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What was he doing?
Even as he kissed her, his mouth moving over hers with all the hunger he had been holding back for so long, he couldn’t quite believe his own actions.
This was Hannah.
The only woman he had ever truly loved. The one he had hurt more deeply than anyone else. The one person on this earth he should never risk wounding again.
And here he was, in a dark hotel suite with her in soft blue pajamas, his hands sliding along her back as if he had every right to touch her.
He had spent years telling himself that he had buried his feelings for her so far down he could never find them.
Funny thing, though. Touching her now, feeling the warmth of her skin, tasting the familiar sweetness of her mouth, he saw again just how much he had been lying to himself all this time.
That old love had never died. It had always been lurking there inside him, waiting to explode again.
His fingers curled in the fabric at her waist, dragging her closer. She came willingly, pressing herself against him. The feel of her, warm, soft, heartbreakingly familiar, sent desire roaring through him, hot and fast.
He wanted more. So much more.
He wanted to slip his hands beneath the hem of her pajama top, discover again every plane, every angle, every dip and curve of her body.
He wanted to scoop her up, carry her into his bedroom, lock the door against the world and spend all night relearning everything about her, especially the sounds she made when she came apart in his arms.
He angled his head, deepening the kiss, one hand sliding up along her spine until his fingers tangled in her hair. She made a small, ragged noise that undid him.
Behind them, from his spot on the floor, Kodiak gave a soft, grumbling sigh and shifted. The ordinary sound cut through the haze like a splash of cold water.
Reality seeped back in, slowly at first, then in a rush. The road trip. The hotel room. The knowledge that her friend was fighting for her life across town and Morgan’s scared children were on the other side of that closed door.
Most especially, the awareness of everything he had already done to this woman once upon a time.
What the hell was he doing?
He tore his mouth from hers, breathing hard. She swayed slightly, eyes closed for a second before they blinked open.
In the low lamplight, her cheeks were flushed a delicate pink. Her eyes shone, pupils wide. Her mouth—those soft, generous lips he had once known better than his own—was swollen from his kiss.
A string of curses, every one of them aimed squarely at himself, ricocheted through his head.
He had been afraid of exactly this from the minute he had asked if she needed a ride to Utah. He had been terrified that hours in a truck with her and a night in the same hotel room would chip away at his shaky self-control.
What an idiot he had been to convince himself he was strong enough to keep away from her when he came back to Shelter Springs.
Seeing her again the first day in the parking lot of the Shelter Inn had blown that lie to pieces. The sight of her with her hair in a messy knot and her cheeks flushed from the cold had punched every bit of air from his lungs.
He had never really recovered.
If he was brutally honest with himself, he hadn’t stopped thinking about her in years. Oh, there had been long stretches where life had crowded in. Work, his mom’s condition, K9 training, cases that swallowed him whole. But even then, Hannah had been there somewhere, just beneath the surface.
He had told her earlier about the one serious relationship he’d had since leaving Shelter Springs.
He hadn’t told her how it ended. How Maria had looked at him across the table in a café one gray Portland afternoon and said with a wistful ache in her voice, “You’re not really here with me, are you? Not all the way. There’s somebody else living in that heart of yours.”
He hadn’t been able to deny it.
Maria had told him then that until he sorted out whatever still lashed him to the woman he had walked away from, he wasn’t going to be able to truly connect with anyone else.
He knew now how very true those words had been.
