“Were, too,” she muttered, trying to settle her heart back down, trying to shove those shadows back down with a mental plunger. The wind died, the ground becoming dormant again.

“Maybe a little. But I’d never push it past your will, Ruby.” He cupped the back of her skull now, fingers tangling in her hair, mussing the hold of her ponytail further. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Okay? Can you trust me that much?”

It broke her heart, the rough note in his voice. It told her he knew he’d lost her trust, and he didn’t know where or how. But he wanted it back.

“I’ve always trusted you more than I trust anyone.” She wasn’t enough of a bitch to deny him that. Curling her hands in his coat, she pressed her face harder against him, his strength. Fuck, she couldn’t do this. She was slipping, slipping toward something dangerous. She wanted to wilt in his arms.

Instead, she lifted her head, stretched up on her toes and pressed her mouth against his. It was tentative only in that first second. Another blink, and it was hard, angry, needy. She told herself to cloud his intent with lust, push away her personal need to surrender. She could take control with hammering desire, because it would serve both their purposes.

He held her head in those large hands that could cover her ears, tease her nape with his fingertips. His thumbs stroked along the hollows of her cheeks, the corners of her mouth. They dipped down to her jaw, his touch so close to her sensitive throat, the pulse thudding there.

Taking her anger, he responded with a fierce tenderness that was far more dangerous and overwhelming. She could feel he had his own anger, his own scores to settle with her, but he wasn’t holding back on the yearning, the emotions, that made those things so important to him. She latched onto that yearning, tried to ignore the rest, the elephant in the room. Maybe she could pretend, go back to the way it felt before, and it would be all right. As a child, magic was make-believe, not Dark or Light forces, arcane studies and such. It was supposed to be easy, flowing, coming when you called it. Like this. Maybe that was why sex was so easy to mistake for it…. or to accept as it.

She made a noise in her throat, and his fingers tightened, one hand dropping to pull her even closer. His body was solid oak, yet she melded into its hollows and valleys, a perfect fit. Her hands, now folded in against him, could spread out like a bird’s wings over his chest, feel the man beneath the cloth. As she gave herself over to the heat of his firm mouth, they slid up to his neck, dug in to hold, because when Derek Stormwind put his mind to kissing a woman senseless, she needed all the support she could get.

He hadn’t needed to tease her lips apart because she’d come to him open and heated. His tongue tangled with hers, his lips caressing and stroking her mouth the same way on the outside, a primal yet complex foreplay that had her whole body humming, coming alive wherever it was touching his.

God, she wanted him to take her down right now, right here, on the forest floor, that serrated edge of need tearing at her. “Fuck me,” she muttered against his mouth. “Now. Right here.”

Though her urgency with Derek in the past had been expressed in similar yet less crudely blatant ways, it was a definite tell of the kind of company she’d been keeping. She cursed herself anew as he picked up on it, stiffened. Still holding her tight, he lifted his head.

“Sex without the heart involved? Is that what you’ve found with your friend?”

“He’s not my friend.”

Fast as a striking snake, Derek whipped her around. Her breath sucked in on a gasp, but he already had her pressed against a tree. One large hand locked around her wrists, pulling her arms up above her head. When he pushed his body against the back of hers, his aroused cock pressed snug against her buttocks, almost making her moan in need. “Is this what he gave you, Ruby? Rough, taking total control? Like I’d do it, only instead of for your pleasure, he did it to cause you pain?”

Her muscles contracted, remembering such play between her and Derek, a delicious version of the dark cruelty that Mikhael would inflict. She needed it Mikhael’s way to make sure it stayed physical, no emotional demons able to rise and take her.

“Yes,” she whispered. “He gives me that.” She goaded him with present tense, needing to keep it angry. She couldn’t afford to remember the other.

He stayed still against her, violence vibrating between them for several long moments. Shit. She’d overplayed her hand. Derek might shove her away like garbage and leave her alone here, with nothing but the unspent need.

While that was her main concern, her mind sensibly had a few others. Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s. He had her pinned, was twice her weight, and she knew she’d seriously pissed him off. Though that was the Darkness coming through; the person she’d once been still knew Derek would never touch her in anger, never harm her that way.

As he shifted his grip on her wrists, she imagined a variety of scenarios. Tearing open her jeans, using the toe of his boot to shove them all the way to her ankles and then ramming into her in the straight-legged position. Her moist tissues contracted at the thought, nipples hardening against the bark. Goddess, do something.

He answered her plea, but only to torment her. Bending, he put his mouth on the back of her shoulder, where the T-shirt had gaped open during their struggle. It was the place in their fantasy where he’d branded her. A lingering itch, like a healing scar, had remained, though there was no visible mark. If she were speaking to Raina, she’d ask about it, but it was the least of her current priorities. Particularly right now.

He kissed her there, long, lingering, the tip of his tongue caressing that area. Then he moved up to her collarbone, taking his time there as well, tracing the curved line of the bone, making his way up the side of her throat.

“Stop it,” she whispered. She was trembling, her stomach tightening, her thigh muscles doing the same.

“No. You still can’t do it on your own, can you? Your mind gets too involved. Your fears, the guilt and insecurity. And now…. the Darkness drives that need even harder, but it won’t let you put those capable fingers between your legs to do it for yourself. I can smell that wetness, so strong, like an animal in heat.”

“Please….”

“Not this time, girl. You want to play rough. I’m going to hear you beg.”

He did slip the button of her jeans, took the zipper down with the force of his hand pushing into the loose front, finding the elastic edge of her panties and nipping beneath those. He didn’t hesitate, knowing her body so well. She cried out as his knuckles snugged on either side of her clit, his fingers reaching her slick labia. When she struggled and bucked against him, that made it worse, adding to the clever stroking of his fingers.

“No. I don’t want it this way.”

“Tough. All you want is to be gotten off? Since your boy toy’s not here to oblige, that’s what I’ll give you.”

She pressed her forehead hard against the bark, couldn’t stop herself from shamelessly working herself against his hand. Mikhael would make her do that, croon cruel comparisons to a dog when he really got her going.

“Stop. Please stop. Derek, I’m sorry. I can’t…. Please, I can’t bear to do it like this with you.”

He gave a harsh chuckle, punctuated it with a scissoring of his fingers that made hers dig painfully into the bark. She was gasping, so close. He was going to make her go over anyway, be just as ruthless as Mikhael but in a way that was far crueler than the gunrunner, because Derek cared. He understood that the pain and pleasure was mixed up with raw emotion, heart. He could make more than her body surrender, and her soul wouldn’t take being ripped open like that.

With a heartfelt oath, he stopped, holding her on that edge. “He’s past tense now, Ruby. We’re not in that room at Raina’s. No playing. Say it. And I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“Past tense.” Tears had squeezed out of her eyes, and when he turned her now, lifted her chin, she couldn’t stop the quivering of her lips, her hands clutching at his waist.

“Ruby.” His eyes were full of pain, his mouth a hard line. He was going to say something, open that can of worms that would force her to push him back again. Her body was just too damn greedy to allow that. She put her trembling fingers on his mouth, eyes pleading, needing him to understand.

The muscle in his jaw flexed. “Take off your clothes. All of them.”

The temp was dropping with the waning sun, but it was Florida. Of course, she wouldn’t have hesitated if she was in Alaska. She stripped off the jeans and shirt. Unhooked her bra as he watched, eyes sliding over her curves, following the track of the garment as it left her, fell to the ground. Then, as he waited, she shimmied out of the panties. She was unsteady, but when she teetered, his hand was under her elbow. As she straightened, she shivered, unable to help herself.

He shrugged out of the long coat, threaded her arms into it, left it hanging open in the front so he could see her bare body cloaked by it. It fell to her ankles, brushed her heels. He unbuckled his belt, opened his jeans, then caught her around the waist, palming her bottom with one big hand as he lifted her up against the tree. She caught his shoulders with both hands, her fingers curling against his throat, the soft chest hair at the base.

“Look at me. And don’t look away,” he added in a husky voice. “Whatever happened, Ruby, we’re going to work through it. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but you’re not running from me anymore. You’re not alone.”

Yes, she was. Because he couldn’t go down the path she’d chosen. So she curled her arms around his broad shoulders, buried her face in his neck. He sighed against her but put his hips between her thighs, pushing them out wider to take him. As much as he wanted to resist her, she could feel that he couldn’t. He was as hard and large as she’d ever felt him, and Derek had never been a small man, in any way. He didn’t have to grip himself. Another flood of emotions made her bite her lip as he angled his hips and slid into her with unerring accuracy, knowing her well enough to find his target on the first try. He sank himself in that pocket like a champion pool player.