“This is crazy. You’re crazy. I don’t need to listen to this.”

I turned my back on her and started to walk away, when her sad voice stopped me.

“I grew up in a sterile household that never saw an ounce of joy or love. My mom took her own life when I was a teenager because she had had enough of my dad and his cruel and thoughtless ways. I can’t tell you how many hours, how many times in my bleak and endless days, I wished for a little brother or sister. I used to dream about you, Rowdy.”

She sounded really sad but she also sounded really insane. I didn’t want anything to do with someone that had known I was out there on my own and had left me to fend for myself, even if that person was dead and his daughter was here in his stead.

“I don’t want anything from a man like that. I don’t want anything from you. Go back to wherever you came from and rest assured I don’t want half of anything.”

I thought I saw her eyes get glassy with tears but it was dark and I had a million and one things racing through my head, so it might have just been a trick of the lights.

“Rowdy . . .”

“No. Just no. I’ve been alone my whole life and it sucked. You don’t get to show up after all of this time and think we’re automatically going to fall into some sort of long-lost brother-sister bond. You’re a stranger and I don’t want any part of what you’re bringing to the table.”

“I wouldn’t be a stranger if you gave me a shot. I moved here to try and get to know you.”

“Fuck that. Fuck all of this.” I didn’t give her a chance to say anything else. I just hurried around the corner to the paid lot where my SUV was parked and hauled ass up to Capitol Hill to where Salem was waiting for me.

My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears I couldn’t hear the traffic around me. My hands were so tense on the steering wheel that I was surprised I didn’t break the damn thing in half. A sister. A father. It was all too surreal. It had just been me and Mom and then it had just been me. The idea of having a sibling and a parent that clearly didn’t want anything to do with me was beyond overwhelming, and I couldn’t get my wheels to stop spinning around and around.

Salem buzzed me in and was waiting for me soon as I pounded on the door. I probably looked like a wild man. My hair was standing on end, I knew my eyes were too big in my face, and I could hear the sound of my breath whooshing in and out in rapid bellows. My hands were shaking when I grabbed her and spun her around to press her back against the front door.

I think she asked me what was wrong. I think she asked me if I was okay. I think she told me to take a breath and talk to her, but I couldn’t answer her or do anything to calm down. I was too keyed up. I felt like pure electricity had replaced the blood in my veins and I was alive with it. I was acting on adrenaline and the instinct to grab on to something—someone that had always been so solid and real to me.

Salem was always Salem. Ten years hadn’t changed that. Having ridiculously awesome sex hadn’t changed that. The fact that my young heart had suffered at the hands of both Cruz sisters hadn’t changed that. There was no way Sayer the lawyer and her atomic bomb of a revelation was going to change that, and that’s what I needed so desperately at the moment. I needed her just like I always had. Even with all the uncertainty that still crowded in on this amazing thing that was happening between us, she was still my safe place just like she always had been.

Salem was still wearing the long, hot-pink pencil skirt she had worn to work that day. She had on a black T-shirt that had the sacred heart Rule had drawn up for his design on it and the shop name across her chest. Her long hair was set in a bunch of complicated-looking curls that I was probably going to have to apologize for messing up. Her lush mouth was still painted blood red, so when I pressed her hard against the door and devoured her lips I knew I was going to end up with more of her lipstick on me then was on her.

I put my hands on the back her thighs and worked the stiff material of her skirt up her legs. I knew she was confused, could feel it in the hesitancy of her hands as she grabbed my cheeks and tried to get me to slow down. I wasn’t having any of it. I just needed her. Needed more than a friendly ear and soft advice. I needed her hot body to burn up all the things that were churning inside of me. I need to hear her scream my name in a voice hot with pleasure so that it melted some of the icicles that were hanging in the vast and empty cavern inside of my chest where my heart was supposed to be.

She had on a pair of lacy panties that were just in my way. I ripped them with a violent tug that had her gasping at me, but I didn’t pay attention to any of it. Once I had her skirt up around her waist and her bare underneath it, I hoisted her up and trapped her between me and the door by pressing my chest into hers. I held her upright with one hand under her bottom and used the other to jerk my belt open and to get the straining denim at the front of my pants out of my way. I was trying to disappear inside her. I was trying to get somewhere that felt normal and safe, and she was it. She was nervous, I could feel it. Her arms were tentative as they wrapped around my shoulders and her voice was questioning when she said my name. I wanted to tell her everything was all right, that it would be okay, but I couldn’t get a thought past everything inside me clawing with need to get at her.

Once I had my pants down around my ass, I lifted my free hand up to her face and pushed some of her hair out of her eyes. They were so wide and dark I just wanted to fall into them and never look at the light of day again.

“I need you.” I sounded like an old man as it wheezed out of me. It was so far from smooth or romantic and I’m sure when I looked back on how callous and uncouth it all was I was going to feel like shit.

She dipped her chin in a little nod and her mouth now robbed of all its bright color turned up on the corners just a little bit. I always needed her, just now it was in a far more adult and intimate way.

“Okay, Rowdy. It’s okay.”

Her fingers scraped across the short hair on the back of my head as I pushed into her. She hissed a breath between her teeth and I forced myself to stop. She wasn’t anywhere ready for me or for all the things I needed to unleash on her. Her body resisted the glide and I let my head fall forward into her neck. Everything inside of me was demanding that I pound into her, ride out all the emotion I was feeling on the wave of a blinding orgasm, but I couldn’t hurt her or just take what I wanted and give nothing in return, no matter how out of control I was feeling.