Seconds ago, I wanted his knowing eyes anywhere but mine, but now I wish he would look at me. I need to see the eyes of the man I feel this inexplicable connection to. The man I was considering leaving my fiancé for.

“I always knew you deserved better than me.” His voice is a deep rumble that tries to hide behind the distant thunder. “I hope he’s worthy of you. I sure as f**k wasn’t.”

Finally, he turns to me and takes my hands into his. His mouth is inches from mine, and his gaze rests on my lips. I wait for his kiss—wonder if I want it. Time snags on my indecision. Trips. Stutters. Slows to a crawl.

Lifting one finger at a time, he removes his cell phone from my grasp then steps away. He disappears into the darkness, his silence a promise I can’t remember him making and the ache in my chest a regret I don’t understand.

I walk around the side of the house, and drizzle fills the air and hits my hot cheeks. When it grows heavier, changing to rain, I don’t run for shelter. Pausing, I look up into the dark, moonless night and let the rain shower my fears.

I’m soaking wet by the time I get to the gym, and when I push through the double doors, Max is squatting in front of a leggy blonde, his hand curled around her thigh. It’s nearly nine p.m., and they’re the only two here.

“Take it deeper,” he says, his voice rough. “Yeah…just like that. Now really squeeze. Now go again.”

The girl adjusts the weights on her shoulders and drops into a low lunge. “That hurts,” she whines.

“Again,” Max says. He turns his head toward the door—and me—and his face lights up. “Ten more on that side,” he tells the girl. Then he’s coming over to me.

“Sorry I’m early.”

He doesn’t look upset about it, and I can only hope he’s not. After talking to Nate, I’m desperate to see Max again, to reassure myself that I haven’t lost him. Whatever I’ve done, if he wants me, if he loves me, we can get through this. Can’t we?

“No apology necessary.” He runs his gaze over me and his nostrils flare. He laces a finger through one of the belt loops on my jean skirt and tugs me close. “Even hotter in person,” he murmurs against my ear. “Did you walk through the rain just to make me crazy with wanting you?”

I bite my lip. I didn’t give thought to anything other than getting away from the party.

“What now?” the girl whines.

He nips at my earlobe—the same earlobe Nate Crane just bit—and shame rushes through me in a tremor. Max misunderstands my tremble and whispers, “Soon,” before pulling away and turning back to his client. “Other side.”

The girl whimpers. Actually whimpers. “At this rate, I’m not going to be able to walk out of here.”

“You said you wanted to be sore tomorrow.” He cuts his eyes to me and winks before returning his attention to the girl. “I aim to please.”

The girl flashes him a disappointed look, and I have to bite back my laughter. I’m sure she said that, and I’m sure she had a very different scenario in mind. I wonder if this is the first time a guy has ever turned her down.

“This is my fiancée,” Max says, wrapping an arm around my waist. “She’s just here to use the steam room.”

“I am?”

“The cleaning crew just left, so it should be good as new.” He drops his head until his mouth hovers right over my ear and whispers, “I’ll meet you in there after I lock up.”

Meet me? My heart kicks up a notch, as if I’m the one doing the lunges. “Oh…”

“Come on,” he tells the blonde. “You can go deeper than that.”

I slip past them and to the door that reads Ladies' Locker Room. Max’s gym is nice. Clean and shining, well maintained. I don’t remember working out here before, but Lizzy told me I’d become quite the gym rat in the last eleven months.

The locker room is large. One wall is covered by a mirror over three sinks. The other has a couple dozen wooden lockers. I drop my purse on the bench by the lockers and follow the hall back. There are three showers, all clean, with white towels folded on racks between them. Beyond the showers is the steam room. I hear the hiss of the steam before I see it.

I pull open the foggy glass door and am hit by a hot puff of steam. Biting my lip, I scan the tile walls, the chairs, and the two-tiered bench along the back wall. He wants me to wait in here for him. Is this something we do a lot?

I have to let out a slow breath as my imagination runs wild at the idea of waiting here na**d for Max. Or better, Max joining me na**d.

He’s going to expect me to have sex. I mean, of course—that only makes sense. Engaged couples have sex. I’m nervous. No, I’m terrified. No matter how many times I had sex in the last months, I don’t remember it, so I might as well still be the virgin I was at the time of my last memory.

After talking to Nate tonight, I’m not worried he’ll be bothering me or running to Max. I should be happy. My secret is safe, and I can focus on my upcoming marriage.

So why does the idea of ha**g s*x with my fiancé feel like cheating?

Pushing aside the thought, I go back to the lockers to strip out of my clothes. A towel secured under my arms, I return to the steam room and step in this time.

Sinking into a chair, I lean back and close my eyes as the heat relaxes my muscles and quiets my mind.

I drift off to sleep, and just as my dreams tug me under, my mind skates along the edge of a memory—Max and me in the gym before we started dating. I asked him to be my trainer. It’s there, a memory as clear as the ones I never lost, and I wrap myself in the comfort of it. Me. Max. No affairs. No angry rockers with broken hearts.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” someone whispers in my ear.

My muscles are so relaxed, I don’t want to move. I stretch my arms and legs, and my towel falls to my waist as I open my eyes.

“Oh, damn, Hanna.” Max stands before me, his chest bare, a towel tied around his hips. I can’t quite make out his face in the steam, but I don’t need to see his expression to know he wants me. Desire radiates off every water molecule in the room—a breath held and waiting for release.

I extend my stretch, arching my back in a move that thrusts my br**sts toward him.

“Sorry it took me longer than I expected.” His voice sounds strained as he offers his hand. “I had a new client come in just as I was trying to lock up.”

I take his hand and stand, but when I reach to grab my fallen towel, he holds me fast.

“Please don’t,” he says.

Maybe I’d be self-conscious in another setting, but here in the steam, I turn sexy and wanton under his gaze. I feel nothing but determination under the weight of the unwanted ache in my heart while talking to Nate. Determination to prove to myself that this is the man I love—no one else.

With that first recovered memory in my grasp, I’m hopeful for the first time in days. I drop my gaze to his towel and arch a brow. “I sense a double standard.”

He groans and drops his mouth to mine. His kiss is long and slow and thorough. He tastes like cinnamon gum and strokes his tongue against mine as he cups my breast in his hand.

“I believe it’s my turn to touch you,” he whispers against my lips. His thumb rolls over my nipple in the slow, sensuous motion of a man who plans to take his time. “And touching you in here ranks high on my list of fantasies.”

I curl my nails into his back and nip at his bottom lip. Because I don’t want him to take his time. I want him to touch me and kiss me until I’ve forgotten the sound of Nate’s voice, until I’m so sure of our love and our future that my anxiety fades.

With his free hand, Max cups my other breast and treats it to the same slow torture.

“Max,” I whimper, arching toward him, wanting more.

“How was the party?”

“What?”

His lips curl into a smile. “God, I love that I can make you lose your mind like that.”

I slide my hands into his hair. “You can. You do.”

Trailing kisses down my neck and over my collarbone, he makes his way to my breast and opens his mouth over my nipple. Slow, steady, achingly meticulous, he circles it with his tongue before pulling it into his mouth. My br**sts grow heavier with every stroke of his tongue, the ache between my thighs more insistent. The steam has set my senses on fire, and the brush of his knuckles down my side is as thrilling as the first time a boy went up my shirt.

Just when I think I’m going to have to beg for more, he takes my nipple into his mouth and sucks—long and hard. My knees go weak and he has to hold me tight as I slip in his arms.

“Come over here,” he murmurs. He leads me to the tiered benches and takes a seat on the bottom row. His erection is thick and tall under the towel, but when I reach to uncover it, he stops my hand. “Leave it. You tempt me too much.”

“But I like touching you,” I object.

“You like making me lose my mind.”

A giggle slips from my lips. “It’s a nice feeling.”

“Come here.” He tugs me forward until I’m straddling him, the hard length of his c**k needy and glorious between my legs. As he returns his mouth to my breasts, sucking and licking in turn, I rock against him. My thighs squeeze him as the sensation of his mouth on my br**sts mixes with the pressure of his erection through the towel.

His hands slide around me and over my ass, kneading the flesh of my cheeks as his mouth works at my breasts.

Whimpering, I arch my back and shift my h*ps just so, and suddenly pleasure snaps through me like a whip. My h*ps want to rock, to circle, to grind against his length, but I force them to still.

“Move against me,” he commands. “I want to feel you move.”

The friction of the towel against my swollen cl*tis almost too much, almost uncomfortable, but it’s a good kind of discomfort, and his c**k swells bigger and more insistent between my thighs. I don’t know if I could stop if I wanted to. Unless it was for something different. Something more. How easy would it be for him to move this towel and slide into me right now? My fear is gone, replaced by red-hot aching need. Doesn’t he want it as much as I do? Maybe he doesn’t have protection with him.

I can’t think on the question for long before his hand is back at my breast, kneading and massaging. It takes my breath. Then he sucks me hard and mercilessly into his mouth and I buck against him. I circle my h*ps and rock, circle and rock. I’m so close to that edge, and as much as my body begs to slide over it, I don’t want this to end.

Max grips my hip and rises off the bench to add another ounce of pressure between my legs. I cry out. In pleasure. In frustration. I need more.

“Please.” My plea echoes against the walls.

He shifts us so quickly that he’s moved me before I know what’s happening. He lifts me onto the higher bench. I immediately miss the promise of him between my legs.

He sinks down as he spreads me open with a hand against each thigh. Then I’m open and exposed to him and his lips are close, the hot steam and his breath mingling and sweeping over my sensitive sex.

At first, his touch is tentative, his fingers tracing my folds before dipping into me. I bite my lip to hold back my cry, but then he lowers his mouth and wraps his lips around my cl*tat the same moment he slides two fingers inside me, demanding more with his touch. His fingers pump as his tongue strokes. Hungry, greedy.

Then, when I’m so full of tight-winding pleasure that I think I need to pull back, he takes my ankle and props my foot on the bench beside my hip. I’m stretched open and his fingers curl and coax and his lips wrap around my clit, and I can’t stop myself from rocking into his face, f**king his fingers the way I want him to f**k me. I can’t hold on anymore. I’m flying, falling, disintegrating until I’m nothing but the hot steam around us.

8

I’M CURLED up against Max as he traces my spine with his fingertips and presses kisses along my hairline.

“Do we do this a lot?” I murmur against his chest.

He laughs, a silent chuckle I can feel more than hear. “Which part?”

“The steam room?”

“Never before, but I think we will now. In fact, I think I’ll save my pennies so we can get one installed in our future home.”

“Our home,” I say, testing the words. “I like the sound of that.”

“Me too.” His voice is hoarse.

“Where will we live after we get married?”

“We hadn’t really talked about it, but if it’s between my tiny apartment above the club and your tiny apartment above the bakery, we should probably go with your place.”

I frown. “I thought you had a house?” Not that I remember ever being there, but I remember seeing him work in the lawn of a tiny ranch off Main.

“I sold it. I was never there anyway.” He tucks my hair behind my ear and cups my face in his hand. “I can’t give you anything fancy yet, but I will. Whatever you want. I’ll make it happen.”

“I don’t need fancy. Just you.”

He wraps his arms around me and squeezes. “We should get out of here.”

“Yeah, I think I’m out of sweat.”

I grab my towel off the floor, but it’s soaked and useless for drying me off. Max opens the door, and a shiver runs through me as the cool air hits my warm skin. He grabs a towel from the stand and wraps it around me.

His clothes are draped over a chair outside the steam room, and as he removes his towel, I can’t help but let my eyes slide over his body, every inch of it toned and muscular. There’s a three-inch tattoo of a dragon right inside the V of his hipbones. It must have been covered by his shirt when he was in my apartment last night. I want to lick it.