“Why the hell are we up at the butt-crack of dawn?” Gavin rubbed the sleep from his tear ducts and tried to keep up with Scarlett. For some ungodly reason, she was power walking to Floyd’s house.

He’d give his left nut for some coffee, but his wife wasn’t a coffee drinker. There wasn’t a drop of the stuff in her house. Not even instant. Unbelievable.

The episode of Confessions of a Virgin she’d treated him to the night before was still looping through his mind. He kept starting and stopping the process of breaking down the intel. Without coffee? Forget about it.

Item number one on the to-do list: Buy a coffee maker. He’d been assured there would be coffee at breakfast. There’d better be, or someone was going to get hurt.

Item number two: Find out why his twenty-five year old wife was a virgin, but, first things first.

“So…no coffee?”

“For the third time, Gavin, I don’t drink coffee. I like herbal tea.”

“Why?”

“Caffeine is very addictive. The body’s a temple and all.”

“Interesting.” He finally caught up to her.

“Why is that interesting?”

“It’s just that several nights ago, in Vegas, you treated your temple like a frat house.”

She skidded to a stop. “I did not.”

He turned to face her and strode backward, amused at the indignant look on her face. “Yea, you pretty much did.” Her hands flew to her face, and her shoulders shook. Damn, he hadn’t meant to make her cry? He strode back to her. “Scarlett, I’m—”

“Oh, my gosh.” She opened her hands so she could peek out and scrunched up her nose like she was too embarrassed to look at him. But she wasn’t crying. She was giggling. “I totally did, didn’t I?” She fanned her pink cheeks, and continued on her way, still snickering.

That was the last thing he’d expected. She never ceased to amaze him. He followed her laughter, a tether that pulled him along.

“I still can’t believe I’m up this early.”

“Stop complaining, rock star. It’s seven in the morning. Half the county’s been up for at least two hours. Besides, you’re the one who accepted Honey’s invitation to breakfast. It’s like you can’t tell her no.”

He grunted, neither confirming nor denying the allegation. It was absolutely true.

He couldn’t say no to the eccentric Honey. There was something about the badly dressed, round, older woman that got to him.

“You’re not fooling anyone, Gavin. She’s got you wrapped around her pudgy little finger. It’s cute.” She placed two fingers to her neck and looked at her watch on the opposite wrist. After a few seconds of concentration, she lowered her arms and began to pump them faster, picking up her pace as she did.

Cute. Nobody’d ever called him cute. He smiled. It was ridiculous, of course. He was anything but cute. However, if that’s how she saw him, who was he to argue?

Scarlett’s firm, delicious butt helped to take his mind off the unfamiliar warm feelings blooming in his chest. She was wearing a snug pink tank top, neon pink cross-trainers and—best of all—black sports leggings with no panty lines. Just her tight ass wrapped in a thin layer of spandex.

Suddenly, he was a lot more awake. He could catch up to her, but he wouldn’t do that. The view was fine right where he was.

“Why are you walking so fast?”

“I incorporate exercise into my daily routine whenever I can. I walk three miles every day. It’s a fourth of a mile to the big house and back. Later, I will get on my treadmill and finish the rest.” Her hair was pulled up in another messy bun, and it bobbed from side to side with every step. It was like a little metronome, clicking off a rhythm.

Watch my ass. Watch my ass. Watch my ass.

So…he watched her ass.

“I know. I saw your schedules around the house. There’s one on your dresser, one in the bathroom, and one on the fridge.” He didn’t mention the old schedules he’d found in her dresser drawers.

She’d set him up in her bedroom while she slept in her office. He’d snooped. Who wouldn’t? No startling revelations, though. The most interesting thing he’d found was in her underwear drawer. Behind her sensible panties, of which he was familiar, there was an array of thongs and lacy bikinis in every color under the sun. He’d pawed through garters and sexy bras as well. The drawer was like a mullet, business in the front and party in the back. He chuckled at the analogy.

That bunch of undies was a picture of the woman, herself. On the surface, she was sensible and safe. But under the surface, he’d seen glimpses of the forbidden and naughty. The big question was why did she hide her adventurous side?

“You better hurry up, Gavin. Honey doesn’t hold meals for anyone.”

Scarlett was standing on the back porch wiping her face with a towel. She brought her right arm over her head and stretched to the left side, exposing the tan skin above her waistband.

The minute he lasered in on her bare stomach, he forgot all about his need for coffee. In fact, he forgot everything because all of the blood drained from his brain and headed straight to his dick. Dammit, she wasn’t even trying to be sexy, and still, she lit every cell in his body.

Really? Over a tiny patch of flesh. Come on, Gav. Get it together.

Head down, he marched up the stairs to the porch. She could cool down on her own. The last thing he needed was a hard-on to go with his bacon and eggs.

He was so intent on getting past her without looking at any more enticing tidbits, he ran smack into her delicious body. She was bent forward to stretch her hamstrings, head down, hands touching the ground and butt in the air. Disaster might have been averted if she hadn’t been facing away from him. His front rammed directly into her backside. His little head yelled Score! His big head concentrated on keeping them upright.

She squeaked and pitched forward.

He wrapped his hands around her small waist and yanked back to stop their forward motion. This only served to intensify the contact between her sweet round butt and his celebratory crotch. “Oh, God.” His deep throaty growl hung in the air. For several torturous seconds, they stood immobilized. And then she moved.

“Let go.” She wrenched away from him.

“What?” Caught off guard, he tightened his hold on her. She twisted and started to fall.

Gravity. Is. A Bitch.

Worried he would crush her, he clutched her to him and rolled. Like a slow-motion contortionist act, arms and legs pinwheeled and tangled. Her shriek reverberated in his ears. Air wheezed from him when he landed flat on his back with her sprawled on top of him.

She felt damn good. This was a hell of a lot better than his fantasies about her and it sure as hell was better than the alcohol-glazed memories from Vegas. Being a gentleman was overrated. No wonder he’d never tried it before. They were glued together like a preschool project. The fall hurt, but he’d do it a thousand times if this was the payoff.

Her startled indigo eyes were mere inches from his as he struggled to make his lungs work.

Her unruly mane escaped its tie, and his hands slid into her copper curls on their own. “Scarlett.”

She quickly put her hands on his chest and scrambled to a seated position, no doubt to minimize the contact between them. But she only made things worse. Now, the woman was sitting astride his hips. The part of her body that was so obviously off limits was nestled snugly against the part of him that was so clearly not. His heart stopped, stuttered, raced and did the one thing it was meant to do—pump copious amounts of blood right where he needed it.

A squeak escaped from her mouth at the evidence of his excellent circulatory system. “Gavin?”

“Don’t move. Don’t speak. Give me a minute.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded like sandpaper rubbed over raw vocal cords. He drug in a huge amount of air, counted the rafters of the porch and played musical scales in his head to try and kill his hard-on. Another long inhale, an even longer exhale, self-control was within his reach. Just…one…more…minute.

A tiny rock of her hips and a soft moan from her parted lips propelled him beyond caring about restraint, chivalry, or his in-laws on the other side of the door.

His hand went to her neck, and he yanked her mouth to his. Lightning scorched his spine when their lips met. Her immediate response cranked up the urgency of the kiss and his restraint slipped farther from his grasp.

There was nothing elegant about the kiss. He was usually a lot smoother than this, but he couldn’t find the reins to slow them down. It didn’t start slow and work its way to hot. This thing went from zero to sixty in a nanosecond.

Her hair hung like a curtain around them, a barrier between them and sanity. Cherry blossom and fresh rain surrounded him. It was an accelerant to his already out of control desire.

Hunger for more of her made him go for the strip of exposed skin around her waist, while the other kept her mouth glued to his. Her body was slick and damp from exercise, which conjured his favorite slick damp spot.

He was going to hell. He didn’t care.

With a needy whimper, she rocked down on him. He bucked in response. His hands shot down her body to cup her ass, and she deepened the kiss.

A horse neighed, and voices from inside the house drifted through the air. The hard boards of the porch scratched into his back. Slowly, he was dragged back to reality.

Fifty thousand dollars, idiot.

What were they doing? Did she even like him? Or had his fifty thousand dollars bought her attention?

He wanted to believe there was more to Scarlett, but his mother and too many groupies had taught him women were out for themselves. Period. Even the mother of his child betrayed him.

Did she tell him about the pregnancy? No. She took money from Johnny and ran. With more willpower than he thought he possessed, he eased back from the kiss.

* * *

No, no, no, don’t stop.

Flames licked at Scarlett, and she needed more. One taste of him was only a tease. He was a delicacy that was bad for her, but too tempting to resist. She wasn’t done, not even close.

Something long, thick, and rock hard pressed against her most intimate place and begged her to squirm closer. She whined in frustration, not knowing exactly how to get what she wanted.

Her fingers convulsed on his shoulders as her universe narrowed to this man and her body’s reaction to him.

To his credit, he didn’t hesitate to comply. His warm hand tunneled under her spandex top and found the swell of her breast. His thumb made erotic circles around the tip, setting off a chain reaction of need. She yanked at his T-shirt until she got her hands on his flesh. Oh, that was so good. She was on her way to getting what she wanted.

The screen door creaked, and Floyd cleared his throat.

“Oh, my,” Joyce declared.

Honey whooped.

“Dude,” Brody added.

This was not the way she wanted to greet her family. Lip-locked and Gavin’s hand fused to her breast.

Scarlett jerked upright.

Gavin winced.

“Oh, sorry.” Scarlett pushed on his chest to try and stand. But, her legs were like spaghetti. He slowly removed his hand from under her top, disentangled them, and pulled her to her feet.

She straightened her bun and clothes then waited for the self-recrimination…and waited. Nothing. What the heck? She’d been caught lying on top of a man, her tongue down his throat with him firmly at second base. That should have hit all of her humiliation buttons. There’d been some buttons pushed alright, but they had nothing to do with shame and everything to do with the tingling thrill low in her belly.

“What in the world are you two doin’ out here?” Floyd crossed his arms, an impressive scowl on his face.

“Floyd, I would think it was perfectly obvious what they were doin’.” Honey shook her head like her brother might be mentally incompetent.

“We were just…” Gavin started, but obviously couldn’t quite find the words to clarify the situation.

She gave it a try. “You see, we…” Nope, she had nothing.

“For heaven’s sake, can we all go into the house?” Floyd shouted. “My breakfast is gettin’ cold.”

* * *

Scarlett was the last to enter the kitchen. Her legs were still a bit unstable and her vital signs irregular. The counter was a good place to lean and try to regain her equilibrium. Like that was possible. The undeniable truth was that her life would continue to tilt on its axis as long as Gavin was around. The logical left side of her brain continued calculating the fastest way to get rid of him. However, it appeared the right side of her brain now had a dog in the hunt and wasn’t giving up without a fight.

Fabulous.

Thankfully she was with her family, and their steady presence helped strengthen her. She knew who she was around them. She was the good one, the person everyone counted on, and the girl strong enough not to do any more stupid things around her husband.

The rock star in question crossed the kitchen, looking incredibly edible in tight jeans and black studded boots. He fell on the coffee pot like a denim-clad hyena on a dying wildebeest. His light black t-shirt was still rucked up on the side, exposing a wolf’s head tattoo. Snarling teeth and red eyes peeked from beneath the fabric, filling her head with salacious images of licking every ink-covered inch of him.

No! She’d never licked another living soul in her life and didn’t intend to start with him. Her gaze drifted back to the tan patch of skin and decided to remain open-minded about the licking issue.

“Scarlett?” Gavin waved a hand in her direction.

“Huh? What?”

“Isn’t this the tea you drink?” He held up a pink box with white and yellow daisies on it.

“Yes.”

“Can I get you a cup?”

“Yes, please.” Sexy and thoughtful. How was she supposed to resist that deadly combination?

He hesitated, gave the box a long look and glanced at Joyce with uncertainty clearly written on his face. It was obvious he was out of his depth. Joyce took mercy on him and directed him to the pot of tea she’d already made.

Gavin gave her a grateful smile, and Joyce dropped the cup she was holding. Yep, he had that effect on women. Thankfully her dad was there to catch the mug before it hit the floor. Floyd tactfully turned a slightly discombobulated Joyce away from his son-in-law and led the poor woman to her seat.

“Gavin, you’re so sweet,” Honey gushed.

“Yes, it’s very thoughtful.” Joyce agreed, still a little dazzled as she fanned her fuchsia cheeks.

“How do you take your tea?” Gavin held up a pitcher of cream and the sugar bowl.

“Two sugars and a splash of cream, please.”

He really is making me tea.

Her heart did a loop-de-loop as he dropped the first cube in. He was careful not to let any splash out and make a mess. His lip was caught between his teeth and his brows were furrowed in deep concentration, like a boy solving a difficult math equation. One more cube was carefully added to the steaming liquid.

“Scarlett, darlin’, how did you sleep last night?” Honey rocked on her heels as she asked the question.

“I slept fine.” Only half her attention went to her aunt. The other half was totally focused on the man with the teacup.

He stirred her cup one more time after adding the cream, and brought it to her. She gave him a grateful smile and sniffed the sweet aroma that she knew now would always remind her of him. This would be so much easier if he were the classic self-absorbed rock star. But Gavin didn’t seem to be that guy. He’d surprised her with humor and kindness. There was also a vulnerability about him that was intriguing and a little heartbreaking.

“Are you suuuure you slept okay?” Her aunt tried again.

“Yes, Honey. Why do you ask?” Scarlett made her way to the table, careful not to spill her tea. She was confused by the question.

“You look kind of worn out. I was concerned something kept you awake last night.” The older woman winked at Gavin when he took his seat at the table.

Scarlett stiffened. Uh-oh. This was not good. Now she understood all the geriatric concern about her sleep habits.

“I think she looks lovely.” Joyce gave Scarlett’s arm a squeeze. She knew as well as Scarlett where this conversation was headed.

“I had a great night’s sleep. How about you?” Maybe her aunt would take the bait and change the subject. No such luck.

“You know Joyce, you’re right. She does have a certain glow about her, doesn’t she?”

Scarlett delicately dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Thank you. I’m using a new face wash.”

The scheming woman shook her head. “No, I don’t think it’s what you’re washing your face with. There’s something else goin’ on.”

“Nope. Not a thing.” Scarlett sipped her tea and pretended she didn’t have a nosey, inappropriate aunt.

Seeing she wasn’t getting the responses she wanted from Scarlett, she zeroed in on another victim. “How about you Gavin, how did you sleep?”

“Molly Jean.” The warning in Floyd’s voice was undeniable.

Honey was the picture of innocence. “What?”

“You know what. Hush up.” Her father gave Honey a zip it now look.

His sister rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what the big deal is. We’re all adults here.”

By some unspoken consensus, everyone filled their plates with gusto and disregarded Honey.

Scarlett puffed out a relieved sigh. Hopefully, the family’s matriarch would lose interest in the topic and drop it.

But the old girl was made of sterner stuff and would not be thwarted. “All’s I’m sayin’ is that you get real tired makin’—”

“Biscuits,” Scarlett shouted. “I know I get real tired making biscuits.” She smiled around the table. “All that kneading and pulling, kneading and pulling, whew, it can be so tiring. My hands ache just thinking about it. Yes, making biscuits can be exhausting and can be nerve racking. I know I was nervous my first time. But Grandma said, ‘Girl, get on that horse and ride.’”

Why am I still talking?

“She taught me a secret to making flaky biscuits. In fact, I’ve never known anyone else who uses this technique. You remember, don’t you, Honey? I roll my biscuits out and sprinkle them with a good amount of flour then I roll the dough into a long tubular shape. It takes a lot of coaxing to get the dough to behave. You have to play with it a little.”

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

“This can be tricky. If you don’t show it the proper encouragement, the whole thing will deflate. The secret is to coat your hands with flour then rub them along the log, back and forth, back and forth. After you see it’s going to do what you want, then that’s when you put some muscle into it until you’re satisfied.”

“Then,” she exhaled. “You roll it out and cut your biscuits.” The last words faded off into nothing.

She squeezed her lids shut and lowered her head. What just happened? Can a brain have diarrhea? Her face and neck were on fire. She briefly thought about running from the room but remembered what her cheer coach, Miss Trish, used to say.

Smile and no one will know how badly you’ve messed up.

She plastered on a huge smile and slowly looked up. Miss Trish was a damn liar. Her daddy, Honey, and Joyce were staring at her, all in varying degrees of horror and shock. No one said anything. She smiled bigger. Maybe she hadn’t had the right amount of wattage to sufficiently convince them she wasn’t an idiot. It didn’t work.

With all her courage, she turned to Gavin, expecting to see the same expression on his face that the others wore. Instead, his eyes danced with amusement and a spark of heat. Never taking his gaze from hers, he raised a biscuit to his mouth and took a bite.

Oh, my.