Since Jace hadn’t shown up the other day to take her to the beach, Stella could honestly say the sight of him on her doorstep at three o’clock in the afternoon counted as a shock.

The way her pulse bobbled was not. Oh, she could pretend all day long that Jace was just one more face in the sea of hard bodies that permeated the twenty-something crowd she’d served daily for years. But the truth of the matter was that something had shifted between them.

She’d tried to ignore it, tried to throw up a few more barriers—mostly on her side because she apparently needed them—nothing changed the fact that the man was more exciting than a hunk of Italian marble carved into the shape of perfection and brought to life.

“Um, hi.” Her voice dropped into a realm that was more suited for phone sex, but there was no good way to fix that. Jace did stuff to her insides that she could not control. “What are you doing here?”

Since this was her apartment, not the bar, the answer this time couldn’t be I work here. Likely the next thing out of his mouth would be something she’d have a very hard time rejecting yet again.

He was going to lean on the doorframe, cross his amazing arms over his chest that she could scarcely peel her eyes from, and skewer her with his bedroom eyes. He’d say something provocative like, “You know why I’m here. You’ve been dreaming about this every night. Haven’t you?”

And then she’d have to nod because she couldn’t lie anymore. I have, she’d say. Sometimes more than once. And usually she’d wake up aching and hot and desperately in need of his hands on her body, but she’d had to contend with touching herself, which wasn’t nearly the same, but she couldn’t stop. She’d pictured him making good on his promise to devour her, big bad wolf style, and usually she’d have herself on the brink of climax in about three minutes.

It was satisfaction. And she wanted the pleasure he’d promised.

The real version of Jace, who hadn’t moved from his stance on her welcome mat, did none of those things. A slow smile spilled onto his face, and it didn’t matter that he wasn’t actually going to push into her apartment with the sole intent of stripping her down. She could bask in the warmth of his smile for a good long while, and it would still be the best thing that had happened to her today.

She’d missed him last night.

Stella was coming to hate his days off. She shouldn’t. What kind of slave driver was she that she’d rather her lone employee be in her bar than off having fun like she’d implored him to on a regular basis? It was her own fault that she’d told him that she had the bar well covered last night and he shouldn’t worry about coming all the way to Freeport after he’d finished his snorkeling trip.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he said in his warm, honeyed voice. “Thought I’d drop by to see if you needed anything.”

Well, it was official. She was a pervy old lady because her brain had just spit out about fifteen extremely filthy suggestions designed to communicate precisely what she needed, when she needed it, and how he should give it to her. God, even her toes had gone liquid and hot, never mind the stuff to the north.

She shifted, but that only made the ache worse. What was wrong with her? All his flirting and sexy talk had finally driven her loony, that was it.

“What, like Girl Scout cookies?” she asked. “I always need those. But I don’t think they have Girl Scouts in the Bahamas.”

His grin widened. “If that’s what you wanted, I’d find some.”

Oh, yeah, that was exactly what she wanted. Thin Mints, crumbled up into bits, strewn across Jace Custer’s extremely wide, very naked chest and about four free hours to lick every last crumb from his body. Her vision glazed for a half second.

“What are you really doing here?” she croaked. She needed him gone before he took her apart with nothing more than his voice.

That’s when he leaned on the doorframe, but the carnal bedroom eyes didn’t materialize. This was more of a casual I’m really just in the neighborhood sort of vibe that made her feel a little foolish for immediately jumping into a handyman/lady-home-alone fantasy. Except she was still envisioning Jace in a tool belt.

He shrugged. “I missed a shift last night. Making up for lost time.”

Yeah. He’d had days off before, sometimes due to unforeseen circumstances like what had happened to Emma. But he’d never then come to the big island early to seek her out in her apartment the next day.

Thus far, he’d treated her living quarters like a no-man’s-land with a very prominent No Trespassing sign posted at the foot of the stairs. Which she appreciated. That was one thing about Jace. He flirted with her a lot, said some things that were very hard for him to take back—not that he’d ever tried—but he never crossed certain lines. In that, he was a perfect gentleman, which was saying a lot. She hadn’t given him much credit where credit was due, actually.

“Did something happen with Emma?” she asked. Nothing had happened to Emma or the baby. There was no way. He’d have told her already. But her heartbeat sped up for a second just the same until he shook his head.

“Nah, she’s fine. It was false labor or something.” But then his casual vibe slipped, and a hint of vulnerability flashed through his warm gaze. “Got a little crossways with Miles and Jack. It’s cool.”

Um, no, clearly it was not. “Jack, I could see. But how on earth does one get crossways with Miles?”

The man was nicknamed “Mild” for a reason. He’d tended bar for her for a brief period while Aqueous worked on getting solvent, and his calmness was nearly eerie. It was a quality she’d assumed made him so good at handling explosives, and he’d regaled her with tale after tale of what it took to dismantle insurgent homemade bombs during his stint as a SEAL.

“Without much difficulty, it turns out,” Jace admitted ruefully. “My fault. But still. I wasn’t too keen to hang out with that bunch of losers today.”

She tucked her tongue in her cheek. That bunch of losers was Jace’s family. She’d seen how they interacted, usually from afar, but when he’d invited her to Rachel and Evan’s housewarming party, it had been a rare opportunity to see what a tight bond they all had.

Whatever had happened must be bothering him, but she didn’t have that kind of relationship with him where he felt like he could spill his guts to her. By design. She’d tried really, really hard to keep things professional between them. And to what end? So the poor guy could have a falling out with his friends and then have to slink to her place under the premise of seeing if she needed anything so he didn’t have to spend the day alone?

Against her better judgment, she opened the door wider. “Why don’t you come in?”

In the second shocking development of the day, he shook his head. “Why don’t you come out? It’s a beautiful day. Too nice to spend inside. Don’t you have an errand to run or something? I’ll tag along.”

“Every day is beautiful in the Bahamas,” she countered wryly, entirely charmed by the idea of hanging out with Jace. Too charmed for her own good apparently. “That’s why we live here. But sure. I could stand to go to the market. Let me grab my purse.”

And that was how she found herself strolling down the sidewalk at Jace’s side as Freeport flowed around them, as if they’d stepped into a bright, beautiful bubble that allowed the world to see them and vice versa, but nothing could touch them in here. It was as surreal as it was… cozy.

Wow, he was really tall. Sure, she knew he topped her by a good twelve inches, but usually he was behind the bar and she was off doing something, or they were both sitting down. It was rare that they were side by side like this, rarer still that she had an opportunity to gauge exactly how easily she’d fit up against him if he was the type to snuggle a woman into that hollow between his arm and his side. And if they were lovers. And she wasn’t too old for him.

She cleared her throat. “You didn’t really want to go to the market with me, did you?”

The grin he slid in her direction put a flock of butterflies in her stomach.

“This is already the best date I’ve been on in a long time. Don’t ruin it for me with logic.”

She laughed. It shouldn’t be funny since it was the only date she’d been on in a long time. Furthermore, it wasn’t a date. But she’d spent a good portion of their interaction lately reminding him of all the reasons they didn’t—and couldn’t—work, to no avail.

Maybe she’d save herself the trouble for an hour and just pretend none of that mattered.

“Just curious,” she said casually as they stopped at a cross street to wait for the light to change. “What kind of fun surprises should a girl expect on a date to the market with you?”

Something flashed through his expression that she’d really like to understand a whole lot better. As it was, it hooked her in the gut and didn’t let go as he stared down at her. “I’m more of a show than tell kind of guy.”

With that promise arcing between them like a live wire, he stretched out one of those amazing muscular arms and captured her hand. Their fingers laced together almost without any help on her part, and holy crap, the energy leaping around in their bubble nearly took out her knees. The light changed, but she was having a hard time concentrating on anything but the very male presence next to her.

She walked along the busy Freeport thoroughfare, holding hands with Jace like it was no big thing, except it was a big thing. They weren’t a couple. She shouldn’t be grinning from ear to ear, and he shouldn’t be rubbing his thumb across her knuckles in an approximation of how he might do the same to an erogenous zone.

“What are we buying at the market?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, thrilled her voice was still working and she hadn’t squeaked like an adolescent girl who had never held hands with a man before. “Carrots?”

A grimace screwed up his aquiline features, and he stuck out his tongue. “Carrots are for rabbits and snowmen.”

“That’s an interesting tell.” She contemplated him, biting back another laugh. She didn’t hate hanging out with Jace in the slightest. That was the biggest problem—she genuinely liked him. “You must be from the north if you instantly equate carrots with snowmen.”

He waggled his brows. “Fishing? You’re perfectly welcome to come right out and ask anything you like. You don’t have to be coy with me.”

How refreshing. She could get used to this easy flow between them. Maybe she was being too hard-nosed about the age gap. They could be friends. Or something. Everything didn’t have to be about sex.

“Where are you from, Jace?”

“Albuquerque. I’m a mountains-slash-desert boy. Turns out it’s good training for being a SEAL.”

Then he turned a long, pointed sideways glance her way that brought her up short. “What?”

“This is the part where you share something. That’s how dates work. I say something, then you say something.”

Should have seen that one coming. An invisible hand squeezed all the air from her lungs, and she gurgled. Sharing was not her forte, not when it came to personal stuff that she’d spent the past five years trying to suppress.

It was on the tip of her tongue to start spitting out a denial about the nature of this outing, which wasn’t a date, not really. But she’d been the one to break down that wall, not him. He was only following her script. It was too late to start throwing up more barriers.

And all at once, she didn’t want to. He was hurting over whatever had happened at home, or he wouldn’t have sought her out. She couldn’t shut down on him too.

“I’m divorced,” she blurted out. Ugh, why walk when you can sprint? Was that really the first personal thing she could have admitted? Hey, you’re from New Mexico? Great, I’m a big fat loser in the matrimonial department. Wanna make out?

But he just nodded. “I figured you had something pretty bad happen to you.”

“You did?” She blinked as his palm tightened around hers and his thumb found a little hollow to caress. Instead of pushing her away, he was… comforting her. “How did you figure that?”

“Please.” His mouth flattened comically as he waved his free hand game-show-hostess style down the length of his torso. “Anyone who can say no to this is clearly either off her rocker or working through some breakup stuff.”

She smiled but couldn’t quite muster up the energy to laugh. Breakup. A divorce wasn’t quite the same as getting a text message from a girl you’d been dating for a couple of months that said she wanted to see other people. As reminders of their vastly different places in life went, that one couldn’t be starker.

Even something as monumentally life changing as a divorce didn’t register as a big deal to him. He took nothing seriously. Asked no questions. At the very least, he should want to know whose fault it was. That was the one everyone else asked, especially all the friends she’d left behind in St. Louis, like there was a way to definitively answer that question. Only someone who had gone through a divorce could possibly understand that fault was a multifaceted concept, often redefined on a minute-by-minute basis as you cried at three a.m. instead of sleeping.

And this was not something she wanted to be focusing on. Not now, not ever really.

“Maybe it’s some of door number three,” she proclaimed loftily, desperate to get back to a place where they were just two people walking in the sun, holding hands in a gorgeous seaside community. “I like a man to work for it.”

His brows lifted as he contemplated her, dodging people on the street with impressive skill since he wasn’t even watching where he was going. “I’m not afraid of hard work.”

“I’ve noticed. You’re a regular workaholic.”

She shouldn’t be encouraging him. He was too eager to jump on whatever scraps she gave him. But there was no denying how powerful it was to have a man pay attention to her. Especially one like Jace. He was definitely not a stranger to work. He had a rare ethic about him that wouldn’t allow him to leave a task half-done. He clearly did a lot of physical activity, and he was nothing if not relentless in his pursuit of her.

That alone should clue her in that she was more door number one than she’d like to pretend. She was off her rocker to keep refusing him. Why did everything have to be about the future with her?

Good grief—that was part of the reason she was divorced, because she couldn’t envision a life without Graham in it, and that had bled over into her relationship with Mike. In the end, she’d had to learn to live without both of them. But was she really living? More like existing.

Jace was all about right now, the person she was in this moment, and he liked her. Maybe this was an opportunity to live a little and stop being Stella the divorced, childless, emotional wreck for a while.

Their trajectory had gradually shifted until they were walking along the edge of the sidewalk closest to the buildings, and then all at once, Jace pulled her into a small alcove out of the flow of traffic.

“What, are we stopping?” she asked.

The market was still a half a block away, but her elevated pulse and the enigmatic look in his eyes told her that neither of them had fresh vegetables on their minds. This alcove was scarcely big enough for one person, let alone two. Especially when one of them was six three-ish with about fifty pounds of hot, masculine muscle packed onto his frame.

“You notice a lot of things lately.” Jace cocked his head, his attention so firmly trained on her that she couldn’t look away. “What about now?”

“You want to know what I’m noticing right this minute?”

His face. It was beautiful. Chiseled, with sensuous lines that begged for a woman’s fingers. She wanted to trace some of the lines, feel his jaw cupped in her palm. Run a fingertip over his defined lips. Watch his lashes drift to half-mast in pleasure, the way she’d imagined in a particularly erotic dream last night.

“I’m noticing that we’re not walking,” she informed him instead. The rest was too big, too powerful. Too much exactly what she wanted. And shouldn’t.

“I can’t work on what I want while I’m walking.”

His voice wrapped around her, and the temperature shot up inside their little bubble. Her chest rose and fell not a hairsbreadth away from his. If she breathed any deeper, they’d be touching.

“What do you want?” she murmured and couldn’t make herself care that it was as provocative of a statement as she’d ever made to him. It was leading, impossible to misinterpret, and she’d thrown it down deliberately.

If there was some kind of line in the sand when it came to Jace Custer, she’d just skipped over it and blown it to smithereens. Good.

He knew it too. The way his expression darkened… it was the most thrilling thing she’d ever seen.

“Remember when you asked what a girl can expect on a date? This is the part where I show you.”

Her pulse went into free fall as his palms came up to cup her jaw. As slow as molasses, he feathered a thumb across her cheek, his brown eyes locked on hers, melting with so much intense heat that her knees went weak. She’d expected him to dive in, to be the type to forge ahead like a conquering warlord, scooping up his bounty as his rightful due. But he was taking his time, letting her acclimate to his hands on her. It was exactly what she’d had no idea she needed.

God, how could this man still surprise her? She kept thinking she had him all figured out and then… not so much.

Without any fanfare, Jace leaned down and kissed her, settling his lips on hers as if testing it out. Testing her out. Making sure she was on board maybe.

She was. This was her one and only reality slip. She had to make it count.

Solid muscle met her questing fingers, and she flattened her palms on his chest, spreading them into full jazz hands because she needed more of him. Holy God, did he feel amazing. The moan that rumbled in her throat galvanized him. Tilting her head, he deepened the kiss, and oh yes, there was the first slide of his tongue against hers. Powerful. Masterful.

Her fingers nipped in, seeking purchase against his rock-hard pecs which was about as ridiculous of an idea as low-fat ice cream. Giving up, she slid her arms around his waist and held on as Jace flooded her senses with hot, masculine glory.

The man kissed like nothing she’d ever experienced. Unhurried, he explored her mouth, as if kissing was the main course, not the precursor to what he’d really come for. As if he could stay here for an hour and never get bored. She was a huge fan of being kissed by a man who knew what he was doing.

She did a little discovery of her own, going deeper still, tasting every millimeter of him she could get against her tongue. The slow burn in her core built on itself, revealing the fact that she’d never really understood the concept of need until that moment.

“Stella,” he murmured reverently against her lips, and she nodded.

“Still me.”

His mouth curled up, and he nuzzled her nose, teasing her with little feathery touches. “I’m working hard here. But you have to meet me halfway. Tell me this is what you want too.”

Like her consent wasn’t obvious? “I’m kissing you back, aren’t I?”

His hands tightened against her jaw, and he lifted her face but not for a kiss. To pin her with his hot gaze that had an unmistakable tinge of challenge in it. “That’s not the same thing as vocalizing your needs. Say this is what you want. Own it. We’re not having a conversation tomorrow about how you only kissed me because you got caught up in the moment and sorry, but it was a onetime-only thing. It’s not a onetime thing. This is happening between us with your full participation or not at all.”

She blinked. How had he known she’d been thinking exactly along those lines? Like this shopping trip was an excuse to pretend for a few minutes that they made sense together and that she was the kind of woman who could kiss a man in a shadowy alcove without consequence as the world spun on around them. Later she could go back to being his boss and he’d go back to being her untouchable bartender.

How selfish was she that she’d never considered how that might make him feel? Worse, he was calling her on it.

This was the reality of being at this place in life. She didn’t have the luxury of pretending her past didn’t exist. It did. And it shaped what kind of risks she was willing to take, which was essentially none. Jace deserved better.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. You’re right, this isn’t what I want.”

Instantly he let her go, his hands dropping from her face, and she bit back the plea for him to come back. He wasn’t going to touch her unless she said okay. But she couldn’t.

A line appeared between his brows as he scowled down at her. “You’re lying. It is what you want. You’re just afraid for some reason.”

“You’re right about that too,” she admitted freely. “Aren’t we all afraid of something?”

“No.”

No elaboration, nothing other than that fierce denial that put them even more at odds. How much more evidence did she need that he was a sweet guy with stars in his eyes who needed someone as young and carefree as he was?

“Then that’s that,” she said. “We’re too different for me to be all in.”

Her heart shouldn’t ache this much. Therein lay the danger of indulging in a fantasy for even a moment. She’d let herself start to think a thing between them was possible.

Jace swore and ran a hand through his hair. “This is still because of our age difference. That’s crap and you know it.”

“It’s not crap.” If anything, it was even more pronounced than ever. “And it’s not the only reason. We’re peanut butter and tuna fish, Jace. Great by themselves but no one would ever put them together.”

“Because they will always be peanut butter and tuna fish. They can’t ever be anything different. People, on the other hand, can change. And I have. You’re refusing to see that. In your head, I’m still in the same box you put me in the first time we met over a year ago.”

“That’s not true.”

Sometimes she wished it was. It was much easier to dismiss him when she’d thought of him as a pretty boy with nothing upstairs and a personal goal to sleep with as many women as possible. Instead, he was intelligent, thoughtful, courteous, and hardworking. But still pretty. That was a fact, like the way the sky was blue. Jace was hotter than midday sand. Coupled with everything else, she was having a very hard time not yanking him back down for another go-round with the slow, sensual kissing.

“It is. You accused me of not taking things seriously, of not being able to identify with someone who has grown-up struggles. That cut deep, Stella.”

A thundercloud raced across his expression, marring his beautiful face, and it was so wrong on him that she started to take it back, to say something, anything to get his legendary smile back, but before she could, he snagged her hand. Lifting his shirt, he pressed her palm to his side.

Warm, solid flesh met her fingers, and her insides contracted as she stared at him. He stared back, pressing her palm harder against his flesh.

“Feel that?” he asked.

All at once, she did. Indentations. Irregular raised places where the surface of his skin wasn’t smooth. Mesmerized, she let her fingertips slide over the area as he watched her, the fierceness still emanating from him like a corona.

“Shrapnel,” he said succinctly. “There was a roadside bomb. I was near the front of the team, which meant I got a ringside seat for the grisly death of the villagers we were following. It was brutal. I cried for weeks at the oddest times.”

Her stomach clutched as she soaked in his grief, his horror, through her very fingertips. The indentations were places where his flesh had torn, not quite healing right in the aftermath. But they were just surface level. The real story was underneath, in his mind and heart. Stricken, she shook her head and tried to pull away, but he clamped his hand over hers, refusing to let her off the hook.

“Not so fast,” he murmured. “You’re not done here. These slashes across my side healed pretty well considering. Evan wasn’t so lucky. He endured months of therapy and skin grafts, then came home from Iraq with a penchant for drowning his pain in bourbon. If that had been me, if I’d let myself be dragged down by the things I’ve seen, will that make us even?”

“Jace, I—” She what? Owed him an apology? “I don’t want to be even. I want…”

To erase his pain, to not have her own prejudices thrown back in her face like that. To still be able to pretend that she hadn’t glimpsed this whole other side of him.

“You want to put me in a box,” he reminded her and finally let their still-joined hands drop from his chest. But he didn’t let go. “Because that makes you feel safe. There’s nothing safe about life, sweetheart. Just because I don’t let that keep me at home curled up in a ball doesn’t mean I don’t take some things seriously. The thing is, I like flirting, I like having fun, and I want to do both with you. Is that so bad?”

“Why?” she whispered.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand what she was asking. “Because you need to learn how to smile again even when it hurts inside. You need me.”

Speaking of brutal. The truth of his insight tore through her as effectively as any shrapnel. Because he wasn’t wrong. But he was lacking all the information, and she couldn’t keep it from him any longer.

“Here’s the problem with that, Jace.” She squared her shoulders. “You dismiss our age gap without really understanding why I keep bringing it up. You’re at the beginning of your life. At some point, you’re going to want to get married. Have kids. Live happily ever after. That’s not something I can give you.”

For the longest time she’d been resolute in the fact that she’d never marry again, never put herself in the position to accidentally conceive again. Today was the first time she mourned that reality.

Jace recoiled as if she’d slapped him. “Whoa. Who’s talking about having babies? That’s the furthest thing from my mind. I just want to spend time with you.”

He clutched her hand, and she let him because she was about to have to stop touching him. So close. And yet the idea of having a stolen afternoon with a beautiful, sensitive man like Jace should have never materialized. He wasn’t hers to destroy, and his Iraq story put a whole new dimension to that truth.

“Right now, sure. But trust me. That day will come, and you’ll be sorry you wasted time with me.”

“I can’t even think about that kind of stuff. You’re a beautiful woman that I have fun with. Why does it have to be any more complicated than that?”

“Because at my age, it is.”

And then she forced herself to drop his hand and leave him in that shadowy alcove on the street in Freeport before he saw the tears gathering in her eyes.