t even shame her, though it did. She wanted to fold up and disappear. Now he would probably release her like she had the plague, leap from the car and never look back. When he didn’t, she was compelled only to keep talking, pushing him, daring him. “He thinks I need a psychiatrist. I see things. Like…these hollow-eyed dead souls in my mirrors. They reach for me. I dream about stuff I can’t even describe to you, stuff that makes me wake up screaming and fighting the empty air. Tonight I somehow lost twenty minutes, like a freaking alien abduction or something. And I really don’t know why I’m telling you this—”
    “Don’t stop.”
    She found she couldn’t. Something about him was drawing it out of her, as if the words themselves were being pulled from the depths of her soul. “He thinks I’m too needy, too clingy. He’s an idiot. Oh, I need a shrink. I’m the weak one. What he doesn’t realize is if he saw half the crazy shit I did, he would be in a padded fucking cell by now.”
    “Indeed.” It should probably disturb her that a slow grin had spread across his face, but it only enflamed her blood more. Dear God, did he understand her? Did he get her? After all these years searching for the one who would, had she found him within the space of an hour?
    But this was only a one-time thing. She couldn’t afford to lose her heart to a stranger.
    “Yet I’m still here,” she said softly, getting better control of her vehemence so that she wouldn’t end up bursting into tears. “I’ve made it this far, so I’m doing fine. I’m upset at him but I don’t need someone to…to rescue me.”
    His lips brushed the outer ridge of her ear. “Mmm. Was it a savior you were looking for?”
    She sucked in a breath at his ministrations, especially when those lips parted and trailed lower, to her neck. Her pussy ached so hard she squeezed her thighs together, trying to assuage the building demand. “I…might have been. Whether I wanted to admit it or not.”
    Ash’s hand dropped to her leg. The entire appendage jumped at the touch, and by reflex her own hand flew down to grasp his. The sudden movement only assisted his hand in slipping under her dress, his hot fingers curling around her rigid muscle. “Maybe tonight I can fill that capacity,” he murmured.
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