As soon as she got home from work, Amanda launched into vacuum cleaning, dusting, filing the papers on her desk, and rearranging cushions on her designer couch.

Kes was coming over at nine thirty with Japanese takeout.

She was a little nervous, which she chalked up to her perfectionism. He was going to see her apartment for the first time, and she wanted him to be impressed. She wanted him to see it through her eyes, to understand why she had refused to look for jobs outside Paris.

At eight thirty, she decided the place was as close to perfect as it could be and headed to the shower.

The first thing she saw as she walked into the bathroom was Christophe the Spider. The furry black critter was back, peeking out of the bathtub overflow hole. Amanda let out a frustrated sigh. It was becoming harder and harder to deny the truth: the spider wasn’t leaving of his own accord, and she was going to have to deal with him.

But not tonight.

Tonight, she didn’t have time for it, what with Kes arriving in less than an hour. She stepped into the tub and turned the water on.

The spider watched her.

“You’re trespassing,” she said as she shampooed her hair. “Your kind belongs outdoors and in dusty attics. But not in my bathroom.”

Christophe seemed to be listening.

“Please leave, will you?” She stared at him, her expression pleading. “Don’t force me to do wet work.”

Christophe stirred in a way that appeared enthusiastic.

“Oh my God!” Amanda clapped her hand to her forehead. “Are you suicidal?”

The spider didn’t move.

“Do you actually want me to eliminate you?” She narrowed her eyes at the stubborn creature. “Or are you so happy because you think ‘wet work’ means sprinkling you with water?”

Christophe just stared at her.

Jesus.

She shook her head in desperation and finished her shower without saying another word or even looking at the intruder. She would have to warn Kes about him just in case he had a phobia.

As it turned out, he didn’t.

“Hey there,” he said, squatting down before Christophe. “So you’re Amanda’s roomie, huh?”

“Absolutely not. He’s a trespasser and a stalker,” she said.

Kes looked up, grinning. “Does he have a name?”

“Christophe.”

“What if Christophe is a girl?”

“He’s a boy.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “I’m being daft. I just . . . had to call it something.”

“He does look like a boy.”

She crouched next to Kes. “What if he’s venomous?”

“Nah. Christophe is harmless—to humans, at any rate.” He stood up. “Will you show me the rest of your apartment?”

She led him to the living room, where she’d set the coffee table for their dinner in front of the TV.

“Why don’t you put your stuff here?” She motioned to the empty space between the bowl of cherry tomatoes and the bottle of mineral water.

He set the sushi boxes and the bottle of Chablis on the coffee table.

“We can eat first, if you’re hungry, and then I’ll show you the bedroom,” she said with a saucy smile.

“I’d rather see the bedroom first.”

Her smile grew wider. “Then we’d better put the sushi into the fridge.”

When sushi and wine were safely inside Amanda’s powder-blue Smeg, Kes took a step toward her.

The closeness of his hard, beautiful body made her dizzy.

For a moment, they just looked at each other. He moved closer still and bent his head down a little. She tilted hers back. He stared, his obsidian eyes locked on her mouth.

Her gaze wandered over his irises, his thick lashes, his out-of-this-world eyebrows, and his yummy lips. She breathed him in. He smelled clean and a little salty, like the air of his native Camargue. Correction—he smelled like the Camargue air spiced with . . . sandalwood?

No, something tangier.

Whatever that essence was, it fit him perfectly, making his scent so intoxicating it messed with her brain on a deep, chemical level.

The anticipation of holding him in every shameless way she wanted and kissing him as if the sky were falling was incredibly erotic. It made Amanda’s blood quicken in her veins and her pelvis ache and clench, soaking her lacy underwear.

She put her arms around his neck and dissolved into his kiss.

Later, when she replayed the evening in her mind, she couldn’t remember how they got to the bedroom. She must have led him there while they were kissing. And undressing, judging by the trail of discarded clothes on the floor.

In the bedroom, they stroked and kissed each other everywhere until he backed her to the bed and stretched out over her. Amanda gasped, welcoming the weight of his body. So snug, so right. She spread her thighs, and he moved between them.

His eyes locked on hers; he braced himself on his arms and entered her.

She moaned softly and wrapped her thighs around his hips.

With every delicious stroke, her eyes closed so she could focus on her sensations more fully. But she forced them open again. The position offered her a view of his chest, shoulders, and neck that was too precious to miss. She wanted to feast her eyes on his masculine beauty while he made love to her.

His thrusts grew harder, and Amanda’s moans, louder.

Oh, the vigor of him, the strength in his arms, the overflowing vitality of his muscled body. Lying beneath him, filled with him, she quivered from the power of the life force he was pouring into her.

“My gadji, my sweet gadji,” he rasped.

When her body tensed and her legs trembled with the intensity of her release, he said something else—a raw, feverish word in a language she didn’t understand.

“Kamotoute.”

He came after that, growling his pleasure into the air and collapsing on top of her.

For a few long moments, they clung to each other, their bodies still joined, sweaty and spent.

He kissed her and rolled over.

For a while, they just lay on their backs, his long fingers interlaced with hers.

When her breathing calmed, Amanda turned to her side, facing away from him. It was only ten thirty, but the prospect of getting up for the dinner they’d planned seemed too overwhelming to contemplate. He drew closer and hugged her from the back, curving his warm hard body around hers.

Hard everywhere.

“I want you,” he whispered in her ear.

“Again?”

His pushed her hair to the side and kissed the back of her neck. “If I had you a thousand times already, I’d still want more. Looks like I’m hooked.”

She turned to face him and smirked. “Fear not, it’ll pass. It’s just—”

He silenced her with a searing kiss.