“Thanks,” he muttered, taking it with just the tips of his fingers, as if he was worried their hands might somehow touch. He pulled it over his head, cutting off her view cold turkey.

They stared at each other for long, pregnant moments. “Okay, well,” he said eventually. “I’ll wait up for Arlo and then be off.”

He appeared to be dismissing her, and the itch doubled down. “I’ll wait up with you.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” he said quickly. “No point in us both being awake. You might as well go back to sleep.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep.” She was a grown-ass woman. She got to decide whether she wanted to sleep or not.

He gave an exasperated sigh, eying her warily. “You shouldn’t be here like this. With me. At two in the morning. In your”—he gestured at her clothes—“pajamas.”

Della glanced down at her very functional sleepwear. She doubted they would inspire insatiable lust in even the most sex-starved man. “I have way more on now than earlier.”

A strangled kind of groan escaped his throat. “Please don’t remind me.”

The groan seemed to be dredged from his deepest, darkest corners, and it snaked along internal muscles, which contracted sexily in its wake. It was the kind of groan that spoke of things unspoken. That was rich with things that did not get uttered in polite company.

Tucker had told her ages ago that he didn’t feel like that about her. But then he’d told her she was sexy and had kissed her with a raw kind of passion that had sucked her breath away, and now he was doing his level best to push her away, to not be near her, even when that groan sounded like he wanted the exact opposite.

The man was giving her whiplash. Seriously, if he was so damn immune to her, why was he so desperate for her to leave?

He’d stopped being her wingman because of what had happened between them, which was fine because Della’s appetite for Tinder and dating was starting to wane. Dating other men, anyway. Right here in front of her was a guy she’d had a crush on for the longest time. A really nice, really great, really freaking sexy guy. Who, despite what he’d said about not liking her like that, had acted in a completely contradictory manner.

Maybe it was time for a new plan. One where she ditched Tinder and the idea of having fun and dating a bunch of different men and asked one man to give her those experiences she was craving. A man she knew and trusted. Who was aware of her baggage and would be mindful of it.

A man like Tucker.

Why mess around rolling the dice on a place like Tinder or any other dating site when she already had the perfect man right in front of her?