She mumbled something that might have been an acknowledgment that she was still sort of awake, or it could have been a half snore—he had no fucking clue.

“Thank you.”

If she was still awake to hear it, he couldn’t tell, and he was about half a second from joining her anyway.

…

It was still way-too-damn-early-o’clock, according to her body, when Shelby woke up trying to figure out who she was, let alone where she was. It came back to her in bits and pieces as she blinked the room into focus. Ian was hunkered down in front of the fireplace, a cast-iron pan in his oven-mitt grip and the unmistakable scent of bacon in the air. Suddenly, some parts of her were more awake than others.

Sure, she could pretend it was because of the bacon—who didn’t love bacon?—but that wasn’t it. Thank God he was turned away from her, because if he could see her face right now, she had no doubts he’d know every single one of the dirty thoughts she was having about him.

Maybe you should have stuck with Mediocre Matt for longer so you wouldn’t be perving off seeing a guy cooking over an open fire.

Nah, the whole line about how sex was like pizza, even when it was bad it was good, pretty much applied only to the bro-dudes-in-finance kind of person. Six months of occasional orgasms while banging Mediocre Matt on the regular had taught her that. There was no way she was going to rethink her decision to send him packing.

Ian put the skillet down on a grate in the fireplace and turned around. Her brain hollered at her to play it cool, but her whole body did a hello-good-morning-to-me shiver of appreciation.

“Are you cold?” he asked as he stretched his arms and rolled his neck from side to side.

No, she most definitely was not; watching the way his muscles moved as he lifted his arms and brought them across his chest was mesmerizing. “I’m good. You like to cook?”

“I like to eat, so cooking is part of it.” He turned back to the skillet, flipping the bacon and then cracking two eggs into the pan.

“What can I do?” she asked, throwing back the covers and getting up before she realized her sleep pants had worked their way down—waaaaaaaay down—in the middle of the night.

Ian glanced back over his shoulder at her and froze. His gaze dropped to her exposed lower belly and lingered for two breaths too long as he worked his jaw back and forth before his focus traveled slowly up her body.