“Then, yes, I’m going to leave you here alone. This isn’t the big city, Chase.” He pulls a baseball cap off a shelf in his closet and puts it on, adjusting the bill. “Besides, I tend to trust the people I sleep with so I’m not too worried.”

“Oh.”

“So, ride? No ride?” He grabs his car keys off his dresser.

“No ride. My car isn’t too far away.”

“Okay. Just lock the door on the way out. Shit, I’m late. I have your number now. I’ll call you later.” He heads out of the bedroom leaving me standing there, staring at the empty doorway.

“Bye,” I say and then startle when he walks back in the room on a definite mission.

“I forgot something,” he says seconds before he pulls me against him in a libido-stirring, panty-wetting, all-consuming kiss that leaves me absolutely breathless when he steps back. “Now, I can go.”

And without another word, I hear his footsteps on the floor and then the door shuts with a slam.

My fingers touch my lips and my head spins. I’m here in the house of a man I’ve known less than forty-eight hours . . . and yet I feel like I’ve known him my whole life.

CHAPTER TEN

Gunner

I SAG AGAINST THE WALL on the gymnasium floor. What a fucking day. It didn’t help that I got very little sleep, but it was a fucking day nonetheless.

“So you going to tell me who put that pep in your step today?”

I look up to Ellie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Oh, but I do, because all day long my mind kept drifting back to last night and this morning. To Chase and her laughter and the sex—Jesus Christ, the sex was incredible. But it was more than that. It was . . . just her. The ease I had in talking to her. The laughter. The conversation. This morning. The way she didn’t look at me like I was crazy or even worse, with pity, because of my scars.

So yes, I’ve been distracted today. Distracted by thoughts of a woman that shouldn’t give me pause because she was supposed to be just that—a distraction from my troubled sleep and craving a little fun.

Distracted, because I want to see her again, taste her again, when it’s been less than eight hours since I left her in my house with those bee-stung lips and huge blue eyes.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” Ellie snorts. “I hear your words, Gunny, but that grin tells me otherwise.”

“That noticeable, huh?”

“Kind of.” She laughs as she sinks to the floor beside me. “And she is?”

“No one. Someone.” Everything. “I don’t know what the hell she is but she sure as shit knocked me on my ass.”

“Typically, being knocked on your ass isn’t a good thing.”