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“I already told you. I want to be here,” I say.

“I’ll give you one last chance to walk away,” he says.

His chest rises and falls rapidly. Something is brewing inside him—a madness that I understand now. A primal urgency. A story as old as time.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, placing the salve over one of the larger cuts.

He hisses through his teeth.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, searching his eyes.

“It does,” he replies. I get a feeling he’s not talking about his wounds.

With pursed lips, I apply the salve everywhere I see open skin. As I move toward his abdomen, I notice the thick outline against his towel. The heat from his body feels like a drug. It distorts everything inside me.

I thought I was a little obsessed with him before, but it’s nothing compared to what I feel right now.

It feels like I’ll never be able to get enough of him.

“I got it from here,” he says, reaching for cotton gauze and tearing off a section. He places it over one of the bigger cuts.

“You’ll need help with the tape,” I say.

His face is a storm cloud. I can’t read what’s going on in his head, but one thing is for certain—he wants me gone.

But I don’t want to leave him alone. I’m worried about him.

And in the darkness of the night, the boundaries that exist between us have already blurred.

I place the medical tape over his skin, making sure the gauze won’t budge. WhenI’m done with all the cuts, I stand in front of him.

I have about a hundred questions I want to ask him. But I also know that every one of those questions will rub him the wrong way.

“Are you going to sing me a lullaby now, Miss Turner?” he mocks.

“Who attacked you?” I ask, folding my arms over my chest. It draws his gaze to my breasts, where it remains unabashedly.

“As I told you already, it’s none of your business,” he says.

“You don’t know, do you?” I ask. “If you did, you wouldn’t look so flustered.”

He stares at me for a beat.

“Let’s talk about something else,” he says, moving closer toward me. “Like what you’rereallydoing in my room.”

It feels like I’m standing directly in front of a furnace. The heat is almost too much.

“I’m only here to help you,” I say.

“If that were the case, you would have left by now,” he says. “Yet here you are.”

I’m choking on the heat now. My lungs are filled with smoke, and I can’t draw another breath.

“So that begs the question—what are you still doing in my room, Emma?” His voice is a forbidden caress, touching me in places no man has ever been.

Before I can take another breath, his arm wraps around my waist. He spins me around and pulls me flush against his body. I close my eyes as fire licks my skin.

“Oh my God,” I breathe out.