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“Of course, I care.”

But could I fuck like a wildcat? I’d never caused a man to lose consciousness. No, that wasn’t true. When Roark lost his virginity, he passed out on top of me.

I squared my shoulders. If Jesse and I crossed that path, I would give him my all and make damned sure our first time wiped that whore’s memory right out of his mind. I would claim him, love him, and erase all other women in his life.

Jesse kissed my other eyelid, and I melted against the touch of his mouth. When he leaned back and removed his hand from my face, I immediately missed his heat.

I peered up at him through my lashes. “What about long-term relationships?”

“The longest I spent with a woman was three nights. I didn’t do relationships. Or names. Or attachments.”

Really? I’d always thought he’d lost a girlfriend during the outbreak. Especially after his uncomfortable reaction to Shea’s girly bedroom.

He read the question in my eyes. “The job didn’t allow it.”

Another topic he’d never allowed me to breach. I devoured the information, greedily. “You were military? Secret service? Some kind of underground international humanitarian? What?”

“Humanitarian?” He huffed. “Not quite. I worked for an American-sponsored terrorist association. We didn’t look at people as human beings. They were just a means to an end.” Remorse thickened his voice.

“I don’t understand. Tallis told stories about you digging through blown-up Afghani sidewalks and having tea with the Dalai Lama.”

Hooking an arm around my back, he rested his other hand against my neck, his fingers floating across my skin.

After a long pause, he looked away. “I was CIA.”

I let that settle over me. His knowledge of weapons and stratagem, his cryptic demeanor and lack of relationships, it made sense. But he grew up on a Lakota reservation and won a football scholarship to some big school in Texas. What happened?

“How did you get involved?”

“I was an attractive, physically fit male, a Texas A&M football star, the shooting champion at the local gun club, and I filled up Facebook news feeds with my support for the country and its interests. I checked a lot of boxes.”

“A young patriot.” I smiled with thoughts of the youthful man he described. “So the CIA recruited you?”

“And brainwashed me.” His eyebrows dug together. “Doesn’t matter. I survived the aphid plague with a lethal set of skills.”

His clipped tone put a full stop on that discussion, which was fine. I was still fixated on the sexual proclivities of the man pressed against me. “Only one-night stands then? Ever?”

“I went through a lot of women, Evie.”

Which blew my mind. He didn’t strike me as a casual-fuck kind of guy. At least, not with me. I mean, he believed he couldn’t have me, so he put a thousand emotional miles between us. He was all or nothing.

Though sitting in his lap, wrapped in his arms, and talking, I felt suspended in limbo. This was the most he’d ever shared. I worried an ill-timed question would break the spell and erect his impenetrable wall.

But the questions piled up. “What are you like in bed?”

“I liked to be adventurous. Liked it rough and raw and spontaneous. No restrictions. No barriers.”

Simple words. Direct and artless. In fact, he spoke so stiffly and with such finality his voice scattered into the rain as if he were shedding his likes like dead skin.

Yet the images they produced sparked a sharp throb between my legs. I wanted more. More talking. More touching. More Jesse.

I brushed my fingers across his stubble. “What's the kinkiest thing you've ever done?”

Silent, tight-lipped breathing was all he gave me. It lasted so long I didn't think he'd answer. When he finally spoke, his quiet voice sounded like an explosion in my ear. “A threesome.”

Two women? Two women touching him in places I’d never even laid my eyes on?

Fuck, I hated that, and I felt that hate in every tensed-up muscle in my body. “Who?”

He rubbed a hand across my tight shoulders. “Just a man and some woman. Does it matter?”

“What?” My eyes must’ve bugged out of my head. “You shared a woman with another man?”

“I shared a whore with a colleague. And before you get all excited, I didn't touch him. I'm not into dudes.”

I pressed my smile against his warm neck. Jesse and another man? What would it have been like to be the woman between them? Not between them, but between Jesse and Roark? Jesse and Michio? Hell, between, over, and under all three of them?

Jesse’s words came back to me. Rough and raw and spontaneous. My nipples hardened beneath my tank top, and a quiver gripped my inner thighs. What a lucky fucking woman, whore, whoever she was.

His breath fluttered along my neck. “What are you like in bed?”

Oh. Well, I certainly wasn’t having threesomes. “Um…my uh, sexual experience is limited. Joel was my first and only until…”