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rabbit!” she nearly shouted. “I don’t want to be with Bryce. He’s only a friend.”
    “It doesn’t matter if he’s only a friend to you, he’s my brother.” His voice was filled with despair.
    Raina spoke in a calm tone, in contrast to Gideon’s harsh breaths. “What was this then?” Raina gestured to her body. Her nipples were still hard, and the scent of her desire was in the air.
    “I got carried away. Once I got a taste of you, I didn’t want to stop.” Gideon let out a long breath. “I just can’t do this to my brother.”
    “I understand that, Gideon, but we both know that Bryce will move on from his interest in me fairly easily. He doesn’t stay attached for too long. I can’t speak for you, but as far as I’m concerned, this is more than just a passing fancy for me.”
    “Bryce means the world to me. I can’t...” He trailed off. “He’s my brother.” He didn’t understand what was happening, but he knew that he couldn’t risk losing his brother over a woman. Any woman. He grabbed both her shoulders with his hands.
    “It’s all right,” she gasped. “We’ll figure something out.” Gideon let her arms go. Raina felt the loss when he stepped away.
    The room fell to silence. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and the rasp of Gideon’s breath.
    After a moment, Gideon spoke. “I’ll put your phone in front of your purse after I program my number into the very first slot so that you don’t have to scroll through to find me. I’m going to meet with my friend this morning. Where do you work?”
    Recognizing Gideon’s need to focus on concrete details, Raina answered evenly, “I work part time in the reference library at the school.” Raina’s voice was almost impersonal in tone, but she was rubbing her arms as though she lost all her body heat.
    “How do you manage to do that?” he asked, amazed at her resourcefulness.
    “I can lead students to different sections, help with advice on how to search for things, and I have a voice recognition program on the computer if I need to look things up.” She sounded humble about what must have been an enormously difficult adjustment.
    “Amazing,” he said, sincerely impressed with her ability to overcome her disability. What was more, the mundane conversation helped to cool the heightened emotions in the room. “Can we meet back here tonight?”
    “How about six? I get off at five. We can order pizza and go over what we know.”
    “Sounds good,” he said, turning toward the door. “I’m going to head back to my place to shower and change. Call me if you need me.”
    Raina nodded and let out a huge sigh.

Chapter 4
     
    Bryce awoke to the smell of fresh coffee. He knew he wasn’t in his apartment because his roommate Tony always made the coffee strong enough that the spoon stood straight up. The running joke was that only Tony could make coffee bad enough that it even smelled gross. He looked at the clock and saw that it was after nine. He had a ten o’clock class and tried to decide if he should skip it or hustle to make it.
    Although he would normally just throw on a pair of sweats and a baseball cap before heading to class if he was running late, he decided to take a quick shower. He knew it was foolish since Raina couldn’t see him anyhow, but at least he would smell good.
    While he was in the shower, he debated how to approach telling her about his feelings for her. He didn’t know if he was in love with her, but he liked her enough to find out. He just couldn’t decide if he wanted to just lay it on the line, hint about it, or show her maybe. He liked the idea of actions speaking louder than words, but he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable with him either. He’d already decided to tell Gideon about his feelings for her, so maybe he’d ask for advice as well. It would be a good way to show Gideon how serious he was about Raina.
    Although he didn’t want to admit it, he was also a little worried about