On Sunday night, Brit sat cross-legged on Hunter’s couch with a carton of chicken chow mein in one hand, a glass of chardonnay in the other.

Half her attention was on the football game, the other half of her attention on the man watching the football game.

No, that was a lie. The split was like more 10–90.

She barely liked football. But she really liked the man next to her.

Hunter took a bite of egg roll, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Why are you staring at me?”

“You watch me sleep,” she retorted, not bothering to deny it. “I think we’re even.”

“Fair enough.” He turned toward her and held out the egg roll. “Bite?”

She leaned forward and took a bite straight out of his hand. Something she wasn’t at all sure she would have done . . . before. Instead of looking creeped out by the familiarity of sharing food, Hunter popped the remainder of the egg roll into his mouth and turned back to the TV.

Brit didn’t mind. Hunter had always been an avid football fan, and it pleased her that he still felt comfortable enough around her to embrace his beloved sport.

It was the same reason she hadn’t thought about not going to her regular Sunday spin class, the same reason it hadn’t bothered her in the least when she’d come back to her apartment all sweaty and found him still there. And she really hadn’t minded a repeat of their shower from yesterday.

He hadn’t seemed to mind when, after their matinee, she’d taken her regular Sunday phone call with her parents from his place, since it was close to the theater. He’d even taken the phone out of her hand to charm her mother, which ordinarily would have been sweet of him but, given the change in their relationship this weekend, had just about melted her heart.

It was nice, she realized. Nice to be able to have sex with a man without any of the awkwardness. Even nicer to be able to skip to that point in the relationship where their respective lives sort of blended in a mix of togetherness, with each other’s interests and anomalies perfectly preserved.

It was nice, and yet . . .

Brit didn’t have a clue what happened next.

Other than said spin class, they hadn’t spent much time apart since first sleeping together on Friday night. That in itself was different. They’d spent weekend time together before, but not all weekend.

And they certainly hadn’t spent weekend time naked the way they had in the past few days.

So far they were basically crushing it on the friends-and-lovers front. But for how long?

She didn’t know. And she definitely didn’t know how to ask. It would be a messy conversation if they were just friends who’d slept together.

But they were also coworkers who’d slept together. Heck, they were a boss and subordinate.

Monday morning suddenly loomed in her near future, awkward and terrifying.

Brit took a deep breath and set her chow mein on the table, fully intending to finish her glass of wine and head home—alone—to gather her thoughts.

Hunter surprised her by reaching for the remote and turning off the TV, even though it wasn’t a commercial.

She looked at him. “Can’t handle watching your team lose?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “They were up by twenty-one.”

“Oh.”

“Paying attention, were you?”

“I’ve never claimed to love football.”

“True.” He turned toward her more fully. “But you usually at least know when the Chiefs are up or down.”

“Um, only because you usually grunt, Yeah, Chiefs, at least once every ten minutes, so I have some indication.”

He laughed at her impression of a grunting man. “Is that what you think I sound like?”

“That is what you sound like.” She took another sip of wine. “Did you ever consider switching allegiances?”

“To what?”

“Well, you’ve been in New York, what . . . ten years now? Most of your adult life. And yet you’re still solidly a Kansas City fan.”

He rested a hand over his heart as though wounded. “A man’s dedication to his team doesn’t shift with his physical location, Robbins.”

“I guess that’s smart,” she said. “Because then if you moved back, you’d have to switch again, and it would get messy.”

“Exactly. Maybe if I intended to be in New York forever, I’d have considered shifting loyalties to the Jets. If nothing else so I could catch a live game of my team more than once a season. But . . .”

“But you are going back,” she finished for him. “To Kansas City.”

He picked up his wineglass from the table. “Someday. Yeah.”

Someday . . . soon?

Suddenly the answer felt more important than ever, though she was fairly certain she wouldn’t like it.

She’d seen him with his family. He missed them. They missed him.

Brit missed her parents too, but it was different. Michigan had ceased to feel like home the second she left. And her parents, while loving, had never seemed to consider she’d move back, much less pressure her to do so.

From what she could tell, the Cross family was wired differently—better together somehow. And Hunter was a crucial part of their clan.

“You gonna tell me what’s up?” he asked, reaching for the chow mein she’d set aside and shoveling in a mouthful with the chopsticks she’d left in the container.

Brit blew out a breath. “What happens tomorrow?”

He chewed and swallowed. “Well, I expect you’ll wake up around six. Slowly, and a little grumpily, if what I’ve seen recently is any indication. You’ll eat that disgusting bird-food cereal you seem to enjoy. You’ll shower, though it’ll likely not be nearly as enjoyable as today’s shower. . . .”

“Hunter. Be real. I’m freaking out here a little bit. We work together.”

He set the Chinese food aside and scooted closer to her on the couch, picking up a strand of her hair in a move that was so unexpectedly boyfriend-ish she felt her heart squeeze.

“Be real,” he repeated. “Okay. Well, it’s Monday. We’ll have our staff meeting. It’ll probably be boring as hell.”

“It’s your meeting, boss,” she pointed out.

“Well, if you have any suggestions on how to make last week’s website-downtime stats more interesting . . .”

“Donuts?” she asked hopefully.

He rolled his eyes. “See? You’re still focused on fried, sugary breakfast, just like last time. I don’t think much has changed.”

“Except it has,” she said. “I know we agreed to be friends and lovers, but that was just the onetime thing. Right?”

“Wasn’t just one time from what I remember.” He gave a dangerous smile, his eyes locked on his own hand, where he rubbed his thumb against the light-blond strands.

“You know what I mean. One weekend. And it’s been amazing, but I keep thinking we should maybe quit while we’re ahead. Everything’s good right now.”

“So, what’s to say it can’t be better if we keep at it?”

She turned to face him more fully, and he released her hair. “You’re my boss, Hunter. I’m okay being that girl who slept with her best friend. I’m not okay being the woman who sleeps with her boss.”

“Nobody has to know.”

“Yeah, the people at Oxford are so good at minding their own business. Plus, our boss’s wife caught us kissing.”

He dragged a hand over his face. “Cassidy won’t care. Technically, Emma was reporting to him when they hooked up.”

“Yeah, but we’re not them,” she said softly. “They had a decade’s worth of history behind them.”

“Hey, we’ve got a few years of that ourselves,” Hunter said, looking unexpectedly stung by her comment.

“Yeah, but as friends. They were . . .” She waved her hand. “Whatever they were. Soulmates.”

He opened his mouth and then shut it. “Yeah. You’re right. It was different.”

She should have been pleased by his answer. She loved being right.

But pleased wasn’t at all what she was feeling right now.

“Maybe this is why people don’t do this,” she said, gesturing between them.

“Hate to tell you, but people have been doing this since the beginning of time.”

“Yeah, but we’re not a no-strings-attached hookup, and we’re not dating either.”

Are we?

She didn’t ask the question out loud, but it hung there anyway, uncomfortable, awkward, and yet necessary.

“No,” he said quietly. “We’re not.”

She nodded, the assertion making her a little more melancholy than she expected.

“We’re on the same page with that, right?” Hunter asked, scooting closer, tilting her face up. The panicked expression on his face made her smile slightly.

“Same page. I couldn’t bear if we tried to date and failed. Sleeping together, I think we can come through relatively unscathed, but romance . . .”

“Is trickier,” he said.

Brit nodded. “I’m thinking that fun as this was, maybe we leave it at this weekend. Before things get so tangled we can’t untangle them.”

“Agreed,” he said after a moment. “What about your grand seduction plan? Where are we with that?”

For a second she had no idea what he was talking about. The plan was the last thing on her mind this past weekend. Then it all came rushing back to her. . . .

The reason things had shifted between Hunter and her was that she’d asked him to teach her how to seduce.

“Well, since I’m still woefully single, I guess the plan’s still on,” she said, forcing lightness into her voice. “Useful as you are in the shower, those good hands of yours won’t be much good to me on the marriage-and-babies front.”

“You know, it occurs to me I must be a pretty good teacher,” Hunter mused, his thumb drifting over her lips.

“Oh?” She touched the tip of her tongue to the pad of his thumb fleetingly, accidentally on purpose, and his eyes narrowed.

“You hired me to teach you how to seduce a man,” he said huskily. “I’d say I did just that.”

“Yes. Jon from the party did seem pretty enthralled.”

His fingers tightened just slightly against her face, and then he blinked in surprise as though at his own reaction.

His smile was fleeting. “Not who I meant.”

“I know,” she whispered, leaning into him and pressing her mouth to his.

“Thought we weren’t going to do this anymore,” he said, even as he hauled her over his lap.

“Not after this weekend,” she said, sliding her arms around his neck. “It’s still the weekend.”

“So it is,” he said, pulling her head down to his for a kiss so unapologetically wanting that it took her breath away.

Even as a little part of her mind wanted to slow down, to make this final time with Hunter last, her body had other plans.

So did Hunter. He wasn’t rough, but there was none of his usual gentleness. He took control, his hands demanding as he divested them both of clothes.

Brit started to straddle him again, but he pushed her onto her back on the couch.

Hunter kissed her, hard.

His hands roaming over her body as though memorizing every inch of it.

His mouth seduced. Her lips, her neck, the sensitive skin just behind her ear. Greedily, his lips found her nipple, and he let out a groan of satisfaction as he sucked.

His fingers slipped between her legs and she gasped, arching up. He gave it to her, first one finger, then another, until she was begging for release. Begging for him.

She reached down, found him warm and hard in her palm. Stroked.

Hunter growled and reared back from her. “Condom.”

He was gone but back in a second, tearing the wrapper with his teeth before pulling her up, guiding her to face the back of the couch.

With his hands on her hips, he thrust into her so hard she cried out, her hands finding the back of the sofa and clinging.

Hunter pressed a kiss to her shoulder, but he didn’t gentle his thrusts, and Brit didn’t want him to. It had been good between them every time, but this was different. There was no tender exploration, no trace of hesitancy or carefulness.

It was raw, and a little desperate, as though their bodies were acting on what their minds didn’t want to accept—that this was the last time.

Brit was on the verge even before his hand slid around to her front, his fingers finding and circling the exact spot to trigger her orgasm.

She cried out as she came, but when she would have pitched forward, Hunter’s arm banded across her chest, pulling her against him, his breath warm on her neck.

Brit turned her head slightly, one arm going behind her to tangle in his hair, her teeth finding his earlobe, biting down.

Hunter surged against her with a roar, his arm tightening across her chest as he crushed her to him, hips slamming into hers again and again.

She took it all. Embraced it all, relishing that his desperation and need matched her own.

Finally, the muscles of his arm eased, relaxing slightly so she could collapse with shaky legs onto the couch.

Hunter went to the bathroom. When he came back, she forced herself into a sitting position, meaning to reach for her clothes.

He bent and scooped her up easily despite the fact that she was no tiny wisp of a woman, and carried her to his bed.

Hunter laid her down, then pulled aside the covers and nodded for her to crawl under. She did, and he joined her, his chest against her back in the age-old spoon position.

“Hunter.” Her voice was soft.

“Hmm?”

“Did we really just do that less than ten minutes after eating Chinese food?”

He laughed softly. “One of my more daring sex moves.”

They fell silent for a while longer, and she stirred when she felt her eyelids getting heavy. “I can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” he murmured sleepily.

“Because tomorrow is Monday. I don’t have any of my work clothes here.”

“So, get them in the morning.”

“I’m not going to walk-of-shame it out of your apartment. Plus, I’d have to leave at the crack of dawn to be able to make it into work by that stupid meeting.” She paused and looked at him over her shoulder. “Unless I could skip the meeting.”

Hunter smiled without opening his eyes. “Nope.”

She sighed. “So much for perks of sleeping with the boss.”

“That’s why you did it, huh? To get out of that meeting.”

“The only reason,” she lied with a smile. “Now that I know it didn’t work, I’ll have to declare my body off-limits.”

“Starting tomorrow, though, right?” His hand slid to her breast.

Brit sighed. She would have sworn that she didn’t have another ounce of sexual energy left in her, but . . .

Hunter pinched her nipple lightly.

She rolled toward him. “Yeah. Starting tomorrow.”