“You know, I wanted you here from the first time I saw you.” She lifted her head just enough to bite lightly at his jaw. “Total lust at first sight—that’s not usual for me.”

“I had pretty much the same reaction. You jump-started parts of my system that had been on idle for a long time. Ticked me off.”

“I know.” She grinned. “I kind of liked it—the way you’d get all scowly and turned on at the same time. Very sexy. Very challenging.”

“Well, you got me where you wanted.” He lowered his head to give her a quick, nipping kiss. “Thanks.”

“Oh, my pleasure.”

“And since I’m here…” He moved his lips to the side of her throat, nuzzled.

Her laughing response turned to a gasp as she felt him harden inside her. Begin to move inside her.

“Hope you don’t mind. I’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”

“No.” Her body woke, and pulsed. “Be my guest.”

It wasn’t easy, Brody discovered, to have a relationship—at least the physical part of it—with a woman when you had a child. Not that he’d change anything, but it took considerable ingenuity to juggle the demands of the man and the demands of the father.

He was grateful that Kate seemed to enjoy Jack, and didn’t appear to resent spending time with him, or the time Brody devoted to him. The fact was, if she hadn’t accepted the boundaries and responsibilities that went along with Jack, there wouldn’t have been a relationship—physical or otherwise—to explore for long.

He guessed he was having an affair. That was a first. He’d never considered his relationship with Connie as an affair. Kids didn’t have affairs at twenty-one. They had romances. He had to remind himself not to romanticize his situation with Kate.

They liked each other, they wanted each other, they enjoyed each other. Neither of them had indicated anything more than warm feelings, and lust. And that was for the best, he decided.

He was, first and last, a father. He didn’t imagine most young women—career women with dozens of options ahead of them—generally chose to settle down with a man and his six-year-old son.

In any case, he wasn’t looking for anything more than what there was. If he had been, he’d have to start tackling the problem of changes, adjustments and compromises for all three of them. That was bound to be messy.

Certainly a grown man was entitled to a simple affair with a like-minded woman without crowding it in with plans for a future.

Everybody was happy this way.

He stepped back, lowering his nail gun to examine the trim he’d just finished on Kate’s office. It was a rich, elegant look, he decided. Classy. And it suited the woman.

He wondered where she was, what she was doing. And if they could manage to steal an hour alone before he had to go home and tackle the dinosaur poster Jack had to do for a school project.