“You’ve got to go,” she whispered.

He cracked open one eye. It was two in the morning. “Hmmm,” he murmured into her hair and pulled her into him, smiling at the feel of bare skin. He cupped her sweet ass and started to roll her beneath him, but she shoved at him again.

“Mark! Wake up!”

“I’m up,” he said and flopped to his back.

“Yes,” she said, eyeing the part of him that was most definitely up. “But that’s not what I meant!”

He snorted and sat up. “You’re panicking.”

“Yes! Join me, won’t you?” She yanked on his T-shirt and slid out of the bed. The cotton fell over her curves and made him sigh. Apparently round two wasn’t on the calendar.

She pulled him off the bed, tossed his clothes at him, and pushed him to the door.

“Shouldn’t I actually put these on first?” he asked wryly.

She stood there, arms crossed, toe tapping while he pulled on his board shorts. “Where’s the fire?” he asked.

“We can’t sleep in the same bed in your family house.”

“Actually, there hasn’t been all that much sleeping involved,” he said. “There was some nice begging, though, especially when I—”

“Oh my God.” She put a hand over his mouth, but she was laughing now. “I absolutely did not beg.”

He chuckled because she had so begged. Sweetly. Sexily. And now that he was thinking of it, he wanted to hear her do it again. And again . . .

“Look,” she said. “We agreed it’s okay to do . . . what we did. But sleeping together is different. It’s more. It’s . . . intimate.”

He felt his smile fade and he pulled her in for a hug, resting his jaw on the top of her head. “You need your space.”

She paused, and then pulled back and stared at his chest. “Yes. I need space.”

He lifted her chin and what he saw in her eyes made his heart constrict. “Us not getting involved emotionally is on me, Lanie,” he said. “Not you. Never you.”

She nodded, but he knew she didn’t understand and he felt like such an asshole. “Please tell me you believe me.”

“I—”

They both froze at the knock on the door, though Mark didn’t need a peephole to know who it was. At night his children tended to turn into dehydrated philosophers who needed lots of hugs. And yep, right on cue came . . .

“Daddy?” came Samantha’s little voice. “Me and Sierra are thirsty.”

He’d been a soldier. He was a cop. Both required catlike reflexes and instincts that had saved his life more than a few times. He was quick on his feet and he slept with one eye open. And yet in that moment, he was frozen. Not because his kids had found him in a questionable situation, but because for whatever reason, Lanie honest-to-God believed she couldn’t trust love, and he’d just cemented that in her head for her.

The girls knocked again. Lanie jabbed a finger at the closet and added yet another push that was far more like a shove so that she could go greet his adorable little heathens and protect him.

Not happening. It was time someone protected her for a change. So he gently nudged her into the closet and put a finger to his lips. Then he opened the bedroom door and looked down at his favorite heathens plus one oversized dog, all looking hopeful.

They were the cutest little night owls he’d ever seen, who didn’t seem to need any sleep no matter what time he decreed bedtime was. Sometimes even after he’d put them to bed, they’d come looking for an excuse to get into his bed, claiming to need water, a story, whatever they could come up with, and it was his own fault that he’d let them. But after all they’d gone through, he’d spoiled them some. They deserved it.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I can’t possibly really be looking at my two favorite short people because they’re in bed, long asleep, dreaming about ponies and kittens and rainbows.”

They giggled and tried to push their way in, Gracie leading the way, but he held firm. “Not tonight, sweet things. It’s way past your bedtimes—”

“But Daddy,” Samantha said. “My sock fell off and we’re thirsty.”

“There’s two water bottles by your beds. Where’s your aunt Mia?”

“She fell asleep. We wanna story.”

Sierra nodded eagerly, smiling at him so adorably that he felt his chest pinch. She was finally getting her two front teeth in and she was clutching the teddy bear he’d given her last month, looking at him in overt adoration that he still wasn’t sure he deserved. Bending, he scooped them both up and started down the hall toward their bedroom, Gracie on his heels.

“But Daddy—”

“Shh,” he whispered, hugging Samantha in tighter. “Don’t wake up the house, baby.”

“But—”

“Samantha, if you wake up Grandma, I’ll tell her it was you who ate her last cupcake.”

Sierra giggled at this empty threat because they all knew it’d been him who had eaten the last cupcake. But Samantha stopped talking and set her head on his shoulder.

He quickly glanced back. No sight of Lanie. Three minutes later he had the girls tucked into bed. “When you’re teenagers,” he said, “I’m going to wake you guys up in the middle of the night to tell you my socks came off.”

They laughed and cuddled in. He kissed them each, told Gracie to “guard the babies,” and went back to his room and directly to his closet.

It was empty.

He let out a slow breath. Yeah, he deserved that. He padded out of the room and down the hall. It was a cold night and he was barefoot and shirtless but he had to make sure Lanie was okay. He got to the row of cottages just in time to see her step inside her dark one.

Fair enough. Mad at himself for hurting her, he went back to the big house.

He’d honestly believed that he could keep his heart safe. But that had been before Lanie slid in beneath his barriers. Now the only thing he was sure of was the one thing he didn’t want to admit to himself.

She was going to have him breaking his every rule for her.

HIS ALARM WENT off three hours later. He had an early shift, which turned out to be long and busy. It was late that night before he got away, and after checking on the girls, he went to the cottages—power had been restored—and knocked on Lanie’s door.

She answered in the shirt she’d stolen from him.

He met her gaze. “Thought maybe we needed to have a conversation.”

“Not even a little bit,” she said politely.

“Lanie—”

“I don’t want to talk, but there is something else I do want to do.”

“Anything,” he said.

She pulled him inside and to her bed.

OVER THE NEXT week, Mark worked ridiculously long hours thanks to a flu running through his staff, visited his girls as often as he could, even if it was just watching them sleep, and then ended up in Lanie’s bed.

Where they hadn’t done much talking, although there’d been a lot of murmured “Oh, please” and “Do that again” and “Don’t stop.”

One day things finally slowed down enough at work that Mark was able to take his lunch break at the winery. He tried to do this the same day a week that coincided with the twins’ half day at school, offsetting all the nights where he didn’t get home before their bedtime. His job wasn’t ideal that way, but it was a hell of a lot better than being overseas and not present at all.