After they finished, he watched her wash dishes from his side of the kitchen, while he put things away in her fridge.

She had such an intense look on her face—a little dreamy, a little driven—that it was impossible not to keep his gaze from returning to her time and again.

Quickly enough, though, they were done, she let the dog outside to do her business and turned to him, her back leaning against the archway to the kitchen.

“Maybe you should give me a tour,” Duke said.

Suddenly Carmella was shy. Her one bedroom couldn’t be anywhere near as nice as the house he owned next door.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” He stepped close enough to brush some hair away from her face with a fingertip.

“What way is that?” What was she going to say? Confess her weirdness about the house or go for sexy to change the topic? Like it was any contest.

Carmella took his hand and pulled. “Not a big tour. You’ve seen the kitchen and living room. The backyard.”

“That’s just for this flat, right? Or do you have to share with the downstairs guy?”

“He has a patio out in front of his place. The back is all mine and Ginger’s.”

“He’s odd. The guy downstairs, I mean.” Duke walked down the hall with her.

“He’s quite shy.” Carmella pointed to the bathroom and then opened the door to the bedroom.

“Is this where the magic happens, Carmella?” Duke stepped close, crowding her until her back met the wall.

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s out there too. Magic can happen in lots of places.”

“Do you realize how hot it makes me when you’re like this?”

“Like what?” Carmella asked, a little breathless at his proximity.

“You’re a woman who knows what she likes and isn’t afraid to demand it.”

Not when it came to sex. At least with sex, she was in charge. She made the choices about who and when. If or not. A hard-won gift of self-confidence when it came to that one very essential thing.

She wanted the man in front of her. Wanted the heat coming off him in waves. Wanted his taste, his touch, his scent all over her.

This greed for him was stupid and selfish but she was going to keep him anyway.

“Take your shirt off,” she said.

“Right on,” he said slow and honey sweet with a smile that sent her blood rushing straight to her clit.

And then he reached down, the muscles in his forearms cording as he grabbed the hem and yanked the T-shirt over his head.

She shoved her hands in the front pockets of her shorts to keep from touching him just yet.

On his belly, he bore the tattoo of some sort of insignia she recognized as being connected to his military service. A fist, knuckles first.

“Knuckles up.” He brushed his fingertips over it. “Our patch.”

Carmella nodded, past words at how fucking hot he was standing there in her bedroom. The late afternoon sun cast the bedroom and hall in a warm, golden glow. It hit the caramel notes in his hair, the bits of gray at the temples and shot through his beard. One curl hung toward the front and he worked it a little.

“Okay, I can’t deny the appeal of that little look there.” Carmella fanned her face and then yanked her shirt off, tossing it to the side.

“I …” Duke indicated her breasts. “Wow.”

“I didn’t know you’d be seeing me undress today. So I must confess I’m wearing all my daily, non-going-to-have-sex stuff.”

“You have non-going-to-have-sex stuff?” He crept close enough to slide a finger beneath one of her bra straps. A shiver stole over her skin as she let herself fall into this thing they were making between them.

The slow build of attraction and sexual chemistry that had been building bit by aching bit until it had spilled free.

“I clean up nice. If I’m going to be seen naked or getting naked, I bring out the big guns. Lace. Some silk. All the colors of the rainbow. You know the drill.” Carmella had been aiming for saucy, but he hooked the strap and pulled it down her shoulder, leaned down, and licked the skin.

A helpless moan of entreaty broke from her lips then, sending saucy straight out the window.

“I’m finding this plain cotton pretty damned hot. Who needs lace when your skin is covered in poppies and freckles?” To underline it, he bent to kiss the freckles over her shoulder as he traced over the garden of orange flowers inked over her back and side.

“You’re trouble.” A tease, yes, but also the truth. While Carmella couldn’t deny how flattering and sexy the stuff he said to her was, it would be suicide to take him too seriously.

“I’m not,” Duke protested and then snorted. “Well, maybe I am sometimes. Usually for a good reason and usually with someone else who is also trouble.”

That grin he tossed her way was a panty dropper. Stepping back, Carmella spun her finger in a circle, urging him to turn.

Hoo.

Across the very wide, sun-kissed muscles of his shoulders, Twisted Steel scrawled in old-school tattoo letters. On the left shoulder, a black-and-gray half sleeve. A screaming skull with pops of red where the petals of a rose had been inked as if they’d fallen.

His jeans hung low, the top bit of his boxers showed now that his shirt was off. For some reason, this only made him hotter. Like the wide shoulders that led down to a tapered waist. Here and there, small tattoos dotted his torso.

Duke Bradshaw was a man very much at home in his skin. He knew she liked what she saw. Preened a little. His confidence was beyond erotic.