“Can I look in your closet?”

She took him in warily. “Why?”

“I want to see if my suspicions are correct.”

“I’m going to put my stuff in the wash. You have at it.” She waved in the direction of the closet and then left.

He poked a head in and smiled. Ruthlessly organized, just as he’d figured. Her shoes were in neat boxes, her things hung according to type and color. He opened a drawer and hummed.

“Someone likes sexy underwear.” He didn’t touch the rainbow of silky panties, which would have been sort of creepy. He’d need to propose removing them from her body with his teeth, instead.

“So, are you stealing my shoes or my socks like a foot fetishist does?” She poked her head into the closet, and he jumped. “Wow, guilty people jump like that. Should I be scared? I have mace.”

He snorted a laugh and then indicated the drawers set into the walls of the closet. “I’m far more interested in your panty collection.”

“Lipstick, a pretty bra, some nice underwear, little things that can totally make a crappy day better.” She shrugged. “Just started the laundry. We could stay in instead of eating out. We could just order pizza. There’s soup, which I can do relatively well. And stuff for sandwiches. I’d say we had junk food but other than doughnuts, I’d be lying because Tuesday thinks apples are living wild. But I do have a stash of Hot Tamales in my dresser.”

“I have plenty of junk food in my pantry. And a washer and dryer, too. I’m just saying.”

“The clothes are already in the washer. Plus, in about five minutes, I’m going to be in yoga pants and a T-shirt.”

He tossed himself on her bed after he toed out of his shoes. The scent of her skin rose from her sheets, and he didn’t stop himself from burying his face in her pillow to breathe her in.

“I’ll supervise. You don’t need a bra for just being around the house. I’m not really company, after all.”

“You’re so thoughtful.” And with that, she unzipped her skirt and stepped from it, folding it over her arm.

His mouth dried up. “Are those...are you wearing...stockings?”

She looked down at herself and then back at him with a smirk. “I do believe so, yes. Can I tell you a secret, Patrick?”

He gulped and nodded. She laid the skirt on a chair and pulled her blouse off, leaving her in nothing more than a pretty bra, barely there underpants and stockings.

She moved to him, climbing on her bed, hands and knees to him. She straddled his lap, and he leaned forward, burying his face in her cle**age until everything was perfect.

“Tell me your secret, then, Natalie.”

“I like wearing stockings. I like it when the breeze blows up my skirt and I can feel the difference between where my legs are covered and where they aren’t. It’s like a dirty secret right there under the fabric.”

“Christ.”

Her mouth canted up at the right corner, and he licked over the dimple. “You’re so dirty. You wouldn’t know it from first glance. But holy shit, you make me hard as hell.”

She reached back and undid her bra, letting it fall down her arms. “No one else has to know about a secret, Paddy. That’s the point. I can be dirty here with you. Like this. No one at my job needs to know I’m wet for you. No one at the grocery store needs to know I chose my showerhead not only for the way it massages my back.”

He might have whimpered, but it was hard to hear over the roaring white noise in his head as he imagined her in the shower, one foot up on the side of the tub as she pointed the showerhead at her pu**y.

“What I am here—” she took his hands and placed them on her br**sts “—belongs to me and to you. It’s not for anyone else.”

He licked over one nipple and then the other. “I love to live my life at a hundred miles an hour. I love the wild freedom of it. But I can most certainly appreciate this perspective, too.”

She paused, clearly wrestling with whatever she wanted to say next. He reached up to brush the pad of his thumb over the dent in her chin. “You can say anything to me, you know.”

“I don’t actually, but that’s not the problem.”

“What do you mean you don’t? Know that you can trust me to be honest?” He wrestled between a little bit of hurt that she would feel that way and pleasure that she’d share her feelings at all. “I’m feeling my way around here. I don’t know how to do this very well. Mainly because I haven’t done it before.”

“Done what?” She rolled her hips, grinding the heat of herself against his cock. “This? Because oh, yes, you have. I’ve been there more than once when you have.”

“Stop that. It makes it hard to think when you do that. I mean a relationship. I haven’t done it. I date around, and I have great sex, and I move on. This is different.”

One of her brows rose, and he smoothed it with his fingertips.

“Relationship seems like it might be rushing things.”

He snorted. “I’ve been on your trail since July. It’s mid-September now. I haven’t gone out with anyone else. Haven’t even thought about it. You’re what I think about. All the time. I’m not saying we’re engaged or anything, but this is a relationship, Natalie.” He kissed her because she was delicious, and he needed that after his declaration. His anxiety softened when she kissed him back, her fingers sifting through his hair.