“Is this a territory thing?” I follow him into my living room slash dining room slash kitchen. “Are you going to mark it to keep other males away?”

His face hardens. “You bring guys up here?”

Exasperated, I say, “Yeah. Tons. It’s basically a revolving door of hot, fit guys who come to service my needs.”

“Not funny. Don’t even joke.” He frowns and opens my kitchen cupboards one by one, then peers into the fridge containing a surprising array of healthy foods, all purchased by my mother the last time she came to visit.

He makes a final lap around the living room and then returns to the hallway and tugs open the door to my storage closet. Easels and paintbrushes spill onto the floor from the overstuffed space.

“Hey! Get out of my cupboards.” I race toward him and gather up my art supplies. “Most people get to know each other through conversation. You know what that is?”

“Not really one for conversation.” He tugs a paintbrush from my hand and inspects the bristles. “You paint?”

“Not anymore. That’s why everything is in the cupboard.” With a harrumph, I shove past him and dump the art supplies at the bottom of the closet. Then I slam the door and lean against it, arms folded. “No.”

His lips quiver with a smile and he lifts an eyebrow.

“Don’t play that eyebrow game with me.” I waggle my finger at him. “You can’t intimidate me like you do everyone else. You’re not getting in.”

Ray takes a step toward me and leans his forearm on the door beside my head. Then he brushes his lips over my cheek and whispers in my ear. “If I really wanted in, you wouldn’t be able to stop me.” He curves one hand around my rib cage, brushing the underside of my breast with his thumb. My body heats to what I’m sure must be a million degrees and sweat trickles down my neck.

“I thought we were going to watch TV.”

“You want to watch TV?”

My chest heaves as I pant. He is close—so close I can feel the warmth of his body, breathe in his scent of leather and soap and fresh ocean air. My chest tightens and I curl my fingers into his sleeve. God, I want him. But after last time, I’m not sure I can handle him again.

“Yes. TV.”

A few minutes later, we are seated in front of the television. Ray grabs the remote with one hand and me with the other, tucking me against his body as he flips through the channels at dizzying speed.

“How can you see what’s on if you go that fast?” I shut my eyes against the blur that is one hundred channels viewed in one hundredth of a second, or so it seems.

“Know what I like.”

I tilt my head back, resting it against his arm. “What about what I like?”

“We’ll get there.”

We finally settle on a Discovery Channel episode about lions. We learn that lions can have sex as many as one hundred times during a twenty-four-hour period. Ray says he likes learning new things from the Discovery Channel and he never misses a show about jungle cats. I ask if he can have sex one hundred times in a day. He tells me to get the condoms. Slightly concerned he may not be joking, I suggest we watch some more.

The lions segue into sharks. Ray doesn’t like the sharks. He thinks they lack class. Also they can’t have sex one hundred times a day so, clearly, they are lesser creatures. Amused by this new, chatty, Discovery Channel–loving side of Ray, I slide down the couch and lay my head in his lap. Ray absently strokes my hair while mocking the sharks as they tear apart their prey.

“Why don’t you paint anymore?”

An abrupt interjection into his muttering about sharks, Ray’s question startles me and I jerk my head up.

“I paint in ink now. Skin is my canvas.”

He waves his hand vaguely around the room, encompassing the giant abstract, colorful murals decorating the walls: oils on canvas, framed and hung, all in orange and deep ocean blue, bright reds and greens. “Did you paint these?”

“A long time ago.”

“Beautiful.” His voice drops to a quiet murmur. “Why did you switch to ink?”

“That was me then,” I say. “I’m different now.”

Hmmm. Somehow his hand has found its naughty way under my shirt and his deft fingers are fiddling with my bra. “Are you trying to distract me so you can seduce me?”

Ray chuckles as he unhooks my bra, then slides his warm hand around to cup my breast. “If you’ve let me get this far without slapping me, then I’ve already seduced you. Now you’re mine to do with as I please, unless you still want to chill, and I’m cool with that.”

I flip to my back to give him easier access and look up into sky-blue eyes. “It’s hard to feel anything except the need to get in your pants when you’ve got your hand under my shirt.”

A smile tugs his lips. “Never met anyone who teased me before.”

“That’s because you don’t scare me, Predator.” I grab the edges of my shirt and tug it and my bra over my head. “I know you have a good heart.”

His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “How?”

“Because I watched you fight for so long I could tell when you were holding back. And you always held back when you had an unequal opponent. I figured you didn’t want him to lose face by knocking him out in the first ten seconds, so you’d let him get in a few shots and dance around the ring before you took him down. Same thing you did the other day in the gym with Hammer Fist. I’ve seen you bench more than you did that night. But you held back so you didn’t leave him in your dust, isn’t that right?”