Shit.

I . . .

What was I thinking?

Forget that for a sec.

He kissed me.

My hands touch my lips. My first kiss in months. Hard and swift, not a drop of sweetness. No tongue. No saliva. I’m a little disappointed.

“He’s your boyfriend?” the paramedic says as she nudges her head back at Devon, a smile on her face. “Hot as hell, and boy, what a temper. Devon Walsh, right?”

“He’s a friend.”

Her eyebrows pop. “Nearly got himself arrested trying to burst into the building and get you. Lots of colorful words he used.” She laughs.

My eyes shut as more remorse beats at me. “No one was hurt?”

She pats my hand, seeming to read me. “Our guys are well trained. We’ve seen much worse. You were on the third floor, right?”

I nod.

“You showed up before anyone went inside to search, and even if they had, these firemen know how to handle it.”

I don’t feel any better. Devon. My lashes flutter. If he’d managed to get past the firemen and gone in after me . . . I recall the image of the first floor, and my stomach lurches. My hands tremble as I press them to my face.

She walks away to put her things up, and Devon stalks back to where I am. He stops in front of me and hitches Pookie into the crook of his arm. A gladiator of a man with a tiny dog should look ridiculous, but not him.

“I can take her now.” I stand up and force myself not to weave.

His face twists as a muscle pops in his jaw.

I limp the two feet over to him; my ankle isn’t bad except for a twinge, and he blisters out a curse and meets me before I reach him. He takes my hand, then laces it with his, his clasp reassuring and firm—me in one hand, Pookie in the other. He leads me slowly over to where his Hummer is parked.

“Shouldn’t we stay and see what’s next? At the least, I should look for the cat.” Frustration builds as I realize I don’t even know the feline’s name. “Can you take me to the hospital? Myrtle is by herself. She’ll want me to call her daughter in New York and the insurance people—”

“It’s two in the morning, the cat will show up, your friend is fine, you don’t have shoes, you’re swaying on your feet, and I need to get you home.”

I don’t have a home.

He unlocks the black Hummer, opens the passenger side, and motions for me to get in.

My chest rises. “Myrtle—”

“Get in the goddamn car, Giselle, or you don’t want to know what I’ll do next.”

Kiss me?

Ravage my body?

Nope. Just be angry.

“What were you doing at my place this late?”

“Get. In. The. Car.”

“Fine!” With a huff, I slide into the car, sinking into the opulent black seat, inhaling expensive leather and sexy male.

After settling Pookie in the back on the floorboard with surprisingly careful hands, he dashes to the hatch and throws stuff around. After jogging back, he wraps a sweatshirt around the dog, tucking her in gently so she won’t roll around in the car.

He gets in and cranks the car, and I wait for him to pull out, but he doesn’t, his hands on the wheel, twisting around the black leather, his knuckles white.

Nerves hit, and I deflate, all brave face gone. “Devon, please, I shouldn’t have gone back inside, but I know how a fire works—the smoke wasn’t bad on my floor, and I had the ladder. I monitored my dizziness, gave myself less than a minute—”

“You can’t predict fire, Giselle,” he says, his face etched with a deep scowl as he glares out the windshield. I wish he’d look at me. “Just to get a necklace.”

“Nana’s. They remind me of her.” I kick at my backpack on the floor, which he must have put there before I got in. “At least I grabbed my work—”

“A laptop is replaceable. You could have died.” He throws his head back on the headrest and turns to look at me. His eyes are a vibrant green, gleaming with suppressed emotion.

“I’m sorry,” I say after several moments, searching his gaze. “You’re right. I reacted on instinct. It happened so fast, and there wasn’t time to think straight—” I suck in a breath as pent-up fear claws at my insides and inches its way up to my throat, stinging and harsh, reminding me of my dangerous choice. My eyes blink rapidly, my hands clenching in my lap.

He looks horrified. “Giselle, fuck, don’t . . . cry . . . I . . .” He stops. “They wouldn’t let me go inside, and I wanted to kill them.” He abuses the steering wheel with his grip.

More regret rises as I see how he must have felt. I terrified him. He was here and couldn’t do anything to save me, and he would have been the one to tell Mama and Elena if something horrible had happened to me. Wetness tracks down my cheeks, and I hurriedly brush the tears away.

“Come here, baby.” He reaches over the console for me and pulls me in for a hug, his hands stroking up and down my back. Electricity arcs between us, a hyperawareness that races over my skin. Sadly, I’m the only one who notices it. Devon is just being kind.

Pressing my forehead to his chest, I breathe in his mesmerizing scent, sea and sunshine. “I thought I had it. I did have it. But you tried to run inside, and if something had happened to you, I’d want to die.” I place my cheek over his heart, listening to the rapid beats. Highly trained athletes have a resting heart rate of below sixty beats per minute, but his is out of control. I sigh. He’s still upset, and I tighten my hold around his waist.

I don’t know how long he holds me—a minute, maybe five. Time feels distorted as his hands move up to my scalp, palming my head under my hair. His lips brush the top of my head.

“You can let me go.” Don’t. “I’m soaked,” I whisper, noticing for the first time that he’s changed clothes since the club. His black shirt and jeans have been replaced with slim-fitting gray joggers and a white damp T-shirt that clings to his chest, outlining his pecs. In the dark car, he feels bigger, more muscular.

“You’re shivering.”

He lets me go to crank up the heat, and I sigh, missing his comfort. He stares down at me, tilting my chin up as he inspects me.

“I’m really okay.”

His eyes land on my tank top.

“Not wearing a bra,” I say, stating the obvious. “It’s the first thing to come off when I get home. Then, the pearls.”

His eyes drift up from my erect nipples and cling to mine. Whoa. My brain is too scattered to count the seconds, but I think it goes past ten.

The angry kiss is on my mind, but I don’t dare bring it up. Logically, I connect the dots: his inner caveman reacting out of fear and anger or adrenaline, a heady cocktail of epinephrine erupting straight from the medulla to the bloodstream—that is, alpha Devon at his peak, ready to tear the world apart. Probably the same way he feels when a pass intended for him gets intercepted. Nothing sexual.

“I would have gone in there for you a hundred times.”

I swallow thickly. “You’d do that for anyone.”

He pulls away and settles back in his seat. “Right. Where do you want to go?”

“There’s a Hilton a few blocks from here.”

“No.”