I shake my head. “I think I’ll have to stick with the original plan, kitchen and master suite. Maybe do the addition someday, but for now, that’s just more than I’m thinking I’m ready for or need.” I frown at him. “I’ve only got so much saved for this, you know.”

  “What’s your budget?”

  I roll a shoulder. “I…well, about seventy thousand, but I’d like to keep a bit as a nest egg, so under that if possible.”

  He nods. “Easy. You’re getting us for materials cost, so you’ll spend…well, a shitload less. And for that, you’re getting a shitload more than you could otherwise afford on that budget.”

  I sigh. “I was planning on just getting the kitchen for that, and was thinking I’d have to settle for less than what I’d really like.” I eye him with another sigh. “What you’re describing should be…a hundred thousand, easily.”

  He nods, waves a hand. “Probably closing in on two, if you factor in the high-end materials I’m gonna use.”

  “James…I just want a little more open space. I wasn’t asking for a whole remodel.”

  “I don’t do shit by halves, babe.”

  “Is this like selling me the car?” I ask.

  He nods. “Yeah, sort of.”

  I sigh, somewhat bitterly. “I hate having people do favors for me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are, though.” I knock knuckles against the countertop. “Growing up rich, favors were sort of…de rigueur.”

  “Say what?”

  “Accepted practice. Everyone did everyone favors. If my father wanted to exert influence over a legal proceeding to make sure it benefited him, he’d do a favor for the son of the judge, get him an otherwise impossible to obtain internship the son was in no way qualified for, and in return my father got the ruling he wanted. My father wanted me to go Harvard—we had the money, and I had the grades, but I got denied at first because of an equality in admissions thing. Father dearest did a favor for the dean’s niece, and I got into Harvard. Even getting the internship I did, working for the senator, all that—it was all at least in part done for me as a favor to Father, so he would scratch their backs.”

  “And ever since, you hate it when people do favors for you,” James finished. “Because you want to earn things on your own merit.”

  “Exactly.”

  James crosses the kitchen and stands in front of me—we’re not touching, but he’s way inside my personal space; I’m forced to look up at him, and for the first time since he got here, he slides his Oakleys off his face and fits them onto the brim of his hat. His eyes are deep and brown, dark and unreadable and fierce.

  His massive hands, big as a grizzly’s paws, clasp around my arms. “Nova. Listen. I ain’t the type to just go around handing out eighty percent discounts on my services. I’m a professional. This is how I make my living. I don’t do shit for free. A buddy or acquaintance asks me to come over and help him build a deck, I say no, I’ll do the deck, but you’re hiring me. You do free shit one fucking time, and everyone expects free shit all the fucking time. So I don’t do favors. I’m not doing you a favor.”

  “Then what is it, James? Because the answer you gave about the truck didn’t quite scan for me. I needed the wheels and I wanted to save the money for this”—I wave at my kitchen—“and honestly, that truck just gave me a hard-on. But as much as I love your ideas for my house, I can’t accept the answer you gave about the truck. Feels a little too much like a favor, and I’m not going down that road. Not when you’re talking this amount of time, money, and work ”

  He doesn’t blink. Just stares, jaw tensing. Hands clasped around my arms. “Dammit, Nova.”

  “It’s a simple question, James,” I whisper.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Why not?” I’m pushing it. Pushing him.

  This is dangerous ground. We’ve made it this far by basically ignoring each other and behaving like nothing more than casual acquaintances. By pretending nothing happened, by tacit agreement, we don’t tread where things risk getting personal or deep. This…

  This is taking it past that.

  Way, way past that.

  James abruptly releases me and paces away. “You don’t want me to do the job for cost, fine. I ain’t gonna force it on you.”

  “It’s not that, James. It’s that I want to know why—truly and honestly, why you’re doing it for cost in the first place. Why you sold me your truck for half its value.”

  He’s facing away from me. Fists clenched at his sides, head hanging. He’s sucking in deep breaths, mighty shoulders lifting and heaving, broad back expanding.

  “Last we discussed this, Nova, we agreed we wouldn’t go there.”

  “Go where?”

  “You know.”

  I huff. “You giving me steep discounts on the truck and the remodel is kind of you going there, no?”

  He whirls on me. “I fucking like you, Nova, okay? I’m trying to pretend I don’t, like you’re just one of the crew, like Audra, Imogen, and Laurel. But you’re not. I feel differently about you than I do about them, and not just because they’re all shacked up with my best friends.”

  “James.”

  “What? You asked for the truth—that’s the truth.”

  I did—I asked for exactly this. And now that I have the truth…I don’t know what to do with it.

  “James, I…”

  He stares down at me, liquid chocolate eyes fierce and wild and dangerous. “You what, Nova?”

  I swallow. “I don’t know.”

  “You said you needed the truth, Nova. Now you have it.” He closes in; my heart hammers in my chest, thumps in my throat. My pulse is pounding a mile a minute, my palms are clammy. My mouth is dry, my lips are cracking—I lick my lips, and watch James’s eyes follow my tongue, and linger on my lips.

  “James—”

  Closer, closer. All I see are his lips. His shoulders. His beard. Feel his hands on my cheeks. “You keep saying my name like that, Nova. You can’t stand there and demand my feelings and then clam up on me.”

  His hands are so rough, so huge, so hard…yet so gentle; his palms cover my entire face, from jawline to cheekbones, lips to ears, his fingertips slide into my hair around my temple, his thumbs brush my lips.

  “I don’t want to accept your generosity—your charity—”

  “It’s not—”

  “Because I fucking like you too, James,” I whisper, over his protestation, as if he never spoke.

  His mouth slams over mine, and the moment his lips touch mine, I’m on fire. Alive as I’ve never been alive. I lift up on my tiptoes and press my mouth to his, because I can’t not kiss him back, because I need this kiss like I need to breathe. I feel my arms rise, circle his neck, and his hair is soft and silky and thick in my fingers. He rumbles in his chest, and I whimper softly, because his mouth is making me delirious, making me forget myself, my name, my intention to stay clear of him.

  That was hopeless from the start, I think, and the moment he entered my home I knew I made a mistake letting him in. Because now he’s in—in my house, in my space, in my head, in my heart. In my veins.

  And now, with his tongue gently searching, he’s inside me.

  He presses against me, pulling me harder against the cliff face of his chest, and I feel him breathing against me, feel my breasts swelling against his chest. I open my mouth to his, and take his tongue into my mouth and offer him mine, and I taste him, feel the colliding tang of tangled tongues and meshed lips, and I carefully pull his ball cap and sunglasses off his head, set them aside on the nearby counter, and bury my hands in his hair, which is flattened against his scalp from being under a hat. I’m lost in the kiss, pressing harder and deeper, breathing him, feeling him.

  And then we’re moving—he’s pressing me backward across the kitchen in a stumble, and I slam up against a countertop, the edge biting into my butt. I squeak in surprise, and he laughs into my mouth; I’m about to retort when his hands breeze downward from my face, carve over my hips, and curl up under my buttocks. God, his hands, his touch—I gasp, press closer into his embrace, and then I’m up in the air, held up by his strong hands, lifted up, his powerful fingers digging into the flesh of my ass, and then I’m slamming down to sit on the counter; I have no choice but to spread my legs wide and accept his narrow, angular hips between the V of my thighs, and now James is closer than ever, all of him pressed against all of me.

  I feel him—his heart hammering as wildly in his chest as mine is; I feel his lungs pumping as he breathes into my kiss; I feel his erection throbbing against me, and only two thin layers of cotton separate my core from his erection.

  I’m pulsating. Aching.

  He leans into me and his mouth devours mine and his breath is my breath and his chest and shoulders block out my kitchen and the entire universe. His arms close me in, envelop me, surround me, shelter me. His beard scratches and tickles and smells like fresh cedar and primal male. His hands, after setting me on the counter, scrape up to the small of my back and delve under the hem of my T-shirt, and now—god, now those mammoth hands are on my bare skin, hot and rough across my spine and so big he can almost wrap his hands around my entire waist...and I’m not exactly dainty.

  I lift up, straighten my spine, lift my chest, tilt my face up, bury myself in him, in the kiss which goes on and on and tugs me in, drugs me with its dizzying potency.

  As I lift up and lengthen my spine, his hands rise as well, his fingertips dancing along my spine, his thumbs grazing my sides, daring closer and yet closer to the underwire of my bra. I gulp at his breath, tangle my lips around his, searching and hunting for his tongue. I eat his moan. Swallow his grunt as I rake my fingers down his shoulders and under his shirt to scratch up the broad hard expanse of muscular back.

  I feel wild. Out of control. I feel ravenous, like a snarling beast that hasn’t eaten for days, weeks, months—years; and which now has a delicious morsel in its jaws.

  James is my morsel, and I am a fury of sexual need.

  My palms angle around his sides, under his armpits, and I cup his chest, feel the thick mat of hair and the hardness of his stomach and then the rolling mountains of his shoulders, tensing as he shifts. The kiss—god, the kiss; it breaks, a momentary lapse where lips desperately part from lips, and his shirt vanishes and so does mine.

  Where does his shirt go? Where is mine?

  Am I wearing a bra? I don’t know. Was I? I’m not now. His hands are wild on my skin, caressing in swift circles over my back and shoulders, and I arch my spine even as I pull away to put space between our torsos to make room for his hands.

  I gasp, and the sharp inhalation breaks the kiss again. Our eyes meet. We’re both topless. I’m sitting on the counter, and he’s wedged between my thighs. His zipper strains to contain his erection. My breasts are bare, swaying with my breath, hanging heavily between us, my nipples puckered and hard, gooseflesh rippling across my skin. His eyes fix on mine for an instant, and then slide down. I catch my lower lip in my teeth and suck in a breath, because no man has seen me naked for…so long.

  His eyes widen, and his jaw falls open. “Jesus, Nova.”

  I wriggle. “What?”

  “You. You’re…you’re fucking…” He shakes his head, and sucks in a breath as if to do so is difficult.

  “What, James?” I need to know what he thinks I am.

  “Incredible.”

  My breath catches. “It’s just because I’ve got big—”

  He gathers my hands in his, presses my palms over my chest, hiding me from his view, and his eyes latch onto mine. “No, Nova.” His hands feather into my loose red hair, a thumb grazing my cheek. “You’re so fucking beautiful it makes my head spin. You—who you are. Your face, your hair, your…just you, Nova.”

  I drop my hands to rest them on his waist. “So it has nothing to do with these?” I ask, shaking my chest to make my breasts jiggle.

  He can’t help but look, and I can’t help but notice the way his hips flex forward, as if trying in vain to alleviate the mounting pressure behind his zipper.

  He doesn’t answer. Just stares, takes in the sight of me topless, my fair skin pinking as I blush under his frank, hungry eyes, my nipples hardening to diamond points, aching, begging.

  Begging for what he is teasing me with—his touch, his hands grazing down out of my hair, over my shoulders, to my thighs, resting on my legs over my shorts, halfway between the bare skin near my knee and the crease of my hips. I hook my fingers in the waist of his jeans, the denim tight against his skin. He glances at me, and then back at my breasts.

  I want him to touch me. I need his hands on me—shit, I need his mouth on me. Everything.

  My hair drapes into my eyes, and I see him through a curtain of red; his hands cover my breasts, and then I gasp, a loud expression of relief and pleasure as his hot hard hands cup over my breasts, his palms rough yet gentle against my rock-hard, hypersensitive nipples. I tilt my head back and close my eyes and moan at the feel of his powerful hands caressing me, now lifting them and hefting their weight, letting them rest in his palms, thumbs grazing over my nipples, flicking them. God, his touch is like heaven. It’s been so, so long since I’ve been touched like this.

  James touches me like he’s never touched a woman before—which I know isn’t true, obviously, but the almost-clumsy need in the way he caresses and cups and lifts my breasts is so eager, so needy. I fucking love it.

  His left hand drops to my thigh. He leans forward, and I have a split-second warning before his mouth slants across mine and his tongue slashes over my lips, licking them, probing between them and I part my lips for him and spear my tongue into his mouth and gasp as his right hand continues to eagerly, hungrily caress my breasts, right side and then the left in turn, paying equal attention. His left hand, though—ohhh, god. He rests it at first on my knee. My shorts are modest enough when I’m standing up, hanging just above mid-thigh. But when I sit down they hike up, leaving most of my thigh bare. And now—now he has my flesh under his hand, and he wants more. I’m fully aware of each centimeter of movement, his palm sliding upward, toward my hip. Then his fingertips are daring under the hem of my shorts, and I ache, ache, ache. My thighs are spread wide to accommodate him, to allow his huge body between them. My core is damp. His fingers slide upward. I kiss him, taste his tongue and lips, arch my back to press my breasts into his hand, and wait for his fingers to slide higher and higher yet up under my shorts.

  I’m reacting on instinct. Pure, raw female need.

  This man is all that I want, he’s everything, and he’s here, he’s virile and powerful and intoxicating and impossible, and he’s huge and handsome and I need him. I need this. I’ve wanted this since we kissed at his pool party.

  I don’t want to want him like this; I don’t want to need him. But I do. Dammit, I do.

  I’m helpless—my needs and desires, this wild, fraught sexual tension between us has me fully in its claws and I cannot escape, cannot throw off the need, the furious drive of hunger inside me to feel a man’s touch, to return that touch with my own.

  His hand envelops my thigh, or most of it. I’m not breathing; don’t want to, don’t need to because he’s breathing for us both. Our lips break, the kiss is paused, and I swallow hard, blink and meet his gaze, lock eyes with him as he lets his hand wander higher, higher. Neither of us breathe, then. His forehead nudges mine; his right hand cups a breast, holding it, his thumb idly rubbing over my nipple in circles, making me lose my breath and inhale in sharp short gasps at the sizzling searing thrill.

  Touch me.

  God, please, touch me.

  His big thick thumb reaches the apex where thigh meets hip, and pauses. My underwear covers my core, and the pad of his thumb grazes over the gusset, over my core, tracing the damp cotton, the outline of my nether lips. I want to inhale, to beg him to touch me, but all I can do is moan—and even that is more of a whispered whimper.

  He pauses, his thumb resting on the cotton, over my core. I gasp again, an attempt to regain control over my breathing, an attempt to restrain myself.

  It’s in vain.

  Like the whole charade of not being attracted to him was in vain.

  “James…” I whisper.

  “Nova.” He pulls his head away. “I tried not to want you.”

  “I did too.”

  “Just like I’m fuckin’ tryin’ not to let this happen.” He shakes his head. “I need to touch you, Nova. I need to feel you.”

  I writhe my hips forward. “I need it. I tried not to, too. I don’t want you to touch me, but I can’t help needing it. It’s so fucking stupid, but I just…god, James. This whole thing is stupid.”

  He gazes at me, his eyes fiery and wild, primal brown. “So stupid. I should have more self-control than this.”

  “So should I.”

  “But I don’t,” he mutters.

  “Neither do I.”

  And then, his eyes on mine, my breast cupped in his hand still, he brings his thumb along the tendon at the utter apex of my thigh, his fingernail scraping the outer edge of my sex. I gasp. He growls, sighs. I tighten my fingers in the waist of his jeans, slide my hands together to meet at the fly; I need him. I need to touch him as much as I need him to touch me. But his touch has seared away my ability to do more than one thing at a time, and right now, all I’m capable of doing is waiting for his touch.