And was curious to see just how far those folds could come undone later this afternoon.

After, of course, she met his mother. And Mrs. W. And anyone else they considered a close friend of the family.

With the onslaught of that realization, she dropped onto the edge of the bed, reality crashing in.

She'd been dating Landon McGee less than a week and he was taking her home to meet his mother.

Was he insane? Or was she?

The hard knock at the door had her glancing at the clock. She still had an hour, Landon's last text the night before said he'd arrive around eleven. Tightening the sash on her robe, she went to her front door and prayed one of her brothers hadn't decided to make a surprise drop-in for coffee.

The mental prayer faded as she opened the door to find Landon on the other side. He wore a gray T-shirt over old jeans, and while he looked good enough to eat, she was a bit surprised that this was what he wore to Sunday family dinner. Perhaps the summer sundress and heels she'd agonized over were too much?

"Can I come in?"

"Of course."

Lines framed his face, cut into a day's worth of stubble. Although he'd looked tired the first day they'd met, a product of little sleep with his work project, something else was at play here. He didn't simply look tired.

He looked weary.

Worry over her outfit faded in the face of that exhaustion. "What's the matter? Are you feeling bad?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you call me? We could have canceled brunch." The words spilled out, a ready admonition she was so focused on giving that it took a moment to register the way his large body moved into hers, his fingers toying with the sash of her robe.

"Didn't want to call you." His mouth made a beeline to the crook of her neck, and tingles rose where his lips met her flesh.

Sensation flooded her in warm, syrupy waves, even as her heart kicked into high gear. She tilted, giving him easier access, and was rewarded with a series of delicious shivers that seemed to echo through her body, increasing in intensity with each tilt of his mouth against her skin.

His fingers grew more insistent on the knot at her waist, and while she wanted him beyond imagining, the moment felt off.

Was off, she realized as she lifted her head, only to find his eyes half-lidded, his hands pulling her back against him. "Where are you going?"

"Are you alright?"

"Are you?"

She wasn't afraid-even out of sorts he wasn't threatening or scary-but her sense that something had upset him grew more urgent by the moment.

"Landon?"

"Clearly I'm doing something wrong."

"Or I am, if I can't get through to you."

He stilled then, his hands dropping to his sides. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come."

Daphne grabbed for him before he could move out of range, capturing his hands in hers and squeezing tight. "Talk to me. Please."

"I thought-" He squeezed back before shaking her hands loose. She half expected him to turn back around and leave as fast as he'd arrived, but he shifted gears, striding across her small foyer and into the living room.

"Did you call my mother?"

"This morning? About brunch?"

"No, about the break-in."

"I haven't spoken to your mother. I'm looking forward to meeting her this morning."

"I meant the other one. Amber McGee."

The name tore from his throat, and when he uttered those two words, all the air seemed to evaporate from the room.

"Did you call her?" he asked again.

Something cratered deep inside of her, both rooting her to the spot while simultaneously setting her free. She'd been honest from the get-go that she would do her job. Now she'd see if his agreement with her on that point was nothing more than lip service.

More to the point, she'd known this confrontation was coming the moment she left a message for Landon's mother. Although she hadn't heard back from her initial outreach, she'd left a follow-up call Friday before leaving work and had already set her plans for a visit on Monday, should there be no callback.

Interesting that his mother sought him out before making a return call to the police.

"I did. As a normal part of my investigation. I've yet to hear back from her, and my next step was to go pay her a visit." She was honor bound to follow up on his birth mother as a lead, as well as Gretchen Reynolds. While she strongly suspected the answer sat in one of those two camps, she had to follow the threads even if for no other reason than to show thoroughness before she closed the file.

And once she did, it would be another tick mark in the box of annual robberies counted against the city's statistics.

"She was waiting for me last night. Standing plain as day in my apartment lobby."

"After you left here?"

Daphne did the math, estimating the time he sent his texts for brunch as well as the arrival of his mother. He must have set up plans with her on his way home, then arrived to the blast from his past.

"Is that the first time you've seen her? Since you were a child?"

"Yes. Claims she went away after she gave me up. Home to Richmond to stay clean."

"Good for her."

"Sure. Yippee fucking yay."

"Landon-"

His body was tight, those long arms seeming locked against his sides, his limited strides in her small living area telegraphing the very essence of a caged animal looking to get free.

"I was doing fine! Better than fine! I've got a life. A damn good one. A business. A family. A future. Hell, the last few days I even thought I might have a woman I wasn't going to get bored with in under two months, because she's so goddamned fascinating. I was doing fine!"

Her heart hitched at the prospect of a future, but she sidestepped it, too focused on his needs to even consider the reality that he was speaking in probabilities instead of absolutes.

Or that he'd given thought to a future together.

"You still have all those things."

"Tainted things. She's here. She's back!" Each word ripped from him, along with what could only be endless years of pent-up anger and pain. "Everything I've worked for, and she's back and able to smear it with her shitty existence."

"She's never been gone, Landon. Avoiding her or attempting to forget her or relegating her to some corner of your memory doesn't mean she's dead. Nor does her existence mar any of those things you described. You still have a family. You still have a business. And, you big stupid ass, you still have me if you want me!"

Her own fear slipped out on that last one. The sudden desperation that made it so important he understood she wasn't going anywhere.

She was here.

And the fact she'd done her job wasn't a betrayal of them. Of what they were so tentatively building.

"You don't understand."

The words were so tortured-so freighted with pain and anger and desolation-that she could think of no other answer than to go to him. To make some attempt-even if it was the fleeting ephemerality of the physical-to take it away.

Daphne moved up against him, taking his hands once more in hers and drawing them behind her back so that he wrapped around her. She pressed a line of kisses along his neck, just above the collar of his T-shirt, whispering along the way.

"This isn't tainted. Nothing is, but this certainly isn't."

"I can't." He held still, the muscles of his throat working around her sensual assault. "I shouldn't have come over-"

"Take what's here. Between us." She slipped her hands down over his chest, past the firm lines of his stomach before flipping the button of his jeans. One hand snaked beneath the waistband. "Please."

His head fell forward, his forehead resting against hers as the long length of him leaped against her palm. "This isn't-"

She kept her hand firmly in place before lifting her gaze to his. The heat of sexual need fired in those depths, but the power of what was between them couldn't fully erase the pain and misery that shadowed even the most raw, carnal desire.

"Let's give each other this. Now."

When his arms tightened around her, his mouth coming down over hers with all the force of a hurricane gathering strength over the ocean, Daphne leaned in and took it all.

Landon knew he'd lost the battle before he'd even gotten on the field. Edgy and urgent and raw, he'd deliberately reversed his walk from the night before. Deliberately come to find her in an attempt to stave off the wild that clawed at him from the inside.

And now he was here. With Daphne.

He devoured her with his mouth, hard and open on hers, their tongues already mimicking the frenzied joining of their bodies. Daphne took him thrust for thrust, well able to match his pace. He cupped her through the thin silk of her robe, the heavy fullness of her breasts and the hard tips of her nipples filling his palms. She pressed into him, a soft moan in her throat with each stroke of his tongue and each teasing flick of his thumbs against that pointed flesh.

He gently pulled her hand from the opening of his jeans, the easing of pressure both a blessing and a curse. Diligently ignoring the demands of his own body, he dropped to his knees, his lips finding her through the robe. He suckled a hard point into his mouth, the wet silk stuck to her flesh. Those soft moans grew louder, her restless stance registering in the slight sway of her hips where he held her still. Lifting one hand, he pulled the silk of her robe askew, freeing her other breast to his touch. Just as he did the other, he took the nipple in his mouth, rolling his tongue over firm flesh this time.

The scent of her soap mixed with something that was purely Daphne, and it took every ounce of focus to ignore the driving needs of his body and concentrate on her. None of it erased the madness that seemed to have taken over since the night before, but she provided a channel for all that manic energy.

And God, how he wanted to give in and lose himself inside of her for a few mindless hours. Things were so good when they were together. Confusing and confused, but good. If only he could take what she offered, the consequences be damned.

But he couldn't.

He should have stayed away. Normally, he would have. For the same reasons he'd left the night before-he wasn't some madman, harboring the belief that his needs and his needs only were all that mattered. But, oh, how he wanted her. Wanted the comfort of being with her, even when his life was submerged in wild and crazy confusion.

And she was at the heart of it all.

With that stark reality still a wide open-and terribly empty-chasm between them, he lifted his head from her breast.

"Landon?" His name feathered across his ear, whisper soft.

"I need to go."

"Stay."

He suspected far nobler men than him had fallen at such simple logic, but still he hesitated as he climbed to his feet.

"Stay, Landon. Because I want you to." Desire still laced her words, but was accompanied by the sobering end to their sensual moments. "Because I want to feel what's between us. What it can be."

She kept her hands on his shoulders, her body still pressed intimately against him, but it was her words that held the true power. They were words of acceptance and of acquiescence, acknowledgment and agreement.

They were words that welcomed him home.

His fingers fumbled against the silk knot of her robe, gratified when the material slipped free. The skin he'd partially freed was now fully exposed, smooth against his fingertips and warm and supple to the touch. He took a moment to simply savor it. The wait for her-for this moment-seemed far longer than the five days they'd known each other.

He'd waited for her forever.

Daphne.

Her name was music through his mind, a balm that soothed the endless loop of thoughts that refused to fade. Refused to fall away.

How was it possible he'd found her at the same time his carefully built life came crashing around him?

She pressed against him, an impatience to her movements spurring him on. His light exploration of her body grew more deliberate, the pressure of his fingers firmer as he explored her skin until he gave them what they both wanted and cupped her breasts once more.

Everything faded away-all thought, all vision, all the world-except the two of them.

His blood pumped in his veins, in time to the heavy thump of his heart. He backed them toward the couch, narrowly sidestepping the coffee table before she stopped him.

"Bedroom."

"This is closer."

"The bed's bigger." She pressed a quick kiss to his chin before slipping fully from the robe, using the slippery material to get free. "Come on!"

Her police training clearly served her well, as all he saw in the flash of arms and legs was a well-toned body escaping from the room and down a small hallway. Multitasking as he went, he dragged off his T-shirt and finished the trek, the top button of his jeans still open when he stopped in the doorway.

Like a fantasy come to life, she lay sprawled over the bed, every inch of her flushed and perfect. The firm, supple body he'd glimpsed in the living room was haloed in the morning light that streamed through the windows. Well-muscled with naturally tan skin, she was like a vision. He'd always loved the strong, powerful women of his comic books and movies. Hell, if pressed hard enough he'd still admit to a crush on Black Widow.

But Daphne was perfect, neither ink nor paper. She was tangible. Real. And far better than anything he'd ever cooked up in his imagination.

"God, you're gorgeous." His cock strained at the fly of his jeans, but he remained rooted to the spot, unable to move. "Quick. Say something."

"Why?"