So he did. He drank her in.

This was not the pretty, thin, young innocent girl whose virginity he’d taken down by the river.

This was a gorgeous, trim, curved-in-all-the-right-places confident woman.

Who was calling his bluff by showing up in the kitchen after the texts he’d sent.

His gaze found its way back to hers and he could see the challenge there.

“I never kid about nipple licking,” he finally said.

She sucked in a quick breath but it was hard to tell if it was surprise or lust. “You have to stop.”

“Why?”

“You can’t tease me. And flirt. And get… dirty. Not when you’re living here. That is all kinds of inappropriate.”

Inappropriate. Maybe. With anyone else it would be. But it did not feel inappropriate with them.

Cam reached for the bag of dark chocolate chunks and dumped them into the bowl. He folded them into the dough, then set the bowl down, and tossed the spoon into the sink.

He braced his hands on the counter and met her eyes.

“I know I should say I’m sorry. I’m not.”

She took a breath and let it out. “Cam, I understand that you’re teasing. But I have to be able to be comfortable here in my own home.”

“I make you uncomfortable?” He frowned. He didn’t quite believe it, but he hated the idea that might be true.

“You… could very easily make it difficult to sleep,” she said.

Oh, well that was different. He grinned. “Dirty dreams never hurt anybody.”

She lifted her chin in that sexy, stubborn way that he didn’t remember but kind of loved and kind of hated at the same time. “They will if they keep me from being fresh and sharp at work tomorrow.”

He shouldn’t like the idea of getting her so wound up she couldn’t sleep.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, clearly noticing the small grin he was trying to hide.

“I shouldn’t say. It would be inappropriate.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Is it something about helping me work off the pent-up energy and play out the dreams so I can sleep peacefully?”

He let the grin go. “Yep.”

She sighed. “Cam, this isn’t going to work.”

He straightened. “It will. I promise. I’ll be good.”

It was clear that she didn’t believe that, but she didn’t quite roll her eyes. She drew herself straighter and wet her lips, then said, “You’re my boss. And my ex. Having you here is weird. Having you sexting me is even weirder. We have to have some rules.”

“First, that wasn’t sexting.” That wasn’t even close to the things he’d say and ask her to do if they were sexting. “Second, having me here shouldn’t be weird, Whit.”

“But it is. Because…”

He lifted a brow. “Because?”

Her eyes dipped to the bowl of cookie dough then back to his. “Because it’s all tempting.”

Damn right it was. “Well, good.”

“No,” she said it with force and with a frown. Then she pulled in a breath and said more calmly, “I’m sorry, but I think that if you’re living here we need to work on the friends part of this whole… situation.”

Their relationship was a situation? And why did she keep taking those breaths and changing her tone of voice while they were talking? “I told you that I want more than that. That’s partly why I’m here.”

“You’re pushing.”

He gave her a nod. “A little. I need to push with you.”

She frowned. “I don’t like that.”

“I think you do.” He crossed his arms. “I think that you don’t like that you like it. But I think you do like that I’m pursuing you and seducing you.”

“You’re not seducing me.”

“Talking about putting cookie dough on your nipples?” he asked.

She shifted her weight and dropped her gaze to the bowl again and he wondered what sensations were going through her body. Was she tingling and hot? Were her nipples hard? Because he was hot and hard, for sure.

“You have to respect what I’m feeling,” she finally said, meeting his gaze again. “This complicates things in a way that concerns me.”

He studied her. She seemed to be holding back. Which was interesting. Whitney had always been happy and sweet and confident. The girl he’d dated ten years ago had been accommodating and roll-with-it and always up for whatever he wanted.

“You’re the one who pointed out the doors and squeaky floor boards between your room and mine,” he said.

She nodded. “Momentary lapse of judgment.”

“Can we have a few more of those?”

She didn’t smile at that either. She shook her head. “No. I shouldn’t have said that.” She sighed and her shoulders slumped slightly. “It’s fun to flirt and tease with you. But it’s a bad idea. It’s distracting, and with you here all the time now”—she frowned at that—“I think it could be very easy to go… offtrack.”

“The track being Hot Cakes?” he asked.

She nodded. Then bit her bottom lip.

Them being together was offtrack? That was not how it felt to him. At all.

But they were, evidently on very different tracks. He had accomplished what he wanted with work. Hot Cakes was great. He wanted it to be successful too. Absolutely. But his huge accomplishment had been Fluke, Inc. and Warriors of Easton.

He’d absolutely been focused and determined when it had come to building the company and making it a fucking phenomenon.

Whitney hadn’t had a huge business accomplishment yet.

He got where she was coming from. But it was possible to have that and a personal life.

Probably.

He didn’t really know. He hadn’t had a relationship when they’d been getting Fluke off the ground. Hell, he hadn’t had a relationship since Whitney.

But she was trying to be successful with Hot Cakes. She wasn’t doing it alone. But she didn’t believe that. Or she didn’t know what that really meant. Yet.

“I don’t think I can keep from flirting with you,” he finally confessed. “Especially when you come down here at night in your nightgown looking…” He almost said totally fuckable. But that would likely go on her inappropriate list. “…so sexy.”

Then he cringed slightly. That was a little better, but he probably should have said “beautiful.” Or maybe not have said anything at all about how she looked.

He shrugged before she could say anything. “It’s going to be impossible for me to not notice how you look, Whit.”

She blew out a breath. “Which is another reason this is a bad idea.”

“Because it tempts you?”

Her eyes flashed. “Because I should get to come down to my kitchen in whatever I want to wear and not worry about getting hit on.” Then she took another breath. “I’m not used to having guests.”

He didn’t want her to think of him as a guest. That was for fucking sure. And he wasn’t hitting on her. That sounded like they were two strangers meeting for the first time in a bar or something.

They were hardly strangers.