She took several shaky breaths, then finally exhaled the long rattling sigh of the truly exhausted. After a few minutes, her breathing finally slowed to a normal rate. He looked down at the top of her head, a profound sense of peace washing over him.

“You don’t have to stay. I’m okay now. I know you don’t want to be here.”

“That’s not true. I wasn’t asleep, anyway. I was trying to decide whether I should take another cold shower or not.”

She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Well, that’s your own fault.”

“I know, baby girl.” He kissed the top of her head.

Her fingers danced gently over the tattoo on his chest. “I’ve never been into tattoos but this fits you.”

He looked down at the design he’d gotten in his first year of college. “I was called ‘Treble’ because I was a music major. I was always humming bars and scribbling pieces of songs on napkins. Eventually it became less like ‘treble’ and more like ‘trouble’. I have no idea why, of course.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Relief swept through him when she smiled in response, looking more like herself.

“What about you?” He tilted his head in her direction. “Tell me something about you. Something no one knows.”

She sighed and laid her head on his chest. “I love to garden.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. What? You can’t imagine me gardening? I don’t mind getting a little dirty.”

“I just bet you don’t.”

She smacked his chest playfully. “I guess I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

He squeezed her. “I’m just teasing you.”

“I’ve been saving to start my own landscape design business. I had the perfect location picked out and everything. Who knows how long before I can go back though? I feel like my whole life is on hold.”

He stopped rubbing her back and turned them so they were laying side by side, facing each other.

“If you’re passionate about this, then don’t let anything hold you back. You can start a business here. I’ll be your first client. You’ve seen what my yard looks like. I need all the help I can get.”

“You know I’d love to help you but this is exactly why I wanted to open a business in Florida. To the people there, I’m just Ridley. No one could say I was successful due to my modeling contacts.”

“When I was first starting out and needed the money to buy professional equipment, Nick was the first in line to help me out. If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Everyone needs help in the beginning. There’s no shame in that. That’s what people who care about you do. They help you.”

“And you want to help me? Because you care about me?”

“Yeah, I do. You deserve to get everything you want.”

“But I can’t have what I want,” she whispered.

“What do you—” Jackson broke off with a strangled sound when the soft hand that had been resting against his chest reached down and gripped him through the soft cotton of his sweatpants. “Whoa.” He gulped when she turned her face and kissed his chest. “What are you doing?”

She tugged on the waistband of his sweatpants gently.

“Getting what I want.”

*   *   *   *   *

TO THINK THAT she’d gone so long without knowing how crazy passion could make you, and how hot and hungry you could feel when that passion was denied.

Even at their best, none of her previous boyfriends had come anywhere near the way Jackson made her feel with just two stolen kisses.

And they didn’t have abs like these.

She traced each one and then followed the same path with her tongue.

He reared up off the bed. “I thought we agreed that this was a bad idea.”

She looked up at him innocently. “You agreed. I didn’t.”

“Ridley,” he warned.

“I have a proposition for you,” she whispered against his beautifully taut lower abdomen.

“Christ.” He shuddered as she bit him gently. “Yes. Whatever you want, I say yes.”

“One night. You said you aren’t ready to love and that’s okay. Let’s just get it out of our systems, and tomorrow it’ll be like it never happened. Like a dream.”

If she walked away from Jackson without indulging, what if she never met anyone else she had this connection with? What if she never understood what her girlfriends in college had whispered about, the kind of lust that made you forget your own name and do things that embarrassed you the next morning?

For once she would take her sister’s advice and worry about the consequences later.

“If you don’t agree, just tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll stop.”

“That would be impossible,” he mumbled.

Trailing her fingers around his neck, she stroked the sensitive skin behind his ears. His eyes slid closed against the sensual pressure she was exerting. She shifted her attention to the bunched muscles in his neck and giggled softly at his moans when she stopped touching him.

Once his eyes opened again, she reached up and pulled the band from her hair. She gently combed the thick strands around her face before pushing Jackson to lie on his back.

“I was trying to be the good guy here.”

“Don’t be,” she whispered. She licked her lips slowly and Jackson cursed softly. “So, we’re in agreement?”