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We’d driven it this morning since I had some supplies we had to pick up at the hardware store on the way.

I went for the door, only I stalled out when I felt his presence cover me from behind.

Perfectly oppressive.

Chills lifted on my flesh.

A muscled arm reached around me and fitted the key into the lock, and his mouth was so close to my ear that I felt the cool brush of his breath. “You really think I’m such a heathen not to open your door for you, Lena?”

I choked down the gasp of desire that fought to hurl out of my lungs, and instead, I went in favor of a smirk that I kicked over my shoulder. His face was right there, his mouth an inch away. “Oh, pretending to be chivalrous, I see.”

“What? All my brute responsibilities of lugging around all your things and swinging a hammer not good enough for you?”

His voice was cut low and dangerous, though it was still pitted with a jest.

He curled his hand around the handle and pulled back on the latch, opening the door a fraction.

His chest brushed against my back.

“I think you’re just trying to prove something.” I could barely force it out around the need that took me hostage.

This giant of a man standing behind me and boxing me in at the door of my truck.

Hovering hot from behind.

“My whole life is about proving something, Elena.” The words crawled along the side of my neck. A brutal caress that I felt like a straight shot into my heart.

There was no missing the shame that was woven in the darkness of the confession, though. The truth that Trevan believed he had something to make up for when his life was already committed to the good.

I didn’t get it, but I didn’t know how to take that guilt away from him.

I’d give anything to do it.

Shock rasped out of me when his hands suddenly landed on my sides, and he hoisted me up into the high seat.

My breath gone as he lingered there, the top half of his body angled in around me.

“Proof enough?” Mischief glinted in his espresso eyes.

It should be impossible that he could jump from one extreme to the other.

Or maybe we were just prisoners to all of it.

The wickedness and the righteousness. The carefree and the burdened. The shadows and the light.

The two of us joined in a way that no one else could be. Our histories woven, even though we mostly pretended that those threads didn’t exist.

But the fibers were what made us up. What had knitted us into who we were today.

He grabbed my seatbelt and pulled it across my body. The metal clicked into place like a clack of finality.

“So noble.” I played it off like a tease when in truth I could barely breathe, and the little bit of oxygen I managed to get into my lungs was all him.

Charred oak and butterscotch and huge doping of sex.

My thighs trembled and ached with his proximity.

“Anything for you.” I felt the words against my cheek, and my chest tightened in a fit of greed.