Aidan scooped Lily up off the desk and gave her what looked like a bone-crunching hug.

“You okay?” she asked him.

“I’m perfect,” he said, sending a smug smile in Hud’s direction. “No one got a shot in on me tonight.” He kissed her and tossed the ice pack to Bailey. “Good luck with that,” he said. “He’s a terrible patient.” And then he carried Lily right out of the office. Given the giggles coming from the latter, he wouldn’t be bothered by Hudson’s countenance again until at least tomorrow.

“Does it hurt?” Bailey asked him softly.

“No.” Liar, liar…

Reaching back, she locked the door and turned to him. He stepped into her at the same moment and they reached for each other. The kiss started out gentle but didn’t stay that way. Finally she stumbled back a step and gave him another of those brain-melting looks that made him want to beat his chest and drag her off to his cave like the Neanderthal he was.

Still smiling at him like maybe the sun and the moon rose and set in his eyes, she slowly lifted his hand… and very gently guided the ice pack in to his goddamn throbbing eye.

He opened his mouth, but she set a finger over his lips.

He stared at her as the cold absorbed into his skin, soothing the ache as surely as having her pressed up against him soothed the rest of the world away, back behind a brick wall where nothing could get at them.

“Better?” she asked, her hand over his on the ice pack.

“Yes, but that’s because you’re pressed up against me,” he said. “It’s not the ice pack.”

She shook her head. She was onto him. Then her smile faded. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “He got in one good punch before I restrained him. It happens.”

But not to him. It’d been a damn long time since anyone had gotten the jump on him, and he had no idea why it had happened tonight.

Don’t you? a voice asked inside his head.

Yeah, okay. So he knew exactly what had happened. Bailey. He’d gone into that call thinking about her, soft and warm in his bed for the whole night. And suitably distracted, he’d been taken by surprise.

That shit had to stop.

But now here he was with a soft, warm, sweetly sexy woman in the circle of his arms, and not just any woman but the one he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of since he’d first seen her on top of the mountain.

An instant connection, his first in too damn long.

Somehow she got him. She got him on a level that no one really had, not since… Jacob.

And even knowing that this was going to come back and bite him on the ass at some point didn’t stop him. He drew her close and breathed her in and said her name on a shaky exhale.

“Yes,” she murmured back, her fingers sinking into his hair, answering the question he hadn’t voiced out loud.

As Hudson’s arms tightened around Bailey, she became aware of the closeness of their bodies. No, that was a lie. She was always extremely aware of Hud’s body.

He walked her backward and she came up against the credenza. He dipped his head and even as her brain screamed, You need to think this over, she was lifting her face and parting her lips to accept his.

Once his mouth fastened on to hers, she was lost. It had seemed so complicated, but when he was with her like this, it was suddenly the opposite. It was the simplest thing she’d ever done to pull him in and give him everything she had. She arched her back to get even closer. He was hard.

Everywhere.

Her heart had gone haywire and she was already breathing in little gasps as they broke apart to stare at each other and then dove back in. Desire was a living thing within her, coiling out from her core and bringing a warm tingling wave of pleasure with it.

Hud’s hands slid up from her hips to cup her breasts. Making a sound of low male appreciation, he slid those hands down again and then back up, beneath her shirt this time. His thumbs glided softly over her pebbled nipples standing at full, happy attention.

She was still fully clothed and she was seconds away from an orgasm… And then he stopped. She moaned in protest but he was firm. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Much as I’ve enjoyed the memories we’ve made here, I’m not doing it in my office again. I still have rug burns—” He broke off at her laugh and narrowed his eyes. “You think that’s funny?”

She made an effort to stop smiling but couldn’t pull it off. “You weren’t the only one who got rug burns,” she reminded him.

“Yes, but yours are on your back and hidden,” he said. “Mine are on my knees and we wear shorts when we train in the gym.”

She clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God.”

“Uh-huh—which is exactly what you were moaning when I got those rug burns. That and a bunch of ‘oh please’ and ‘yes, there, oh, Hud, there!’”

She couldn’t really object to the truth…

Hud poured Bailey into his truck and gave her a quick once-over. She was definitely tipsier than he’d thought. “You okay?”

She gave him a long look. Right. That question was not allowed. “Okay,” he said, “how about—are you going home with me?” He held her gaze, watching her reaction closely. Any hesitation, even a flicker, and he’d tuck her into his bed and walk away, no qualms.

But she didn’t hesitate. She blinked slowly and smiled at him, a little goofy. “Yes, please.”

He grinned. “How many shots did you have?”

“Um… one.”

Okay, one was good. One wasn’t drunk—

“Plus three,” she said, and then looked confused. “Or four.”

Ah, hell. That was most definitely drunk. Which put her in the off-limits zone.

She smiled at him. “You’re pretty. Anyone ever tell you that?”

He had to laugh. “You’re completely shit-faced.”

“Am not.” She flashed another silly grin. “I know you probably think ‘pretty’ is an insult to your manhood, but I’ve seen your manhood and it doesn’t have any reason to be insulted.”

He scrubbed a hand down his face. She was a happy, silly, sexy adorable drunk. And one hundred percent irresistible. And damn, his phone was buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. Aidan. He hit ANSWER. “Yeah?”

“Lily’s bombed.”

“I know.”

“I’m getting lucky tonight,” Aidan said.

“And you’re calling me why?”

“Because you’re not,” Aidan said. “Getting lucky, that is. If Lily’s this far gone, so’s Bailey. You can’t tap that tonight, man.”

“You think I need you to tell me that?”

“Just making sure you’re thinking with your big head and not your small one.” Aidan laughed a little and started to say something else but Hud disconnected him. He looked at Bailey.

She blew him a kiss.

Damn. Only a real asshole would take advantage of her tonight. The question was, was he that asshole? He took her hand in his.

She brought it up to her mouth and kissed the scars on his palm. “You’re a good man,” she said softly.