Adam was fun and smart. Surprisingly insightful, too, particularly when it came to relationships. For someone who had no interest in a lasting relationship of his own, he wasn’t at all blind to the way things played out for the people he loved. Whereas while Kerry’s job revolved around love, she far too often felt as though she didn’t have the first clue about what truly made a relationship work.

Her thoughts in a hopeless tangle, she opened the door and found Adam grinning at her, so perfectly, shockingly gorgeous that everything fell out of her head. Everything except being glad he was there.

“Hi.”

He responded in exactly the way she now realized she’d been secretly wishing for—with a kiss that left her breathless. And the truth was that if the pizza delivery guy hadn’t showed up just then, she might have stood in her open front door and kissed Adam Sullivan all night long.

A short while later, they were sitting on her couch devouring pizza that truly was the best she’d ever had, while debating what movie to watch.

“No sappy chick flicks,” he said.

“No movies with pointless violence,” she retorted.

“Nothing foreign with subtitles.” He actually shuddered as he said it.

“Nothing where people get naked for absolutely no reason,” she said with a shake of her head.

He looked at her in surprise. “There needs to be a reason for people to get naked?”

Kerry threw a piece of pepperoni at him, but he somehow managed to catch it in his mouth.

“Remind me never to feed you anything heavy,” he said with a smile that made her heart dance around in her chest. “You love to toss your food at me every time we eat together, don’t you?”

“Only when you irritate me.”

“Like I said—every time we eat together.”

Kerry wanted to tell him how nice it was that he’d come over to help keep her from worrying incessantly about her sister all night long. But something told her he already knew it, and saying it aloud would probably only make things awkward between them. They were having too much fun to let any awkwardness in.

“Nothing sappy, no pointless violence, no subtitles or naked people.” He ticked through their list. “So if Sorority House Massacre in French is out, then it looks like all we’re left with is Star Wars. The ultimate good-versus-evil story. Plus it has the best line ever put into a movie.”

“Use the Force, Luke,” she said before he could. Yet again, he’d surprised her—this time by coming up with the perfect movie. “I haven’t seen Star Wars in years.”

“Years?” He looked pained. He grabbed her remote. “How do you work this thing?”

“My house, my remote.” She quickly found the movie on her smart TV and soon they were caught up in the epic story.

Her couch wasn’t huge, but even if it had been, she suspected she would still have ended up snuggled in Adam’s arms. Partly because he wasn’t at all shy about pulling her into them. But also because his arms were right where she wanted to be on yet another Friday night where she was waiting for her sister to call for pickup.

Throughout the movie, he kept lightly stroking her hand, or her leg, or her shoulder. She didn’t get the sense that he was deliberately trying to seduce her, but with every minute that passed, each light caress managed to drive her higher. And then higher still. Until she was practically holding her breath waiting for the next one to come, wondering where he’d brush up against her this time.

She should tell him to stop. After all, this was just a friends’ night at home, rather than a night for one of their wild hotel sexcapades. But she couldn’t get the words past her throat. Didn’t want him to stop touching her. Not when she’d never known it was possible for her body to feel this alive with all her clothes on in her living room, while Princess Leia was telling Luke Skywalker it wasn’t over yet.

By the time the movie ended, Kerry was so wound up that she simply couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t remember why she shouldn’t flip around on the couch and devour his mouth in the way she’d been dreaming of for the past two hours.

Seconds later she was straddling him, her hands tangled in his dark hair, giving silent thanks that his gorgeous mouth was almost beneath hers. “I know we’re not in a hotel, but—”

His lips stole away the rest of what she’d been about to say at the exact moment that her phone rang.

She tore her mouth away from his with a curse. Too late, she remembered exactly why she should have done more—heck, done anything at all—to keep a friendly distance from Adam tonight.

Not only because what she’d just done had been about to blur the very clear lines they’d set up for their arrangement, but also because the whole reason he was over in the first place was to wait with her for her sister’s call.

“Colleen, where are you?”

“The Salty Dawg, but you don’t need to get me. I’ve got a ride.”

Kerry cursed again as the line went dead. “It sounds like she’s planning to leave with someone.”

“One of my cousins is a race-car driver,” Adam told her. “He’s taught me a few things over the years.”

She grabbed her bag and hurried out to his car, which he gunned up and out of her neighborhood in true race-car fashion. “What if we’re too late?”

“Then I’ll have Rafe trace her cell phone ASAP.”

“He can do that?”