It wasn’t public.

Ryder watched as Hailey glanced around them. Her hand slid from his as she took a few steps into the room. “Where . . . ?” She stopped when she saw the balcony. “Your apartment?”

He nodded. As if it was no big deal, when in fact he’d never asked another woman into his space before. “You want coffee or something?”

“Extra strength?” She smiled wanly, pushing her loose hair back. She looked younger without the makeup, though tension fizzed around her eyes like it had earlier in the bar.

Answering tension rumbled in his gut as he led her into his state-of-the-art kitchen. He motioned her to sit at the breakfast bar. “Sorry I got you up.”

“You said you wanted to talk?”

He put the coffee on to brew and leaned his hips back against his marble counter. His gaze took her in, sitting there, surrounded by his stuff. “Yeah.”

She waited while the scent of coffee started to drift in the air. “You know you actually have to say words, right?”

The spark of sass made his lips curve as he busied himself retrieving coffee cups from his cupboard and pouring them both a coffee. He added cream to hers, but took his black.

He faced her again after handing her mug over.

With no idea where to start.

He ran a hand down his hair before motioning toward the couch. “Maybe we should be more comfortable.”

Something in her expression pinged, a shadow across her face, before she nodded. “All right.”

They sat on his big black leather couch in awkward silence. Her gaze roamed the room and he wondered what she thought of it. It was no doubt a bachelor’s space, geared toward comfort, with a huge TV and stack of DVDs, and a few photos of his family around.

“It’s nice,” she said, startling him. “I suppose, being a hotel, it would be.”

“Yeah. It’s good. I like it. Here.” Smooth.

She sipped some coffee, her eyes avoiding his. “Have you been here long?”

“About eight years. I lived with Leo for a while, but we like our own space.” This was awful. It was like they were polite strangers.

He cleared his throat. Plunge right in. “Okay, so the reason I wanted to talk to you was—”

“You don’t need to say it,” she said quickly.

“No, I do.” But he needed another hit of caffeine first.

Because that made all the difference.

“You don’t have to do this, Ryder.” Her smile, when he looked up, was a shade too brilliant. “We said when we started this thing that when someone wanted to break it off, the other would let them with no arguments.”

Something painful lodged in his gut. “So you do want to end it,” he said with a hollow tinge to his voice.

“No. Yes.” She pressed her lips together and her eyes slid away from his. “I don’t know.”

Clear as a window caked with mud. “Okay . . .”

“I do like you, Ryder.”

“I like you, too.”

“Yeah.” She looked down, studied the mug she held. Let out a breath. “Oh, God. Look, I know we had rules and we agreed this, us, was only casual.” Her shoulders lifted as she inhaled. Her eyes were intensely green when she met his gaze. “No emotions, no messy tangles. Just sex.”

“I think we’re a little more than that,” he said with a slight furrow.

“Yes, and that’s the problem.” She waved as if he’d hit on it.

He didn’t know about her, but he was confused. “It’s a problem we’ve got more going than sex?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She looked at him as if he’d spoken in tongues. “Why? Because we had rules, Ryder. Clear, strict rules to avoid just this kind of thing.”

He was getting a headache. “What kind of thing?”

The flush in her cheeks dialed up to full-on pink as she wet her lips. “Feelings. Caring. Wanting . . . more.”

“You want more?” Something in his stomach trembled. Panic, fear, excitement, who the hell could tell?

“No. Yes.” She pulled at her hair in frustration. “Look, I like you. I care about how your day’s been, I want to know about how your brother is, I want to hear about your childhood. I mean, of course I want to lick you all over and kiss every inch that I can, too, but I also want to hold your hand.” Her eyes went a little crazy. “Your freaking hand.”

Ryder wrinkled his brow. “You want to hold hands?”

“Don’t you see? I care more than I should. Casual sex means never having to listen to the other person about deep stuff, but I want to hear about it.”

Thoughts spun in a whirlwind of words in his mind. “You want to be serious, then?”

“No.” Emphatic, she shook her head. “That is the last thing I want.”

“But you don’t want to be casual.”

Her eyes slid closed. “I can’t be. Call me stupid, but I don’t want to wonder if you’re sleeping with anyone else or wonder if you’re going to finish things tomorrow. I want . . . I don’t know. I just want to date. Casually. Be exclusive, but without huge expectations. Know that I can hug you without it being a prelude to sex or text you without having to think of something dirty to add on.” A broken little laugh slipped out. “God, I sound mental.”

With a deep inhale, she put her mug aside and stood. “Look, I’ll go. We said from the beginning we wouldn’t put a label on it or pretend we had a future, and what I just said violates that to, like, the nth degree. So I’ll go.”

In the end, it was very simple. He couldn’t let her go, not now, not yet.

He stood too and blocked her path. “You know what my dad says first sold him on my mom?”

Hailey’s eyebrows drew together as she gazed at him in wary confusion. “Your dad?”

“It was her smile.” Ryder glanced at a photo near the TV, one of the four of them on one of their random vacations in the middle of nowhere, just them and a tent and the wilderness. Rain was pouring down in the photo but his mom had grinned the whole way through it.

He returned his attention to Hailey. “Dad says when a woman can tangle you up inside with her smile, you should hold on to her. I should’ve known from the auction, when I . . . was so pleased you’d won the wish.”

“I’m not jumping on your thought train, Ryder. You’re gonna have to dumb it down for me.”

He took her hands, stroked his thumb across her pulse points. They were beating madly, like his. “Hailey, I never intended to like you as much as I do. Caring for someone . . . well, it always seems to lead to loss, and I’ve had enough of that.”

Any small hope dimmed from her face and she nodded.

“No.” He exhaled. “I’m bad at this. Look, you do something to me. And I want to keep seeing you, even if that means moving forward at a pace that suits us.”

She studied him with a careful expression. “What exactly are you saying? Spell it out for me.”

He pushed aside the last flutters of anxiety and squeezed her hands. “I guess what I’m saying, in a very high-school way, is will you be my girlfriend? Exclusively. Not saying I’m racing to buy you a ring next week, and not saying I might not falter from time to time, but I want to be with you. Only you. If that means a few extra strings, I can live with that. If you can.”

And breathe.

She’d never know how much it took to say that. More, to mean it.

She considered, her face inscrutable. Time ticked away precious seconds until he felt as if he was wet with sweat. “So you’d be my boyfriend?” she asked finally.

“That’s the way it works.”

“But we’d go slow.”

“Slower than two octogenarians crossing the street.”

“You’ll hold my hand?”

“I’ll hold whatever you need holding.”

Her laugh dissolved some of the knot in his stomach. “Wow, the romance of it all.”

“So what do you say?” He leaned in, brushed her forehead with his lips. Warmth flooded him, relief washing the last nerves away. “Wanna go steady?”

“My girlfriends will be sooo jealous.” Her breath hitched as his light kisses continued down her nose. “One last question.”

“All right.”

“Did you fix my bid in that auction?”

Ryder’s lips froze an inch from her mouth. “Uh . . .”

“I knew it.” She swatted the hands she’d been holding. “You owe me five thousand dollars’ worth of stress.”

“I wanted you to have a wish,” he defended himself. “I thought it might make you happy.”

“You want to know what makes me happy?”

He waited.

Her face softened. “You.”

* * *

Hailey held all her relief back for fear she might pull a Maria von Trapp and start singing to the skyscrapers of New York.

She was half-afraid she’d inadvertently wished in the vicinity of a Genie because she had exactly what she wanted—exclusive rights to Ryder, as her still-easy, let’s-take-it-as-it-comes boyfriend. Just a few strings.

And of his own free will.

Damn, but she needed to kiss him to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

She meant her kiss as a soft, sexy seal-the-deal moment, but the instant her lips touched his, it was like a rag soaked in gasoline touched an open flame. Their hands pulled at each other’s clothes with an urgency that matched their first time.

Hailey had a glimpse of navy bedsheets and light walls before Ryder had divested her of her clothes, seeming to have eight hands and putting them all to good use. She poured her delight into her kisses, loving the way his breath quickened as she stroked up his chest, the way his muscles jumped under her fingers.

“Now,” she urged, writhing beneath him. She pressed up against the boxers he still wore.

Breath whistled in through his teeth as he shot her a warning look. “You want this to be fast?”

“This time.” She nipped his pec, smiling as he groaned. “Next time can be slow.”

He fed her a thorough kiss, his hand tangled in her hair, before he suddenly rolled them. She let out a short squeal at the abrupt motion, finding herself sprawled across his chest.

“Mm,” she purred on a laugh. “A riding lesson.”

“Just trying to conquer your fear.” His grin was wicked enough to make every feminine muscle in her body clench.

This Genie . . .

Hailey plucked at the waistband of the boxers. “Nice. Calvin Klein?”

“God knows. Get them off.”

B.R (Before Ryder), she’d have awkwardly wriggled them off with her hands.

A.R. . . .

Hailey felt deliciously naughty as she snagged the waistband with her teeth. As she dragged it down, his penis shot up, hard and insistent for attention.

She stopped when the boxers were rolled down enough to give her access. Her eyes flicked upward.

Ryder looked one heartbeat away from collapsing. “Hailey, you don’t have—”

He shouted out as she took him into her mouth, all the way in, no preliminaries. She slowly slid up, her tongue licking up the other side until he was panting. She didn’t have a good deal of experience but she committed to it, learning what he liked from his growing moans.

Every part of her tingled with excitement as he neared his climax, his back almost bowing off the bed.

Suddenly she hit face first onto the duvet as he flashed out from beneath her. She spat out the sheets in confusion until his hands slid around her hips.

“Now,” he growled from behind.

Hailey nodded weakly, so turned on she couldn’t wait much longer. He positioned her and thrust in without pause, filling her completely and making her cry out from the perfection.

She gripped big handfuls of the sheets as he thrust and retreated, her cries louder and faster as pleasure consumed her body.

As she hit the peak, he pulled out and turned her to her back. He joined her ecstasy after a couple more thrusts, his gorgeous body shuddering before he lowered to her.

Hailey lazily stroked a hand down his back. “My boyfriend’s awesome.”

“Damn right,” he mumbled into his pillow.