“Mmm. So warm. Don’t wanna leave.”

“Then don’t.”

Bridget nuzzled against Nolan’s broad back after silencing the alarm, but she knew she needed to get going. She petted his chest, running her hand across his pecs and down his belly.  She’d just begun to fondle his heavy balls when he groaned and pried her fingers away.

“Darlin’, there’s no way you have time to finish what you’re trying to start, so let’s just leave it be.”

Nolan rolled onto his back and pulled Bridget on top of him. She kissed the tip of his nose and then nibbled on his ear lobe.

“How is this leaving it be, hmm?” she murmured in his ear, wiggling against him as he squeezed her butt in his big hands. Bridget propped herself up on her elbows so she could get a good look at him in the early morning light. “Hey.”

Nolan chuckled. “Hey yourself.” He gave her ass another squeeze. “So, what’s the plan today?”

She ran her fingers through his mop of hair. “Laundry, meal prep, a light workout. Then maybe a naked selfie session.” She gave him a peck on the lips. “But only if you’re very good. Or very bad. I haven’t decided.”

Nolan laughed and hugged her tighter to him. “Well, how about I make you some breakfast before you head out, hmm? Protein pancakes, turkey bacon, and fruit?”

Bridget’s stomach gurgled at the mention of food, and Nolan laughed more. “I’ll take that as a yes. Okay, babe. Up and at ’em.”

Bridget squealed as he rolled off the bed with her still in his arms and carried her into the kitchen. He set her on the kitchen counter and pulled a T-shirt over her head.

“Where did you get this T-shirt?” she asked, taking the opportunity to gaze at all six and a half feet of naked Nolan in the brightly lit kitchen.

He glanced back at her. “The Widespread Panic show, years ago? Oh, you mean, just now. I snagged it as I was bringing you out here. I figured you might not want to be sitting completely bare-assed on my counter.”

As he began pulling things from the pantry and refrigerator, she asked, “Are you planning on frying bacon in your birthday suit?”

“Nah, I bake the bacon. It’s better—nice and crispy.” He winked at her as he tied an apron around his waist.

She stole a strawberry from the colander he’d placed in the sink and watched Nolan move efficiently around his small kitchen. He bent over in an exaggerated manner to get a sheet pan from a bottom cabinet, wiggling his bare ass that the apron left uncovered. She loved the small dimples in his lower back, which seemed to be made just for her to dig her fingers or heels into. Her admiration of Nolan’s body was interrupted by him clearing his throat.

“So. Um. I have to ask you something.”

“Sure,” she replied, trying to seem casual, but instantly on alert.

He concentrated on lining the sheet pan with aluminum foil. “Um, you didn’t mind that we didn’t . . . seal the deal last night, did you?”

With a very unladylike snort, Bridget hopped off the counter and slipped between Nolan and the counter. “Listen here, and listen good, Nolan Harper. You cannot tell me we didn’t make love, okay? And yes, we fucked, too, and it was amazing. Amazing. So just stop it, okay? I’m not going to let you believe otherwise.”

“God, I really like you a lot.” Nolan grasped her face in his hands and kissed her hard. “You don’t let me get away with any bullshit.” He kissed her again, and Bridget wrapped her arms around his neck and hitched a leg around his thigh, essentially climbing him. Nolan laughed when she whooped when he dug his fingers into her bare ass.

“You’d better remember that, okay? Now, you need to feed me so we can have another go at it before I have to head out.”

Nolan gave her a bright grin, so big his eyes crinkled. He nipped at her chin and said, “Sure thing, darlin’.”

It was damn hard to leave Nolan, but fate ensured Bridget stayed on task by having his obnoxious boss call his landline and his cell multiple times until Nolan couldn’t ignore him any longer. Bridget watched him closely as he talked to Steve, and saw him grow tense during the brief exchange. She hated seeing him so unhappy and frustrated and might have overstepped her bounds by telling him so, but if they were going to do this, whatever this was, then she needed to say something. But he’d just sighed and kissed her again and rested his forehead on hers, and whatever misgivings Bridget had had about speaking up melted away.

So now Bridget returned home, sated from a full breakfast and one more round of orgasms from Nolan’s talented mouth and fingers. He’d pored over her body, laying his hands and mouth on every inch of her skin until she hummed with need, and then he took care of her with such tenderness that she found herself misty-eyed. Yeah, she was beyond falling for the gentle giant; she was way down in the deep end.

“Hey, Miss Lady! Did you have fun last night?” Annie, who was pulling up weeds in the flower bed that lined the porch of her house, grinned up at Bridget from beneath her sun hat.

Bridget laughed. Busted. “Yeah, I did. It was nice to not think about the fight for a few hours.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said knowingly. “I know how that is. I mean, I don’t know know, but, you know, I know.” She frowned. “I think I’m gonna go back to weeding. I obviously can’t really talk today.”

Bridget laughed and waved good-bye and then went into her little house, which suddenly, seemed very echoey and bare. She looked around the living room, noting the single love seat and club chair that sat on either side of the trunk she was using for a coffee table. Very different from Nolan’s apartment, which was packed with furniture, and shelves that overflowed with books and all sorts of knickknacks. Her house seemed very transient in comparison, like the person who lived in it wasn’t planning on staying, which was ridiculous because for the first time in a long while, Bridget felt like she belonged somewhere. And so she made a promise to herself that she was going to make sure her home reflected her emotional state.

“But first, laundry. Bleh.”

She stripped her bed and put the sheets in to wash, and then she headed to the kitchen to begin her meal prep for the week. She was eyeing her protein options and thinking about the wonderful flank steak that Nolan had prepared the evening before, when the flashing notification light on her home phone alerted her to a message. She balanced the phone on her shoulder while she listened to the message and tore open the package of chicken breasts.

Hey, Birdie. I . . . I heard you’re fighting Hanna in a few weeks. I, uh, also heard that you found out about the engagement at the press conference. I didn’t mean for you to find out that way. But hey, Hanna wants me to move to someplace right outside of Atlanta — Alpharetta, maybe? — since that’s where she’s training now. So maybe we’ll be neighbors again. Anyway. I was just thinking about you. I’ll talk to you later.

Bridget stood in shock until the voice of the recording told her she needed to hang up if she wasn’t going to make a call. She clicked off the phone and leaned back against the cabinets. She’d been so committed to moving on and putting Kevin out of her mind that she’d not considered the true ramifications of Kevin and Hanna’s engagement. The last thing she needed was her ex-husband breathing down her neck, and she knew he would be. Oh. God.

The phone’s ringing caused her to jump, as she’d not realized she still gripped it in her hand.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Birdie girl!”

“Kevin, what the hell?”

“Don’t sound so excited, jeez.”

“Well, I’m not. What . . . what the hell, Kevin?” Bridget repeated, irritated.

“Bridget, babe, just think, it’ll be like old times, right? You and me, going to see live music, you coming to see me play—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back it the fuck up, Kev. There’s not going to be a ‘you and me’ doing anything together, much less going to see live music.”

“Well, why not?”

Bridget scoffed. “We. Are. Divorced. D-i-v-o-r-c-e-d. As in ‘no longer married.’ ”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t hang out.”

“Oh my God, you can’t be this clueless. News flash: the last person you should want to hang out with is your former spouse.”

“Lots of exes hang out together.”

“Well, not this one, at least not yet. And how do you think Hanna’s going to react to this? Does she even realize you’ve been calling me?”

“She knows we’re friendly.”

“Oh my God, Kevin.” Shit. No wonder Hanna hates me. Hell, I’d hate me. Bridget sucked in a calming breath before she spoke again. “Kevin, what do you want from me?”

“Birdie, I miss you. I mean, I really miss you. You and me, we have something special, something—”

“Oh no, no, no, no. Stop right there. We are not doing this. I am not doing this. Good-bye, Kevin. Do not call me again. I mean it. And you sound sober, so you should remember it, but I’m going to say again: Do. Not. Call. Me. Good-bye, Kevin.”

She hung up the phone and placed it back in its cradle.

What the actual fucking fuck?