His own family had laid off on that for the most part. Or the attention had been focused on his older cousins. Until recently. His cousins had all spent the past summer falling ass over boots in love. Even his new buddy, Chase, who spent most of his time in medical school at Georgetown, had found himself smitten, somehow. Mitch had really thought Chase would be immune. They’d had a hell of a good time partying together. But Bailey Wilcox had happened and Chase was now a goner too.

Now the attention had shifted to Mitch. No one had yet said anything like, when are you going to settle down? But if they knew he was up here visiting a woman he’d met in July and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, they’d all be very interested.

There were three things the Landrys believed in with their whole hearts. One, crawfish boils were the way to fix any rift, disappointment or broken heart. Two, everyone’s business was everyone else’s business. And three, falling in love was the ultimate goal in life… even if you had to do it a few times to get it right.

Mitch couldn’t help but wonder what his family would think of Paige. She was a yoga-doing-meditating vegetarian who clearly liked to keep her personal business personal. None of that would make sense to them.

And the Landrys would, most likely, horrify Paige.

He grinned thinking of it. His family was loud, and their idea of meditation was sitting in a boat and fishing without talking for twenty minutes straight. Other than swearing at the fish, and the fishing line, and the tree branches hidden under the surface of the water that messed with those lines.

He’d known Paige was a fling-with-no-strings girl. He’d texted her first and it had taken a couple of days for her to respond. He’d given up on hearing back from her by the time his phone had dinged with the message from her. The message that read I can’t believe you texted me.

He’d laughed and texted back—right away, incidentally, which might have been a mistake—and said, why can’t you believe it?

Because I’m not sending you naked photos.

I don’t need photos. I got a very good look at everything and I have a VERY good memory.

It had taken a few minutes after that and he’d wondered if he’d screwed up but then she’d replied, so what do you want?

And he’d had to really think about that.

Clearly, she hadn’t been thrilled to hear from him. She hadn’t been waiting with bated breath to see if he’d text or call. She hadn’t been flirtatious or encouraging in keeping the conversation going.

At first.

But as long as he was okay with twelve to twenty-four hours passing between messages from her, he did hear from her, and every damned time she made him smile.

He’d ask stupid shit like, what did you do today?

And she’d say, scooped cat poop, did yoga, rinse, repeat.

He hadn’t been able to resist asking, what about a shower? You probably took a shower right?

She’d reply, eventually, I did.

That was it. Nothing flirtatious or dirty.

Until about three weeks in when, in answer to his question about what she did that day, she texted, scooped cat poop, did yoga, got off with my vibrator while thinking of you, rinse, repeat.

He’d almost swallowed his tongue. He’d typed three messages before finally sending, please tell me the repeat was with the vibrator and thinking of me too.

Her reply, Definitely. Twice last night. Once this morning, Once just now.

She’d texted him right after using her vibrator and thinking of him.

Now that was what he was talking about.

Strangely, from there, their conversations had gotten more in depth. She’d told him more about her cats and why she loved yoga and she’d even drunk texted him after a girls’ night, and, instead of getting dirtier, she’d told him that she wished they’d had more time together and that she’d made vegetarian gumbo. Which wasn’t really gumbo at all—how could it be without shrimp or sausage or at least chicken?—but he’d been stupidly touched that she’d tried something from his world and he hadn’t had the heart to tell her it didn’t count.

He’d told her about the bayou and what he loved about it, how he loved the outdoors, and about his family. Which now, listening to her and her mother, he realized might have been a mistake.

He came from a very big, very nosy, very involved family. If she had too much of that here, she would have very little desire to meet his intrusive relatives.

But why was he thinking about her meeting his family?

That wasn’t going to happen. That was the beauty of this situation. She lived far away. To see her, it took him miles away from the bayou and his family, and their time together would always be temporary. It would be impossible to get serious. Even if either of them were interested in that at all. Which they clearly weren’t.

Suddenly the closet door opened and Paige stood there.

He must have missed her mom leaving.

“Sorry about that.”

“No problem.”

She grimaced. “I’m not so sure about that.”

He reached for her. “I have lots of other things for your mouth to do rather than apologize.”

But she backed up before he could catch ahold of her.

“And while I would very much like to use my mouth in all of those ways and few others, we need to cool it for a little bit.”

He frowned, stepping out of the closet. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, there are going to be other family members stopping by over the next few hours.”

“There will be?”

“Oh, for sure.” She paced away from him. “Mom’s suspicious now, and I kind of admitted, stupidly, that my plans tonight involve a guy.” She turned back to face him from several feet away. She was frowning. “That was really careless of me, of course. But I blame you.”

“Me?”

“You scrambled my brain and then you were just right in there.”

“I was totally quiet,” he protested around a grin about her scrambled-brain confession.

“Yeah, but you were there. Just a few feet away. Being all hot and stuff.”

“I was being hot? From inside a closet? With the door closed?” He liked that a lot. And knew what she meant, actually. He’d been very aware of her just on the other side of the door as well.

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “It must be the testosterone. You’ve got so much oozing out all over that it got on the floor and seeped out from under the door and soaked into me.”

He laughed softly and crossed the space between them. He reached out before she could move back and caught her wrist, bringing her up against him. He bent to put his face against her neck, breathing deeply of her scent and loving the feel of her hair against his cheek and the way she shivered in his arms.

“The oozing doesn’t sound particularly sexy, but I love the idea of soaking into you,” he said, gruffly against her ear. “Does it make you hot?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

“So you were distracted because your panties are wet, and your pussy is aching knowing that the cock you want more than anything is just a few feet away and is all ready for you.”

She shivered again, and her arms went around him as she arched closer. “Yes.”

“You want my cock so much you couldn’t even come up with a lie for your mama?”