And Greyson sees it.

He traces the scar with one finger and sets my hand on his own scar. The gesture only endears him to me. Because he’s scarred too, but he’s not embarrassed about it.

As he bends over and presses his lips to my scar, my eyes well up.

“What happened here?” he murmurs.

I don’t know why he makes me emotional, but I blink back the tears and slide my hand down his chest over his own scar. “What happened here?” I counter, my voice thick with emotion.

“Ladies first,” he says gently, easing back and watching me with eyes that are no longer sleepy, but dark and patient.

I’m not sure I want him to know that one of my kidneys is not mine. That I’m a transplant patient. That I need to take pills to make sure my body doesn’t reject my donor’s organ. That maybe in a couple of years, I’ll need to exchange this one for a new one yet again, if it starts giving up.

These are not things you tell a man when you’re starting to date, or just f**k, or whatever we’re doing. There’s this show called the Millionaire Matchmaker, and I will never forget how the expert Patti went all over a girl who’d dumped some serious issues on a poor bachelor’s lap.

You do not do that!

Guys do not care about it unless they genuinely care about you first!

Quietly, I touch Greyson’s nipple ring instead, and hearing him hold his breath when I tug it playfully, I grin into his suddenly very dark, hungry eyes and say, “I should get a nipple ring.”

He laughs, then sobers up and shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“Why not?”

He rubs my butt. “That’s not f**king happening. No one’s getting anywhere near my business.”

I realize the thick bandage on his right arm is stained with blood, so I sit up with a start. “What happened here? Did I scratch you?”

He merely smiles to himself as he tightens the bandage. “It takes a little more than a kitten’s claw to make me bleed.”

“Let me help.”

Shifting closer, I take the bandage and carefully wrap it around his bulging arm. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m good,” he says dismissively.

When I finish wrapping it up, I impulsively set a kiss on it, slowly setting my lips on him and closing my eyes as a tenderness sweeps through me. A man making me feel this tenderness is so alien to me. Usually men are just . . . guys to me. Not even human. More like enemies that must be handled with care. Used, on occasion. But what I feel for this one is the most powerful thing I’ve ever in my life felt. Almost as if I know him from before. In some past life . . . in my dreams . . .

Before I can lift my head, his nose finds my ear, making me smile against his bandage and squirm when his breath tickles me.

He trails his hand lightly down my spine and settles it at the small of my back. This man gets my lower body on overdrive, but my upper body is getting the same workout, just ask my heart, which hasn’t beaten right for over thiry-six hours. And is he giving me the look too? I raise my head, and I’m tingling from my fingers to my toes. His smile is lazy, sleepy, and it melts me.

“That’s nice,” he says in a rumbly voice.

“What?”

“Nurse Melanie,” he whispers.

Something inside me buzzes and zings and I groan at my body’s stupid, instant reaction, then I tip my head up to kiss him while holding his head and pulling him down to mine. He brushes my lips, teasing me with a smile.

I groan in protest when my phone alarm starts screaming like mad, and I realize it’s Sunday—for a fact.

“Uffff, I’ve got brunch with my parents.” When he doesn’t seem too willing to let go of my waist, I push at his thick wrists. “Mister, I have to go.”

“I propose you cancel,” he says lazily.

“I can’t. I’m the only one who comes to brunch, and we always do brunch on Sunday.” I start gathering my undergarments and hunting down my dress. “You can come if you want to,” I blurt out, and when I notice his closed expression, I add, “No strings. I mean, it’s just breakfast. Not even that, brunch.”

“Nah, don’t think so.”

He’s still sleepy and in bed, stretching as he checks his phone, first one, then he pulls out another. “Can I use your shower, real quick?” I nervously ask.

“Use anything you like.”

Once again I feel strangely shy . . . I don’t know why he does that to me. Normally in a fling I’m uninhibited and can boss a poor boy around, if I want to. But clearly there’s no bossing this one around. Aware of his eyes on my ass as I retreat, I walk to the bathroom and turn on the warm water, easing inside the stall. I slowly exhale as the water runs over my head.

Greyson stalks into the bathroom just as I’m coming out of the shower stall, and while I wrap my hair in one towel and my body in the other, he flips on the water and showers in about a minute flat.

This is completely alien, being with a man in the bathroom. Brooke has mentioned that after Remy works out, they take a shower together, and f**k like mad. I’m finding it terribly distracting. In a mind-fuck sort of way. Hell, in a let’s-fuck sort of way too.

In fact, I end up losing my brains and just stand there, ogling him as he towel-dries his hair in the nude, shoulders working, abs clenching, the V dipping to his beautiful c**k which I swear is so big that even in its normal state . . .

“Just gave you some of that. But it seems like the lady still craves a little more?”

His voice jerks my eyes up to his and to that heart-tugging smile he wears as he pulls off a plastic wrap that he put around his bandage to keep it dry.

“Like you’re not tempting me on purpose,” I say with a smirk, drooling as I watch his muscled ass walk into his closet.

“Sure you don’t want to come?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He comes back with some clothes wadded in one arm and stops before me with a smile. “I’ve done enough coming for a while.”

“Asshole. But we knew that about you, didn’t we?”

I lean over the counter and start applying my morning makeup.

“You didn’t mean it. Inviting me over? Did you, princess?” he asks, looking seriously perturbed.

I scowl. “We just talk and have breakfast. It’s not like we plot a world takeover or anything top secret you couldn’t listen in on. It’s not a ‘meet the parents’ thing. Urgh, but forget it, you’re looking at me all weird.”

I’ve start brushing my fingers through my hair when he comes and hugs me from behind, holding my gaze in the mirror. He cups my face and turns it around, then his mouth is near my ear, his voice as thick as the feel of his c**k against my tummy. “All I want lately is to drag you to bed and f**k you from behind, sideways, then several angles from up front, so every muscle in your body will remember me when you move today. Every breath will hurt, every step you take. I want to feed you, and spread my next meal all over you. I want to lick up my meal, head to toe, clean you up in the shower next, then I want to soap you up and fondle every inch of your sleek little body as I feed you my dick. When I take you out of the shower, I want to towel you dry, massage your sweet tits, flip you around, and give you that long, sweet f**k in the ass you’ve been waiting for.”

The blood has left my other organs only to concentrate fiercely on my sexual ones. I try to push him away and not get excited over his attentions. “Please not now.”

“Do you want me there, Melanie?” He nips my earlobe and sends a rush of desire down my watery thighs as he cups my ass like it belongs to him, his longest finger grazing me there. There. Again. “Here, baby. Do you want me big and hard, thicker than ever, right here? I want to be the man you let loose with.”

“You’re going to make me late for brunch, and I’m going to be mad!” I cry, slapping his hand away and quickly whirling back to the mirror to add some lip gloss.

“You’ll be mad?” His laughing whisper shivers down my skin as he holds me by the h*ps and looks into my eyes over the top of my head. “You know, I have a thing for mad princesses. It turns me on.”

“Move to Europe then.”

He massages my bu**ocks in his hands. “You getting angry, showing me that little fire, really turns me on,” he continues in that gruff morning voice.

“Oh, you haven’t seen angry,” I assure him, pivoting around. “It takes a lot to make me angry but when it happens, it’s a sight to behold. Not many nearby articles survive me.”

“Oh?”

“Any shoes around or . . . lamps . . . could find themselves flying . . . crashing . . . and dying.”

“Is that right?” he asks, a mocking light in his eyes.

“So right. I’m a slow boil but when I boil, I BOIL!”

As I force myself to slip into my clothes, he’s still in the nude, and before I can zip up my dress, he’s cornered me against a mirrored wall, my br**sts squished against him.

My nerves crackle at the brush of his lips. I set my hand on his chest to push away again, but my fingers just seem to lie there instead, absorbing him, spreading over thick, hard, delicious muscled pec.

“I have to go,” I whisper, rubbing his nipple ring with my thumb.