After a balcony dinner of flank steak and garlic zoodles, Nolan and Bridget took a stroll down to the riverbank. They sat on a bench by the water and watched Iggy try to catch the fireflies that taunted him with their blinking lights.

“How on earth did you get a cat to walk on a leash?” Bridget asked with a light laugh as she watched the rotund cat stalk the unsuspecting insects.

“I was staying with Tobias for a while after I had my heart attack, and he has two dogs. He found this little guy on a country road. Who knows how he got there, but Toby brought him home and said, ‘Here ya go. Companionship.’ I put him on a leash pretty much as soon as I got him, to walk with the girls, and never stopped.” Nolan shrugged. “Now he won’t go outside without the leash on. I get a lot of funny looks, but, eh—if a fat dude walking a fat cat on a leash is the most bizarre thing they see in this neighborhood? Hell, they don’t get out much.”

Bridget, who had her arms stretched out along the back of the bench, leaned her head back and let out a big, throaty laugh, and Nolan just had to kiss her. He leaned over and pressed his lips to her soft cheek. He could feel the apple of her cheek shift with her smile, and when she turned her face to his, she wore a wondrous expression.

Nolan cupped her jaw with his hand and kissed her mouth, and he felt her hand move to the back of his head and her fingers wind in his hair. Her lips opened, inviting his tongue inside, while she sighed. He deepened the kiss, moving his hand from her jaw to the small of her back, pressing her against him while she wound her arms around his neck.

“Nolan, we need to go inside,” she murmured against his lips. “I want to do things to you that we shouldn’t do on a public bench.”

“Iggy, pack it in, buddy.” Nolan didn’t wait for Iggy to respond. Instead, he scooped the big cat up under one arm,  grabbed Bridget’s hand with his other, and set off to the apartment. Bridget cackled as she trotted alongside him, and when they got to the stairs, he urged her up first— partially so he could look at her ass in those tight pants, but mostly so he could make her stop and kiss her on the stairs with her standing over him. He pulled her to him, his hand wrapped around the back of her neck, until Iggy protested.

“Whoops. Sorry, Iggy.” Nolan set the cat down, and Iggy glared at him before making his way up the stairs. “Shit, he’s gonna be a pain from now on.”

“I don’t care, as long as I can keep kissing on you.” Bridget pulled on the front of his shirt, urging him up the stairs and into his apartment.

Once inside, Bridget began unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it over his shoulders. Nolan’s hands roamed all over her, under her top and across her bare back, while she explored beneath his undershirt.

Nolan broke their kiss and gently pushed her away from him. They were both breathing heavily.

“Aren’t there rules about . . . stuff . . . during camp?” As hard as he tried, he couldn’t keep his hands off of her. His hands were everywhere again, and a strangled groan came out of his throat as she rubbed up against him, her need matching his own. “Good Lord, Bridget.”

“Yes, there are, but rules are made to be broken,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m tired of playing by the rules.” Nolan caught her chin in his big hand, holding her face still and forcing her to look him in the eyes. He swallowed hard. “Don’t you ever get tired of playing by the rules, Nolan?”

He answered her by sealing his mouth over hers in a hard kiss and lifting her off her feet. She laughed again, that wonderful, husky laugh, as they fell back onto the couch, Nolan flat on his back with Bridget straddling him. She wiggled against him, grinding against his erection, which was straining against his zipper.

Bridget lay down on him, stretching her body along the length of his, as she wrestled with his undershirt. Nolan paused for a moment and then lifted up and allowed her to pull the shirt off, exposing his naked torso. She attacked his mouth with hers and dragged her short nails across his nipples. He’d been aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra by the way her breasts jiggled and moved when she laughed, and Nolan was dying to put his mouth on her. He gripped the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. Then, with his hands wrapped in her loose topknot, he pulled her upright so he could look at her before he began to worship her with his mouth. He rolled each nipple in his fingers, plucking and gently pinching them while trying to simultaneously work her pants over her hips. He succeeding in getting the waistband over her ass and rolled down to the top of her thighs, but when he lay back to gaze at her, she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She bit her lip, but this bite was one of anxiety and not lust.

“Bridg? What did I do wrong?” A million thoughts raced through his brain: She was having second thoughts. She thought the loose skin on his body was gross. He was too hairy in all the wrong places. When he met her eyes, she was just shaking her head.

“You are . . . kind of arrogant and self-absorbed, you know, Nolan. Sometimes, it’s not about you.” She swung her leg over and drew them up, wrapping herself into a ball, concealing her body.

Nolan mirrored her posture and remained silent. He had nothing to say for himself because she spoke the truth. He was so worried about what she thought about his body that he’d ruined a potentially life-changing night.

“Okay, that wasn’t fair to you, Nolan. I’m sorry. You know how you have those boneheaded freak-outs?” He nodded, wary. “Well, I just had one, and you don’t even know. You couldn’t know, because I’ve never told anyone. Well, Kevin knows, but . . . no one else.”

Bridget stretched out on the sofa and pointed to three light but uneven scars, two on either side of her belly and one above her mound. “You’re not the only one who chooses clothing to hide scars.” She smiled a sad little smile. “Two ectopic pregnancies.” She ran her fingers over the scars.

He blinked in sudden realization. “You can’t have children. That was part of why your marriage failed.”

She nodded.

“Oh, darlin’. I am so sorry.”

Bridget inhaled deeply and then blew out a meditative breath. “But that also means, if you’re comfortable with it, we don’t have to use condoms. I mean, if you’re clean, because, you know, I am.”

Nolan scrubbed his face. “Oh God.”

Bridget sat up. “Nolan? Is there something you need to tell me?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Oh God. Uh, yeah, but it’s probably the exact opposite of what you are expecting.”

“What? Oh my God.” She had a horrified look on her face. “You’re a virgin.”

“Not anymore. But I was until I was thirty-five, and then Tobias took pity on me and hired a . . .”

“Expert.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Yeah, that’s a good word for her.”

“So . . . she’s the only one?”

He nodded. “Surprise!”

Bridget squinted at him. “She . . . did a good job.” And then she snorted. “She did a fucking damn good job.”

Nolan chuckled and could feel his face heating, though he didn’t know if it was from praise or embarrassment.

“So.” He cleared his throat. “Um. Yeah.”

“You still have a hard-on.”

“Well, yeah.” He gaped at her. “I mean, a gorgeous woman is sitting on my couch, half-naked, and apparently she doesn’t think I’m some sort of freak. Yeah, man, I’ve still got a boner.”

Bridget lay back on the couch and cackled until Nolan leaned over and kissed her sweetly on the mouth.

“We can do whatever you want to do, Bridget.” Another sweet kiss, followed by more giggling from Bridget. “I want to ask you one thing, though.”

Her laughter immediately stopped, and all signs of mirth disappeared. “What do you want to ask me?”

Nolan took Bridget’s hand in his and pressed his lips against her palm. “Stay the night with me?”

She smiled and nodded. “I . . . might have put a bag out in the car with some things in it, just in case.”

Now Nolan’s grin disappeared. “ ‘Things’ ?”

Bridget rolled her eyes. “Clothes and whatnot, so I don’t have to roll up to the house, wearing the same outfit I left in the night before.”

“Oh, okay. Sure. If you’ll give me your keys, I’ll go out to the car and grab your bag since I’ve got more clothes on.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Bridget pointed to where her keys lay on the sofa table, and Nolan rolled off the couch. He grabbed the set and ran out the door to her car, not caring if he seemed desperate. He just didn’t want her to change her mind.

He grabbed her bag from the trunk, locked the car, and sprinted up the stairs. When he got back into the apartment, Bridget was still on the couch, but she was tucked into the corner with her eyes wide.

“Bridget?”

“I think your cat is pissed. He started yowling the moment you left, and I noticed his leash was still on. I tried to get it off, but he’s not having it.”

“Oh, fuck. Iggy, sorry, buddy. Let me get that leash off you.” Nolan snapped the lead and halter from the unhappy feline, who swiped and hissed at him. “You just need to slow your roll, Ignatius. Being ugly doesn’t get this done any faster. There.”

Nolan dropped the lead on the sofa table and turned back to Bridget, who was stretched out on his couch, completely naked and staring at him. He didn’t know where to look first, so he let his gaze wander from her beautiful face, over her high, small breasts with their hard nipples and puckered areolas, and down over her flat stomach to her bare mound.

“Holy shit, you’re almost bare down there.”

She grinned and put her arms behind her head. “Yeah, I am. And you are wearing entirely too many clothes now that you’re back inside. So strip ’em off, Nolan Harper, and come here to me.”

“Bossy,” he said with a laugh even as he began dropping his pants and boxers. Nolan hesitated for a moment while Bridget did her own inspection, but when she opened her arms, he went to her, nestling into her arms, skin to skin.

Bridget wrapped her long legs around him, and Nolan began to nibble on her neck and her ear. “I want to taste you tonight, Birdie. I want to taste you, and not just on my fingers. Will you let me?”

“Please.”

Nolan made his way down her body, trailing kisses over her breasts and down her torso. He pressed his mouth reverently against the scars she was so self-conscious about before he began to dart his tongue between her folds. He nibbled on her sensitive nub, sucking it into his mouth and flicking it with his tongue, all the while stroking her breasts and body, loving her with his whole being.

“Nolan,” she moaned. “Oh God, Nolan.” She spread her legs wider, giving him more access, and he dove deeper. He felt her begin to quiver around him, her thighs shaking and her breathing growing increasingly ragged until she let out a primal cry and pulled his head up by the hair so she could kiss him. He could feel the tremors of the aftermath of her climax, and when she wrapped her fingers around his sac and stroked that soft space behind, the pleasure was too much for him to handle, and he succumbed to the ecstasy before he could warn her, though she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she seemed to revel in making him lose control, milking his orgasm by pumping his hard cock until he was the one who was quaking, until he was so spent that he collapsed against her.

“Nolan,” she whispered in his ear, kissing the side of his face. “I . . . wow.”

He chuckled and cupped her face in between his hands, kissing her sweetly. “Yeah.” He kissed her again and then scooped her up and carried her into the bedroom.