Ugh. Maybe this was a sign. Maybe she should’ve hopped on the interstate right after her conference and headed straight home. It was Saturday night, after all. Brody might not even be home.

Then again, he might. And she was already in Omaha. It would be rude not to try and find him, even if just to say hello.

She pulled her car into an empty elementary school parking lot and double-checked the address Tony had texted her earlier. 11089 Porter St. Last house on the left.

Well, this was a cul-de-sac, not to mention one in the early stages of development, because there were only two houses on the whole street, neither of which sat to the left.

Are you sure this is the address? There’s nothing here, she texted back.

That’s what I’ve got in my phone. Let me text him quick.

“No! Tony!” Gah, she probably looked like a crazy person, hollering at herself in a parked car and thumbing frantically on her phone. Don’t do that! Crap, crap, crap. Unless she wanted to look like a crazy stalker lady, there was only one other way to handle this. I’ll just call him myself. Thank you for getting me this far.

No problem. Have fun. ;)

God. A Starbucks smoothie said her lame GPS would get her back to the freeway just fine. Only then she’d be pissed at herself for giving up so easily.

Nibbling on her lip, she pulled up Brody’s number and took a few deep breaths before she hit the little green phone icon. He was probably out. Maybe even with someone else.

“Hey, pretty girl,” his voice crooned through the line and all her fear morphed into nervous excitement.

“Hey yourself. Am I pulling you away from anything?” She strained to decipher the noise in the background. A TV and maybe a couple of masculine voices?

“Just watching the Royals game with Sam and Ty. Why? Something up? You sound stressed.” A door closed in the background, shutting out the muffled sounds.

“No, no. Not at all.” Liar. Just say it. Tell him you’re in town. “I’m just...I’m actually in Omaha. I had a cosmetology conference today and I figured it’d be impolite not to let you know.” Get to the point, Jenn. You’re not a teenager. “In case maybe you had some time to meet up or something.”

“Aaw, sugar, you should’ve told me earlier,” he sighed and she instantly felt like an idiot. Of course, she should’ve given him some notice, instead of thinking it’d be cute to surprise him. One date did not equal dating.

“Yeah, probably. Anyway, it’s no big deal. Maybe next time. I’ll just grab some caffeine and head home. It’s a great night for a drive, by the way. All that wind blowing through my hair...” God help me and my lame babbling.

“Wait, no. Don’t go home. I just meant if you would’ve told me, I wouldn’t have invited the guys over.” He blew out a breath and it crackled the line. “Look, I want to see you. Like...I really want to see you. I might even be half hard already. But I can’t boot them out in the first inning.” He gave another contemplative exhale. “What do you think about coming over and waiting them out?”

Anything that involved touching him again sounded just about perfect. “Are your friends going to give me crap?”

“You? No. Me? Hell yes. From now until the end of time,” he chuckled. “Are you driving or can you write down the address?”

“Uh, yeah, hold on.” She reached into the backseat for the GPS and thumbed back to the home screen. “Ready.”

“11089 Potter St. Last house on the left. The driveway’s full of Silverados. You can’t miss it.”

Potter, not Porter. Gah. She cursed Tony in her head and hit start on the device. “According to Garmin, I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

He laughed. “Better put you Chapstick on, sugar.”

***

With Sam and Ty camped out on his couch in the basement, Brody sprinted around the upper level of his consummate bachelor pad, picking up the week’s worth of shit he’d left out. Socks, shoes, and all fifteen thousand controllers for the Xbox...even a half-eaten to-go pizza from...what day was that again?

Ducking out the backdoor with an armful of empty beer bottles, he heard the neighbor’s dog start barking out in the front and he spun around so fast from the recycling bins that he nearly clocked his face on the door, hurrying back inside.

First thing on Monday’s to-do list: Hire a cleaning lady in case Jenny had more of these impromptu visits up her sleeve.

He met her at the front door, a grin on his face that probably made him look like a randy teenager. “Fuck, you look amazing. Hurry up, get in here.”

She laughed as she maneuvered around piles of slushy, melting snow. “I’m trying, I’m trying!”

“God, woman,” he growled when she got close enough for him to grab and pull in tight. She’d swapped out her fluffy parka for a white fleece number that significantly reduced the amount of fabric between her tits and his chest. His cock took notice. “You feel so fucking good,” he murmured against her neck. “Best part of my entire week.”

“Mine, too.” Her fingers slid up into his hair as she wiggled closer, and he shivered. More of that, please. “But I have a confession to make.”

“What’s that?” he asked between stealing kisses and ridding her of her jacket.

“I’ve actually been driving around for an hour trying to find you. Tony gave me the wrong address.” She bit at her lip and made the most adorably uncertain face ever. “I wanted to surprise you.”

Well, hell. Words couldn’t do justice to how friggin’ elated that made him. Women had shown up on his doorstep lots of times, flaunting their proverbial trench coat and batting their fuck-me eyes, but not one—not a single goddamn one—had ever shown up late on a Saturday afternoon just because she wanted to see him.

Inch by inch, he backed her toward the wall in his hallway. When her shoulders hit the dark red paint, she gasped and he took great pleasure in covering her sweet lips with his...in swallowing that breathy sound and letting it seep deep into his lungs.

Her hair felt like ribbons of satin between his fingers and her heat like a fire in the middle of a cold, barren Afghani desert. He couldn’t get close enough, needed more of her all around him. And she gave him just that, pushing up onto her toes, so she could fold her arms around his neck and eliminate every possible space between them. All the while, she fed his soul with wet, addictive kisses that soothed him from the inside out. A high like he hadn’t experience in too damn long built fast and heady, better by a million than any whiskey-induced buzz could have ever been.

“I like surprises,” he muttered against her mouth. “Especially when they taste like sugar.”

She laughed and the lush, full-bodied sound echoed off his walls, spilling a little of her essence into his home. He wanted more of that laughter...wanted her to fill up every bit of his space with all the parts of herself she was willing to share. She was the comfort in his otherwise chaotic world. His peace of mind when his head filled up with so much shit, he couldn’t think. And by some strange, nonsensical twist of fate, he suspected he gave her something similar in return.

“We good now?” he asked, slowly and regretfully loosening his hold on her before he got greedy and pushed past her boundaries.

She nodded. “I think so. Though, we might want to double check a little later.”

From deeper inside the house, someone coughed. “Sounds good to me. You two bring the heavy breathing and roaming hands, I’ll bring the popcorn.”

Fucking Sam. “Really, man?”

“Dude...” His buddy took the final couple steps to the top of the basement stairs, situated between the front hall and the living room. “You’ve been up here for twenty minutes. I thought maybe you had an aneurysm choking it off in the bathroom or something.”