“Hi … what are you doing here?” She tried to keep most of her body hidden behind the door.

“I’ve been displaced from my house by twins.”

“Twins?”

“Five-year-old girls.”

“Oh … cute.”

“Not cute.”

“You don’t like kids?”

“Just my own.”

“Oh, wow … you have kids?”

Ryn didn’t realize she was just one of many victims that fell for that line.

“Not yet, but mine will be awesome.”

She nodded slowly. “I see … sort of. Well, I’d invite you in but—”

“Great. I’d love to.” He squeezed through the small opening. “Nice place.”

There was nowhere to hide.

“Thanks. I’m kind of in need of a shower and clean clothes, and I was just getting ready to eat—”

“Great. I’m starving.” He slid his hands in his back pockets and grinned.

Jackson looked much more edible than anything she had in her kitchen.

“O-kay, we’re having dinner together now?”

“Of course. I need to know if my future wife can cook?”

Ryn laughed. It was a nervous laugh, a so-we’re-still-playing-this-game laugh. “It’s egg salad.”

“Minus the egg shells?”

She gave him a crazy look. “Yes.”

“Great.”

“Great,” she replied, amused at how many times he had said ‘great.’ Jackson Knight was easy to please. She hoped that would work in her favor.

The exotic, inked human specimen looked out of place sitting at her kitchen table. It had two chairs on one side and a bench seat on the other. Jackson took the bench, propping his legs on it, crossed at the ankles.

“So I don’t have a lot of money…” she handed him a plate with the sandwich and small wedge of watermelon “…and my first wedding was in my parents’ backyard where I wore a hundred dollar dress from JC Penny. I want the fairytale wedding with a one-of-a-kind Vera Wang dress, six bridesmaids, and Ed Sheeran singing at my reception. Is my future husband willing to give me that?” Ryn sat across from Jackson, taking a bite of her sandwich to mask her grin.

“That depends. At what frequency do you see you and your future husband having sex?”

She covered her mouth with a napkin to keep from spitting her partially-chewed bite across the table. “Um …” she cleared her throat. “Three? Four times? I think that’s pretty average.”

“Clearly my future wife doesn’t understand we will be anything but average, but I will agree with her for now to four times a day as long as it’s open to negotiation for more in the future.”

“Day?” She choked.

“Yes, day,” he confirmed, biting into the wedge of watermelon. “Surely with the one-of-a-kind dress and Ed Sheeran, you weren’t implying per week … were you?”

She gulped down some water, shaking her head. “No … no of course not.”

Jackson took a mammoth bite of his sandwich and smirked. “I didn’t think so,” he mumbled.

The conversation crossed the line from fun to really uncomfortable.

“Who’s twins are at your house?”

“AJ’s ex-wife’s.”

“Oh, isn’t it a little odd that his ex-wife and her family are staying at your house?”

“So you get it too? Good, it’s not just me.” Jackson nodded. “His son has his first game tomorrow so the whole damn family flew to Omaha and my sister, who lives off instinct and usually bad instinct at that, said they could stay with us since AJ doesn’t have room for everyone at his house.”

“Well she’s a better woman than I am. That would be too weird and uncomfortable for me.”

“Jillian makes her own rules as she goes and nobody understands them but her.”

They finished eating, with Ryn giving him a look of incredulity as Jackson returned his usual cocky smirk. She put their plates in the dishwasher, feeling rather awkward about their odd dinner. “Well, I uh … need a shower.”

Jackson stood. “I like showers.”

She coughed out a laugh. The problem was, he wasn’t laughing. Her heart raced, making it impossible to calm her breathing and hide her nerves. “Yeah, sure. We’ve known each other for what? Not even three weeks?”

“Three and a half and so what?”

He possessed an over-the-top confidence. That wasn’t good because her you’re-ten-years-younger-than-me insecurities seemed to match his level of confidence.

“So we’re not taking a shower together.”

“Why?” He took one step toward her.

Her heart felt like a humming bird in her chest. “Because that would mean you’d see me naked.”

“So?”

“So that’s just not going to happen.”

“How are we going to have sex four times a day if I can’t see you naked?”

“In the dark. We would only have it in the dark.” The absurdity of their roleplaying both baffled and thrilled Ryn.

“Why the modesty? You’re ten times sexier than you think you are, and once you realize that, it’s going to double.”

“Agreed. You want to see me feel sexy? Then you have to let me look sexy first. And that will require some preparation.”

“Preparation?”

His interest in her should have been flattering, but it wasn’t because he was ten years younger and he was a guy. He could never understand the emotional barricades she had to overcome with her own insecurities … insecurities brought to the surface because he was ten years younger and looked like sex personified. Even if she were his age, his interest in her would be hard to believe and still unnerving.

“Yes, my body requires more maintenance than yours for it to look and run right.” Her breasts had been held hostage in a compression sports bra all day and they were going to look like roadkill when she removed it. Every woman who has worn one knows about this horrific side effect. They would require a very cold shower to perk up a little and convince her nipples it was safe to come out. Then there was the small issue of grooming. She had pubic hair—not too common anymore. There stood a good chance that Jackson had never actually seen pubic hair on a woman. It was bushy … very bushy.

“I’ll wait.”

“Wait, what do you mean wait?”

He made a shooing motion with his hand. “Go prepare, come back downstairs, then we’ll go back upstairs and shower together.”

“That makes no sense. I’ll have already showered.”

“Well then when do men shower with you? Apparently not when you need a shower nor when you’ve just had a shower.”

Most. Bizarre. Conversation. Ever … times one hundred.

“Men don’t shower with me.”

“Ever? You’ve never showered with a man?”

Was that so strange?

“No. Why are we having this conversation?”

“You started it.”

“Wh—I did not!”

“Fine.” He took two long strides. Palming the back of her head, he kissed her.

It wasn’t a peck or a partial kiss like before, it was the full kiss—the kind meant for tasting, not just feeling. The kind where his tongue couldn’t get enough of her. She could have faded into the moment had she not thought about the egg salad she just ate, her breasts trapped beneath a heavy layer of cotton and spandex, and the bush overgrowth—a visual chastity belt.

“No!” She wriggled from his embrace as his hand went for her breast—her squashed, speed bump uniboob.

“Sorry.” He held his hands up while pulling his brows together as if he’d stepped on her toe. “Too fast. I-I’m sorry.”

“No, not too fast …” She put her hands over her face, shaking her head. “God, does that make me sound easy or what? Sorry, I’m really not good at this.” On a deep sigh, her hands fell from her face. “If you let me shower, alone, I promise to return as the much more put-together version of myself. Deal?”

The smile on his face held so much promise, but his eyes filled with expectation. Expectation that on her best day after hours of cosmetic surgery, and a lobotomy to erase the memories of her past, she could never live up to.

*

Gunner wasted no time earning Jackson’s respect. While Ryn threw together the best version of herself, which he deemed ridiculous because it was impossible to improve on stunning, Gunner stood guard at the bottom of the stairs looking at Jackson with an I’ll-tear-you-apart look on his face.