“Is this okay?” Carter whispered, his breath caressing the skin of Kat’s neck like silk.

“Yeah,” she answered. “It’s okay.”

With a contented smile, Kat placed her palm over the back of his hand—against her stomach—and pushed her fingers, little by little, into the spaces between his.

It didn’t surprise her that they fit perfectly.

* * *

It was a little before eleven when Carter opened his eyes again.

For a split second, he wondered where the fuck he was, until he realized Peaches’ hair was covering his face like a peach-scented, auburn mask. He moved his head back. Contentment tugged at his stomach when he saw they hadn’t moved from their original position, and their hands were still entwined against her body. Like a creeper, he watched her sleeping before she began to stir.

After an awkward cup of coffee, over which they shot each other fleeting glances and shy smiles, and after she’d agreed for him to take her home, Carter led a nervous-looking Peaches down to the garage in the basement of his building.

“You’ve ridden a motorcycle before, right?” he asked, trying like hell to hide the lusty excitement pumping through his body.

“Yeah,” she replied as they approached Kala. “But riding with you? That’s a little different.”

Carter passed her a helmet. “And why’s that?”

She gestured meekly with her hand toward Carter, making him look down at himself in confusion: black boots, dark blue jeans, dark blue vintage Zeppelin T-shirt, leather jacket.

She was watching him in a way that made his jeans feel tight. The fact that she was wearing one of his sweaters did nothing to help. He cocked an eyebrow and cleared his throat to get her attention. Her eyes snapped up and he chuckled behind his hand.

“So, Peaches,” he growled, popping his collar. “You thinkin’ I’m sexy right now?”

Her cheeks flashed pink. “Shut up,” she muttered and pulled the helmet onto her head.

He snorted. “You’re too easy.”

He threw his leg over Kala’s seat and put on his shades. He cocked his head back and grinned. “Ya comin’?”

With one lithe movement, her leg was over the seat, her thighs at either side of his. Carter shook his head of the explicit visual flashing behind his eyes and grumbled a few choice expletives, as he turned the key in the ignition. He could feel her pressed up against him and could only imagine what it would be like to turn around and have her in that very position.

“You ready?” he called over the grumbling engine.

“As I’ll ever be,” she called back.

Carter smiled when her arms and thighs gripped him as he revved the engine. With her heat pressed into him, the smell of rich gasoline, and the sound of Kala’s engine roaring, he was pretty damn close to heaven.

Glancing up and down the windy street outside his apartment building, Carter tapped the clutch and they set off at speed, across the city, toward Peaches’ apartment.

* * *

Carter was probably the most casually sexy man Kat had ever met. He oozed sensuality without even trying, whether he was wearing prison-issue coveralls or a blue Zeppelin T-shirt that made the color of his eyes pop. Seeing Carter on a motorbike took that casual sexiness, multiplied it by about a billion, and served it with a side helping of hot fucking and hour-long orgasms.

He was sensational sitting astride the damn thing, and Kat had to work hard at trying to keep herself together. Her craving for him had certainly spiked to new heights of ridiculousness, which was why she was all sorts of puzzled with herself when she invited him up to her apartment.

She unlocked her apartment door and gestured for Carter to enter in front of her. He smiled tightly and stepped in. She followed and watched him place his bike helmets on the side table. The silence was thunderous, and the tension between them, as they stood opposite one another, shifted from heated sex to anxiety and back again.

“Drink?” she offered.

“Sure. Orange juice?” His voice was rough and rich.

He followed her to the kitchen, where he stood, filling her apartment with his height and broad shoulders and waited while she poured him the juice. She felt his eyes on her, just as she’d watched him in his own kitchen that morning. It was bizarre how aware of him Kat was. Her whole body seemed to gravitate to his. But it’d always been that way; she’d just been too busy trying to keep up a professional demeanor with him to notice it before.

“Are you hungry?” she asked as he wandered around her sitting room, his eyes settling on her collection of watercolors.

He laughed. “I’m starving.” He rubbed his belly.

She placed her glass down and walked over to the fridge. “Let’s see what I’ve got.”

There wasn’t much, but there was enough to make bacon-and-tomato omelettes. Carter didn’t look convinced when Kat offered him as much, but she assured him she was a master at any type of egg cuisine.

Kat placed all the ingredients on the countertop. “Hey, Carter, can you cook bacon?”

Carter rolled his eyes. He shook out of his jacket. “Of course. Why?”

“I need you to brown the bacon while I take a shower.” She turned back to him and grinned. “Think you can handle that?”

“Please,” Carter retorted, grabbing the pack of bacon. “Go and have your shower, and leave this shit to me.” He grabbed her shoulders and moved her out of the way. “Be gone,” he said firmly, pushing her out of the kitchen space. He waved her away and gave her a grin that made his face crooked.

Kat held back the pathetically girly sigh threatening to break, and turned toward her bedroom. Once there she pulled off the sweater Carter had given her. With a swift glance back at the door—making sure she’d closed it properly—she held the sweater to her face and breathed in his cologne. It was lush and heady. She pulled it from her nose, folded it, and laid it on her bed.

Showered and redressed in black jeans and a Blondie T-shirt, and with her damp hair in a knot at her neck, Kat sauntered back into the kitchen to find Carter leaning casually against the counter, reading Walter the Lazy Mouse. She watched him turn the page, seemingly engrossed.

“How’s the bacon coming along?”

“Shhh,” he replied. His eyes never left the page as he put his index finger to his lips. “Walter’s asleep.”

Kat grinned. She grabbed a bowl, a pan, and a knife for chopping the tomatoes.

Carter moved around her and placed the book back carefully next to the flowerpot where it had been since Kat had left it there two days before. When she’d arrived back from Chicago, she’d read it aloud to a captivated audience of a framed picture of her father and a bottle of Amaretto.

Good times.

Kat was surprised at how well Carter worked in the kitchen. He seemed domesticated, which was, at the very least, sexy as hell.

“It’s rude to stare,” he pointed out as she watched him whisk the eggs.

“Sorry.”

She hadn’t even realized she had been staring; it was just the muscles in his forearm and the way in which they flexed and tensed as he moved fascinated her. Coupled with his tattoos, he was quite the sight to behold. She rubbed the back of her neck with her sweating palm, cleared her throat, and resumed her tomato chopping.

“You’re all flushed.” Carter’s voice came from behind her, directly into her left ear.

Kat’s spine straightened instantly. He put the bowl down next to her chopping board and leaned against the counter, trapping her between his arms.

“Wanna tell me what you’re thinking about?” he asked in a low rumble she felt in his chest pressing against her back.

She moved her head back, resting it on his shoulder. “No.”

Carter laughed quietly and ran his nose up along her jaw to her earlobe. “From the color of your skin,” he whispered, “I can bet it was something really fucking good.”