“Grew some claws in San Diego, I see,” he said, voice low and amused.

And that amusement got under her skin in a big way. She told herself she didn’t care what he thought, but that was a big lie. She drew a deep breath and went back to her “fake it ’til you make it” attitude. She would simply fake being unaffected by him. Easy enough, right? She released the emergency brake.

“And still impatient as hell.” Aidan stood up real slow, on his own damn time schedule.

Just as he did everything.

Once upon a time that had hurt her, deeply, and all because of that damn smile that she’d never been able to resist. But she’d grown up. Gotten smart. Surely she could resist him now as easily as she could resist the cookies he’d hand-delivered to her.

Except she wanted those cookies more than she wanted her next breath. And the worst of it? She had absolutely no illusions about her ability to resist him at all.

Which meant she’d have to avoid him like the plague.

Unfortunately that was a feat she’d never managed. Not the time she’d been a freshman and had come across him kissing an older girl in the alley behind the apartment building where they’d both lived—and not the peck sort of kiss either. Nope, they’d been really going at it, the girl moaning like she’d been eating the very best bag of chips she’d ever tasted.

Nor the time a couple of years later when he and his older brother, Gray—both shirtless and in low-slung jeans—had been working on a muscle car in that same alley all summer long, either fighting or drinking pilfered beers and laughing, their lanky bodies hot and sweaty.

And certainly not the summer after she’d graduated, when she’d finagled a dance with him at the annual festival on the lake, a slow dance—and even after the music stopped, they’d swayed to the beat, unable to break eye contact. She’d been shocked at the heat they’d generated and had wondered if he’d felt the same.

And then he’d kissed her, and it sure seemed like he’d felt plenty, because the kiss … Oh, the kiss. Magical, sensual, erotic … She’d pressed into him, willing to take whatever he could give.

But he’d held back, which at the time she had thought was so sweet. She’d thought he hadn’t wanted to pressure her, that they could take things slow.

Until the next day. Lily’s sister, Ashley, had come into Lily’s room all dreamy, confessing that she had the biggest crush on her assistant ski coach.

Who happened to be one sexy Aidan Kincaid.

Ashley had been sure he liked her back.

That had stung, but it was nothing compared to what followed.