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the safety of a woman’s arms, but his heart and mind were struggling against his desires, joining forces for the first time in his life and forcing him to tear his lips from hers, refusing to allow him to hide from the emotions swelling within him.
    What the hell?
    He wanted more of Rebecca; he wanted to touch her full breasts, to run his tongue along her lower lip, and to taste every inch of her sweet skin. He didn’t want to draw back and take her hand in his again, and yet that’s exactly what he did.
    She licked her lips and he nearly went back for more.
    “Sorry. I’m sorry.” She tried to pull her hand from his, but he held on tight.
    “Rebecca, I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sorry.” Jesus, he was so not sorry, but goddamn conflicted.
    “No. You kissed my cheek, and I…” She covered her face with her hand. “I’m really not like that. I haven’t been with a guy in years. I’m just…” She drew in a deep breath.
    “Years?” Did she mean weeks, maybe?
    “My life hasn’t really been conducive to a romantic relationship. Hell, Pierce.” She yanked her hand from his. “I have no excuse. I can’t even say I’m an emotional wreck, because I’m not. Yes, I lost my mom six weeks ago, but after three years, we both knew it was coming. I just…I don’t know. You were looking insanely handsome and listening to every word I said like you really wanted to hear them, and…Ugh. I should go.”
    “Insanely handsome?” he joked, in an effort to lighten the mood.
    She shook her head. “Like you don’t know that? Please don’t play coy with me. I don’t have a high threshold for bullshit.”
    “Okay, fine. I’m as insanely handsome as you are wickedly, exotically, lovely. How about we both write it off to a nice kiss?” The last thing he wanted to do was irritate her. She was just beginning to open up to him, and he hoped she’d continue.
    She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to go over the top. Bullshit limits, remember?”
    “Okay, scratch the nice kiss, and make it scorching-hot kiss.”
    She laughed. “That’s better.”
    “Come on.” Pierce pulled her to her feet. “Let’s walk off our desires before you take advantage of me again.”
    Without her heels, she couldn’t have been more than five four or five five. He held her hips—Jesus, they felt good. He’d been dying to touch them since they’d met. Most curvy women worried about their body image, but she didn’t primp or suck in her stomach the way he’d noticed other women did. She didn’t fiddle with her blouse or do any of the other things that signaled insecurity. Rebecca seemed to pay no mind to her curves, and that confidence made her sexy as hell. He was tempted to lower his mouth to the crook of her neck, enjoy one little taste to make her insides crave him. Instead, he folded her into his arms. Her body stiffened, and he held her tighter. His mind flew back thirty years, to the days after his father left. In an effort to comfort his younger brothers, Ross, Jake, and Wes, he’d held them close, and they’d fought against his embrace as Rebecca was doing now, but somehow, Pierce had known even then that they needed to know they were loved despite being abandoned by their asshole father. His mother was still pregnant with Luke at the time, and Emily had been only about a year old, too young to understand the magnitude of what was going on. They’d had only one another in the days after their father left. He couldn’t count the times he’d woken up and found his brothers sleeping on his bedroom floor, as if they wanted to make sure he wasn’t leaving, too. There was safety in numbers.
    Rebecca didn’t seem to have anyone, and the thought that she’d gone through losing her mother alone made him warm to her even more than it had when he’d seen the hint of vulnerability the night they’d met. She was tough as nails, but now he was beginning to understand where her underlying vulnerability came