“Excuse me?” I raise my chin and my left eyebrow. “Did you just invite me to have a seat? In my own home?”

The corners of his mouth kick up in what looks like the start of a smile and a light shines in his eyes. “Yeah.” He runs a hand through his thick, dark, wavy hair. “Guess I did. Though since I own the building, technically, this is my home.”

I take a step toward the couch before the entire sentence sinks in and I skid to a halt. “Wait a minute. Did you just say that you own this building?”

“Yeah.”

“The entire Dovetail Apartment complex is yours?”

“Yeah.” He nods and looks confused. “You seem, I don’t know, upset or something. Is my owning the building a problem for you?”

“No problem.” I finish crossing the short distance between myself and the couch and sit down. “It’s just, well, I knew you lived in the penthouse suite, so you either have money or connections, but I didn’t realize it’s because you own this place. You just don’t seem like a landlordy type of person.”

Garret crouches beside me. “Well, I am.”

“I suppose that explains how you managed to track down my personal cell phone number.” When I received his first text, I’d completely forgotten it was the number that I’d written down on my rental agreement.

“I just looked in the tenant records,” Garret confirms.

He reaches out and wraps his big hand around the back of my right calf. Before I fully realize what he’s doing, he tugs my foot into his lap. I stare as he finds the zipper toggle and slowly unzips my boot. My heart rate doubles and my jaw falls open. It’s a mundane chore, something I’ve done a million times, but Garret is different. He manages to make the simple task seem sensual. A rush of heat that’s even more intense than what was triggered by lubricating oil floods my girly bits.

He slides my right boot off and repeats the entire process with the left one. I struggle to remember how to breathe.

Garret sets both boots aside, but rather than releasing my legs, he cups my left foot between his large, warm hands and starts massaging it through my stockings. I rest my head on the couch back, close my eyes, and lose myself in the incredible sensations he’s triggering.

“You’re very good at this,” I purr.

“Thanks. I’ve had lots of practice,” he says without meeting my eyes. “Maddie, my wife, she always wore these ridiculously high heels when she was at her office. When she’d get home, I’d rub the kinks away.”

“Mmm.” With each movement of his hands, the rest of my body grows increasingly liquid, and the heat keeps building. “Your wife was a lucky woman.”

The second the words leave my mouth, I wish them back. How can I be so insensitive? Here the guy is being nice to me, and I throw his wife in his face.

But Garret doesn’t seem to mind. The rubbing motion stops for a split second before a warm smile spreads across his face and he returns to the massage. “I kept telling her that, but the truth is, I was the lucky one.”

His hands stop their wonderful movement, and he gently lifts my feet off his lap. He spins me slightly until I’m lying lengthwise on the couch, my head on one arm rest, my feet pressing against the other.

He bumps a Karen Hawkins historical romance novel out of his way and sits on the floor beside the couch. Harlan eyes the situation for a moment before walking to the other side of the room and curling up in his dog bed with a contented sigh.

“Did she know about the No O stuff, or did you start that after she passed away?” I ask.

Garret snorts. “That’s her baby. She was a psychologist who specialized in relationships. The more couples she worked with, the more she realized that one of the biggest issues many of them had started with an unsatisfactory sex life. It was also one of the last things her clients wanted to talk about. So she created the No O website to provide both her clients and other women with information they needed but didn’t know how to ask for.  In addition to creating all the site’s content, she also ran discussion groups and offered one-on-one sex counseling sessions.”

“Like you’re doing with me?”

“Kinda.” Garret leans against the couch.

“So, are you also a psychologist?” None of the psychologists I’ve met over the years are tattooed or pierced, but as far as I know, there’s no rule stating they can’t be. In fact, I’m sure there are some patients who’d respond better to someone with Garret’s looks than they do to someone who’s clean cut and wearing a suit.

Garret shakes his head. “Not even close. Back then, I was a mechanic.”

Something about the tone of his voice makes me think there is something he’s not telling me. And how does a mechanic end up purchasing a high-end luxury apartment building like the Dovetail? My marketing firm turns a pretty good profit, but even so, just renting a Dovetail apartment makes a huge dent in my living expenses. I can’t even imagine the purchase price for the entire building.

“Every once in a while, Maddie did bring me in to help with some of her male clients,” he continues. “She found that they tended to respond better to a man than they did to a woman. After Maddie died, I shut down the part of the site that offered personal counseling sessions but kept the rest of the website up and running. Since that was the project Maddie was most proud of, it seemed like a fitting tribute.”

I stare down at my hands and tears burn the back of my eyelids. The amount of love and respect Garret still feels for his wife is evident in every single word he says. My heart aches for him and what he’s lost.

Silence stretches between us. I search for something to say. “So why did you decide to help me?”

There’s a long pause before Garret pushes himself to his feet. The sudden distance between us makes me feel slightly hollow, like I’m losing something important, though I don’t know exactly what.

Garret runs a hand through his hair. “It’s been a long day. I should go, let you get some sleep.”

He bends over and looks down at me, his body looming over mine. Laying on the couch like this drives home just how big he really is. He lifts his hand and cups the side of my face. The pad of his thumb is rough against my skin as he gently uses it to trace my lower lip. I tremble and hold my breath, anticipating the moment when he bends lower still and covers my mouth with his in a soul searing kiss, just like the heroes in the romance novels do. He might not be my type, but that kiss in the hallway touched me in ways I’ve never been touched before. It was like getting hit by a bolt of lightning. I want to see if this is one of those rare occasions when lightning manages to strike twice.

But after a second, he straightens and backs away.

“Good night, Erin.”

Without another word, he turns and lets himself out of the apartment, shutting the door behind himself with a soft click, leaving me alone with Harlan.