HILL HADN’T TEXTED since last night. It felt like I’d been walking on broken glass while I waited for him to summon me like some fucking genie in a bottle. Maybe I would get the day off. Maybe the 1.1 million dollar debt had finally been paid. Rose could have her future back, and Dad and Riley didn’t have to worry about their dick pics winding up on the internet. Maybe Hill had forgotten I existed. If all my maybes were zombies, I would be so screwed.

I stared down at my phone in the kitchen, guzzling more beer, when the front door opened.

“Air conditioning,” Paige said, strolling into the kitchen while simultaneously sucking the air from the room. “The best invention ever.”

All the blood in my head ran south at the sight of her. Sweat drenched her face and plastered her flowery top to every dip and curve of her chest. She had a single button undone at the top, and slick, almost silvery skin shined underneath it. Better than gorgeous.

She ignored me on her way to the freezer, and she stuck her whole head inside the open door.

“Rough day?” I asked and took another swig of beer.

“No,” she said into the freezer.

In that single word, her voice sounded harder than I’d ever heard her, as if she was trying to convince herself more than me.

“I met some interesting people and practiced surface cleaning on the pages of a book from the 1700s,” she continued.

“Cool.”

Her curvy ass strained against her black skirt as she stood on tiptoe to lean in farther. I gripped the edge of the island to root myself exactly where I stood. It was too easy to imagine sliding up behind her, easing her skirt up her thighs, biting off her panties. Unless she wasn’t wearing any. Sweet Jesus, did she ever go commando? I took another drink so I wouldn’t groan my approval.

She shut the freezer door and turned with a heavy sigh. “I’ve done it before, but today we learned how to do it the right way. Without gloves.”

“Without gloves?” I asked to keep my mind occupied with something other than her ass.

“Well, with my hands, it’s okay to touch a book that old. But yours...”

I glanced down at my scabbed knuckles and grease stains that matched the prints all over my Auto Tech shirt. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Speaking of surface cleaning.”

Now that the sweat had dried from her face, her full lips were locked in a frown, like something other than the heat was bothering her. What was she not telling me? Was she thinking about last night when she’d come at the thought of me?

“I can take a hint,” I said and started for the hallway. “I’ll take a shower.”

She started after me. “Me too.”

I turned. “Is that an invitation?”

Her dark gaze slid down the buttons of my open shirt, then finally met my eyes for the first time since she got home, as if she’d been trying her hardest to avoid looking directly at me. Now, though, her eyes brightened and her full lips opened a fraction.

Something raw and powerful passed between us. My dick throbbed at how close she stood, at how close she was to revealing everything she wanted. And I would give it to her the second those walls she’d built around herself fell.

She blushed and shook her head. I took that as a not yet. Couldn’t blame a guy for trying, though.

The steps were wide enough for us to climb together, each swing of her right hip nudging mine. She glanced at me from underneath her long eyelashes and opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something. When she didn’t, we separated, her to her bedroom and me to the hallway bathroom, but that turbocharge between us could combust the whole house.

I could make her say yes, make her beg me to fuck her, but the timing had to be just right. She had to be sure she wanted me. Her shaking her head was a sure sign she still had doubts.

I turned to see her with her forehead pressed against the bedroom door, maybe fighting the same urges I did. But then she opened it and disappeared inside.

Taking a deep breath, I cranked on the water for an ice-cold shower.

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, I FOUND Paige kneeling on the countertop in the kitchen. Wet hair waved down the back of her gray tank top and teased the waistband of her shorts. Spices that had once been inside the cupboard in front of her lay scattered on top of the island. Armed with a sponge, she scoured the shelves clean.

“Just leave me alone,” she mumbled.

“What did the cupboards do this time?” I asked.

She whipped around, and when she did, her knees, which had been balanced on the countertop, wobbled and tipped. Without thinking, I leaped forward and slipped my arms around her waist to steady her before she crashed to the floor.

Her breath sighed past my ear. I closed my eyes at how good it felt to be so close to her. I lowered her to her feet and wedged her against the countertop with my hips, never intending to move again. The ends of her damp hair tickled my knuckles. Her spicy candy smell drew me closer until her big brown eyes were all I saw.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

I dropped my gaze to her mouth and the sexy way it moved. “I should be asking you that. Were the cupboards trash-talking you? They can be really rude sometimes.”

“There were spicy...spices...” she said, then swallowed.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” I smiled. “Spicy spices?”

She shook her head, but before she could look away, I dug my fingers into the fabric of her shorts to hold her there, to keep her focus on me. I needed to take her, right fucking then. Living with her for six weeks without touching, tasting, having would drive me absolutely insane. No way could I hold back anymore. Not if she wanted me, too.

My eyes locked on hers, I inched my hands down over her hips. Her mouth opened on a silent moan. Her pelvis rocked forward against mine. My dick strained against my zipper at her heat, at the dangerous need in her eyes.

But before I could sink into her and recreate her fantasy with the real thing, she blinked all the desire away and glanced at the island. She placed her palms against my chest and pushed.

“I bought you something,” she said.

She’d bought something for me? Always the unexpected with her.

“It’s there.” She pointed and her voice held a little of that hard edge it had earlier. “Next to the salt.”

Her gaze slid down my front as I backed away, probably noticing the very obvious erection bulging from my jeans. I grinned since there was no use in hiding it. All she had to do was ask. I would show her mine if she showed me hers. She searched the tile floor for something to look at besides me and pointed again.

Among the spices, there was a strip of cardboard bacon with a circle meant for scratching. A scratch-and-sniff bacon bookmark. For me.

“That’s so you don’t have to use your phone bill as a bookmark. You know, in case you pay it,” she said.

“Why would I do that?”

She gazed at her bare feet with a kind of lost expression on her face. “People do crazy things sometimes.”

True enough.

I scratched and inhaled the smell of salty soapy chemicals. It didn’t matter that it didn’t smell like bacon. At all. She’d bought it for me because I was getting to her, because she thought of me, and that made me smile. I could probably count the number of times girls had given me something, other than sex, on the scabbed fingers of my right hand. None of them.

And that wasn’t the first thing she had given me, either. Before she’d moved, she’d given me a necklace. It was now in my jeans pocket. I’d put it there to show it to her. I wasn’t a sentimental person or some shit like that, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. Or wear it, either. It looked like an ugly, melted dreamcatcher. But still.

“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it.

“You’re welcome. I guess we should get started on dinner. You hungry?”

“Always.”

She twisted her lips to the side—to hide a smile or because I disgusted her?—on her way to the refrigerator. Seriously, what was wrong with her today?

“Will Riley be home for dinner?” she asked.

“Don’t know.” Didn’t care. “Hey,” I started, fishing the necklace from my pocket. “Remember this?”

She turned, and the first real smile I’d seen since that morning lit up her face. “You kept that?”

“Well.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”

She stepped closer to see it, and the light reflecting off the metal and glass shined across her cheek. “That was my one attempt at making jewelry. I had just read The Catcher in the Rye and was really into symbolism....and, wow, I don’t remember it being that hideous. I can’t believe you kept it.”

Slowly, carefully, she set the necklace against her chest, and the shaky design that had bounced over her face vanished. So did the doubtful, hard expression she’d come home with. A need that was far from angelic flashed in her eyes. She slid her empty hand up to my chin as if to hold me in place.

A jolt zipped down to my dick. I grabbed her wrist and squeezed while she searched my face. The muscles in her jaw worked as if she struggled against something screaming to be let out.

I leaned down to kiss her, just for a second, to finally meet that naughty side of her.

Her wild pulse leaped against my fingers as I tightened my grip on her wrist. My other hand went to her ass and hauled her against me as close as she could be. Her minty breath mingled with mine. Her chest rubbed against my skin every time we inhaled.

“I’m not a good person,” she breathed against my neck.

There she went again surprising the hell out of me.

“Neither am I,” I growled.

An evil grin curled her full mouth, and our lips and tongues collided. Suddenly I was devouring her, twisting my hands through her damp hair, sliding them over her fiery skin. I had no control. She felt so good everywhere we touched that I swung her around to wedge her hips against the island just so I could grind against her.

When she rocked against me, I growled. I kneaded her ass in time with the pumps of my tongue. With my other hand, I tugged the elastic around her shorts to her knees. She moaned my name into my mouth, and it sounded like she was begging for more.

Without breaking our kiss, I swept all the spices she’d left there to the floor and lifted her on top of the island. Bottles rolled and clattered while I settled myself between her thighs.

She looked stunning underneath me, legs wrapped around my waist, arching her back, hair framing her face. How many times had I dreamed about doing exactly this and more?

My fingers grazed her smooth inner thigh. I fisted them around her black silk thong that read Shh! across the front and yanked. She pulled away from my lips at the ripping sound and gasped. Before her mouth found mine again, I stroked her wetness just to see her squirm underneath me. A loud cry parted her lips as she threw her head back and curved her body against my hand. A fucking beautiful sight.

She was so wet, so ready, I unzipped my jeans and stroked my dick to get some sense of what she would feel like. Sweet. Jesus. My head swam with a need so intense, I closed my eyes for a second to get control before I sank into her forever.

A key rattled in the front door around the corner.

Riley. Or Mom and Dad who still had keys.

Oh, fuck.

I leaped away from the island, pulling Paige up with me, but her legs went out from underneath her and she fell to the floor.

The front door opened and a familiar voice asked, “Anyone home?”