He’d made it back to the kitchen doorway, bracing himself to confront her again, to somehow reach her, when the explosion of glass froze him in midstep, and he watched in disbelief as a glittering shower rained down on the ceramic tile. It took him a few beats to get that the sliding door had exploded inward.

His heart in his throat, he dove for what was left of the door. His Nikes skidded through shards of glass, and he caught glimpses of brown among the jagged pieces. Blood?

“Kylie!”

He stopped dead when he saw her on the deck, staring at what was left of the door.

Cop instincts kicked in, and he lunged forward and grabbed her, nearly yanking her off her feet as he dragged her into the shelter of the kitchen and away from the vulnerability of the shattered door.

Pressing her against the wall, covering her with his body, he peered over his shoulder toward the door, scanning what he could see of the beach. His brain was racing, latching onto and discarding scenarios in split seconds.

A bomb? No smoke.

A gunman? But only one shot, and he’d missed.

A rock? He glanced at the floor, saw the brown again, like blood but solid with jagged edges. Not blood. Glass. Beer-bottle glass.

What the hell?

He shifted to look down at her, to ask her what the hell happened. But the way she stared up at him, her expression so open and broken, wiped his brain clean. Her eyes, swimming with tears that threatened to spill but didn’t, looked bluer than ever. The slight tremble in her chin nearly undid him.

He released her and stepped back, raising his hands to placate. Oh, Jesus, if she cried . . .

His back-off move must have surprised her, because her eyes widened further, and then, like that, the aching vulnerability vanished. She lifted her chin, a furrow of concentration appearing above the bridge of her nose.

“I thought you left,” she said, her voice as flat and emotionless as her expression.

The fucking game face. It was like a kick to the gut. He would never win with her. They would never win. “I decided it was a mistake to leave angry,” he said, just as flat, just as emotionless.

Her eyes narrowed, flickered, then she pushed hair off her face with both hands. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I see that.”

He deliberately swept his gaze over the shattered remains of the door before meeting her eyes again. She didn’t look away, but he could see in the way her jaw muscles tightened that it cost her. She was grinding her teeth to dust. Jesus, she never gave up. That’s exactly how she’d played tennis, never giving up on even one point. The media called her the Mac Attack, a warrior on the court, mercilessly taking down enemy after enemy like a soldier with a tennis racket as her weapon. Until those bastards had used a bat to destroy her ability to fight.

He wanted to save her. He wanted to jerk her out of her emotionless shell and remind her what it was like to live. To love.

But she stood there, watching him with curtained eyes, tension coiled in her center as she tried to anticipate his next move and how she might counter it. A competitor to the end. A beautiful competitor with flawless skin and blue gray eyes he could drown in.

He didn’t think, he just reached out.

She stepped back on a quick intake of breath, but the wall at her back stopped her short. He took advantage and slid his hands into her soft, silky hair before capturing her warm, moist lips with his.

She tensed, brought her hands up to curl around his forearms, but he tightened his grip, preventing retreat, and let himself fall into her taste. God, oh, God, she tasted like beer and want and everything he’d craved since the day she walked out of his life.

When she moaned out a protest, pushing at his arms and shoulders with clenched fists, he resisted letting her go even as his head told him he had to. Instead, he deepened the kiss, telling her with his lips and tongue and teeth how much he wanted her after all this time, after all the hurt. She moaned again, but this time she melted against him, her fists unfurling to clutch at his shoulders, her lips parting, inviting him in. The sweep of her glorious tongue against his stole his breath and sent blood rushing to the too-long-denied part of his anatomy.

He moved in, pressed her against the wall as he nudged his thigh between hers—Jesus, skin on skin and so close to her heat, it was . . . it was . . . too much.

He fought the need to come up for air. He didn’t want air. He just wanted this. He just wanted her. He couldn’t get enough, couldn’t go deep enough, couldn’t taste enough or feel enough.

And then, just like that, as if someone threw a switch, he lost her.

She stiffened against him and jerked her head back so quickly it rapped against the wall. Her hands shoved at his chest, and a weird choking sound came from her throat.

He backed off fast, hands off her and raised. “What? What did I do?” Did he misread something? Did he go too far too fast? What?

She struggled to get control of her breathing, one hand held before her as if she didn’t trust him to stay back. “You have to go.”

Go? Now? They were just getting started. “Ky, come on—”

“Don’t call me that!” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t . . . God, just don’t call me that anymore.”

He saw the tremor in her hand then, and the shock made his head spin. Kylie “There’s No Need to Worry” McKay was trembling. Sympathy overrode his disbelief. “Jesus, Ky, you’re—”

She lunged forward and shoved him back a full step. “Leave!”

He snapped his mouth shut and debated his options. Leave, obviously. Or stay and piss her off so much maybe they’d never recover. But, Jesus, she looked like a prime candidate for spontaneous combustion, her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashing daggers in silver and blue.

His body, clearly not the least bit intimidated, responded to all that angry energy, egged on by memories of truly fantastic sex after harrowing knock-down-drag-outs on the court with her. He didn’t want to leave, damn it. He wanted to bury his need, bury it in her. He wanted to fuck away the past and move on. Together.

Before he could think of the right words to say—maybe there weren’t any—she pushed past him and headed for the living room.

“Where are you going?” he called after her.

“You won’t leave, so I will.”

The front door slammed so violently the house shook.

Squeezing the back of his neck with one hand, Chase surveyed the glass scattered across the kitchen tile and, against his better judgment, began to grin. He’d made Kylie, the ice queen, slip on her own cool. He’d made her tremble, with rage or desire—did it matter? The fact remained: He’d gotten to her. He’d broken through her defenses. Hell, he’d made her throw a beer bottle through one door and slam another so hard they probably heard it across the gulf in Texas.

Okay, so the encounter hadn’t ended as well as it could have. In fact, it hadn’t ended well at all, considering the throbbing discomfort in Chase Jr.’s neighborhood. But, damn, he’d still made her tremble. And moan. Don’t forget that. There’d been some pretty heavy duty, heady moans before she’d flipped out on him.

The trembling, though. That was the main thing. He could still make her shake for him.

Maybe there was hope for them yet.