“Oh, hi, Lincoln!” She let her arms drop to her sides.

“Oh, hi, Lincoln!” Cole mimicked in a breathy voice.

She ignored him, mostly because he had a point. She probably had been a little breathless, but it was 100 hundred percent justified.

Yes, Lincoln Mathis was still the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.

Dark wavy hair, blue eyes that were both friendly and distant, practically begging a woman to fix him. Same went for the shy yet confident smile, the muscled yet lean body.

Penelope felt a blast of misty water hit her cheek and turned around to see Cole holding a blue squirt bottle. “What are you doing? That’s for misting my plants!”

“You looked hot,” he said with a shrug, setting the bottle aside.

She wiped at her wet face with her sleeve. Forget Lincoln. It was Cole she was going to have to learn to survive.

“What can we help you with, Lincoln?”

The other man strolled into her office, sitting in the chair next to her before tilting his head. “Isn’t something backward here? Or did you switch offices?”

“Nope, you’ve got it about right,” she said. “Sharpe stole my chair.”

“And you let him?”

Penelope shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me where I sit when we argue.”

“Discuss,” Cole said. “We were discussing.”

“Yeah? Who won?” she asked.

“I did. Obviously.”

“Exactly. There’s no winner in a discussion. It was an argument, and I’ll concede this round, but—”

Lincoln held up a hand. “How about you two kids settle this later. I’ve got a crisis on my hands for my section.”

Penelope turned her attention back to Lincoln. “Relationships, right?”

“Ah, sure,” Lincoln said. “We can call it that.”

“Well, what do you call it?” Penelope asked.

He said nothing.

“Come on,” she coaxed, “I’m part of the team.”

Lincoln blew out a breath. “Well, the Table of Contents calls it Sex and Relationships. But around here we mostly call it—”

“Chicks and clits,” Cole said.

“We do not call it that,” Lincoln said, glaring at Cole.

“Sometimes we do,” Cole muttered.

“Anyway, we call it—”

“Hey, how come I didn’t get invited to the party?” Jake Malone strolled into the office without knocking.

“Welcome to my office,” Cole said, spreading his hands wide.

“It’s my office,” Penelope said.

“Well, it should be my office,” Cole said. “It’s bigger.”

Jake leaned down until his mouth was near Penelope’s ear. “Poor guy has to compensate.”

Penelope giggled and Cole shot his friend the finger.

“Guys—and gal—focus,” Lincoln said, snapping his fingers. “Cassidy asked me to do a quick filler story after some boring shit about shoes turned out to be a dud, and I’m stuck.”

“All right, young Lincoln, you may ask us sex gods our opinion,” Jake said.

“Actually, I was looking for Penelope.”

Jake looked crestfallen. “I thought I was your go-to sex advice guy.”

“Uh, I’m his go-to sex advice guy,” Cole said. “Lincoln comes to me when he needs fodder for his stories. You’re an old married fuddy-duddy—”

“Who gets sex every night,” Jake shot back. “Can you say the same?”

Penelope couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Cole. Could he say the same?

Cole narrowed his eyes at Jake, who grinned. “Thought not.”

Penelope smiled, enjoying their easy banter.

This was what she’d wanted when she’d applied for the job. This sort of camaraderie. Granted, she was the only female, but they seemed willing enough to include her.

And God knew they didn’t seem to be holding back on their “guy talk” in her presence. Chicks and clits? Really?

Lincoln was pulling out his notebook. “Okay, Penelope, so my article is on the first kiss of a first date…”

“Kissing?” Cole asked. “That seems tame.”

Lincoln shot him a pointed look. “Have you ever gotten laid without it?”

Cole opened his mouth, then shut it, making a rolling gesture with his hand. “Continue.”

“Okay, so, Ms. Pope,” Lincoln said, putting the tip of his pen to his lip and looking, well, hot. “I’ve always been under the impression that women preferred a good head-holding kiss. You know, our big hands on your little face. Chicks dig it. But, against my better judgment, I decided to do an informal poll of the office, and so far my results are coming up…scattered.”

Silence descended over the room, and Penelope realized that all three men were staring at her. Expectantly.

“Wait, sorry,” Penelope said nervously. “What do you want me to do about this?”

“Weigh in, of course,” Lincoln said. “We men only know what we think we know about women’s preferences.”

Penelope gave a nervous laugh. “Surely I’m not the only woman in the office.”

“No, of course not,” Lincoln said with a small smile. “There are six of you.”

“Six? That’s it? Out of how many employees?”

“A lot,” Jake said.

Penelope licked her lips. “Okay, well…why don’t you ask the other five?”

“I did,” Lincoln said patiently. “But six opinions are better than five, am I right?”

“Of course, it’s just—”

She glanced around the room to see all three of them watching her curiously.

Lincoln’s eyes narrowed slightly although not in a mean way. He leaned forward. “Penelope, darling. You have been kissed?”

“Eh, not appropriate, Mathis,” Jake said, glancing toward the door.

“Shit,” Lincoln said, looking horrified “Shit. Sorry. They make you take these sexual harassment classes, but I’m so used to just saying anything around these guys—”

“No, no, it’s okay!” she rushed to say.

The last thing she wanted to do was establish in her first week that she should be treated differently. “Of course, I’ve been kissed. I’m thirty-one…”

“Really?” Cole interrupted. “Damn, when I first saw you, I thought eighteen.”

“That’s the lack of boobs,” she said unabashedly.

Jake ran a hand over his face with a choked laugh. “Jesus. Maybe we should shut the door before Sandra walks by.”

“Sandra?” Penelope asked as Lincoln stood to shut her office door.

“Sandra Atens,” Cole explained.

“Ah,” Penelope said. “The HR lady who gave me all my paperwork.”

“That’s the one,” Lincoln said. “Look, so, Pen, if you don’t want to answer—”

“No, it’s just…” She started to bite her nail and then remembered that she’d gotten a manicure for her first week on the job and dropped her hands back to her lap. “Eh, it’s been a while. Since the kissing.”

For some reason, Penelope couldn’t bring herself to look at Cole Sharpe when she said it, so she kept her eyes locked on Lincoln, who, God bless him, didn’t look even tempted to laugh.

“Well, what the fuck’s wrong with those Chicago guys, honey?” he asked.

She laughed. “You’re sweet. But I think we know that men aren’t exactly barging down the door to get at all of this.”

She gestured awkwardly over her frame with her hands.

Lincoln looked her over, and Penelope sighed in resignation over what he’d see. She was wearing a skirt today—a slim gray affair, and a pink shirt—pink! But even still, she knew that the effect was hardly femme fatale.

Hell, it was barely feminine.

No matter what she did, no matter what color lipstick, no matter how high the heels, she never quite managed to escape the little-girl-playing-dress-up effect.

“I’m liking what I see,” Lincoln said.

“Oh my God,” someone muttered. Penelope wasn’t sure if it was Cole or Jake.

Still, Lincoln’s voice was more polite than it was enamored or lecherous, so she merely smiled.

Penelope hadn’t been here long, but she’d caught on pretty quick that Cole and Lincoln both had reps as ladies’ men. She could see why. They were both painfully good-looking.

And yet there was something about Lincoln…something about the way he held himself back and treated women with a deferential respect even as he charmed their pants off…