She hadn’t been expecting that, and surprise thudded through her. When she tried to twist around to face him, his hold loosened enough to allow her, then tightened again. “Oh no.”

“I might be wrong,” he said. “Thinking that any of them could do this is wrong, but for one of them, the timing of certain conversations and events would fit.”

“You can’t live with this doubt always playing in the back of your mind,” she told him. “You can’t trust someone to have your back in combat if you think they might have tried to have you killed.”

“No,” he agreed. His eyes were still reddened and raw, but the lines of his face had hardened. “So we’ll set a trap, and we’ll see if he takes the bait. You won’t ever be alone, not for a moment, my Sophie. I swear to that, but—we can make him believe that you are. Will you help me?”

“Of course,” she said instantly. “I’ll do anything you need.”

As her words hung in the air, she listened to what she had just said and inwardly winced. Well, shit. That had quite a ring of truth to it.

He stroked the back of his fingers down the side of her face, his gaze turned inward. “I’ll have to tell Gawain so he understands why you can’t be left alone when the others arrive, and so he can help to set the trap.”

“That’s going to be a hard talk,” she whispered, rubbing his back. “Nik, I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”

He snapped into focus, and he looked at her as if he was seeing her fully for the first time. Cupping her face, he caressed her lips with both thumbs. “You have nothing to be sorry about. If it weren’t for you, who knows what further damage this man might cause. It’s hard to believe you came into our lives only a few days ago. Already you’ve helped to restore my hope, and now you’re reshaping us. Walking away from you last night…” Suddenly he bent his head to cover her lips with his. He said almost soundlessly against the shape of her mouth, “Walking away from you last night was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

Then why did you do it?

The outcry of hurt feelings echoed in her head, but she wasn’t ready to hear the reason, so she didn’t put voice to them. She didn’t want to hear him weigh the relative worth of staying with her versus leaving. She felt too raw and exposed, and she already knew that she hadn’t come out of that assessment on the winning side.

Instead, she flung all of it aside—hurt feelings, insecurities and all—and wound her arms around his neck to kiss him with all the strength of her pent-up feelings.

It was as if she had thrown a lit match into gasoline. He caught fire underneath her touch. Clenching her against his chest, he angled his mouth to kiss her with such raw, single-minded intensity, it brought another wave of dampness to her eyes.

His fire set her on fire. It ran down her nerve endings like lava, leaving her aching with hunger, yearning, and sheer roaring lust. Her thoughts splintered into singularities.

All she wanted to do was touch him. That was all. Yanking his shirt up, she ran greedy hands over his hot torso.

He hissed against her mouth, sinking both fists into her hair. It was a primitive, aggressive gesture, restricting her movements, holding her captive against his mouth while he kissed her with such raw, shaking intensity, her defenses crumbled. He walked her backward, his lean body trapping her against the wall.

Kissing him back, submitting to his aggression, inciting him for more, she fumbled at the waistline of his pants. Why couldn’t she figure out how to get the fastening open? It was making her crazy. With a muttered curse against her lips, he brushed her fingers aside to help. Still kissing her, he pulled his pants open while she unzipped her jeans and wriggled out of them.

There was no finesse in what they were doing. It was all animal instinct. He yanked her gauzy top up, along with the camisole underneath, and she raised her arms over her head so that he could pull them off. As her breasts bounced free, he made a hungry noise at the back of his throat and cupped them.

Something coherent tried to worm into her brain. She broke away from his hardened lips to gasp, “What if Gawain walks in?”

Without looking, Nikolas shoved his hand out and slammed the bathroom door shut.

For some reason that struck her as funny. She started to laugh, drunkenly, but her laughter was cut short as he lifted her up against the wall and thrust his hips between her legs. His thick erection brushed against the sensitive skin high on her inner thigh, and she moistened for him in a liquid gush.

She was not a lightweight. While she might have lost some muscle tone since the shooting and subsequent injuries, she hadn’t lost all of it. It took strength to haul her bodily around or lift and pin her against the wall, but he did it so effortlessly she relaxed into the experience and wrapped her legs around his hips.

“We have no business doing this,” he muttered against her cheek.

Twisting to reach for his cock, she gasped, “You’re not going to stop, are you?”

“Fuck, no.” As her fingers wrapped around him, his head fell back, eyes closed in an expression that looked almost like anguish. He gritted, “You’d have to shoot me to get me to stop now.”

“Come inside me,” she whispered. Rubbing his broad head against her opening, she positioned him just right, and with a slow, relentless thrust up, he penetrated her. In this position, at this angle, he felt massive, and she heard herself making a high, whining noise as her inner muscles stretched to accommodate him.