Things were stirring.

She smiled. A cat-in-cream smile as she played with the tie at the waistband, pulling lightly until it gave.

“What are you doing?” he asked hoarsely, not wanting to scare off his erection.

“You’re far too tense. I’m going to fix that.”

“I—” God, her hands were heaven. “I thought we were barely speaking.”

“This won’t involve speaking,” she promised, and tugged. He lifted his hips to help, and then the next thing he knew, he was bare-ass naked and she was still fully dressed.

But then she remedied that by standing so that he could see her fully, and slowly stripped out of the rest of her clothes, then dropped to her knees between his.

“Holly—”

She licked him, and he choked out her name again, but he wasn’t sure it was audible. He couldn’t find his tongue. Jesus, he couldn’t even find his brain as she slowly took him in her mouth and sucked.

At the low, inarticulate sound he made, she paused. “I should tell you, I’m not that good at this. Should I move on to something else?”

His good hand came up to tangle his fingers in her hair. “Please don’t,” he said with all his heart as she drew him into her mouth again. Oh Christ. Christ, it felt so good to feel. “Holly—”

She ignored him. Something he should have been used to when it came to her. She ignored him and kept at her leisurely pace of driving him right out of his ever-loving mind, which at the moment, was a fine place to be. “Two-minute warning,” he gasped when his toes curled.

Her eyes were half closed, a dreamy, aroused smile playing about her lips as she worked him, and he had to reassess. “Make that ten seconds.”

She reached up and put a finger to his lips, reminding him that this wasn’t going to involve speaking. “Okay, yeah, but Holly, I’m going to—”

She didn’t stop.

And he came.

He came from the tips of his toes and beyond, and when he’d relanded on planet earth, he was still flat on his back on the bench, blinking at the ceiling, feeling as if he’d taken the entire bottle of pain pills that he hadn’t touched in days.

She kissed his inner thigh while he tried to find his tongue, which was currently stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I don’t know whether to thank you or apologize,” he murmured, unable to even muster up the energy to lift his head when she shifted away.

“Are you hungry?”

“I don’t know.” He reached out for her and got nothing but air. “Maybe a little.”

She picked up a sweatshirt he had hanging over one of the barbells and slipped into it, which came down to her midthigh. “I’m going to find you something to eat,” she said, zipping it up between her br**sts. “Wait here.”

As he’d expelled every last ounce of energy, that wasn’t a problem. He couldn’t have moved to save his life. So he waited.

With an undeniably dopey grin on his face.

Barefoot, wearing nothing but Pace’s sweatshirt, Holly padded into his kitchen.

And let out a startled scream.

“Sorry,” Wade said quickly, turning to face her, blinking at her attire, or lack of. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Henry had been in the middle of guzzling a Dr Pepper, but when his gaze ran down her body, he choked.

Wade simultaneously slapped him on the back and covered his eyes.

Holly tugged self-consciously at the hem of the sweatshirt. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We came to feed the poor, beleaguered, whiny patient,” Wade said. “But it turns out he’s not so beleaguered.”

Footsteps came down the hall and then Pace appeared in the doorway. He took in the situation, which was the guys looking at Holly standing there in nothing but his sweatshirt, and with a low oath pulled Holly to him, protecting her from view of the others with his body as he turned the two of them to the door. “Wait here,” he directed the guys over his shoulder as he led her out of the kitchen and into the hallway. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault. But I feel very naked.”

“My favorite state.”

“Yeah, but not mine.” She headed back to the gym. He followed her, still wearing only those basketball shorts and his sling, extremely comfortable in his own skin. As he should be. If she had a body that fine, she’d be comfortable naked, too. At least some of his color was back, and she smiled as he put a big, warm hand on her hip.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Let me get rid of the guys.”

“No, don’t. I have to go work anyway.”

At that, she expected him to rush her along, but he stayed still, dropping his forehead to hers. She just closed her eyes, breathing him in, lifting her arms to wrap around his neck. They stayed like that for a moment before she pulled free to slip into her sweatpants. When she started to unzip his sweatshirt to replace it with her own clothes, he shook his head. “Keep it.”

So she left it on and slipped into her shoes. “I should go.”

He came close, playing with the hood ties on the sweatshirt, the one that smelled like him. “I owe you.”

Her knees knocked together. “Yeah. You do.”

His mouth curved and his eyes were hot as he leaned in and kissed her good-bye, a kiss that made her wish things weren’t so complicated, that they were just a man and a woman with a simple attraction for each other. An attraction without any messy emotions, attachments, or obligations to stories that needed to be told. But she’d never been that lucky, and she didn’t see that luck changing any time soon.