His lips pressed against mine, his body still held back even as I strained to get closer.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I won’t make you choose.”

The room dipped into blackness again as his teeth closed on my nipple and I hesitated, torn between the two worlds, perched on a rooftop, sirens growing ever closer, and lying on a decadently soft bed, feeling his tongue teasing my breast, hand sliding up my thigh. Then, slowly, they merged into one and I was on the roof, feeling what he’d felt, that delicious chaos, while his tongue and fingers and teeth satisfied the ache and stoked the fire ever higher.

The flashing lights stopped in front of the building and I knew there was no question now. Someone had sounded the alarm.

I loped across the rooftops to where I’d left the rope—

A flashlight beam pinged off the walls five stories below—in the alley, right beneath my escape route.

I surfaced from Karl’s memory, gasping as he nipped the inside of my thigh. I arched back into the pillows, spreading my legs and lifting my hips, as if he needed directions. His laugh vibrated through me.

The vision pulled me under again and I was tugging up the rope as quickly and quietly as I could, all too aware that I was removing my only escape route.

Karl’s tongue slid inside me and I called his name, my hands going to the top of his head. He chuckled again, the vibrations this time nearly sending me—

The vision surged stronger.

I had the rope. Now how to get off the roof…?

As I struggled for a backup plan, I surfed between the memory and the hotel room, wanting to see the escape to the end, lap up every bit of chaos, yet reluctant to miss one second of an amazing—

The vision yanked me back under, and this time I knew he was responsible, making the memory stronger whenever I was on the verge of deciding I’d rather immerse myself in the here-and-now.

I stood on the edge of the building again, this time along the side, between the street front with its flashing lights and the alley with its searchers. Someone shouted below, but I ignored it. The goal was to get off this roof before I needed to worry about what they were saying and the only way to do that was…

My gaze lifted to the building beside mine, then dropped to the fifteen-foot gap between the two. I laughed, and that laugh—half “are you crazy?” half “sure, why not?”—sent shivers through me. I surfaced from the vision, and those shivers turned into gasps and shudders, nails digging into the bed, his tongue and teeth doing things—

He pulled me under again and I barely had time to curse him before the vision took over.

I measured the distance between the buildings. A dozen feet? Fifteen? Miss and there was nothing to keep me from becoming a diamond-studded stain on the alley floor.

My kingdom for a backup plan.

If I splatted on the road, I’d have no one to blame but myself.

Perhaps if I returned the way I’d come up…

Another shout from below ruled that out.

I backed up ten feet, paused and made it fifteen. I stood there, heart hammering, straining to hear the voices from below.

Then I ran for the edge. At the last second, I launched. The other building seemed to loom an impossible distance away. I hit the height of my jump, started on the downturn and—

Oh, shit.

I wasn’t going to make it.

The chaos was so strong I cried out as it hit me in waves, dimly telling me it wasn’t chaos I was feeling, but I was trapped in the vision, falling, my feet dropping beneath the edge of the other building.

I’d missed—

Waves of orgasm cut off the thought. Then I felt the lip of the building cutting into my fingers. I braced before my arms jerked out of their sockets as my body came to an abrupt stop. I cried out, rocked by wave after wave, until I fell back onto the pillows, shaking. Even then Karl didn’t stop, teasing every last shudder from me.

When it finally ended, I opened my eyes to see him crouched on all fours over me, his eyes dancing.

“Done?”

I couldn’t help feel a tingle of regret that it was over. I looked down, past his open shirt, to the bulge in his pants, and smiled.

I sprang so fast he let out a grunt of surprise. Flipping him onto his back, I crouched over him.

“Not done,” I said.

His lips twitched. “More?”

I pulled his pants down just past his hips and straddled him. “Yes, more.”

That same delicious laugh from the vision filled the room.

HOPE: LAYING THE BLAME

I lay on Karl, my head on his chest, his arms around me. His steady breathing said he’d fallen asleep.

When I lifted my head and looked around, his eyes opened.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep. I thought you were.”

“I should be but…”

“You aren’t tired. Neither am I. How about that drink then?”

“Sure. I’ll get—”

Before I could finish, he rolled me over and laid me down beside him, then swung out of bed. His pants were still around his knees and he reached down, as if to pull them up, then kicked them off and tossed them onto a chair, socks following. His shirt had disappeared at some point.

I propped myself up to watch as he crossed to the minibar, and remembered the first time I’d seen Karl shirtless. The morning after our night at the museum, I’d walked in on him fixing the bandage on his shoulder, his shirt half off. He’d jumped, pulling the shirt on as fast as a shy twelve-year-old. With Karl, it was the scars he was quick to hide—old bite and claw marks across his chest, the legacy of thirty years fighting other werewolves.

Those scars belied the smooth, sophisticated persona he cultivated, of a man who’d never stoop to anything as uncivilized as brawling. Tonight he’d shown that he was as quick with his fists as with his words, and he offered no apologies for that, but it wasn’t how he liked to be seen. I suspected he’d conducted many an affair under cover of near-darkness.

So watching him, naked, I could appreciate that I was viewing a sight rarely seen. My tastes had always tended more toward reedy Bohemian types, but Karl made me admit that I wasn’t immune to a more…masculine physique. No bulging muscles, but perfectly toned. Even the scars seemed to fit—a body for function, not show.