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fingers into a fist, battling the urge to reach out and brush the backs of her fingers down his cheek. Or stroke her thumb over one of those damn eyebrows. But years of rejection seemed like a manacle around her wrist, chaining her arm to her side.
    Touch him. Comfort him, a small voice whispered inside her head. Give him what you’ve yearned for.
    With a force of will that set her heart pounding in a frantic beat, Rowyn lifted her arm, extended her hand toward him, and cupped his jaw. Displays of affection were as foreign to her as the Bible was to an atheist. Sex with Darius had been a risk; she had shared and submitted her body to him in a way she’d never done with another man. Yet this small gesture left her more exposed and vulnerable than hours naked in his bed had. It bared her heart—staked it to her chest, an easy target for rejection.
    When Darius covered her hand with his, then turned his head to place a kiss in the center of her palm, she sighed. And the band around her chest loosened.
    “My mother resents me,” she said softly. “Every time she looks at me, she’s reminded of my father, who she believes chose his family over her.” The confession stumbled past her lips. For the first time, she admitted aloud the truth she’d known for more than half her life. Wanda realized that the Harrisons weren’t the happy-go-lucky unit they represented in pictures, but even she didn’t know the extent of the antipathy.
    Darius pressed his lips to her skin once more before lowering her hand to his thighs and cradling both. He waited, silent, his steady gaze centered on her face. In the blue depths of his eyes she didn’t detect judgment or ridicule. Just compassion. Tenderness. And acceptance.
    Those attributes gave her the strength to continue.
    “My parents were young when they secretly married against his family’s wishes. I’m sure Dad assumed they would accept her—and eventually me. But that never happened. They blamed Mom for leading their son astray, for trapping him, for not being Korean…” Rowyn choked out a humorless chuckle. “That he continued to work for the family business further complicated the situation and deepened the bitterness and anger that ultimately led to Mom leaving him.”
    “Your mother told you this?”
    Rowyn shook her head. “No. Dad did a couple of years before he died.” From her mother, Rowyn had heard curses, insults, and rants about her selfish, worthless father who hadn’t wanted either of them. Even to this day, eight years after his death, she couldn’t discuss her first husband rationally. “My parents divorced when I was eight, and Mom did her best to keep me from him—changing the visitation dates, scheduling events on his weekends. A couple of times she forced me to call him and tell him I didn’t want to see him. She needed to hurt him, and replacing him in his daughter’s life with another father accomplished that.”
    In an abrupt motion, Rowyn lunged to her feet, unable to sit still any longer. It seemed as if a live wire vibrated under her skin. She needed to move, to do…something.
    “Would you mind if we kept walking?”
    “Not at all,” Darius murmured. But instead of stepping out onto the path, he shifted in front of Rowyn, cupped her face between his palms, and lowered his head until his forehead rested against hers. Slowly—so damn slowly—he brushed his lips over her mouth. Once. Twice. Then he dived deep, his tongue parting her lips and tasting what lay beyond.
    He lit a match to the stick of her emotional dynamite, and her control detonated into pieces around her feet. All the emotional tension of the past minutes cracked under his caressing mouth, and she arched into him, perching on her toes. She met him stroke for stroke. Sucked his tongue back into her mouth when he would’ve withdrawn. The hungry growl that rumbled in her throat should have embarrassed her. Should have. But it didn’t. She needed him. Ached for him.
    Craved