They spent the next few hours going back and forth between speculating on the secret life of the other people in the wine bar, stories about her pugs and his mom’s chihuahua mix, and somewhat questionable wine puns (why have less scato when you can have mo’ scato?) while finishing off the bottle of rosé they’d ended up getting. By the time Nash topped off her glass with the last of the wine, she was mellow, giggly, and more than a little horny. A woman could only spend so much time wrapped up in the almost-embrace of a sexy, thick rock of a man without worrying that her nipples had become perma-hard.

“You know,” Nash said, pulling back so they weren’t touching anymore, “we could renegotiate our agreement about nothing physical between us.”

Did she really want that? The fizzy feeling bubbling inside her screamed yes. It took everything Chelle had not to scoot over to be touching him again.

“What are you thinking?” A quickie in the bathroom? Was she too old for that? Because at the moment, it seemed like a damn fine idea.

“That you’re as attracted to me as I am to you,” he said, absolutely 180 percent confident in his declaration.

Play it cool, Michelle. No, correction, play it cold.

Yeah, easier said than done when she was pretty much Mt. Vesuvius at the moment.

“That’s a big assumption,” she said, sounding more than a little breathy even to herself.

“But if it’s true,” he countered, “why not be adults about it and do what husbands and wives do?”

“Exchange icy glares and engage in passive-aggressive snit fits?” The question was out before she could censor herself.

Nash let out a low whistle. “Your parents’ marriage must have been really something.”

And this was why she didn’t talk about her parents. They were, in a word, a nightmare. Still, she’d brought it up, so she might as well explain. “My dad had some very old-school, patriarchal views about a woman’s place in a marriage, and my mom coped with pills and booze, which my dad pretended was a bug in their marriage as opposed to a feature.” She forced a light tone into her voice despite the heavy ache in her chest. Old traumas always left scars. “I suppose your parents are married and living that perfect life?”