However, my resolve to not have sex with him tonight on our first date was tested the moment I saw him standing in front of Grandy’s. And I know it was thrown out altogether when he kissed me on that grassy hill under a dark sky.

And now that I’m standing under his front porch light as he unlocks his front door, I know I’m going to dive in and appreciate the decadent temptation that is Gunner.

In fact, it wasn’t even like it was a discussion—but more like a known fact that this was where we were going to end up after that first kiss.

There wasn’t a “your place or mine?” Just more stolen kisses here and there as we laughed and laughed while he gave me insight into small-town facts.

There was simply a tug on my hand as we walked down a few side streets in the warm evening with lightning dancing in the distant sky and a baited anticipation bouncing around us.

“It’s not much,” Gunner murmurs as he leads me inside his home. There’s a toss of his keys on the table. The shutting of the door behind me. The whisper of my name in the dark.

And when I turn to face the sound of Gunner’s voice, his lips are on mine. The kiss starts out slow and sweet, like a symphony’s first strings to capture your attention.

But there’s no need to draw me in. No need to seduce me with a soft melody when I’m already there, already gone.

We kiss in his entryway with moonlight streaming through the windows and slanting over us. His hands frame my face as our tongues flutter over one another’s and our hands map the lines of each other’s bodies. My hands run up the plane of his back, so I can feel the corded muscles beneath constrict and flex. His run from my hips to beneath my breasts.

We are slow and deliberate with our actions, almost as if we’re on the same page. The one that says once we unleash this need—this exquisite desire—there will be no going back. Need will turn to greed. Desire will shift into lust. And climax will be the only goal.

We take our time getting to know each other’s bodies. I gasp when his lips find the spot just beneath my jawline, the stubble of his five o’clock shadow teasing my sensations right along with his mouth. He moans when the chill of my hands hits his bare skin beneath his shirt, and I pull it up and over his head.

And then he freezes and sucks in a breath when I run my hands up the front of his torso and then chest and feel what I can only describe as indentations marring its surface.

Scars.