She continued to fight, squirming and kicking back at him. He trapped her feet beneath his legs. Slid his other arm beneath her neck and held her against him with both arms. Without bringing his dick into it, they couldn’t have been humanly closer. His beauty bucked, twisting and turning for a few moments more. Pointlessly. The back of her neck dampened with sweat.

Shoulders heaving, she panted for air. “You f**ker, you promised! No touching in a sexual manner.”

“I won’t take it any further.”

“How can I trust anything you say? You’re a goddamn liar.”

“This is your second night with me, Ros. It’s time to move things on a little. We’re sleeping together. Only sleeping. Nothing more.”

“So you’ll move it on until you’re raping me?”

“No,” he said. “Never.”

Fingernails dug deep into his arms as she tried to work her way free, again getting nowhere. “I repeat. A f**king liar.”

“Hush. Go to sleep.”

“Nick …” A pleading tone intruded on her anger. He already knew what she would say, or close enough to it. Either way, things were staying the way they were.

“It’s done. Sleep.”

She growled again, low in her throat. If there’d ever been a sexier noise, he hadn’t heard it. He shifted his h*ps back from her ass to hide the tell-tale state of his dick. It involved loosening his grip on her a little, but not a lot. Her hair smelled nice and the back of her neck even better. Salty-sweet perfection, not helpful at all to the state of his libido. “Is that better?”

“Awesome, you ass**le.”

Silence held for a few minutes. He could almost hear the cogs and wheels turning in her head. Without a doubt, she was the noisiest thinker he’d ever met. Or maybe it was the grinding of her teeth again.

“Let it go,” he advised.

“Inflicting yourself and some semblance of intimacy upon me will not engender any sort of bond between us, Nick.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Huh,” he said. “You ever noticed how your words get bigger when you’re feeling cornered?”

She apparently had nothing to say to that.

“Tell me about your father,” he said. “You mentioned he was army?”

More silence.

“Go on.”

She sighed. “He generally wasn’t around. When he was, he was an ass**le. A lot like you. So certain he was always right and everyone else could go to hell.” The fingernails digging into his arm eased a little, becoming more like a cat’s claws flexing. Testing, not teasing. “The only thing that mattered was what he wanted.”

“Harsh.”

“Truth.” She shifted, her feet twisting beneath his. Nick drew back a little, giving her more space. Earning himself a begrudging, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What about your family?” she asked. “I’ve told you my messy tale. Turnabout is fair play.”

He cleared his throat. If anything would get his c**k under control it was thinking about his family. “My father was a builder. My big brother became his apprentice. I had an uncle in the army. He was always travelling all over the place having adventures. He made it sound so great. So when I was old enough I enlisted.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah. Mostly. I didn’t see myself doing anything else.” He smiled in the darkness. He’d been counting on her curiosity. “But I wasn’t interested in settling down then. Priorities change.”

“Do you know what happened to your family?” she asked, ignoring the settling-down comment. “When this all went down?”

He nudged a strand of her short red hair with his nose. The scent of honey swept through his system. “They died. I went back a few months ago to check. To see if …”

Roslyn turned and looked over her shoulder, all the better to give him a pitying stare. “That was brave, going back.”

“Hmm.” His mother had been a good woman. Maybe even a great one. She didn’t deserve that sort of ending.

“My father got bitten,” she said. Her voice was cool, distant. The look in her eyes, not so much. “Mum called me on the mobile, managed to get through. Dad was locked in the bedroom. She’d taken a handful of sleeping pills, wanted to say goodbye. They had a place in the city. No chance of getting out. I can’t say I really blame her.”

“I’m sorry.” Inadequate, but true.

“There was another woman in the school,” she said. “After a couple of weeks, when it became clear help wasn’t coming, she killed herself. Drank a bottle of bleach. The others were furious, but I didn’t really blame her either.”

He stared back at her. “The early days were hard on everyone. What did you do to get through?”

“I had my library. I just kept reading, lost myself in my books. Mostly it worked.”

“I drank. Took pills.” His honesty caught her by surprise—he could tell by the way she looked at him. But he wasn’t going to lie. “I can barely remember January and Feb. Still can’t forget the shit that came before, when the plague first hit, but those months straight after, they’re pretty much gone.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I noticed you didn’t have a glass of wine with dinner. Figured you were staying on the ball in case I attempted another attack. Why did you stop?”