Five minutes later, the room no longer smelled like burned muffins but instead like perfectly baked and warming muffins, and Zoe nodded in satisfaction. This was more like it.

She needed a Manda.

She looked up when Parker came into the room, dressed in jeans and a button-down, keys in hand. His hair was still damp from a shower. As she took a deep breath, her nose filled with the essence of Parker: soap, deodorant, and delicious, sexy man. Her body practically vibrated with unbidden memories: Parker in his bed, inside her body, his mouth hot at her throat, his hands positioning her as he wanted as he’d moved within her, driving her wild.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” He smiled and her heart hurt. “I thought I’d wake up with you.”

She ignored the way her heart squished at that.

“What smells so good?” he asked.

She looked at the oven, where the muffins were warming. Manda’s muffins. But hey, Zoe had helped make them, so technically that meant they were half hers, right? Maybe more than half since she’d done the reheating all on her own. And if she’d decided to make breakfast casserole or breakfast burritos or something like that, she would have rocked it because she could so totally cook, dammit. “Blueberry muffins,” she said, and nonchalantly pulled the pan of perfectly made blueberry muffins from the oven.

Both man and dog locked eyes on them and licked their lips.

“Did you make ’em?” Parker asked, not making a move any closer.

His wariness was more than mildly annoying. “Why?” she asked. “Are you afraid?”

He looked pained now, like he was in a quandary.

“Guess you are,” she said, taking a muffin from the tray and slowly peeling back the paper, breaking the muffin in half, watching as the steam rose. Mouth watering, she took a bite and closed her eyes. “Mmmm,” she moaned.

When she opened her eyes, Parker had moved into her personal space, his eyes dark with heat and more than a little bit of trouble. He’d skipped a shave this morning and his jaw had just the right amount of scruff on it so that if he rubbed it against her she’d probably orgasm on the spot.

Her inner thighs trembled.

“Good?” he murmured, his gaze locked in on her mouth.

“Very.” She stared up at him, out of breath. Why was she out of breath? Because you want him. Just one more time . . . “Parker?”

“Yeah?”

Deciding to show, not tell, she ran a finger down his chest to the button on his jeans.

His eyes heated, but he remained still.

So she let her finger slip beneath the waistband of his jeans.

He caught her wrist. “You chilly again?” he asked, amusement in his voice.

“Don’t play hard to get now,” she whispered, and he laughed.

“Zoe,” he said in that early-morning sexy guy voice, “with you, I’m never hard to get. I’m just hard.”

She snorted and pulled him down to kiss him.

He kissed her back and then looked deep into her eyes.

She did her best to look like something he couldn’t live without. At least for the duration.

“When you sneaked out of my bed this morning, I figured you’d come to your senses,” he said.

“If I’d come to my senses, I’d have kicked you out days ago.” To soften the words, she once again pulled his head down to hers.

“Be sure,” he said, voice low, calm, even though the hunger and desire in his eyes gave him away. “No regrets.”

“Of course not,” she said. “The three W’s, remember? No wondering, no worrying, no wishing for things I can’t have.” Okay, so she’d added on those last few words, but it sounded like a good policy.

“I don’t want to hurt you—”

“You can’t.” She put her finger over his sexy lips when he didn’t cave. “I get it now,” she promised. “I want to enjoy this, enjoy you, while I can. I need this, Parker. I need you.”

She waited a beat for him to deny her, to be stoic and strong and hold her off because that was what he thought was best for her. But doing what perhaps was the most incredible thing any man had ever done for her, he assumed she was an adult and capable of making her own decisions. His hands settled on her hips and he pulled her in. “Zoe?”

“Yeah?”

He slid the pad of his thumb over her lower lip and then let his fingers sink into her hair so that he could tilt her face up to his. “I’m going to kiss you,” he said in that sexy, gravelly morning voice.

She nodded eagerly, her breathing already shallow and rapid. “Yes—”

Before the word was all the way out of her mouth, he lowered his head and kissed her hard, pinning her to the counter. She sucked his tongue into her mouth, greedily savoring the taste of him while he appeared to do the same. “Here,” she said.

Demanded.

And he made it so. He stripped her quickly, murmuring hot praises in between kissing and stroking everything he exposed, and when she was naked, he set her on the counter.

“Hold on,” he said.

And she did. She held on, feeling his muscles bunch and release as he slid into her and began to move, pushing in and out in a rhythm that took her from zero to sixty in a heartbeat. She held on, her ankles linked at his backside, moving with him, sensation after sensation pummeling her until she was so close to coming she could hardly breathe.

And then Parker gripped her hips hard and yanked her in so that their torsos were plastered together, so that she could feel the weight of him leaning into her, the carved muscles of his chest and arms working. And in the sensual haze of her preorgasmic state, she looked up. His face was an erotic mask of pleasure and that was all it took. She came with his name a mantra on her lips, came so hard she was barely cognizant of him burying his face in the crook of her neck and doing the same.

When he pulled back, Zoe realized she had a two-fisted grip on his shirt and was still letting out helpless little whimpers as she came down. “Sorry.”

He eased her to the floor and held her still when she tried to turn away. “Don’t ever be sorry for your passion. It’s beautiful. I love it.”

“I . . . got a little wild.”

He tightened his grip and kissed her until she forgot what they’d been talking about. “I love it,” he repeated against her mouth, and finally let her go.

Flushed, she resisted the urge to stick her heated face into the freezer. Instead she dressed—again—and poured them both a coffee and tried to act like this, having a man in her kitchen in the morning, one she’d slept with, was an everyday occurrence.

Except that until he’d shown up, it was a never occurrence.

He’d inhaled three of the muffins and praised her baking after each one before her conscience got the best of her. “Parker?”

“Yeah?” He was eyeing yet another muffin and she realized that when he left here, she wanted to leave her mark on him the same way he’d left his mark on her.

She wanted him to remember her as great in bed—or in this case, great on her kitchen counter, the couch, and the floor, and his bed . . . She wanted him to remember her house and her damn amazing blueberry muffins. “Nothing,” she said.

He smiled and popped another muffin into his mouth, and she had to close her eyes because the sight of him eating with such pleasure made her ache. Dammit. “Ididn’tmakethem,” she said.