“Tell the cabbie to take me home when we get to your place. You can call me or—”

“No,” Max said. Just that. No. “I have to run out to get some food. I don’t think there’s anything except maybe some leftover Chinese.”

“That sounds wonderful to me.” Rachel didn’t want Max to go anywhere, afraid if she left, disappeared from sight, she’d be gone again. Maybe forever. “I don’t need you to do anything special. I’m just…glad to see you.”

Max took Rachel’s hand. Her fingers were as warm as Rachel remembered. She squeezed gently and let go. Rachel wanted to cry out when the contact slipped away.

“It’s good to see you too. But the Chinese is way too leftover to be safe.” Max smiled a crooked smile and moved her knee.

Silence filled the cab until it pulled up before an apartment building in a long row of them on a narrow street dotted with the occasional maple and lined with cars parked bumper to bumper. Three steps led up to each wooden double front door.

Max handed over money, climbed out, and while Rachel followed, grabbed her luggage from the trunk. Max’s building was brown stone, with tall narrow windows on every floor and nothing else to distinguish it.

“It’s the third floor,” Max said, leading the way inside.

Rachel entered a tiny foyer and climbed a twisting set of stairs, through hallways smelling of disinfectant past closed doors that echoed with emptiness. Max fumbled a key from the backpack she’d slung over one shoulder, opened the door that said 3B, and held it wide. Rachel stepped in past her and stopped in the center of a single large room with a kitchen tucked into one corner, a sofa under the tall front window, a plain oak coffee table in front of that, several bookcases filled with books on the wall by the door, and a medium-sized television on a stand that needed dusting. No dishes in the sink, no magazines and newspapers lying around. Neat and Spartan, like Max’s CLU had been. There was even a pile of clothes next to the sofa, which she guessed was Max’s bed. Functional and nothing else. The door closed behind her, the suitcase thumped to the floor, and they were alone again. She was almost afraid to turn around, she wanted Max so desperately. The hot glide of her flesh, the cool oasis of her mouth, the steady strength of her arms. Everything she needed. She wrapped her arms around her waist and kept facing the window.

The silence was still and heavy.

Max wasn’t yet completely sure Rachel was real, standing there in the middle of her barren life, not sure she wouldn’t wake from a dream to find Rachel gone and herself caught in another form of nightmare where the loss would be more than she could bear. Rachel was battered and bruised now, and Max was the only one who really knew why—they shared the same haunted memories. In time, Rachel would heal and Max might be a reminder of what she’d rather forget. Rachel was not only too strong to need anyone to slay her demons, she also had another life far different than anything she shared with Max.

And none of it mattered—not the risk, not the pain, not the empty place her life would become if she let Rachel in and Rachel walked out again. Nothing mattered except Rachel, and she was here. Nothing else had mattered since the moment she’d run toward the rising Black Hawk, taking fire from every direction, jumped into its belly, and turned to see Rachel waiting for her. Rachel was here now, and she looked on the verge of collapse.

“I’ll get you a towel and you can grab a shower,” Max said. “I’ll pick up some food and be back before you’re done.”

“Yes, all right,” Rachel said softly.

Max rummaged in the single closet and found clean towels. “It’s in here.”

Rachel followed into the small bathroom.

“Take as long as you need,” Max said. The space between the sink and the wall was just large enough to turn around in, and with two of them, the fit was tight. Rachel was an inch away, so still and vulnerable Max’s heart bled. She cupped her face, ran her thumb over the arch of Rachel’s cheek. Rachel drew a breath that quavered.

“Then you sleep,” Max whispered.

Rachel’s fingers closed around Max’s wrist, sending a surge of fire through her.

“I need to tell you things.”

“Maybe,” Max murmured, “but that can wait.”

“I’m afraid,” Rachel said so softly Max wasn’t sure she heard her. “Afraid if you walk out, I won’t see you again.”

Max cradled her head in both hands and kissed her gently, not with the passion that roared inside her, but with all the tenderness and reassurance she could put into it. “I won’t. I told you that before.”

Rachel’s hands fisted in Max’s shirt and she rested her forehead against Max’s. She laughed unsteadily. “I seem to keep losing you.”

“No, you don’t.” Max closed her eyes, drew in the light scent that clung to her hair, the same vanilla that had lingered on her pillow. Her heart raced so fast she was dizzy. “You never have.”

“If you say you’ll be back, I believe you.” Rachel raised her eyes. “I always have.”

Max forced herself to break away. She wanted to be inside her, lost in the scent and taste of her. But that wasn’t what Rachel needed. Maybe not even what she needed. She took another step away while every inch of her protested. “I’ll be here.”

“Thank you.” Rachel smiled wanly and reached for the buttons on her shirt.

Max fled.

She grabbed her keys, checked her wallet to be sure she had money, and raced down the stairs to the street. In the twenty-four-hour market on the corner, she hastily gathered juice and bread and eggs and whatever else she thought Rachel might want to eat, waited impatiently while two people in front of her checked out, and sprinted back. When she let herself into the apartment, the water was still running in the bathroom. The tightness in her chest eased. She didn’t want Rachel to think she wouldn’t be there for her.

She poured some juice and popped bread in the toaster. When she turned around with the juice in her hand, Rachel stood in the bathroom door, the plain white bath towel Max had given her wrapped around her chest beneath her arms. It fell to midthigh, a V opening along the outer aspect of her left hip. Her thigh was smooth and long and sleek. Her hair was wet and hung in tangles to her shoulders. She was barefoot. She was beautiful.

“I made toast,” Max said inanely.

Rachel smiled. “I can smell it. I didn’t think I was hungry, but it smells wonderful.”

“Eggs?”

Rachel shook her head. “Maybe later. I think right now just the toast.”

Max nodded, realized she was still holding the glass of orange juice. She set it down on the coffee table, aware of Rachel moving closer. She carried the heat of the shower with her, the scent of soap and shampoo. Max’s hands trembled.

“Max.”

Max straightened and Rachel was there, inches away. She groaned, the wanting a beast that tore through her, shredding sanity and reason. “I’m having trouble thinking of anything except touching you.”

“I’m glad.”

Max shook her head. “Sorry.”

Rachel slid her arms around Max’s neck and the heat of her skin wafted over Max. “Don’t be.”

Max tugged the towel free and pulled Rachel the rest of the way to her. Rachel was naked and warm and fit perfectly in her arms. Max held her tightly and kissed her with everything she’d held back earlier, ripping aside every barrier she’d ever made to take her in, needing her taste more than water in the desert. Rachel whimpered and fisted her hands in Max’s hair, wrapping one leg around Max’s to join them more closely. Max kissed her for a long time, their bodies locked, stroking the length of Rachel’s smooth back, over the curve of her ass, up her sides until her thumbs brushed the full swell of Rachel’s breasts. Rachel whimpered again, her hips circling beneath Max’s hands.

“The couch,” Max gasped. “I have to open it.”

“Hurry.”

Max shoved the coffee table aside and flipped open the bed. She hadn’t slept in it much and the sheets were neat and regulation tight. She ripped down the top one, yanked her scrub shirt off over her head, and shoved free of her pants and boots. She grabbed Rachel’s hand and pulled her down onto the bed. Sunlight streamed through the window over their heads, painting Rachel’s skin golden. Max leaned over her and kissed her again, running her hands over her breasts and belly and the arch of her hip. Rachel’s legs parted and her hips rose. Max eased back to look into Rachel’s eyes as she caressed her. Rachel’s lips parted on a sigh and her eyes went liquid.

“I dreamed this,” Rachel whispered.

“So did I.” Gently, Max filled her. She shuddered, feeling as if she was holding back a tidal wave. She wanted to drive inside her, to take her and take her over and drown in her pleasure. She pressed her forehead to Rachel’s shoulder and fought to catch her breath, to find her control.

Rachel’s fingers came around her wrist, pushed her deeper. “Don’t go slow. Not this time.”

Max kissed her and followed the call of Rachel’s rising and falling hips. Gliding deep and long and smooth, circling her clit with every stroke. Rachel’s nails dug into her shoulders, urging, demanding. Max let go of her last restraint and sped up. Rachel came with a sharp cry, her mouth pressed to Max’s neck. Max kept going, heeding the pulse of desire tight around her.

“Yes, yes,” Rachel cried, lifting to take her deeper. She came again, and again when Max slid down and put her mouth where her thumb had been, teasing and stroking until Rachel gripped her head and came in her mouth.

Max would have stayed as she was forever, but Rachel pushed at her shoulder, the other hand tangled in her hair. “Enough. God. I’m done. I’m finished.”

Max rested her cheek on the inside of Rachel’s leg, smiling as she caught her breath. “Temporarily.”